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Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

electrek.co

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Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#151

Post by HWR_14 »

grecy wrote: post #68
HWR_14 wrote: post #2

Good. People who buy things should own the things they buy.

I've been thinking about this as a thought experiment lately. Let's say there's two versions of the car. Higher spec has heated seats, lower spec doesn't. Let's say it's a $1000 price difference. At what point below are you ticked off ? Level 1: The higher spec car has the physical seat heaters, all the wiring, all the plugs and all the software. The lower spec car has none of that. (I think this is how cars have alw…

None of the levels you mention (until Level 5) operate any differently from this feature. In any of those cases, if I replace the missing parts, I get my heated seats. I would be ticked off if Level 2 had physically integrated seat warmers had some protection people could not work around so they had to cut out and replace the seat warmers.

Level 5, and this case, all I'm doing is adding the missing component. A flag or something.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#152

Post by whelp_24 »

grecy wrote: post #68
HWR_14 wrote: post #2

Good. People who buy things should own the things they buy.

I've been thinking about this as a thought experiment lately. Let's say there's two versions of the car. Higher spec has heated seats, lower spec doesn't. Let's say it's a $1000 price difference. At what point below are you ticked off ? Level 1: The higher spec car has the physical seat heaters, all the wiring, all the plugs and all the software. The lower spec car has none of that. (I think this is how cars have alw…

I mean honestly level 1 is frustrating when the cost is negligible or for safety. Plus it isn't like you can choose which features you get, and it is not like the seat costs 1000 dollars to heat. Somewhere between 3 and 4 should have legislation against it. (Also level 5 isn't like final cut pro not being installed, it's like Apple blocking port 22 unless you pay for a special developer license)

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#153

Post by rightbyte »

freejazz wrote: post #124
tadfisher wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contract law is running afoul of the first-sale doctrine here. Tesla can not enforce many clauses in a potential contract or license via the legal system, so it's not as cut-and-dry as "you don't own the code". Copyright has zero application here unless you redistribute Tesla's code or binaries. Reverse-engineering is a legal practice (in US law, at least).

Using software without the license to is copyright infringement, full stop.

In what way? No copy was ever made.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#154

Post by kelnos »

capableweb wrote: post #96
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that's got to be really bad news for someone in vehicle security at Tesla. It says in the article: " Generally, these exploits are shared with Tesla, and it helps the automaker secure its systems." So it's only a matter of time till Tesla patches it.

More relevant quotes from the article: > The group of hackers claims that their “Tesla Jailbreak” is “unpatchable” and allows to run “arbitrary software on the infotainment.” And the full quote of what you put: > Electrek’s Take > Generally, these exploits are shared with Tesla, and it helps the automaker secure its systems. > In this case, the hackers said that despite the exploit, they believe Tesla’s security is b…

The information in this article alone is likely enough for some Tesla engineers to sit down and figure out the exploit themselves.

And if this research group wants to enable regular people to "jailbreak" their cars, they have to publish their full methodology anyway.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#155

Post by d4l3k »

adamgamble wrote: post #147
d4l3k wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the map can't talk to Tesla it'll use Google maps directly. I usually don't allow connections to Tesla on my rooted Model 3

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

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#156

Post by kajecounterhack »

sowbug wrote: post #132
HWR_14 wrote: post #2

Good. People who buy things should own the things they buy.

I enthusiastically endorse this sentiment until I remember I'm a software engineer whose career depends pretty fundamentally on copyright law. As an industry, we sell things that make hardware more useful. That's what software is. But the software we sell* comes with legal restrictions on what the buyer* can and can't do with it. Which means that we're restricting what our customers can do with the hardware that they…

> Where is the right line between "my hardware, my rules" and "my software, my rules"?

If someone roots their phone or car, which they own, despite the manufacturer's best efforts to prevent this, it should be legal because they are modifying a physical object they purchased. If they teach other people to root their devices, it should be legal the same way teaching lockpicking is legal if you're just lockpicking something you own.

Nobody is asking manufacturers to stop trying to get in the way of people hacking their devices. Most people won't have the skills or desire to jailbreak anyway.

But John Deere will sue farmers who try to fix their tractors themselves, Sony will sue you for jailbreaking your PS3, etc etc. That's wrong.

Additionally, DRM generates physical waste by making it hard for people to fix things they bought. The right to repair is important.

For software, illicit redistribution is covered by copyright law, no? But the same is true: if you own a copy of software and want to hack it (e.g. mod a game you bought) why should that be illegal, provided you were able to get around the game's built-in circumventions?

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#157

Post by freejazz »

rightbyte wrote: post #153
freejazz wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using software without the license to is copyright infringement, full stop.

In what way? No copy was ever made.

Using a copyrighted work without license is copyright infringement. Not sure how to make that clearer to you.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#158

Post by vorticalbox »

capableweb wrote: post #96
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that's got to be really bad news for someone in vehicle security at Tesla. It says in the article: " Generally, these exploits are shared with Tesla, and it helps the automaker secure its systems." So it's only a matter of time till Tesla patches it.

More relevant quotes from the article: > The group of hackers claims that their “Tesla Jailbreak” is “unpatchable” and allows to run “arbitrary software on the infotainment.” And the full quote of what you put: > Electrek’s Take > Generally, these exploits are shared with Tesla, and it helps the automaker secure its systems. > In this case, the hackers said that despite the exploit, they believe Tesla’s security is b…

That's likely because it's a hardware issue, nothing really for tesla to do.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#159

Post by jjulius »

filcuk wrote: post #138
jjulius wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheaper to manufacture, yes, but the cost of the hardware is still included in what you pay for the software-locked car. You've paid for the hardware and you own it, even if it's software-locked. At that point, you're just being asked to fork over $1k or whatever the additional charge is for what essentially amounts to an "on/off" switch. Edit: Hell, to make it sound even more stupid, you're being asked to fork over…

That's no different to paying $1K for a CAD licence. People just need to come to terms with the fact that the line between HW and SW is becoming blurry. Obviously, I don't like up-paying for features I don't get to use. The price of the product must be the same, having benefited from mass production. With that being the case, I'm actually glad I have the option to save money now and upgrade later. The concept isn't a…

>The concept isn't a problem, it's companies taking advantage of it (and us).

To borrow a phrase you used earlier, I truly don't believe that we need to come to terms with companies blurring this line and taking advantage of us.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#160

Post by count »

Someone1234 wrote: post #105

While the exploit that allows them to run arbitrary code is unfixable, that doesn't mean Tesla couldn't update the vehicle to make accessing these features more difficult. For example, simply not delivering chunks of FSD to unauthorized vehicles server-side. I guess my point is: This will start an arms race. Eventually you'll need to pick between an on-network Tesla getting software updates from them, or an off-netwo…

The arms race started the first time a Tesla shipped. They've had some serious security folks on the Tesla side since the early days.
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