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Gotta be careful. Someone dumped the firmware from their Tesla Model S and discovered info about the then-unannounced Model 3. Tesla responded by disabling the

Gotta be careful. Someone dumped the firmware from their Tesla Model S and discovered info about the then-unannounced Model 3. Tesla responded by disabling the car's ethernet port, downgrading the firmware, and preventing the car from receiving future upgrades to software.

ivrrimum 5y ago
wth? Is that even legal?
jve 5y ago
Source? There is this ex-employee, telling some interesting stories. And regarding the downgrade... he was the one who did it for reasons he explains. I want to see if you are talking about different case or what. > Question: There's the story online of that hacker who was pulling software images off through the door Ethernet port and found that his car's firmware was remotely downgraded after he uncovered and posted the first references to the P100 models. > Answer: yup, i'm the guy that installed the older versions. this was a marketing mistake really. if i recall correctly, he ended up getting a marketing car or his car got tagged in the update system as a trusted car and he ended up getting pre-release stuff. this happened from time to time - sometimes marketing would sell off a car and the poo poo erp system wouldn't record the change. that car would then get prerelease and sometimes very broken firmware. i seem to recall another case where we just forgot to remove the prerelease materials from the official build, so all you had to do was look around. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3862643&userid=20544#post487301427 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=38...
- dooglius 5y ago
  Uh, that still doesn't paint Tesla in a good light, so this guy bought a car running special experimental firmware by mistake? What if there was a bug and he crashed?
  - a-dub 5y ago
    then the firmware is downgraded again before anyone gets sued/fired or the hackers who hacked the manufacturer cover their tracks. duh. one big reason why i'm not particularly thrilled at the prospect of one day owning a car that is actively managed/controllable by the manufacturer. in the days of the audi 5000 sudden acceleration syndrome, they could take a production car and study it. how would a third party/government agency trustlessly investigate "brake lose control" when the manufacturer has root and remote access on the vehicle?
    - canada_dry 5y ago
      > not particularly thrilled at the prospect of one day owning a car that is actively managed/controllable by the manufacturer Ditto. So many examples of companies shoving half-baked software updates down our throats... and worse... companies with half-baked security that are compromised with no consequences/little liability and effect the consumer.
    - bredren 5y ago
      An audit system? Presumably, regulators will require software and system and component behavior change logs. Is this not already the case?
      - a-dub 5y ago
        i'd love to see any computer system that can provide a crytographically tamper proof log that comes with cryptographic proofs that: a) a specific set of source code was used to generate the logs... so cryptographic security from source text files through compilation to execution on the hardware. b) that specific set of software was run on a specific machine at a specific time. it's hard... but beyond that, pretty much all audit logs are just security theater anyhow. sometimes can be mitigated by sending them to multiple places, but they're still meaningless unless you have a proof of what exactly generated them.
        bredren 5y ago
- kaszanka 5y ago
  If you thought Mirai was bad, just wait for the first "IoT" car worm that gets people killed. I hope it never happens, but if it does...
  - W-Stool 5y ago
    But you know eventually someone will do a big over the air firmware update and brick a couple of hundred cars. This is almost certain to happen eventually.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - cartoonworld 5y ago
      ...by SIM jacking the legacy baseband models. This is all too prescient.
  - bigiain 5y ago
    It’s weird, and almost a bit funny. For a brief moment. The first smashing can be felt more than heard, a subsonic strike something like a vast drumhead being struck with a metre-wide mallet, but so quick, you barely even notice it until it’s over. The second one, however, isn’t far behind, and it’s a bit louder. That second thump gives away its location — whatever it was seems to be happening quite close by — in the direction of the parking structure. At just this moment a car cruises through the pick-up zone at full speed, barreling along at least 100 kmh. It’s only because of some very fast reactions that no one gets hurt as it passes by. As it zooms past, you notice there’s no one behind the wheel. Before you have any time to process that, another huge thump nearby causes a section of the barrier wall of an upper floor of the concrete parking structure to shear off. A pile of rubble falls to the ground not very far away from you. -- Mark Pesce, Oct 2015, https://medium.com/@mpesce/the-great-hack-part-one-attack-70c5f7b22f34 https://medium.com/@mpesce/the-great-hack-part-one-attack-70...
  - _jal 5y ago
    Relevant sci-fi: Daemon, by Daniel Suarez. (AI-controlled cars feature prominently as weapons.)
- Lammy 5y ago
  Minor note for the unaware: "poo poo" in this post is a forum word filter for "shit".
  - SLWW 5y ago
    how were you able to say shit?
    - easton 5y ago
      on something awful, not hn. here you can say whatever the heck you please.
      - airstrike 5y ago
        except most emoji
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        labster 5y ago
        On MySQL utf8 encoding, ? is the word filter for emoji.
        numpad0 5y ago
        HN specifically filter out emojis but pass other utf8s and zalgos(which is a well balanced decision IMO)
        arthurcolle 5y ago
        ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
jcims 5y ago
There is a bug bounty for Starlink, this seems to be in scope.
CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
What I've read from KU Leuven is that they hack all kinds of cars, but Tesla's the only one that actually responds with fixes instead of lawsuits. [1] https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2020/11/22/onderzoekers-ku-leuven-hacken-sleutel-van-tesla-model-x/ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2020/11/22/onderzoekers-ku-leuv...
- Dah00n 5y ago
  They know if they tried a lawsuit they risk their entire business model of after sales updates have to change. Many countries -including the entirety of the EU- require a car to get a new type approval/certificate of conformity if you change a car significantly. When Tesla significantly changes a car (install a completely new self-driving system for example) every single Tesla is instantly uncertified and illegal on roads if Tesla were forced to follow the letter of the law. At some point Tesla will come up against this in court but so far we haven't really seen much mention of it[1]. Going to court over said firmware though and it will very likely happen or if someone gets killed because of an accident caused by something newly implemented (like FSD updates after type approval) then Tesla is on the hook for this accident. They are playing with fire and treading carefully. https://electrek.co/2019/01/29/tesla-sales-ban-sweden-over-strange-update-concerns/ https://electrek.co/2019/01/29/tesla-sales-ban-sweden-over-s...
  - dahfizz 5y ago
    > Many countries -including the entirety of the EU- require a car to get a new type approval/certificate of conformity if you change a car significantly. Do you have more information on this? The way you describe sounds like it's targeted at aftermarket mods more than software updates.
    - hermitdev 5y ago
      First thought about something similar would be the 737 MAX and the MCAS fiasco. I remember the whole "new type certification" was floated as solution to something like this from happening again. Obviously different case, but I think the same principle applies here. A software update that significantly changes the performance characteristics should be recertified and not grandfathered in.
jiveturkey 5y ago
> preventing the car from receiving future upgrades to software sounds like a win-win

ivrrimum 5y ago

wth? Is that even legal?

jve 5y ago

Source? There is this ex-employee, telling some interesting stories. And regarding the downgrade... he was the one who did it for reasons he explains. I want to see if you are talking about different case or what. > Question: There's the story online of that hacker who was pulling software images off through the door Ethernet port and found that his car's firmware was remotely downgraded after he uncovered and posted the first references to the P100 models. > Answer: yup, i'm the guy that installed the older versions. this was a marketing mistake really. if i recall correctly, he ended up getting a marketing car or his car got tagged in the update system as a trusted car and he ended up getting pre-release stuff. this happened from time to time - sometimes marketing would sell off a car and the poo poo erp system wouldn't record the change. that car would then get prerelease and sometimes very broken firmware. i seem to recall another case where we just forgot to remove the prerelease materials from the official build, so all you had to do was look around. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3862643&userid=20544#post487301427 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=38...

dooglius 5y ago
Uh, that still doesn't paint Tesla in a good light, so this guy bought a car running special experimental firmware by mistake? What if there was a bug and he crashed?
- a-dub 5y ago
  then the firmware is downgraded again before anyone gets sued/fired or the hackers who hacked the manufacturer cover their tracks. duh. one big reason why i'm not particularly thrilled at the prospect of one day owning a car that is actively managed/controllable by the manufacturer. in the days of the audi 5000 sudden acceleration syndrome, they could take a production car and study it. how would a third party/government agency trustlessly investigate "brake lose control" when the manufacturer has root and remote access on the vehicle?
  - canada_dry 5y ago
    > not particularly thrilled at the prospect of one day owning a car that is actively managed/controllable by the manufacturer Ditto. So many examples of companies shoving half-baked software updates down our throats... and worse... companies with half-baked security that are compromised with no consequences/little liability and effect the consumer.
  - bredren 5y ago
    An audit system? Presumably, regulators will require software and system and component behavior change logs. Is this not already the case?
    - a-dub 5y ago
      i'd love to see any computer system that can provide a crytographically tamper proof log that comes with cryptographic proofs that: a) a specific set of source code was used to generate the logs... so cryptographic security from source text files through compilation to execution on the hardware. b) that specific set of software was run on a specific machine at a specific time. it's hard... but beyond that, pretty much all audit logs are just security theater anyhow. sometimes can be mitigated by sending them to multiple places, but they're still meaningless unless you have a proof of what exactly generated them.
      - bredren 5y ago
kaszanka 5y ago
If you thought Mirai was bad, just wait for the first "IoT" car worm that gets people killed. I hope it never happens, but if it does...
- W-Stool 5y ago
  But you know eventually someone will do a big over the air firmware update and brick a couple of hundred cars. This is almost certain to happen eventually.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - cartoonworld 5y ago
    ...by SIM jacking the legacy baseband models. This is all too prescient.
- bigiain 5y ago
  It’s weird, and almost a bit funny. For a brief moment. The first smashing can be felt more than heard, a subsonic strike something like a vast drumhead being struck with a metre-wide mallet, but so quick, you barely even notice it until it’s over. The second one, however, isn’t far behind, and it’s a bit louder. That second thump gives away its location — whatever it was seems to be happening quite close by — in the direction of the parking structure. At just this moment a car cruises through the pick-up zone at full speed, barreling along at least 100 kmh. It’s only because of some very fast reactions that no one gets hurt as it passes by. As it zooms past, you notice there’s no one behind the wheel. Before you have any time to process that, another huge thump nearby causes a section of the barrier wall of an upper floor of the concrete parking structure to shear off. A pile of rubble falls to the ground not very far away from you. -- Mark Pesce, Oct 2015, https://medium.com/@mpesce/the-great-hack-part-one-attack-70c5f7b22f34 https://medium.com/@mpesce/the-great-hack-part-one-attack-70...
- _jal 5y ago
  Relevant sci-fi: Daemon, by Daniel Suarez. (AI-controlled cars feature prominently as weapons.)
Lammy 5y ago
Minor note for the unaware: "poo poo" in this post is a forum word filter for "shit".
- SLWW 5y ago
  how were you able to say shit?
  - easton 5y ago
    on something awful, not hn. here you can say whatever the heck you please.
    - airstrike 5y ago
      except most emoji
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - labster 5y ago
        On MySQL utf8 encoding, ? is the word filter for emoji.
        numpad0 5y ago
        HN specifically filter out emojis but pass other utf8s and zalgos(which is a well balanced decision IMO)
        arthurcolle 5y ago
        ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

jcims 5y ago

There is a bug bounty for Starlink, this seems to be in scope.

CorrectHorseBat 5y ago

What I've read from KU Leuven is that they hack all kinds of cars, but Tesla's the only one that actually responds with fixes instead of lawsuits. [1] https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2020/11/22/onderzoekers-ku-leuven-hacken-sleutel-van-tesla-model-x/ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2020/11/22/onderzoekers-ku-leuv...

Dah00n 5y ago
They know if they tried a lawsuit they risk their entire business model of after sales updates have to change. Many countries -including the entirety of the EU- require a car to get a new type approval/certificate of conformity if you change a car significantly. When Tesla significantly changes a car (install a completely new self-driving system for example) every single Tesla is instantly uncertified and illegal on roads if Tesla were forced to follow the letter of the law. At some point Tesla will come up against this in court but so far we haven't really seen much mention of it[1]. Going to court over said firmware though and it will very likely happen or if someone gets killed because of an accident caused by something newly implemented (like FSD updates after type approval) then Tesla is on the hook for this accident. They are playing with fire and treading carefully. https://electrek.co/2019/01/29/tesla-sales-ban-sweden-over-strange-update-concerns/ https://electrek.co/2019/01/29/tesla-sales-ban-sweden-over-s...
- dahfizz 5y ago
  > Many countries -including the entirety of the EU- require a car to get a new type approval/certificate of conformity if you change a car significantly. Do you have more information on this? The way you describe sounds like it's targeted at aftermarket mods more than software updates.
  - hermitdev 5y ago
    First thought about something similar would be the 737 MAX and the MCAS fiasco. I remember the whole "new type certification" was floated as solution to something like this from happening again. Obviously different case, but I think the same principle applies here. A software update that significantly changes the performance characteristics should be recertified and not grandfathered in.

jiveturkey 5y ago

> preventing the car from receiving future upgrades to software sounds like a win-win