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Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

blog.willemmelching.nl

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Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#91

Post by Beached »

olivermarks wrote: post #59

Great write up which also illustrates how deep DRM/closed systems are in cars built this century. Until around mid 90's cars still had lots of relays and barely comprehensible wiring looms if you could get your hands on workshop manuals. The sooner we go back to a BEV with the simplicity of a 1960's VW Beetle the better imo, not least so that the third world can get a look in.

pretty sure this won't happen. regulations require computerized standards to be used for various parts of a cars functions. this would require some insane lobbying to pull off.

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#92

Post by jhallenworld »

bob1029 wrote: post #15
marcodiego wrote: post #11

Power Steering ECU... this things determines how the driving wheel makes the car turn. Safety issues must be considered.

I will never purchase a vehicle for my own purposes that does not use hydraulics for brakes and steering. Putting a computer between my foot/hands and the physics unfolding in front of me is a total non-starter.

Maybe it's safer than hydraulic power steering. With electronics, there could be all kinds of self tests, for example that one of the H-bridge MOSFETs is shorted or open, akin to a valve being stuck.

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#93

Post by grishka »

t0mas88 wrote: post #79
olivermarks wrote: post #59

Great write up which also illustrates how deep DRM/closed systems are in cars built this century. Until around mid 90's cars still had lots of relays and barely comprehensible wiring looms if you could get your hands on workshop manuals. The sooner we go back to a BEV with the simplicity of a 1960's VW Beetle the better imo, not least so that the third world can get a look in.

So far electric vehicles are getting worse not better, because they're less regulated on things like OBD access. And manufactures see them as a chance to make an always connected car that phones home. Tesla was first but everyone else is copying them now.

It's not like you can't disable these network interfaces one way or another. And of course it'll still work without this connectivity.

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#94

Post by olivermarks »

t0mas88 wrote: post #79
olivermarks wrote: post #59

Great write up which also illustrates how deep DRM/closed systems are in cars built this century. Until around mid 90's cars still had lots of relays and barely comprehensible wiring looms if you could get your hands on workshop manuals. The sooner we go back to a BEV with the simplicity of a 1960's VW Beetle the better imo, not least so that the third world can get a look in.

So far electric vehicles are getting worse not better, because they're less regulated on things like OBD access. And manufactures see them as a chance to make an always connected car that phones home. Tesla was first but everyone else is copying them now.

My concern is that all vehicles are becoming more and more surveilled, transmitting hugely personal data. Once level 4 centralized control is possible I predict pre permissioned requested travel will quickly follow.

We urgently need a new generation of very basic transportation devices. The 3rd world relies on Toyo HiLuxes etc which are still easy to keep running. LandRover used to be all over the third world because they were rugged, basic and easy to work on. You'd think Tata who now own them would be continuing the tradition but they are building luxury vehicles with no clear purpose except signaling pretensions to offroad abilities. Embroidered with ECM controlled chips, wiring and sensors...

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#95

Post by phkahler »

>> Only try this on an actual car if you know what you’re doing. Even though only two very small patches are made to the model specific calibration values, making changes to your EPS might have unintended consequences.

The author has no idea what he's doing, or more specifically what hazards might be lurking right under his nose. I worked in EPS for 6 years and it's all really cool stuff right up until you download code and it promptly turns left all the way to the stop the first time you touch the wheel. That was a bug ;-) I can't tell you how hazardous it may be to tweak tuning parameters - that depends on a lot of things. Tuning aside, just commanding it over CAN might allow you to do things that wouldn't normally happen and might damage something - i.e. are all protections still in place when taking an external command? I didn't work on this model, or at this company, I'm just saying I've seen a lot of stuff and wouldn't recommend messing around with safety-critical ECUs like this.

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#96

Post by mantas »

lillecarl wrote: post #64
mantas wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lithuanian here. It’s not inequality when instead of a cheap hatchback you NEED to buy BMW 5-Series or Porsche Macan. But you import a damaged one from US. And then you need a bunch of „used“ parts to repair it.

I mean it is inequality since the people they steal parts from can afford them, but it's not the kind of inequality we'd shed tears over.

Or different priorities. Why pick between a nice house and Porsche if you can repair a crashed Porsche with stolen parts and build a house paying workers under table and skipping few regulations here and there.

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#97

Post by lillecarl »

mantas wrote: post #96
lillecarl wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it is inequality since the people they steal parts from can afford them, but it's not the kind of inequality we'd shed tears over.

Or different priorities. Why pick between a nice house and Porsche if you can repair a crashed Porsche with stolen parts and build a house paying workers under table and skipping few regulations here and there.

True Robin Hood, steal from the rich and give to the poor. Too bad it destroys so much capital every time.

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#99

Post by seized »

bob1029 wrote: post #77
martin8412 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My concern is if the engineers were qualified and allowed to follow proper protocol for designing safety critical systems.

Also consider the budgets these engineers have to work with now. If cars had an average unit cost measured in 7-9 figures (i.e. like a Boeing 777), I would have substantially more trust in everything involved.

Yeah, Boeing is a solid example of that whole large budget == safe mentality.... Maybe in 2022 exclusively.

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#100

Post by the_pwner224 »

birken wrote: post #28
Veritio wrote: post #23

While I find this quite interesting, a street is not a lab. He should not do this on any public road and potentially he broke already some law.

The driver is always responsible for what their vehicle does. As long as the driver can override the steering (which they can), then there is really nothing to be concerned about. This is the same for cars using openpilot, or Tesla's self driving systems or any other steering assistance features.

> As long as the driver can override the steering (which they can)

EPS is much more powerful than humans. It can apply huge torque and cause incredibly fast acceleration of the steering wheel (from full lock on one side to the other in a split second). Messing with the firmware definitely could cause a situation where the car just does whatever it wants to and the driver can do nothing about it.

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