131–140 of 175 posts
The password configs are clearly documented: https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/powerwall/own/monitorin...
So an attacker can even get LAN access from across the street.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Charging or dumping a single powerwall will not damage the grid. However, if someone causes many of them to do so in sync, the current grid control systems are definitely not going to cope well with that sort of behavior.
To do that the attacker would need to connect to hundreds (thousands?) of Powerwalls at the same time and figure out the password for each of them. Which means being close enough to each of them to access the Wifi and also figuring out their serial number somehow. How would they do that?
Per TFA, the serial number is ST0001.
AA is the year, for which there are currently 5 values (15 to 19).
B is the revision, for which there are currently 6 values (D to I).
CCC is provided as part of the broadcasted SSID.
So they would "do that" by enumerating and trying out the 30 possible serial numbers for each SSID.
edit: apparently you may not even need to bother because the PW's hostname straight includes the entire serial: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21611525
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To do that the attacker would need to connect to hundreds (thousands?) of Powerwalls at the same time and figure out the password for each of them. Which means being close enough to each of them to access the Wifi and also figuring out their serial number somehow. How would they do that?
Not feasible for a single idiot to accomplish, but you're forgetting we live in an age of State-Level Actors who distribute very sophisticated malware to attack enemy nation's infrastructure by borking SCADA controllers in e.g. uranium enrichment plants or petrochemical refineries. One may hypothesize about the feasibility of a router-targeting worm (similar to the Moon router worm, targeting Linksys kit) that has a…
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IMHO, these stories aren’t unexpected from a tech company that grows 80% year over year, developing and expanding as fast as technology and market forces allow. Yes, there are mistakes and unfortunate incidents in the organization of people and tech priorities here, but this is inevitable in an engineering org that moves this fast. You really need to measure this up against Tesla’s achievements: Growing high double d…
Tesla is a car maker, not a tech company. They don't sell Autopilot to other car makers.
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This is amazing. It is all completely plausible, and clearly includes only the most easily explained horrors, with anything that would require explanation just omitted. It is worse than I would have been able to invent.
IMHO, these stories aren’t unexpected from a tech company that grows 80% year over year, developing and expanding as fast as technology and market forces allow. Yes, there are mistakes and unfortunate incidents in the organization of people and tech priorities here, but this is inevitable in an engineering org that moves this fast. You really need to measure this up against Tesla’s achievements: Growing high double d…
>Growing high double digits each year for more than a decade in a brutally competitve space, developed 4 hugely successful vehicles, first US auto company to [...] grow to significant size (>700,000 cars sold) since Ford
People get in this product and they don't see the startup culture making wins and beating the odds to deliver a Ludicrous! Tesla Model S with heated leather seats. They see a finished product who's origin, to them, may as well have been a Star Trek replicator. To this point, I have encountered people who argued strongly that Teslas are "Self-Driving Cars" already. They really give stuff the benefit of the doubt sometimes.
So many issues attested to in that engineer's report need to have been already handled. It is amazing that they have created this manufacturing line out of nothing, I mean they build these things in tents, really bucking the odds here, but it causes me much pause. I would have hoped Elon would have worked out bootstrapping this manufacturing process, I think he discounted what it takes to pull off consistent manufacturing quality on many levels. This was Toyota's innovation a lifetime ago, shame that Tesla didn't seem to hire up any of that greying industry knowledge.
I now feel a deeper understanding of Tesla's icing-out of the repair/aftermarket. Seems obvious in retrospect.
>I believe there’s also an element of envy, or misunderstood beliefs that the best tech approach is taking things slowly. Yes, in isolation. But then market forces will crush you
>There’s no evidence that the approach have led to more injuries or deaths than cars do in general, quite the opposite. Tesla cars are safer than competition, the argument can be made that fast deployment is a net win regarding safety.
Get with the program. This is not an electric toothbrush with a subscription model, people are going to die. When product safety and manufacturing quality take a back seat to business whims, you are going to get trouble. Sporting this Boeing-esque reasoning is going to get people killed.
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> and anything you can do without blowing that fuse won't damage the grid That's what you'd think. But I have actually done damage to the grid and had that fuse still in one piece. I accidentally connected the -HV line of a neon light installation to ground. After I could see again I realized the power had gone out. I called my boss (landline still worked) who lived more than a kilometer away from the workshop and th…
This is exactly what RCDs are for - with a huge earth leak like that (and therefore L/N imbalance) it would have tripped within milliseconds, before cooking the grid. I am surprised by how infrequently they seem to be used outside of the U.K. - I’ve just rewired my house in Portugal as it was completely unearthed, and just had fuses, no RCDs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Charging or dumping a single powerwall will not damage the grid. However, if someone causes many of them to do so in sync, the current grid control systems are definitely not going to cope well with that sort of behavior.
To do that the attacker would need to connect to hundreds (thousands?) of Powerwalls at the same time and figure out the password for each of them. Which means being close enough to each of them to access the Wifi and also figuring out their serial number somehow. How would they do that?
The cheap IoT light you bought, or your neighbour bought, or that crappy game app your kid downloaded, or you did (tesla mobile background maker?).
As others noted the password is trivial.
Did they even try to submit these issues to Tesla? They have a bug bounty program and have been reasonably good about patching issues in vehicle software. If not, this is pretty irresponsible disclosure.
Tesla was the institution that irresponsibly shipped broken hardware. Don't shoot the messenger.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and anything you can do without blowing that fuse won't damage the grid That's what you'd think. But I have actually done damage to the grid and had that fuse still in one piece. I accidentally connected the -HV line of a neon light installation to ground. After I could see again I realized the power had gone out. I called my boss (landline still worked) who lived more than a kilometer away from the workshop and th…
This is exactly what RCDs are for - with a huge earth leak like that (and therefore L/N imbalance) it would have tripped within milliseconds, before cooking the grid. I am surprised by how infrequently they seem to be used outside of the U.K. - I’ve just rewired my house in Portugal as it was completely unearthed, and just had fuses, no RCDs.
A typical lathe, mill, plasmacutter or welder (which that particular workshop was full of) would be in the 10KW range with peaks far in excess of that during start-up.
I don't remember if we had the office area (where I was working) on protected circuitry or not, that would have been an interesting bit of data. The building still exists, I'm almost tempted to go and have a look.
That HV supply was a pretty beefy one by the way, the crocodile clamp that made 'first contact' was gone entirely.