7 ms·

I'm not so sure that governments are too concerned with the 11 million cheating cars so long as they have a nice easy target to blame, fine, and play politics w

I'm not so sure that governments are too concerned with the 11 million cheating cars so long as they have a nice easy target to blame, fine, and play politics with. I have a feeling they'd much rather have one company and 11 million violations than 10,000 backyard mechanics helping themselves to 15 extra horsepower after reading an article on Hackaday. Politically, DRM is still a feature not a bug.

lifeisstillgood 11y ago
I see nothing whatsoever incompatible with hardware refusing to run anything other than a small list of signed binaries, and publishing the source code and makefiles (etc) to create said binaries. Hackers turning their / your car into a socially offensive mechanism should be treated similarly to putting firing pins back in decommissioned handguns.
- tormeh 11y ago
  Let's keep, or at least not further erode, respect for guns. There are few things civilians will ever touch that deserve more respect than guns, and I suggest we don't cloud that message. Hey downvoters, why don't you take that attitude to the army and see how they react? Professional gun-handlers tend to have a lot more respect for guns than you have. That ought to make you pause for thought.
  - shawn-furyan 11y ago
    Automobiles do not require less care than guns. A lot more people accidentally kill and/or injure themselves and others with the former than the latter. Between cars and guns, I would say that cars are more due for a bump in respect. At least guns aren't so widely used so recklessly.
    - Nyetan 11y ago
      Not sure if I'm reading this right but per the NCHS (via the CDC)[1][2][3], in 2013, for people aged 15-24, ~6500 died relating to motor vehicle injuries whereas ~6000 died relating to firearms (although ~2000 of those were suicides -- not sure how that factors in, but it's probably important). Anyways, it seems like an awful lot of people kill themselves with guns, so perhaps we should just consider it a binary: if something is lethal, treat it with all the care you can muster. Edit: drat, and the site you can use to get more stats: http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10_us.html http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10_us.html [1]: http://tinyurl.com/qfqn5oz http://tinyurl.com/qfqn5oz [2]: http://tinyurl.com/on9lyfc http://tinyurl.com/on9lyfc [3]: http://tinyurl.com/ov5je39 http://tinyurl.com/ov5je39
      - lifeisstillgood 11y ago
        Wow. In the UK we see (from memory) around 4500 road deaths pa, and 4-40 gun deaths. It's not even close - you msg remember that America is the outlier for guns in almost all ways
    - tormeh 11y ago
      Considering how often, and by how many, cars are used in comparison to guns, anything else would bee outrageous. According to your line of thinking, we should all drive drunk, since most people involved in car accidents are sober.
      - shawn-furyan 11y ago
        I don't know how you get 'we should all drive drunk' from a call for giving more respect to the danger of driving cars. The line of thinking you are following is not mine.
- mindslight 11y ago
  > hardware refusing to run anything other than a small list of signed binaries Other than that the owner should have complete control over the thing they own. I'd rather suffer the occasional hick "rolling coal" than be restricted in what I can read and write. > turning ... your car into a socially offensive mechanism should be [illegal] Sure, but police the violation - not the mere ability to violate.
  - userbinator 11y ago
    Since minimum emissions, maximum fuel economy, and maximum performance are somewhat contrary to each other, I wonder what most of the population would choose if they were explicitly asked to decide on the tuning whenever they bought a car. The extremes would be minimum emissions with horrible fuel economy and dismal performance, maximum fuel economy with higher emissions and also not the best performance (around where VW seems to be aiming), and maximum performance with horrible "rolling coal" emissions and low fuel economy. I doubt most people would choose these extremes, but it'd be interesting to see where the majority would want their cars tuned. I'd probably choose the optimum somewhere between fuel economy and performance, meaning emissions somewhere in the middle.
    - mindslight 11y ago
      Optimal self interest is maximum fuel efficiency when cruising or lightly accelerating, and maximum power when flooring it. If everything is computer controlled, then it doesn't seem like there is a tradeoff here. Besides altruism or avoiding repercussions, why would anybody choose to tune for emissions? It's a collective action problem. Maybe when slowing down / stopped, so a tailwind didn't leave you breathing your horrible exhaust. Thinking a little further, inspections won't be able to prevent this modification if flashing is really easy - just revert before and restore the modifications afterwards. My general stance is "fuck trusted hardware", because any contemporary implementation is likely to involve a foreign asymmetric key that makes it so someone else owns "your" hardware. But I do see a Free approach to it that involves time locks / hashing proof of work, and possibly logs changes. This way would provide some appropriate physical security and auditing, while not restricting any party in long-term possession of the device.
- shaftoe 11y ago
  As someone who has built homemade firearms, I'm amused by your example. It seems like municipalities with emissions testing requirements could easily catch these "socially offensive hackers" if they use the older hook-it-up-to-the-tailpipe testing technology. Then we wouldn't have to get permission from our betters to alter our own property.
  - lifeisstillgood 11y ago
    To be fair I don't understand either why the onboard computer was involved instead of just monitoring the tailpipe. But one could imagine a range of means to guess one is being tested ... As for the firearm, let's imagine decommissioned firearms are all painted pink, because that tells other people the gun is completely safe. If you replace the pin in a pink gun (or paint your real gun pink) you are sending out fake and potentially lethal social signals. Regulation is not part of it. Convention is. We have enforced minimum standards and behaviour on drivers and cars, because the social signals tell us something useful. And still morons drive too fast in souped up cars. Edit: the analogy is not meant to imply you are the moron. It's a bit early in the morning
mindslight 11y ago
This is a tough truth. Any entity only perceives things it can measure and control. It will therefore never work to reduce its control, even when doing so would further its mission.
- tbrownaw 11y ago
  Which is why nobody "perceives" history, or anything outside our solar system, or the laws of physics, or anything else it's not possible for us to have any effect on.
  - wyager 11y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted. The parent post's platitude was (as you've demonstrated) quite inaccurate.
    - mindslight 11y ago
      Sorry. "measure or control"

lifeisstillgood 11y ago

I see nothing whatsoever incompatible with hardware refusing to run anything other than a small list of signed binaries, and publishing the source code and makefiles (etc) to create said binaries. Hackers turning their / your car into a socially offensive mechanism should be treated similarly to putting firing pins back in decommissioned handguns.

tormeh 11y ago
Let's keep, or at least not further erode, respect for guns. There are few things civilians will ever touch that deserve more respect than guns, and I suggest we don't cloud that message. Hey downvoters, why don't you take that attitude to the army and see how they react? Professional gun-handlers tend to have a lot more respect for guns than you have. That ought to make you pause for thought.
- shawn-furyan 11y ago
  Automobiles do not require less care than guns. A lot more people accidentally kill and/or injure themselves and others with the former than the latter. Between cars and guns, I would say that cars are more due for a bump in respect. At least guns aren't so widely used so recklessly.
  - Nyetan 11y ago
    Not sure if I'm reading this right but per the NCHS (via the CDC)[1][2][3], in 2013, for people aged 15-24, ~6500 died relating to motor vehicle injuries whereas ~6000 died relating to firearms (although ~2000 of those were suicides -- not sure how that factors in, but it's probably important). Anyways, it seems like an awful lot of people kill themselves with guns, so perhaps we should just consider it a binary: if something is lethal, treat it with all the care you can muster. Edit: drat, and the site you can use to get more stats: http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10_us.html http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10_us.html [1]: http://tinyurl.com/qfqn5oz http://tinyurl.com/qfqn5oz [2]: http://tinyurl.com/on9lyfc http://tinyurl.com/on9lyfc [3]: http://tinyurl.com/ov5je39 http://tinyurl.com/ov5je39
    - lifeisstillgood 11y ago
      Wow. In the UK we see (from memory) around 4500 road deaths pa, and 4-40 gun deaths. It's not even close - you msg remember that America is the outlier for guns in almost all ways
  - tormeh 11y ago
    Considering how often, and by how many, cars are used in comparison to guns, anything else would bee outrageous. According to your line of thinking, we should all drive drunk, since most people involved in car accidents are sober.
    - shawn-furyan 11y ago
      I don't know how you get 'we should all drive drunk' from a call for giving more respect to the danger of driving cars. The line of thinking you are following is not mine.
mindslight 11y ago
> hardware refusing to run anything other than a small list of signed binaries Other than that the owner should have complete control over the thing they own. I'd rather suffer the occasional hick "rolling coal" than be restricted in what I can read and write. > turning ... your car into a socially offensive mechanism should be [illegal] Sure, but police the violation - not the mere ability to violate.
- userbinator 11y ago
  Since minimum emissions, maximum fuel economy, and maximum performance are somewhat contrary to each other, I wonder what most of the population would choose if they were explicitly asked to decide on the tuning whenever they bought a car. The extremes would be minimum emissions with horrible fuel economy and dismal performance, maximum fuel economy with higher emissions and also not the best performance (around where VW seems to be aiming), and maximum performance with horrible "rolling coal" emissions and low fuel economy. I doubt most people would choose these extremes, but it'd be interesting to see where the majority would want their cars tuned. I'd probably choose the optimum somewhere between fuel economy and performance, meaning emissions somewhere in the middle.
  - mindslight 11y ago
    Optimal self interest is maximum fuel efficiency when cruising or lightly accelerating, and maximum power when flooring it. If everything is computer controlled, then it doesn't seem like there is a tradeoff here. Besides altruism or avoiding repercussions, why would anybody choose to tune for emissions? It's a collective action problem. Maybe when slowing down / stopped, so a tailwind didn't leave you breathing your horrible exhaust. Thinking a little further, inspections won't be able to prevent this modification if flashing is really easy - just revert before and restore the modifications afterwards. My general stance is "fuck trusted hardware", because any contemporary implementation is likely to involve a foreign asymmetric key that makes it so someone else owns "your" hardware. But I do see a Free approach to it that involves time locks / hashing proof of work, and possibly logs changes. This way would provide some appropriate physical security and auditing, while not restricting any party in long-term possession of the device.
shaftoe 11y ago
As someone who has built homemade firearms, I'm amused by your example. It seems like municipalities with emissions testing requirements could easily catch these "socially offensive hackers" if they use the older hook-it-up-to-the-tailpipe testing technology. Then we wouldn't have to get permission from our betters to alter our own property.
- lifeisstillgood 11y ago
  To be fair I don't understand either why the onboard computer was involved instead of just monitoring the tailpipe. But one could imagine a range of means to guess one is being tested ... As for the firearm, let's imagine decommissioned firearms are all painted pink, because that tells other people the gun is completely safe. If you replace the pin in a pink gun (or paint your real gun pink) you are sending out fake and potentially lethal social signals. Regulation is not part of it. Convention is. We have enforced minimum standards and behaviour on drivers and cars, because the social signals tell us something useful. And still morons drive too fast in souped up cars. Edit: the analogy is not meant to imply you are the moron. It's a bit early in the morning

mindslight 11y ago

This is a tough truth. Any entity only perceives things it can measure and control. It will therefore never work to reduce its control, even when doing so would further its mission.

tbrownaw 11y ago
Which is why nobody "perceives" history, or anything outside our solar system, or the laws of physics, or anything else it's not possible for us to have any effect on.
- wyager 11y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted. The parent post's platitude was (as you've demonstrated) quite inaccurate.
  - mindslight 11y ago
    Sorry. "measure or control"