Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data • Hacker News Board

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#91

Post by Someone » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:28 PM UTC

MrDresden wrote: post #30

Frankly I feel that for this kind of investication (car crashes and accidents) the manufacturer should be required to hand over all data relevant to the investigation. On device logs are probably the most relevant data you could get in these cases. That this lab decided to try to decipher the data, and found troves of it that wasn't known to exist before, speaks to how the relationship must be. They didn't trust Tesl…

So, you think it’s OK if the car you own spies on you, using electricity you pay for?

I’m rephrasing it that way to show that, depending on details this might be close to what Apple intended to do w.r.t. child pornography, something ‘the internet’ wasn’t a fan of, to say it mildly.

There’s a difference here in that there’s an ‘investigation’, but you’re also talking of ‘car crashes and accidents’, so this could get reasonably close (we already have cars that call 911 crash; should they also report it when they hear car accident-like sounds that co-occur with unexpected car movements?). Who’s going to decide whether an accident is serious enough to warrant this? Should car owners have the right to disable this kind of recording?

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#92

Post by wutwutwutwut » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

Dinux wrote: post #34

tdrdt wrote: post #31

A lot of questions about responsibility come from this case. If autopilot was following the car too close would the driver be responsible for not taking action? How much trust is a driver allowed to put in autopilot? I also wonder how much data other cars collect. As far as I know most cars collect a lot of data you don't know about.

You can change how close you want AutoPilot to follow (between 1 and 3 car-distances) the car in front of you.

Is that thing dependent on speed? 1-3 car may be okay for slow city traffic but obviously not for higher speeds. I'm just curious how it works.

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#93

Post by orev » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

I wish there were more information about how they were able to "decrypt" the data. I put that in quotes because often times journalists or laypeople don't differentiate between a file format that is just compressed or obfuscated in some way, and true encryption. After all, it would be trivial for Tesla to provide essentially unbreakable encryption: just encode all the stored data with a public key where only Tesla ha…

The word “decrypt” means “make (a coded or unclear message) intelligible”, which is more broad than the IT-specific jargon of using cipher algorithms. It’s perfectly fine to use “decrypt” in the general sense in an article meant for general people to read.

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#94

Post by micheljansen » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

mft_ wrote: post #44

tdrdt wrote: post #41

I just read some Dutch news sources to get some more context. Some things to know: Tesla hands over all requested data in case of an investigation. But only the requested data. Because we now know what data is stored more data can and will be requested in the future. The crash was caused by the driver because he thought lane assistance was turned on but only adaptive cruise control was turned on. This caused the vehi…

> So the question about this accident is: how obvious is it for the driver what is going on and what assistance to expect. - you have to deliberately turn the full assistance on/off - there are audio cues when it turns on, and whilst it’s on, and when it turns off - the visuals on the screen are different when it’s on vs. off - the steering wheel feels very different when it’s on - when it’s on, there are regular cue…

In the 2,5 years I have been driving my model 3 it has happened to me several times that autosteer got disabled (likely due to steering wheel resistance) and I only noticed it after a while. The visual queues are extremely subtle, the auditory queues easily get lost in road noise or music and when you are driving on straight stretches of smooth highway you don’t constantly feel feedback through the steering wheel. Of course the person in the driving seat always remains responsible but it’s not hard to imagine how someone might drift out of their lane like this.

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#95

Post by mola » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

Someone wrote: post #91

MrDresden wrote: post #30

Frankly I feel that for this kind of investication (car crashes and accidents) the manufacturer should be required to hand over all data relevant to the investigation. On device logs are probably the most relevant data you could get in these cases. That this lab decided to try to decipher the data, and found troves of it that wasn't known to exist before, speaks to how the relationship must be. They didn't trust Tesl…

So, you think it’s OK if the car you own spies on you, using electricity you pay for? I’m rephrasing it that way to show that, depending on details this might be close to what Apple intended to do w.r.t. child pornography, something ‘the internet’ wasn’t a fan of, to say it mildly. There’s a difference here in that there’s an ‘investigation’, but you’re also talking of ‘car crashes and accidents ’, so this could get…

This is not what apple suggested. Apple suggested preemptively notifying government of "illegal" material in a users device. This is about facilitating an ongoing specific investigation after a car accident.

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#96

Post by vagrantJin » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

Someone wrote: post #91

MrDresden wrote: post #30

Frankly I feel that for this kind of investication (car crashes and accidents) the manufacturer should be required to hand over all data relevant to the investigation. On device logs are probably the most relevant data you could get in these cases. That this lab decided to try to decipher the data, and found troves of it that wasn't known to exist before, speaks to how the relationship must be. They didn't trust Tesl…

So, you think it’s OK if the car you own spies on you, using electricity you pay for? I’m rephrasing it that way to show that, depending on details this might be close to what Apple intended to do w.r.t. child pornography, something ‘the internet’ wasn’t a fan of, to say it mildly. There’s a difference here in that there’s an ‘investigation’, but you’re also talking of ‘car crashes and accidents ’, so this could get…

> this might be close to what Apple intended to do w.r.t. child pornography, something ‘the internet’ wasn’t a fan of, to say it mildly.

Not to completely disregard your point but its not the same. After seeing a few brain bits splattered across windows and chairs/dashboards, stray limbs...road accidents are in another lesgue entirely. We sort of need accidents to happen so that regulation of technology will use blood as ink/toner.

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#97

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

orev wrote: post #93

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

I wish there were more information about how they were able to "decrypt" the data. I put that in quotes because often times journalists or laypeople don't differentiate between a file format that is just compressed or obfuscated in some way, and true encryption. After all, it would be trivial for Tesla to provide essentially unbreakable encryption: just encode all the stored data with a public key where only Tesla ha…

The word “decrypt” means “make (a coded or unclear message) intelligible”, which is more broad than the IT-specific jargon of using cipher algorithms. It’s perfectly fine to use “decrypt” in the general sense in an article meant for general people to read.

The problem with this, then, is it confuses topics that are important for lay people to differentiate.

Take the current idiocy coming from the governor of Missouri, trying to prosecute a journalist for "hacking" for the crime of ... reading HTML. While the governor used the word "decoding", not decrypting, he accused the journalist of going through some complicated intentional procedure to access private data, which is of course bullshit.

Even in the general sense, "decrypting" something strongly implies the original author had the intention of keeping it private and secure. Was this the case with Tesla's data? It seems like not, because it would have been trivial for them to implement unbreakable encryption. Or was this just a case where someone else figured out their file format?

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#98

Post by GuB-42 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

Someone wrote: post #91

MrDresden wrote: post #30

Frankly I feel that for this kind of investication (car crashes and accidents) the manufacturer should be required to hand over all data relevant to the investigation. On device logs are probably the most relevant data you could get in these cases. That this lab decided to try to decipher the data, and found troves of it that wasn't known to exist before, speaks to how the relationship must be. They didn't trust Tesl…

So, you think it’s OK if the car you own spies on you, using electricity you pay for? I’m rephrasing it that way to show that, depending on details this might be close to what Apple intended to do w.r.t. child pornography, something ‘the internet’ wasn’t a fan of, to say it mildly. There’s a difference here in that there’s an ‘investigation’, but you’re also talking of ‘car crashes and accidents ’, so this could get…

The car is already spying on you. I think the question is: if data is available to the manufacturer, should it be available to investigators?

I am think it is reasonable. Tesla uses these data to protect themselves (for example by showing that autopilot wasn't in use during an accident). It is not really about user privacy anymore, it is about corporate interests, and I think road safety is more important, that's why we have all these regulations.

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#99

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

warp wrote: post #86

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

I wish there were more information about how they were able to "decrypt" the data. I put that in quotes because often times journalists or laypeople don't differentiate between a file format that is just compressed or obfuscated in some way, and true encryption. After all, it would be trivial for Tesla to provide essentially unbreakable encryption: just encode all the stored data with a public key where only Tesla ha…

Looks like they published their code and tools here: https://github.com/NetherlandsForensicInstitute/teslalogs

Thank you very much. That repo has a detailed description of their procedure [1], and it's clear they just reverse engineered the binary file format.

1. https://github.com/NetherlandsForensicInstitute/teslalogs/tr...

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#100

Post by 1970-01-01 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

orev wrote: post #93

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

I wish there were more information about how they were able to "decrypt" the data. I put that in quotes because often times journalists or laypeople don't differentiate between a file format that is just compressed or obfuscated in some way, and true encryption. After all, it would be trivial for Tesla to provide essentially unbreakable encryption: just encode all the stored data with a public key where only Tesla ha…

The word “decrypt” means “make (a coded or unclear message) intelligible”, which is more broad than the IT-specific jargon of using cipher algorithms. It’s perfectly fine to use “decrypt” in the general sense in an article meant for general people to read.

No, the wrong word was written, and that minor detail reveals how technically competent the editors are. They decoded the data.