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Automakers try to scuttle Massachusetts ‘right to repair’ law

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11–20 of 137 posts

Re: Automakers try to scuttle Massachusetts ‘right to repair’ law

#11
post #9

Current cybersecurity standards enforced in the automotive industry will probably completely kill the possibility of after-market car parts and the usage of used parts in cars. I say this as someone working in this field that has asked a couple of people doing work in this exact direction. I point blank asked them if this will happen, and they just shrugged their shoulders and said... yeah, kinda'.

I also work in the industry and tend to agree. Right now if you get an official replacement ECU on a secured CAN network the device comes from the OEM already set up with the matching SecOC (AES-128) key that the OEM recorded in their backend database at time of manufacturing. But how would this work with a 3rd party ECU?

I suspect that auto makers are fully aware of this and are salivating at the idea of extra income with upgrade and repair fees.

So far this has eluded public consciousness, but I expect it will hit the users hard at some point in the near future.

Re: Automakers try to scuttle Massachusetts ‘right to repair’ law

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: "federal regulators claim that malevolent third parties could "utilize such open access to remotely command vehicles to operate dangerously, including attacking multiple vehicles concurrently." Which really means auto makers built a terribly insecure system and hope to hide the fact behind security as obscurity? If so, that's the real problem. The vulnerabilities described should not be there in the…

It's an open secret in the industry that the CAN bus is not authenticated. If you connect, you can read the data on the bus and inject the data on bus. But, that does require physical access to the car and hooking to the wires. Nobody complains that if you hook to the buses on a PC you can own it. Now they have this security concept where every ECU on the car will have their own private key in their own secure enclav…

> Now they have this security concept where every ECU on the car will have their own private key

Not just a concept, on vehicles you buy today (from, for example, Ford and VW)

https://cdn.vector.com/cms/content/products/VectorCAST/Event...

Re: Automakers try to scuttle Massachusetts ‘right to repair’ law

#13

BS? I thought at least one Federal agency suggested that compliance is in fact a Federal crime.

If only it were that simple...

The federal agency is NHTSA. The lawyer there who signed the letter about it being a federal crime is Kerry E. Kolodziej.

Kolodziej also works at Mayer Brown, the same law firm that fought in court against the Massachusetts law on behalf of Alliance for Automotive Innovation.

It is believed the NHTSA letter to automakers was a veiled attempt to circumvent the court battle. It fits squarely into the BS category, subcategory Monumental. Tagged with Regulatory Capture.

Re: Automakers try to scuttle Massachusetts ‘right to repair’ law

#14
post #7

Here's a hot take: legislate an airgap between operation control and infotainment/convenience horseshit.

Exactly. The infotainment bullshit should be in zero way connected to the actual operation of the vehicle. There is zero reason why the laggy, nonsensical software that controls my radio should control my engine. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.

The reason is optimizing for lower cost.

Re: Automakers try to scuttle Massachusetts ‘right to repair’ law

#15
post #7

Here's a hot take: legislate an airgap between operation control and infotainment/convenience horseshit.

Exactly. The infotainment bullshit should be in zero way connected to the actual operation of the vehicle. There is zero reason why the laggy, nonsensical software that controls my radio should control my engine. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.

It's not as simple. For example, look at the distance sensors used for parking and the data coming from them over the CAN bus.

That bus needs to be able to (at least indirectly) reach the brakes so that automatic emergency braking can take their measurements as inputs. And that bus needs to be able to reach the audio system to provide audible feedback to the driver when parking, and also mute the radio. Ergo, you have a bus that reaches both brakes and radio. Now, you might want to prevent the radio firmware from sending data to the brakes over that bus, but physically you have to have a connection between them, as we don't really want to make many separate buses for reasons of complexity, cost and maintenance; moving from a separate end-to-end wire for each specific purpose towards a shared bus was a great improvement.

Re: Automakers try to scuttle Massachusetts ‘right to repair’ law

#16
post #7

Here's a hot take: legislate an airgap between operation control and infotainment/convenience horseshit.

Exactly. The infotainment bullshit should be in zero way connected to the actual operation of the vehicle. There is zero reason why the laggy, nonsensical software that controls my radio should control my engine. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.

Without all that being connected how else would they use the built-in lte to send back all of the data about you from the car? Car companies cant be missing out on selling customer data too.

Re: Automakers try to scuttle Massachusetts ‘right to repair’ law

#17
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The infotainment bullshit should be in zero way connected to the actual operation of the vehicle. There is zero reason why the laggy, nonsensical software that controls my radio should control my engine. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.

It's not as simple. For example, look at the distance sensors used for parking and the data coming from them over the CAN bus. That bus needs to be able to (at least indirectly) reach the brakes so that automatic emergency braking can take their measurements as inputs. And that bus needs to be able to reach the audio system to provide audible feedback to the driver when parking, and also mute the radio. Ergo, you hav…

Current cars usually have gateways that route messages around different busses. This would protect you from having unwanted messages arriving on secured buses, but pass through the wanted messages.

Re: Automakers try to scuttle Massachusetts ‘right to repair’ law

#18
Insurance companies should get behind Right to Repair. We've so far waited three months and have an $11,0000 price tag to the insurance company on a minor collision that bent our car's front fascia and broke a sensor -- no frame or metal damage. I would have happily repaired on my own if possible just to avoid being without the car for so long. If only I could get those parts and have a decent service manual.

Re: Automakers try to scuttle Massachusetts ‘right to repair’ law

#19
> For now, Massachusetts’ law is tied up by lobbying and legal fisticuffs.

It’s depressing that the will of the people that passed this ballot measure can get pre-empted like this. Before it passes? Sure. But afterward you’re just disenfranchising the voters.

Re: Automakers try to scuttle Massachusetts ‘right to repair’ law

#20
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The infotainment bullshit should be in zero way connected to the actual operation of the vehicle. There is zero reason why the laggy, nonsensical software that controls my radio should control my engine. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.

It's not as simple. For example, look at the distance sensors used for parking and the data coming from them over the CAN bus. That bus needs to be able to (at least indirectly) reach the brakes so that automatic emergency braking can take their measurements as inputs. And that bus needs to be able to reach the audio system to provide audible feedback to the driver when parking, and also mute the radio. Ergo, you hav…

Parking assist is the very definition of bullshit convenience. In this case apparently it's dangerous as well?
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