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EFF Wins Petition to Inspect and Modify Car Software

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Re: EFF Wins Petition to Inspect and Modify Car Software

#41

Post by randyrand »

yasth wrote: post #33

It should be noted that this is a very limited ruling. Only the owner can modify the car, and you can't go to a mechanic or third party to modify it (or inspect it), which will greatly restrict the application. Also this doesn't apply to Entertainment or Telemetrics portions. So your car could be straight up spying on you, or your manufacturer can leave unpatched security holes in your "Entertainment" system (which h…

Fortunateyly the software in your 2015 honda civic is nearly or completely identical to all other 2015 honda civics, though.

I agree that its unfortunate, but being able to inspect the software in your car is nearly as good as being able to inspect other's or have other's inspect yours if you have the same make and year.

Re: EFF Wins Petition to Inspect and Modify Car Software

#42

Post by VonGuard »

csense wrote: post #40

> EFF also won an exemption for users who want to play video games after the publisher cuts off support. For example, some players may need to modify an old video game so it doesn’t perform a check with an authentication server that has since been shut down I think this is the real story for many HN readers.

Yep. I can answer questions on this if you'd like. I also clarified what's legal in a comment below.

Re: EFF Wins Petition to Inspect and Modify Car Software

#43

Post by apaprocki »

tptacek wrote: post #37
tga_d wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It worked pretty well for DirecTV You're going to have to explain what you mean by that, is there some story of DirecTV successfully preventing people from analyzing firmware?

Yes, famously. Google "DirecTV black sunday". DirecTV successfully killed off the (huge) DirecTV piracy community, not just by frying the old hacked cards, but by deploying new cards that have mostly withstood more than a decade of intense analysis.

Ahhh memories. What started as a "write a byte now put the card in any box for TV" escalated into complicated custom electronics, MITMing the stream, with a computer required to sit in the middle to lend its processing power. All the while, some unsung heroes out of the Matrix able to look in realtime at the DV-S stream flowing across their screen, able to spot a new Agent Smith barreling at the card and alert the world via IRC.

Re: EFF Wins Petition to Inspect and Modify Car Software

#44

Post by jxcl »

VonGuard wrote: post #36
Karunamon wrote: post #2

They also got an exemption for modifying of abandoned games whose activation systems are long since gone, as well as extending/clarifying the jailbreaking exemption.

I actually worked on this part of the exemption. It was granted in two parts. First, fans may now reverse engineer and host servers for games that are no longer hosted online. Metal Gear Solid 4 is a perfect example, but there are plenty of others. This is now legal, and considered fair use. MMO's are exempted, and defined as games where the world is persistent reguardless of number of players connected (IE, is the g…

> This does not mean these titles can be redistributed, only that they can be modified for the sake of preservation.

But once the copyright expires on the disks, they may then be redistributed?

Re: EFF Wins Petition to Inspect and Modify Car Software

#45

Post by VonGuard »

jxcl wrote: post #44
VonGuard wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually worked on this part of the exemption. It was granted in two parts. First, fans may now reverse engineer and host servers for games that are no longer hosted online. Metal Gear Solid 4 is a perfect example, but there are plenty of others. This is now legal, and considered fair use. MMO's are exempted, and defined as games where the world is persistent reguardless of number of players connected (IE, is the g…

> This does not mean these titles can be redistributed, only that they can be modified for the sake of preservation. But once the copyright expires on the disks, they may then be redistributed?

Then they would enter public domain. Copyright, however, lasts a very, very long time. Longer than the history of computing.

Re: EFF Wins Petition to Inspect and Modify Car Software

#46

Post by vonklaus »

man, this would be great. my dad is a huge car guy (type of guy that parks way in the back of the parkinglot) I wanted to get him a new key fob for his bday next week, $300 bucks.

now I am trying to mod an old key fob to work with the new one and have no idea how. it would be nice to encourage this sort of thing so there is more info out there. i am not even sure if it is possible to use an mk4 or mk5 key with my mk6 style one. why? no info.

I found a youtube video with the taredown which only exists because a modder sacrificed his $300 key to figure out how to do it properly.

i wish there was more info on how the software worked both for security and modification.

Re: EFF Wins Petition to Inspect and Modify Car Software

#47

Post by abvdasker »

It seems insane to me that we could allow private corporations to buy and sell data that our government would require a warrant or court order to obtain.

If cell phone service were free that would be one thing, but for these companies to be "double dipping" like this is pretty disgusting.

Re: EFF Wins Petition to Inspect and Modify Car Software

#48

Post by shkkmo »

coldpie wrote: post #10
Isamu wrote: post #5

“It’s absurd that we have to spend so much time, every three years, filing and defending these petitions to the copyright office. Technologists, artists, and fans should not have to get permission from the government—and rely on the contradictory and often nonsensical rulings—before investigating whether their car is lying to them or using their phone however they want,” said EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry. “But…

The system sucks, but it's the system we have, and it costs money to fight these battles. If you like the result here, consider setting up a recurring donation to the EFF.

My "recurring donation" is to buy every humblebundle and give everything to the EFF.

Re: EFF Wins Petition to Inspect and Modify Car Software

#49

Post by dtech »

c3534l wrote: post #31

I was initially happy about this until I saw that the primary reason was the VW scandal. Why are our laws only ever put into check when a controversy like this breaks out? We have to wait for the really bad abuses before anyone ever dials back the bullshit.

I wouldn't say that this was the primary reason, as the EFF has lobbied for this before and set the process in motion before that became public. It just provides a well-known recent example.

Re: EFF Wins Petition to Inspect and Modify Car Software

#50

Post by gknoy »

yasth wrote: post #33

It should be noted that this is a very limited ruling. Only the owner can modify the car, and you can't go to a mechanic or third party to modify it (or inspect it), which will greatly restrict the application. Also this doesn't apply to Entertainment or Telemetrics portions. So your car could be straight up spying on you, or your manufacturer can leave unpatched security holes in your "Entertainment" system (which h…

I wonder if you could sell your car to the inspector, let them inspect it, and then buy it back.
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