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Hacking an Audi: performing a man-in-the-middle attack on FlexRay

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Re: Hacking an Audi: performing a man-in-the-middle attack on FlexRay

#21
post #8

I wish I could hack my Lexus RX350's LKAS. It's pretty bad and seems to bounce left and right between the lanes. It gets to the point that I just shut it off since I don't want to fight it when driving long distances as it's very tiring. It's probably a timing issue as the computer isn't getting updates fast enough and has to keep correcting which causes the bouncing between the lane. A Tesla this is not!

> It's pretty bad and seems to bounce left and right between the lanes. 2019 Audi SQ5, exact same problem, had to disable it too. I really wonder if these non-Tesla manufacturers are getting pre-fab'd chipsets from the same place. It's really an impediment rather than driver assist. I've noticed that it steers by itself pretty well on long curves, but anything other than and I'm weaving in the lane and begging for a…

> wonder if these non-Tesla manufacturers are getting pre-fab'd chipsets from the same place

That's exactly the case. The 'strains' I'm aware of are Subaru/Hitachi, MobilEye, NVIDIA, Bosch, Continental and there shouldn't be more than 3 other than these. Most car manufacturers buy one of these or pay one of them to install another of them, as a camera that speaks in steering angles. You'd notice a lot of those camera units look identical across brands.

I think yours is MobilEye(same as Tesla AP1).

Re: Hacking an Audi: performing a man-in-the-middle attack on FlexRay

#22

I wish I could hack my Lexus RX350's LKAS. It's pretty bad and seems to bounce left and right between the lanes. It gets to the point that I just shut it off since I don't want to fight it when driving long distances as it's very tiring. It's probably a timing issue as the computer isn't getting updates fast enough and has to keep correcting which causes the bouncing between the lane. A Tesla this is not!

The lane-tracing on the 2019 Toyota RAV4 is also very poor. I rented one for a long road trip and was surprised how often it lost the lines (even when clearly painted, in good weather, during the day), and how much it ping-ponged, even when it supposedly 'saw' the lines.

I hope to not buy another car until lane-centering gets decent, or is updated by non-Tesla car companies OTA. I understand Cadillac has a good system, but everything I've tried (Toyota, Honda, Subaru) has been so mediocre as to be useless.

Re: Hacking an Audi: performing a man-in-the-middle attack on FlexRay

#23
post #8

I wish I could hack my Lexus RX350's LKAS. It's pretty bad and seems to bounce left and right between the lanes. It gets to the point that I just shut it off since I don't want to fight it when driving long distances as it's very tiring. It's probably a timing issue as the computer isn't getting updates fast enough and has to keep correcting which causes the bouncing between the lane. A Tesla this is not!

> It's pretty bad and seems to bounce left and right between the lanes. 2019 Audi SQ5, exact same problem, had to disable it too. I really wonder if these non-Tesla manufacturers are getting pre-fab'd chipsets from the same place. It's really an impediment rather than driver assist. I've noticed that it steers by itself pretty well on long curves, but anything other than and I'm weaving in the lane and begging for a…

Have you double checked the settings for lane keep assist on your Audi? I have a 2018 Q5, and you have the options between "early" correction and "late" correction. If it's set on "late" correction, then it seems to bounce between lanes as your described.

When it's set to "early" correction, it indefinitely stays centered (assuming it can see the lanes).

Re: Hacking an Audi: performing a man-in-the-middle attack on FlexRay

#24
post #23
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's pretty bad and seems to bounce left and right between the lanes. 2019 Audi SQ5, exact same problem, had to disable it too. I really wonder if these non-Tesla manufacturers are getting pre-fab'd chipsets from the same place. It's really an impediment rather than driver assist. I've noticed that it steers by itself pretty well on long curves, but anything other than and I'm weaving in the lane and begging for a…

Have you double checked the settings for lane keep assist on your Audi? I have a 2018 Q5, and you have the options between "early" correction and "late" correction. If it's set on "late" correction, then it seems to bounce between lanes as your described. When it's set to "early" correction, it indefinitely stays centered (assuming it can see the lanes).

Interesting, I haven’t seen options for those. I’ll check in the settings tomorrow, thanks!

Re: Hacking an Audi: performing a man-in-the-middle attack on FlexRay

#25
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your vehicle actually have lane centering or just lane keep? Lane keep, which is more common, does not attempt to keep the vehicle in the middle of the lane. It just prevents departing the lane without signaling.

Part of the problem with these new technologies is that every car company gives each capability a unique name. It takes considerable effort to untangle the meaning of all the manufacturer-specific names to determine whether Audi Active Lane Assist is the same as Lexus Lane Keeping Assist but not Mercedes Distronic Plus unless it's Mercedes Distronic Plus with Steering Assist.

True, but I fear being more specific would lead to extremely long names that still wouldn’t matter to people who can’t be bothered to read the details or understand their vehicle.

Could the average person tell the difference if they just called one Lane Departure Prevention and the other Lane Departure Prevention with Centering or might people just assume they’re the same? Idk, maybe we should try it.

Re: Hacking an Audi: performing a man-in-the-middle attack on FlexRay

#27
post #5

They do not know about Vector Canoe ? I did this "hacking" every other day when testing software on a prototype vehicle

I had to price out a CANoe license for a project at work a while back. They came back to us asking for low five-figures.

Re: Hacking an Audi: performing a man-in-the-middle attack on FlexRay

#28
post #26

I didn't get it, FlexRay usually uses end-to-end encryption and it seems that everything is in a plain text? Audi just decided not to encrypt something?

From experimentation with recent Mercedes and BMW, its encrypted, although I do recall that early X5's were not protected.

Re: Hacking an Audi: performing a man-in-the-middle attack on FlexRay

#29
post #12

I wish I could hack my Lexus RX350's LKAS. It's pretty bad and seems to bounce left and right between the lanes. It gets to the point that I just shut it off since I don't want to fight it when driving long distances as it's very tiring. It's probably a timing issue as the computer isn't getting updates fast enough and has to keep correcting which causes the bouncing between the lane. A Tesla this is not!

Maybe it's just me, but the regulatory oversight around these automated features seems insufficient. I'm trying to imagine equivalents from older passive safety technology like seatbelts that don't always work, airbags that pop out prematurely, or cruise control that accelerates without warning. Doesn't seem like those would pass muster "back in the day"? (Not to mention Uber autonomous vehicle flat out killing a ped…

Yes. I was dead shocked when I took a brand new Audi rental car on the German highway. Per 150 miles driven I probably had one severe incident, including: sudden deceleration from 100mph to almost full stop with no car in front but a couple behind, the car actively steering out of the lane (construction site, straight lane), sudden deceleration when the car in front leaves the highway and slows down (but I stay on the highway), not detecting the giant SUV in front of me and almost rear-ending it. On a 400miles drive I usually have ALL of the above. I never had an accident in 20 years of driving. From developing software I know: your users may interpret the UX differently from you or your designers and communicating well with your users is hard. In these circumstances I am always thinking: like what the heck are those Volkswagen people thinking about how the 5% of people having a different interpretation of this user interaction will end up!? I mean, how often do people end up doing things with software nobody expects them doing? “Oh, lets give them a functionality that completely ‘out of the blue’ potentially kills them every 200miles”.

Re: Hacking an Audi: performing a man-in-the-middle attack on FlexRay

#30
> On the Q8, the FlexRay bus has cycle time of 5 ms, so each ECU can send messages at 200 Hz.

That's weirdly worded. The cycle repeats (disregarding multiplexed PDUs) every 5 ms, but there are lots of messages within a cycle.

Even on CAN, it's not uncommon to have > 2000 msg/s (looking at Daimler trucks with 70% utilization).

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