Live data from Hacker News

Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

electrek.co

201–210 of 773 posts

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#201
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

I've got a blog if you're interested haha https://fn.lc/post/ I've been hacking on my car and creating my own self driving models Code is at https://github.com/d4l3k/torchdrive

Very cool, am going to eat this up. FYI some of your images won't load for me, shoots me a 502 here https://fn.lc/post/diy-self-driving/

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#203

Pretty sophisticated attack vector: low voltage attack on AMD secure execution environment during boot. I wonder how many tries you need to get whatever bits you need in the right place. Also, I imagine you only need to cut 12V wires to do this, but I admire the willingness to get in there direct on these systems. I'd be a little nervous to make those cuts personally. Buried in the article is the claim that this will…

Just like we used to have cable box guys willing to sell you an unlocked box for premium channels, we are eventually going to have feature unlock guys that you go do and for a small fee perform some slightly more technical hack to enable features that are already there.

This market already exists for things like enabling Navigation on VW/Audi cars. People were offering to enable the hidden Android Auto support on my Porsche Macan for $600, which I almost went for until I found the scripts and instructions to do it myself.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the perspective of a customer, what is the difference between a heated seat that doesn't work because it doesn't exist, and one that is locked out by software? Assuming the customer isn't paying up front for that feature. Some people don't want to pay for heated seats. Turns out the manufacturer found it cheaper to just include the hardware anyway rather than differentiate on the production line. What's the big…

People are pushing back against the idea that you can't do whatever you want with a physical thing that you own. You own the heating mechanism in the seats, you own the hardware needed to turn them on, and you own the computer which activates it. If Toyota sold me a car with heated seat mechanisms installed and no switch, they couldn't stop me from installing my own switch. That you might not be able to do what you w…

I'm wondering if there might be a reasonable market for aftermarket ECUs for some of these "software enabled" vehicles when they start showing up on the used market or coming off warranty...

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#205

Wait a minute... heated seats are software locked on Teslas? WTF guys?

I kinda get it. Rather than maintaining a supply of multiple parts which complicates your supply chain and install/repair procedures, Tesla is making cars nearly 100% identical physically and differentiating in software.

so make them all cost the same then.....?

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#206

Pretty sophisticated attack vector: low voltage attack on AMD secure execution environment during boot. I wonder how many tries you need to get whatever bits you need in the right place. Also, I imagine you only need to cut 12V wires to do this, but I admire the willingness to get in there direct on these systems. I'd be a little nervous to make those cuts personally. Buried in the article is the claim that this will…

I don’t understand how you can defend against low voltage attacks like this.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I absolutely think that a capability available in the vehicle/device when you purchased it should be available for you to use, and not behind a software lock (heated seats, etc). While I intuitively agree with you, I'm having a hard time arguing against the economic argument in favor it. Producing a single version of a product is generally cheaper than producing two different versions. Also offering a lower-margin,…

Producing the extra weight of the seat heater requires extra fuel to burn. Now multiply that by the number of cars on the road. Will cost the customer a (small) amount extra in fuel costs for a part that is not being used. So there is an economic argument that ya, we can subsidize manufactures by taxing people more. Seems like a bad deal to me. Now lets talk about CO2 output of driving around extra dead weight. Makes…

I think the usual "heated seats" example is a poor one, since it's so obviously an optional feature that not everyone would want to hack around.

Let's say instead that BMW decided all their car models would be physically 4 seaters, but in order to be allowed to use the back two seats, you had to pay a large monthly "sedan fee". And if they caught you using the back seats without paying, they'd sue you. Would anyone accept this? Likely no. And the reason you shouldn't accept this is the same reason you shouldn't accept the "seat heat" fee.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#208

Now comes the funny part, were tesla tries to make the platform trusted and locked down, and then people start to flash there own firmware and solder chip-mods, cause there is nothing GNUnder the sun. Wouldn't be surprised if Tesla has a defeat-device buried somewhere that allows for remote permanent deactivation once parked in case of piracy

using the hardware you own should never be considered "piracy"

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#209
post #206

Pretty sophisticated attack vector: low voltage attack on AMD secure execution environment during boot. I wonder how many tries you need to get whatever bits you need in the right place. Also, I imagine you only need to cut 12V wires to do this, but I admire the willingness to get in there direct on these systems. I'd be a little nervous to make those cuts personally. Buried in the article is the claim that this will…

I don’t understand how you can defend against low voltage attacks like this.

The Xbox 360 was broken by voltage glitching, and Microsoft successfully prevented it from happening again with the Xbox One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7VwtOrwceo

In short, there's now a hardware watchdog which reboots the system if anything weird happens to the clocks/temps/voltages, and they carefully structured their boot ROM (the only code they can't patch later) to ensure that even if you somehow manage to sneak one glitch past the watchdog, no single branch condition being inverted will lead to a compromised state.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#210
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t mind hardware shipping locked and being an optional fee to unlock. I have paid for the rear heated seats in my model 3. What I’m vehemently opposed to is ongoing fees for things that don’t have ongoing costs. BMW wants to charge monthly for seat heaters or carplay, but those things are not a service and don’t have ongoing costs for BMW to provide. If anything creating an ongoing software lock creates an avail…

I feel different about extra cores on a CPU than I do about heated seats. The manufacturing price delta between an 8 core CPU and a 16 core, nowadays is functionally meaningless. The manufacturing cost between a car with heated seats and without headset seats is functioningaflly meaningful. The way I see it, for things like heated seats or CarPlay, I'm already paying for the base hardware cost (plus some margin) as p…

I believe that the worst thing is the use of natural resources to produce those things without any function whatsoever. Assuming the majority of customers don't pay extra, it just makes it worse.
Post reply on HN