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Hacker May Have Discovered Plans For A Tesla P100D (jalopnik.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the white-hat dept.

One computer wiz claims to have hacked into Tesla's firmware and discovered a reference to a juicier battery. Self-proclaimed white hat hacker, Jason Hughes, says he discovered a secret in Tesla's firmware 7.1, but he didn't want to tell the world outright what he discovered, so he made Tesla Motors Club forum-members work for it by obfuscating the secret with a hash. TheSHA256 hash, a one-way function, would either require forum members to guess and check to decrypt this code, or to look it up in a hash directory. Forum member LuckyLuke decrypted Hughes' hash and discovered its meaning: P100D. P100D is the nickname given to Tesla's upcoming 100-kWh battery pack that would give the Model S a range of 300 miles or more. In response to a fellow forum-member decrypting his secret code, Hughes responded on Twitter. On the forum, Hughes had some additional information to mention, saying: There have been references to the P100D in firmwares as early as 2 months ago. They finally added the badges to 2.13.77. I mucked it up a bit by adding a crappy background (it's a PNG with transparency in the firmware)... There are quite a few things that are in the firmware that I'm not prepared to share publicly. Just like the P100D has been in there for months with my lips mostly sealed. I don't want to spoil all of Tesla's surprises.

13 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. Good Grief by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 3, Insightful

    He's being awfully "cagey" about it considering he gave most of it away anything. Sounds like an attention seeker.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:Good Grief by cas2000 · · Score: 2

      most likely he'll turn out to be some marketing scumbag trying to dress up a rather ordinary press release with some bullshit about "hacking" and sup3r-s3kr3t codez!!! that need to be decrypted.

  2. two questions by Quirkz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    1. Are you actually white hat if you're spilling secrets that aren't yours to tell?

    2. What the heck is a P100D? Couldn't that be squeezed somewhere in the paragraph?

    --
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    1. Re:two questions by TheCarp · · Score: 3, Funny

      Based on the title I duduce it is a battery.

      I guess 100 must be the weight of it in stone. Why the weight of it? Beats the fuck out of me, seems like a stupid designation; but, with no other reference, not even what the name of other batteries is, I just have to make assumptions.

      What we do know is its a battery and its "juicier" what we don't know is if its apple or orange. Knowing tesla, they probably went with grape right?

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    2. Re:two questions by fonos · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1. Are you actually white hat if you're spilling secrets that aren't yours to tell?

      He looked at the firmware that was installed in a car the he (I presume) owned, and published his findings. If you want to keep something like this a secret don't distribute this "secret" in a firmware update that every single Tesla owner receives.

    3. Re:two questions by MindStalker · · Score: 3, Informative

      There currently are 3 models of Tesla.
      P70 with a 70kWh battery and P90 with a 90kWh battery, and P90D with dual motors.

    4. Re:two questions by BeauHD · · Score: 4, Informative

      Edit: "P100D is the nickname given to Tesla's upcoming 100-kWh battery pack that would give the Model S a range of 300 miles or more."

      Cheers!

    5. Re: two questions by MouseR · · Score: 2

      It's going to be called "plaid"

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    6. Re:two questions by Firethorn · · Score: 2

      I guess 100 must be the weight of it in stone.

      Why guess, it's in the article & summary? It's in line with the way that Tesla does model numbers.
      The base is a number. The number is the kWh of the battery. So a "70" is a 70 kWh battery, '85' is 85kWh, 90, etc...
      If it's a performance model, a "P" is prepended. so a P85 would be a Performance edition with an 85kWh battery.
      Then there's the drive train. If it's all wheel drive, a "D" is appended. So a 70D is a 70kWh battery connected to a 4 wheel drive chassis.

      Today, the options are - 70, 70D, 90D, P90D. I listed the 85kWh model because it was before Tesla started transitioning to nearly exclusively all wheel drive models.
      Given that a 85D could be nursed over 300 miles rather easily, and that a 90D is 270 miles EPA, an extra 10 kWh would give you a realistic range very, very close to 300 miles, maybe even over 300 if you don't drive like an idiot in a P100D.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
  3. Sneaky Musk! by Lisandro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seems the guys' Tesla automagically downgraded its firmware after the discovery was made public. Musk's answer is priceless.

  4. Tesla's Range won't be suitable by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Funny

    Dammit I won't consider an electric car until it can do at least 100 miles one one charge!

    What? Oh okay.

    Dammit I won't consider an electric car until it can do at least 200 miles one one charge!

    What? Really? 200miles? Already. No I definitely did not say 100 miles previously. Okay.

    Dammit I won't consider an electric car until it can do at least 300 miles on one charge! AND I reserve my right to change my view with every new breakthrough in the electric car market!

  5. Re:How do you decrypt a hash? by fnj · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Gah, never mind :( The article i linked lists a practical attack on SHA-1 (aka SHA160), not SHA-2. Still, it is basically the same algorithm with a larger key so it is a matter of time until someone breaks it too.

    You have to specify the subtype of SHA-2.

    SHA-1 has only 80 bits of effective security when its weakness is exploited. That's still up to 1.2 trillion trillion computational combinations.
    SHA-256 raises that to 128 bits, which is 281 trillion times more computational work.
    the SHA-512 subtype of SHA-2 raises that to 256 bits, which is 96 thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion times more computational work than SHA-1.

    You could put all the energy in the universe to work on "breaking" SHA-2 SHA-512 and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get it done before the heat death of the universe. Sure, it's "only" a matter of degree, but the degree is so staggeringly large as to defy the imagination. We're not looking at either just a few years of tech advance, or just a few years of supercomputer time per crack here.

    P.S. - it is criminally, brain-dead stupid to use anything less than SHA-2 SHA-512 for anything new. It's not only trillions of trillions of times more secure than SHA-2 SHA-256, but it's actually FASTER to calculate, and only takes about twice as much time to calculate as the completely obsolete, broken MD5. It just makes me cry to see people still using MD5 and SHA-1 for file checksums when there is just no excuse for doing so.

  6. Re:The wrong approach. by Jeremi · · Score: 2

    I have no idea why they are making electric cars. What they need to do is make an electric van and an electric truck.

    Agreed. Also, Serena Williams should stop wasting her time playing tennis. What she really needs to do is take up golf, she'd be much more successful at that. I know this because I am an expert on these things.

    --


    I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.