Tesla Motors’ Over-the-Air Repairs • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Motors’ Over-the-Air Repairs

#31

Post by Fizzer » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 6:02 AM UTC

yread wrote: post #12

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #4

Hats off to Tesla, right now they are doing for cars what Apple did for smartphones in 2007. Under closer examination concept is simple - work closer with customers. In Tesla's case this means monitor working parameters of all the cars they sold. This allows them to identify, diagnose, and solve quite a few problems extremely quickly.

That actually sounds a lot more like Microsoft - Windows and other products are sounding massive amount of telemetry data back to Redmond

Windows does not send anything back to Microsoft unless the user explicitly enables the "Customer Experience Improvement Program." If you want to check if this is enabled, just press start and type "ceip".

Re: Tesla Motors’ Over-the-Air Repairs

#32

Post by wikwocket » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 7:37 AM UTC

brokentone wrote: post #21

This post just a few away (on the front page) from "Cyber attack that sent 750k malicious emails traced to hacked refrigerator" I suppose the correlation here being that I would be concerned about not only about malicious activities being committed against your car, but someone then turning your car against you or others within its range.

Somehow I would hope that there would be a better security team at a car company started by the founder of a worldwide online payment processor and a space exploration company trying to mount a mission to Mars, than at your average home appliance company, where odds are most of the management don't even know what Linux is, let alone that their products are running it.

That said, it's a valid concern, and one I hope that's at the forefront of their minds as they design this.

Re: Tesla Motors’ Over-the-Air Repairs

#33

Post by dror » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 9:16 AM UTC

Is there anyone that understands computer security that doesn't think this is criminal? There are so many things that can go wrong here, both intentionally and by accident.

Re: Tesla Motors’ Over-the-Air Repairs

#34

Post by jbb555 » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 9:26 AM UTC

This is good.... but I do worry slightly that I'd get in my car one day and find some feature I liked had mysteriously vanished overnight or been replaced by something I didn't like. On balance though...good :)

Re: Tesla Motors’ Over-the-Air Repairs

#35

Post by malandrew » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 9:54 AM UTC

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #4

Hats off to Tesla, right now they are doing for cars what Apple did for smartphones in 2007. Under closer examination concept is simple - work closer with customers. In Tesla's case this means monitor working parameters of all the cars they sold. This allows them to identify, diagnose, and solve quite a few problems extremely quickly.

Very cool, but at the same time I can't help but think, "Gee, now that is one less personal device in my life that is under my control".

Would be nice if these updates were open-source and cars ran open source software on open source designs. Unfortunately it's going to be a while before we see this.

Re: Tesla Motors’ Over-the-Air Repairs

#36

Post by drdaeman » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 12:39 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #35

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #4

Hats off to Tesla, right now they are doing for cars what Apple did for smartphones in 2007. Under closer examination concept is simple - work closer with customers. In Tesla's case this means monitor working parameters of all the cars they sold. This allows them to identify, diagnose, and solve quite a few problems extremely quickly.

Very cool, but at the same time I can't help but think, "Gee, now that is one less personal device in my life that is under my control". Would be nice if these updates were open-source and cars ran open source software on open source designs. Unfortunately it's going to be a while before we see this.

So, cars are starting to be licensed, not sold?

(Okay, the hardware is still sold, but it's relatively useless without software.)

Re: Tesla Motors’ Over-the-Air Repairs

#37

Post by userbinator » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 1:18 PM UTC

dror wrote: post #33

Is there anyone that understands computer security that doesn't think this is criminal? There are so many things that can go wrong here, both intentionally and by accident.

Currently the Tesla userbase is relatively small so it might not be that worth pwning, but as cars start becoming more like this, we might start seeing some worrying news items... and I'm almost willing to bet at least one person in the world, if not a group, is already trying to find exploits in one.

Re: Tesla Motors’ Over-the-Air Repairs

#38

Post by Ygg2 » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 1:30 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #13

greenyoda wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if you can program a car to not catch fire, it should also be possible to program a car to catch fire.

You could do all sorts of nasty things depending on the car. With a gasoline car, you could melt the engine if the fuel maps are accessible via OTA.

You can probably melt the battery in Tesla. Batteries are heated, right? Add stress to batter, turn heaters on. Watch battery melt and/or explode. You can already do similar attack on laptops.

Re: Tesla Motors’ Over-the-Air Repairs

#39

Post by greglindahl » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 8:26 PM UTC

hnriot wrote: post #30

greglindahl wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys no doubt think you're being funny, but the way it actually works is like iOS devices: after the download, the car asks you when you'd like to install it, with 2am the next morning being the default. The installation can only take place if the car is stationary, parked, and off.

* The installation can only take place if the car is stationary, parked, and off. this of course, only works when the patch isn't to fix the part where it detects if the car is stationary, parked and off.

That's right, it's a safety-critical piece of code, just like the software that controls the brakes and steering.

Re: Tesla Motors’ Over-the-Air Repairs

#40

Post by erikpukinskis » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 6:49 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #28

erikpukinskis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems crazy to me. Over the air updates will continually make your car safer. You're basically arguing that Windows Update is bad because someone could MITM it to inject an exploit into your computer. Sure, that's possible, but it's much more likely that the delay between availability and installation of an exploit will caused you to be owned.

No, he's arguing that a machine that consumes Windows Update is by very nature less secure than a machine with no network connection. Not because Windows Update is insecure, but because you've added an attack vector (network) and the software can be modified (e.g. EEPROM instead of ROM like in 80's cars). More difficult to permanently PWN a ROM, donchaknow.

You missed my metaphor. The car is dangerous whether or not it has an internet connection, by virtue of it being a highly flammable thing that you sit in while it moves 70 miles per hour. Some of the over the air updates improve the safety of the car during driving.