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> how do you expect a cop to run a hash sum on the vehicle software Any flash chip that holds vehicle software gets a tiny hardware component that once a minut
by halomru 10y ago
> how do you expect a cop to run a hash sum on the vehicle software
Any flash chip that holds vehicle software gets a tiny hardware component that once a minute hashes the entire memory and broadcasts the checksum over the car's message bus. Somewhere in the car there's a read-only hardware interface to the message bus that cops and mechanics can use.
If you don't trust the message bus you need a bit more silicon to provide a signed challenge-response protocol, but then we're still talking about cents per flash chip.
- _ph_ 10y agoOk, that would be possible, having an independent system checking the car for modifications. Though, this system then again could not be open for the user to modify. And of course, this all would basically ban all cars with modified software from the roads. So you can modify your cars software, but not use the car in public traffic.
- halomru 10y agoHaving the checksumming system unmodifiable would be similar to disallowing modification of speedometer and odometer. Important measurement instruments were always kind of a special case. You could use this to limit modification of some crucial systems (ABS, airbags, etc. Those will always be one septate microcontrollers anyways because of their hard real time requirements). Or as you said you could keep all modified cars out of public traffic, while still allowing experimentation on private roads. Both variations are more heavy-handed than I would prefer, but a lot better than the status quo.