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Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

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Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#211

Post by altairprime »

doublerabbit wrote: post #203
altairprime wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m with you in spirit, but the ship is sinking, man. Your arguments were already made in the 90s when the first puff of smoke from all this was on the horizon. Thirty years of chicken little later, I’ve moved past being upset about this and am trying instead to persuade the Linux community to step up before the window of opportunity closes on GP computing altogether. Do something, act , if you want a better future;…

Make the installer KISS. Linux installation still host the realm of complex verbose jargon. "Starting anaconda", "Enable Kdump", on anything RedHat. Debian spews an ancient terminal window of options upon options and who knows how to install Arch. Linux installations has never been click, click go. Installation wizards are still designed for the tech enabled and not the common user. We have a helicopter on Mars yet t…

> We have a helicopter on Mars yet they still can't master a installation wizard.

Unexpectedly, the 'bootable thumb drive' models are actually pretty great — not the installers, but the ones that boot straight into a GUI that works and is usable. I haven't used one as my personal Linux uses predated thumb drives, but I have always (mistakenly?) assumed that once you're booted into a liveCD, you can click 'Install on a drive partition' and it will actually do something coherent and GUI and reasonable. Have I been too optimistic? Probably, yeah :(

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#212

Post by moooo99 »

y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #78
moooo99 wrote: post #70

It is amazing how Volkswagen keeps messing up. I am currently in the market for a new car, an EV specifically. Volkswagen brands were at the top of my list for many reasons, among them the excellent driving assist implementation. I got an offer from a dealer three weeks ago and was going to order the car, then the API for the community integration got turned off. I decided to hold back and see what comes from it. Now…

> Volkswagen brands were at the top of my list for many reasons You should definitely reevaluate how you constructed your list. VW has a history of being scummy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal ) and their ICE cars are notorious for being unreliable compared to the Japanese car-makers. To be fair, EVs do change the equation a bit, but given their scandal plagued past, there's no way I woul…

I currently own a 10 year old Seat Leon with not a single out of maintenance repair (if we ignore the cosmetic repair due to a wildlife encounter). My parents have owned multiple VW vehicles, with each of these lasting >15 years without major issues. I know they have a reputation of being unreliable compared to Toyota, but that hasn't been my personal experience and equally important: they do not look like a Toyota. And Mazda has awful EVs

Putting these factors aside: they are usually cheaper than their peers in insurance and they have dealerships absolutely everywhere. I've had multiple Skoda and VW EV rentals and the experience has been nothing but pleasant. Hence my priorities.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#213

Post by HybridStatAnim8 »

Arainach wrote: post #196
HybridStatAnim8 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrapheneOS is based on the Android Open Source Project and retains near perfect android app compatibility. It cannot call itself android for legal reasons, but the legal definition does not affect its app compatibility. Tools such as play integrity are illegal. Using anticompetitive and monopolistic tools is not the right of application developers.

The legal definition matters a lot if someone is trying to argue that VW advertising Android features is supposed to include GrapheneOS > Using anticompetitive and monopolistic tools is not the right of application developers. Please talk to an actual lawyer before making legal claims, because to be blunt it's very clear you don't know what many of those terms mean in a legal context. VW is not a "monopoly". They hav…

The legal definition of the OS does not matter at all when considering the difference between failing to support something, and using a tool that explicitly stops something from working that otherwise works without issue. Play integrity is a tool which does not base any of its certification decisions in privacy or security, rather leverages it for anticompetitive reasons. This is known and trivially verifiable.

I do know what these terms mean in a legal context. I am claiming that play integrity is an anticompetitive and monopolistic tool, of which VW decided to use. I am not claiming VW is a monopoly. What you are claiming is their right to do, is not their right at all, and is illegal.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#214

Post by jwlit »

padjo wrote: post #193
uniq7 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or enable criminals to unlock and drive away with your car Has this ever happened?

The VW app can't do remote unlock so that's not a problem. It allows you to turn on the aircon or start charging and that's about it. That only works 50% of the time anyway.

Actually, it can (at least for my combination of country and vehicle).

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#215

Post by Arainach »

ssl-3 wrote: post #200
Arainach wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no need when OBD does just fine for this purpose. It's also not clear what the purpose of this line of argument is. Some sensor says "car is moving". The operating system in the car/head unit is responsible for enforcing that signal, and it could ignore it equally from either OBD or some pile of gyroscopes. Where that signal comes from has nothing to do with why you will not see cars accepting custom operatin…

> It's also not clear what the purpose of this line of argument is. It completely dismantles your previous goalposts, which were planted firmly on GPS: >> Not with the necessary precision. GPS doesn't work in tunnels or parking garages and can be wildly inaccurate in city centers with skyscrapers blocking line of sight, for instance. (I guess we all have the freedom to be as flexible with our goalposts as we wish. I…

My line of argument is "the head unit is responsible for not allowing video playback while in motion". Anything to do with detecting motion came after that.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#216

Post by erxam »

michalhosna wrote: post #129
y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Volkswagen brands were at the top of my list for many reasons You should definitely reevaluate how you constructed your list. VW has a history of being scummy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal ) and their ICE cars are notorious for being unreliable compared to the Japanese car-makers. To be fair, EVs do change the equation a bit, but given their scandal plagued past, there's no way I woul…

> their ICE cars are notorious for being unreliable compared to the Japanese car-makers. I always read this online, but my personal experience in EU doesn't match that at all in quite a sample of people and cars over the last ~15 years. At least not for older cards. The reliability after 100k km seems to be somewhat similar. The repairability of VW-group stuff in 3rd party services is soo much better and cheaper. The…

The keyword here is "in the EU".

Outside Western Europe, VW is priced like a premium upmarket brand (not quite luxury). Maintenance and general upkeep for a VW are easily two to three times the cost of an equivalent Japanese car.

Which wouldn't be an issue if the cars were actually built to their price point. But the VW cars we get here are shittier versions built in nasty factories. They break down if you look at them wrong. The build quality is nonexistent. They are absolutely an awful deal, no matter how you look at them. You also have to personally import parts from wherever they're available, because otherwise only the dealerships have parts and they are absurdly overpriced.

Also, European brands are afraid of exporting EVs. If you want an EV, you buy a Chinese car. There is no other option. It is as simple as that.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#217

Post by Arainach »

dylan604 wrote: post #198
Arainach wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no need when OBD does just fine for this purpose. It's also not clear what the purpose of this line of argument is. Some sensor says "car is moving". The operating system in the car/head unit is responsible for enforcing that signal, and it could ignore it equally from either OBD or some pile of gyroscopes. Where that signal comes from has nothing to do with why you will not see cars accepting custom operatin…

The point of argument is that it no longer becomes a security issue to allow customOS on the infotainment system because it absolutely has no connection to the engine computer.

This is not an architectural issue. The threat isn't a bad OS causing the car to explode. This is a safety issue where the car is required to prohibit certain things - such as video playback.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#218

Post by broadsidepicnic »

amyjess wrote: post #150

I'm sorry, but what? Why do cars need apps now?

Well, I didn't know it before I bought tesla (and have since sold it), but it's really convenient to pair the phone to the car and let it act as a key. I never had to worry about getting the keys, I just took my phone and it opened the doors.

Also I have to say, setting charge times remotely is mighty handy, if one pays the market/pool prices for electricity which fluctuate from hour to hour.

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#219

Post by fph »

altairprime wrote: post #164
doublerabbit wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never ever trust Linux from a vendor. If it's not installed by myself, I refuse to use it. When you accept government gift in approval consider it tapped. At any point they can return to the vendor and go "install this". No? Okay bye to your certification. Call me paranoid.

> I would never ever trust Linux from a vendor. If it's not installed by myself, I refuse to use it. I bet you would, though, if the built OS image were 100% reproducible except for the signature. Once you have a fully reproducible Linux OS build, you can literally copy paste the cryptosig from the vendor and it will work with the image you built yourself from source that you inspected yourself. Then it’s impossible…

> Does GrapheneOS publish their repro build efforts as a dashboard anywhere?

Instructions to fully reproduce a build are here: https://grapheneos.org/build#reproducible-builds (disclaimer: I never tried using them).

Re: Volkswagen started blocking GrapheneOS users

#220

Post by bri3d »

neya wrote: post #122
this_user wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German companies, especially old school industrial ones like VW, have a very hard time understanding open platforms. The view everything through the lense of liability and compliance first. Their thinking is that if someone runs their app on a custom ROM and uses that to manipulate the app in any way, and that causes some extremely hypothetical damage, that they might be held liable for not having prevented this situ…

Yeah sure, the company behind Dieselgate and single handedly destroyed the diesel market is worried about compliance? Give me a break.

Yes? These things directly follow one another: VW are obsessed with letter-of-the-law compliance, so things like end-runs around test routines are obvious solutions.

And VW didn't single-handedly destroy the diesel market; economics and physics did. Almost every other manufacturer was also fudging the tests results in some way. But more importantly, building a passenger car diesel that meets NOx targets doesn't work; by the time a passenger car diesel meets modern NOx targets honestly, the car contains a ludicrous precious metal loading in the catalyst and is only a few percentage points more efficient in terms of consumption and CO2 emissions than a petrol car and the math doesn't add up. Diesel is just not a practical solution for passenger cars; it never was in most ways, but it took the EU a long time to restrict NOx pollution to a sustainable level and expose the physical issues at hand.

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