Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features • Hacker News Board

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#591

Post by tmpX7dMeXU » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:13 PM UTC

liendolucas wrote: post #562

oatmeal1 wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People overreact to this. If this didn't exist, they would just manufacture cars the old way where multiple version of the same car are produced at high and low prices. I have seen no evidence provided this actually increases the total price of a high feature car. This might actually lower the average price paid because of the economies of scale achieved by making fewer different versions of the same car. Resale valu…

I'm not overreacting to this. I'm absolutely tired to learn that subscriptions are being pushed everywhere. Having to pay for something that is already in a vehicle is insulting to me. Car manufacturers should sell cars, not subscriptions of ANY kind. What's going to be tomorrow? Will I have to subscribe to a service to actually let my speakers emit sound despite that I have payed for them? Ridiculous today, a busine…

Any country with even half decent consumer protection would stop your imagined slippery slope scenario. You bought the speakers, as speakers? Then they need to operate like speakers, unless it was clear ahead of time that more is needed.

Software locking like this is bad for environmental / waste reasons. All of this complaining about there being a disconnect between what you willingly paid for and what the physical hardware components in the product you receive can technically do, is just a nerd’s argument. I agree with it. Subscriptions suck when there’s no ongoing cost to the seller. But I’m not going to pretend that this is some moral crusade, or be as emotionally invested as you quite obviously are.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#592

Post by wpietri » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:16 PM UTC

ulamel wrote: post #424

liendolucas wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it is that you're supposed to own the car and every feature you paid for it.

big tech is trying to erase this concept from the consumer mind. Assuming someone tried to do everything legally (not pirating) when was the last time anyone "owned" anything. Music, Movies, TV shows, Software, you don't own any of it you are simply paying for server space.

Amazingly, this corporate desire goes back more than a hundred years. Edison cylinders had a "shrink-wrap" license trying to control what people did with the recordings they bought: https://www.flickr.com/photos/59414209@N00/5072909557/

That was later outlawed with the "first-sale doctrine": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

I would say that it seems like it's time for some new legislation that supports consumer freedom. But given the state of American politics, I can only hope that Europe will do some pioneering work on this.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#593

Post by gnatolf » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:16 PM UTC

someplaceguy wrote: post #569

someplaceguy wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think EU countries are supposed to be using the same legal privacy framework, although the exact way the laws are phrased and interpreted might differ from country to country. I believe in Spain, generally speaking, it is legal to record your interactions with someone when you are in public. But I think many people are not aware that this is legal, including some police officers, because privacy laws are perceived…

> you are only allowed to have CCTV outside if it's pointing directly at your door, not the street in general (and you must post a sign). I forgot to mention that I highly disagree with this restriction. It's really, really bad for home and personal security: pointing the CCTV at your door does absolutely nothing when a robber / kidnapper enters your house while wearing a ski mask. However, pointing the camera outsid…

A vast majority of kidnappings are done by family members. It's a movie thing that a ski mask vigilante enters your home to kidnap you. I'm almost 100% positive there's virtually no risk of being kidnapped at home by ski-mask wearing criminals that staked your house previously.

Or, if you are in that specific, very small target group for e.g. ransom etc, you probably should've been investing in home security beyond a front door camera anyways.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#594

Post by tmpX7dMeXU » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:17 PM UTC

liendolucas wrote: post #432

ulamel wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

big tech is trying to erase this concept from the consumer mind. Assuming someone tried to do everything legally (not pirating) when was the last time anyone "owned" anything. Music, Movies, TV shows, Software, you don't own any of it you are simply paying for server space.

You couldn't have stated that more clearly. Is a disgrace. We're basically headed to rent features of all kinds. It's terrible.

It’s a point repeated practically infinite times daily on this website and any other tech community. It’s not a revelation deserving of accolades. It’s the nerd equivalent of “lower taxes!” at a political rally. This entire back and forth where all participants are clearly on the same side and are clearly regurgitating all the talking points of their shared ideology isn’t a conversation, it’s people patting eachother on the back.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#595

Post by bonestamp2 » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:17 PM UTC

tmpX7dMeXU wrote: post #580

bonestamp2 wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember being out for a beer run with a friend during these days. On the way there he pulls into a parking lot and stops in front of a nail salon. He said, "Come on" and I followed him into the nail salon. There were about 10 women in there, not a guy in sight... he goes up to the desk and pushes a button that looks like a doorbell. One of the ladies doing the nails says, "He no work here no more, check dry cleane…

That guy’s name? Jimmy McGill.

No, it's all good man. ;)

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#596

Post by someplaceguy » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:18 PM UTC

sdfignaionio wrote: post #522

sirsinsalot wrote: post #464

There's a lot of missing the point in these threads about software locks. Building a car in a uniform way for economy of scale savings, fine. Having a software unlock for hardware you already have (but didn't pay for in the price). Fine. Using software to rent-seek on one time costs like heated seats. Not fine. Less fine too if the seat subscription can't carry to secondary market. This can he used to cripple seconda…

>Having a software unlock for hardware you already have (but didn't pay for in the price). Fine. Tolerable, perhaps, but pretty far from fine. It's pretty shocking to me that people in our society build things and then deliberately break them so they can make more money. Is this really the best system we can come up with? We have built a society where what is plainly crazy is rational.

> Tolerable, perhaps, but pretty far from fine. It's pretty shocking to me that people in our society build things and then deliberately break them so they can make more money. Is this really the best system we can come up with?

It's not as bad as it looks. If you think about it, it's basically a form of wealth redistribution.

Rich people will pay the premium, which subsidizes the cost of the car for others. In other words, poorer customers will get a cheaper car.

It's a pretty good deal for those who are less wealthy and don't really need the extra functionality.

Also, these poorer customers can always upgrade later if want to (because circumstances change and they want the functionality or because they get richer and can afford more luxury). This is not always possible with hardware-based customization, or even if it is, it would be more expensive.

The alternative would be to only install the extra hardware in the cars of the wealthier customers, but presumably this would make the car more expensive for everyone (both the poor and the rich owners), due to the added costs of hardware-based customization. So everyone would lose.

And even if the latter is not true, a similar car manufacturer could just offer you a better deal by selling you a similar, cheaper car without installing the hardware, which means that the manufacturer/brand that does the shenanigans would lose customers. Competition is pretty awesome like that.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#597

Post by kibwen » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:22 PM UTC

martin8412 wrote: post #517

kelnos wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, since there's an on-going cost to maintain the cloud infrastructure that the game needs to function. The company is well within its rights to say "if you stop paying us, you stop getting to use our cloud services". But if there was a single-player or LAN version of the game (I know that's not really possible with something like WoW, but for the sake of the argument...), then players should absolutely not…

There's been plenty of WoW private servers throughout history hosted by people who had nothing to do with Blizzard.

And who were then sued into oblivion by Blizzard.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#598

Post by jliptzin » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:26 PM UTC

culi wrote: post #435

jcuenod wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I also rotate license plates and repaint my car twice a year.

you're joking, but there's a whole genre of "adversarial fashion"[0][1] dedicated to making clothing that spams these sort of public data recognition services. Hoodies with license plates, face masks with weird facial features, etc. Often optimized against actual neural networks too [0] https://adversarialfashion.com/ [1] https://www.capable.design/

I wonder how effective that is considering storage costs are very cheap and an AI can easily filter out images that are either “car” or “not car”

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#599

Post by kibwen » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:31 PM UTC

olyjohn wrote: post #102

rvnx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never has been Tesla’s responsibility if the FSD fails (whereas for Mercedes they take responsibility)

I'm not a Tesla fan, but Mercedes doesn't have a fleet anywhere near Tesla's. This is a well-run marketing campaign to try to get Tesla to also accept responsibility and bring prices up, IMO. Mercedes isn't really accepting liability for shit at this point, because they only have like one car with level 3 and it's a super top trim and there won't be very many people using it. Once they have a large amount of vehicles…

> to try to get Tesla to also accept responsibility and bring prices up

If Tesla actually believed that their self-driving works (which they unequivocally and demonstrably don't, as their refusal to accept liability indicates), then it would cost them virtually nothing to accept liability.

Every company that offers self-driving should accept liability to prove that they have faith in their system, and we shouldn't allow any self-driving system on the road for which this isn't the case.

Re: Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

#600

Post by mgiampapa » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:34 PM UTC

harshalizee wrote: post #304

mgiampapa wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the same on a Mazda CX5 a few years back, but it was a software only hack to get root first. I suspect the actual physical hardware modification line is the one that most users are going to be unwilling to cross unless they are in the "Download a Car" crowd.

Doesn't the Mazda CX-5s all ship with Android Auto and Apple Carplay by default?

2016 Didn't, I also enabled the built in navigation while I was at it.