Bravo for Maryland; I think electronic voting systems have the potential to compromise the integrity of our democracy, especially in these sensationalistic times. Folks are always looking for a conspiracy, and politicians love to play up that angle against their opponents ("My opponent answers to big business, not to you").
Can you imagine the hell that would break lose if one of these systems was compromised in such away that a major election was altered? Especially if it came to light after a few years after the fact (e.g. after the wrong president has been in office for two years with two years to go)? The ramifications would be ghastly.
These systems need to be foolproof, but that's not possible in this world. Almost foolproof is attainable, however, and kudos to Maryland for raising the issue.
Is this really the naive state who was the first to pass UCITA into law?!?
-jm
There is an awful lot of ignorance in this thread. Check what the domestic and import manufacturers' actually agreed to (from http://www.asashop.org/legis/agreement.htm):
Automobile manufacturers hereby commit to make available, by August 31, 2003, emission and non-emission-related service information, training information, and diagnostic tools in the same manner and to the same extent as specified by California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulations for emission-related systems and components. This means that 1) the same service and training information related to vehicle repair will be made available to independent repair shops either via the Internet, or in the same manner and extent as it is made available to franchised dealerships and 2) the same diagnostic tools related to vehicle repair that are made available to the franchised dealers will be made available to the independent repair shops. These will be made available at a reasonable price consistent with the guidelines provided in CARB regulations. The service and training information and manufacturer tools will be available to independent repair shops without the need for them to return to a franchised dealership (to the extent allowed by law).
Do you understand? This is huge. Huge, huge. This is indeed the "opening" of the closed information source. It's as if MS agreed to open *all* proprietary informational resources (private KBs, training, diag tools, etc.) that were previously used only by their premier tech support reps.
Now will most mechanics avail themselves of this? Heck no. Most don't know or care how to truly troubleshoot; there are easier ways to flag hours that don't involve trying to convince a skeptical customer that you're not ripping them off.
But to those who love troubleshooting, this is manna from heaven. Take codes for example. An earlier poster said they were useless. If all you had was the description of the code, that's a correct statement.
However, if you also knew the exact criteria the PCM needed to see before throwing a code (this knowledge will be one of the takeaways from this act), you could then use your understanding of the proprietary system (a second takeaway) to straightforwardly troubleshoot and fix it.
Make sense? This is a hallmark day for savvy techs (or rather, August 31, 2003 will be <grin>).
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-jm
Bravo for Maryland; I think electronic voting systems have the potential to compromise the integrity of our democracy, especially in these sensationalistic times. Folks are always looking for a conspiracy, and politicians love to play up that angle against their opponents ("My opponent answers to big business, not to you").
Can you imagine the hell that would break lose if one of these systems was compromised in such away that a major election was altered? Especially if it came to light after a few years after the fact (e.g. after the wrong president has been in office for two years with two years to go)? The ramifications would be ghastly.
These systems need to be foolproof, but that's not possible in this world. Almost foolproof is attainable, however, and kudos to Maryland for raising the issue. Is this really the naive state who was the first to pass UCITA into law?!? -jm
Do you understand? This is huge. Huge, huge. This is indeed the "opening" of the closed information source. It's as if MS agreed to open *all* proprietary informational resources (private KBs, training, diag tools, etc.) that were previously used only by their premier tech support reps.
Now will most mechanics avail themselves of this? Heck no. Most don't know or care how to truly troubleshoot; there are easier ways to flag hours that don't involve trying to convince a skeptical customer that you're not ripping them off.
But to those who love troubleshooting, this is manna from heaven. Take codes for example. An earlier poster said they were useless. If all you had was the description of the code, that's a correct statement.
However, if you also knew the exact criteria the PCM needed to see before throwing a code (this knowledge will be one of the takeaways from this act), you could then use your understanding of the proprietary system (a second takeaway) to straightforwardly troubleshoot and fix it.
Make sense? This is a hallmark day for savvy techs (or rather, August 31, 2003 will be <grin>).
Cheers,
-jm