Hackers manage to unlock Tesla software-locked features

This is the same attack (and same people who developed) faulTPM[1] that was previously discussed[2]. This article is the same people demonstrating that attack against Tesla vehicles. The paper[1] and previous discussion[2] address the underlying problems with AMD's Secure Processor (AMD-SP) that is embedded in their CPU SoCs and previously and more commonly known as Platform Security Processor (AMD-PSP).

Unlike a web browser where W3C AntiFraudCG folk propose that websites would blacklist all impacted AMD-SP hardware and create massive amounts of e-waste[3], Tesla likely can't do much about this attack because Tesla (not users) would be responsible for a very expensive change of vehicle hardware.

If it's not an easy-to-execute attack like faulTPM, there are more complex (but becoming more mainstream and cheaper) IC reverse engineering methods like polishing the die down to take photos of each metal layer and regenerating VHDL, FIB editing an operational IC to bypass tamper detection methods, etc[4].

A security architect of the Xbox One presented a talk[5] a few years ago which provides some good background too. Largely the Xbox One has managed to avoid piracy because they made it economically not worth anyone's time to attack due to competitive pricing models versus high cost of attack. Similar to use of Denuvo for a month or two after release of a PC game, attackers aren't going to bother if their work amounts to nothing a month later.

Hacking a Tesla to enable additional features is worth a lot of money, so the economics are quite different. It's also different economics for printer cartridges, "pay to enable more features or performance" network equipment, etc. The cost of IC reverse engineering / FIB editing attacks (or other future attack methods) will keep reducing. IC tamper detection features will get more complex. Perhaps attackers will even get an advantage once they can readily reverse engineer 3nm ICs and defenders can't do much other than implementing ever more complex and obfuscated IC tamper detection features and VHDL logic (kind of like a Denuvo situation in hardware).

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.14717

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35787195

[3] https://github.com/antifraudcg/proposals/issues/19

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6390Zqca3Mg

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7VwtOrwceo

It may actually be even better than that.

If the manufacturer hadn't done this, they would have to produce at least 2 versions of the car: one without any extra hardware, and one with all the extra hardware.

It may turn out that doing separate versions of the car could cost $5,000 more per car over its entire lifetime, including production (extra design, assembly lines, etc) and support, rather than simply making one version of the car.

So if the car company hadn't done this, the car might have cost $30,000 anyway without the extra features, and $35,000 with the extra features, so the poorer customers would lose while the rich customers would pay the same.

This works more or less the same if these costs are comparable or higher than the costs of the extra hardware. And I suspect they are higher, as it seems highly likely that the price for these premium features in cars are a lot higher than the actual costs of the hardware itself.

Sure, the company could still engage in the same wealth redistribution / subsidization / price differentiation in the 2-car scenario (and they likely already do), but everyone could still lose anyway because the total costs of all the cars could still be higher in total.

How do you know?

ID phone Bluetooth on passing, or even facial rec, then it gets tied to gait, and it's forever tied.

The film has a good representation of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aS4xhTaIPc

This, or you want to have a backup of your disk because your younger brother isn't especially gentle, or you want to have a second copy of your game so that you can have one at Dad's home and one at Mom's.

And these use-cases aren't only legitimate, in France they are even legal and in exchange we pay a tax whenever we buy a media storage device (Taxe sur la copie privée).