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Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data
- trhway 5y agono DMCA in Netherlands?
- henvic 5y ago"The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law." Last time I checked the Netherlands was a different country. lol By the way: https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/dmca-ignored-countries/ https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/dmca-ignored-countries/
- extheat 5y agoDMCA is just a letter format for removal of content per U.S. law. Any country that observes copyright (they are apart of the WTO) is expected to comply with other member nations' copyrights. All developed countries have also adopted the Berne Convention.
- detaro 5y agoAnd which of these treaties exactly has a problem with the reverse engineering work done here? Nobody is claiming that Tesla doesn't have copyright on their software, if that copyright allows them to restrict this work is an entirely different kettle of fish, and depending on local laws.
- extheat 5y agoYou're right, I don't think there was ever a DMCA claim actually made, and probably would not be valid. Just replying to the misleading statement as if copyright from other countries have no standing.
- detaro 5y agoThey didn't claim that copyright from other countries has no standing, but correctly pointed out that claims under other countries copyright laws are irrelevant.
- mijamo 5y agoThat is a pretty big simplification, both partly true and false. There is international cooperation but copyright has significant differences between countries and having a copyright claim in one country does not always mean you have it in another.
- pieno 5y agoIt’s actually exactly the other way around: countries don’t comply with other countries’ copyrights, but they must offer the same level of protection to authors of works created abroad as they give to authors of works created locally (I.e. non-discrimination of foreign works/authors). And they must also offer a minimum level of copyright protection as specified in the convention. The egregious content removal remedies offered by the DMCA in the US are luckily not part of those minimum protections, so most sane countries have a more balanced procedure for content removal remedies.
- zinekeller 5y agoIf you think that the US is (relatively) insane when it comes to this, you have never witnessed the German equivalent (which is much more complainant-friendly).
- rocqua 5y agoDMCA also makes lot's of reverse engineering illegal. And that is the relevant issue here.
- PeterisP 5y agoThe whole point of DMCA is that it's a relatively recent extensions/addition to the copyright law that USA had before, which matched the Berne convention. The non-DMCA parts of copyright are pretty much the same in USA as across the whole world, as they have been harmonized with international treaties. The extra requirements of DMCA (e.g. restrictions on circumventing technical measures of copyright protection), however, are country-specific and not widespread elsewhere.
- Hamuko 5y agoNext you'll tell me that there's no second amendment either.
- the-dude 5y agoWell, it is a state lab. What are you gonna do? Invade our capital?
- KarlKemp 5y agoGovernments are bound by law, at least in democracies. There are thousands of cases in court by citizen and companies trying to, for example, overturn some decision (i. e. building permits, asylum, road construction, ... really anything), and they are frequently successful.
- rhn_mk1 5y agoDon't give them ideas https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/us-hague-invasion-act-becomes-law https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/us-hague-invasion-act-be...
- trhway 5y agothat is kind of the point - that they couldn't compel a private company doing business in their country and did the cracking instead.
- the-dude 5y agoThat is just an assumption, there is nothing as far as I am aware that points in this direction. NFI does plenty of research on its own.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
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- gnfargbl 5y agoTo answer the point that I think you were actually making, reverse engineering in the EU is covered by EU Directive 2009/24. This allows reverse-engineering for interoperability purposes, and (possibly in a more limited way?) also for the purposes of understanding the operation of a program. https://vidstromlabs.com/blog/the-legal-boundaries-of-reverse-engineering-in-the-eu/ https://vidstromlabs.com/blog/the-legal-boundaries-of-revers...
- ifjimelse 5y agoNo, but they do have the GDPR, which affords data subjects the right of access to their own personal data. Seeing as “the vehicles also record speed, accelerator pedal position, steering wheel angle and brake usage” and that personal data is "information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual", that sounds in scope of GDPR to me. I’d like to know what lawful basis they are using for this. I can see no other valid basis other than consent. Tesla being less than forthcoming about what personal data they are processing is likely also problematic when it comes to the right to be informed too.
- tdrdt 5y agoA lot of questions about responsibility come from this case. If autopilot was following the car too close would the driver be responsible for not taking action? How much trust is a driver allowed to put in autopilot? I also wonder how much data other cars collect. As far as I know most cars collect a lot of data you don't know about.
- Dinux 5y agoYou can change how close you want AutoPilot to follow (between 1 and 3 car-distances) the car in front of you.
- smcl 5y agoWould be interesting to know if the issue here that the driver selected 1 (or 2 or 3) car-distances, and the Tesla followed at 0.25 or 0.7 or something
- Timshel 5y agoWas wondering how it works and found : "According to Tesla, each follow distance setting corresponds directly to a time-based distance representing the time it takes the Model 3 from its current location to the location for the car in front of the driver. For cars manufactured after April 27, 2021, Tesla set a minimum follow distance of 3 or greater. But with the 2021.4.21.3 update, this number has been reduced to 2, bringing Autopilot ‘Pure Vision’ close to parity with its previous radar-based counterpart." Note they say time based and not second so 2 might be something like a second.
- wutwutwutwut 5y agoIs that thing dependent on speed? 1-3 car may be okay for slow city traffic but obviously not for higher speeds. I'm just curious how it works.
- svilen_dobrev 5y agoah.. reverse engineering (of data and binaries) has a new fancy name: forensic. Fravia, where art tho..
- sgt 5y agoSo sad.
- the-dude 5y agoI assume it is the NFI the article is about : https://www.forensicinstitute.nl/ https://www.forensicinstitute.nl/ I think it is called like this for like 50 years.
- zinekeller 5y agoThis is the national forensic laboratory of Netherlands (NFI) though, so it is definitely in their remit. (I don't know if I would blame the headline or the decrease in people actually bothering reading the article-in-question.)
- gorgoiler 5y agoI’m assuming Tesla don’t give you the source code to their cars. Does anyone? I’d love to have a car that can be taken apart and put back together — the engine and the UI. Not because I have the skill or shop needed to do maintenance, but because at least I stand a chance of paying someone else to. Right now it feels like I’m dealing with a bunch of pirates. I either pay $800 to hack an HDMI cable into my Audi’s virtual cockpit just so I can use a map that’s not 6 years out of date, or $500 to the dealership to install the latest map update pack. Argh!
- chuckSu 5y agoI feel your pain
- hutzlibu 5y agoNo, sadly there is no open source car avaiable (I think some designs exist, coming from univerisies, but nothing you could buy anywhere) I suppose consumers, tuners and repair shops would love it. But I do not see any big company ever going into that direction. It would be interesting, how it could avoid the patent madness. I assume EVERYTHING with cars is patented.
- Roritharr 5y agoI've actually had the intention of building a company focused on manufacturing and selling open-source household appliances, like washing machines, fridges etc. Cars would be the endgame for a company like this. Still in the early planning stages, just creating a good toaster that's repairable, open etc. is an interesting undertaking if you want everything above board.
- have_faith 5y agoAny way I can follow your progress?
- follower 5y agoI spoke about a concept related to this a few years ago in "Fair Trade Consumer Electronics with Open Hardware": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM80hQ117JM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM80hQ117JM Might have some prior art for folks interested in the topic. It's a pretty interesting topic from both a technical & business/marketing point of view. Couple other lists of somewhat related links: * http://web.archive.org/web/20200119053707/http://www.labradoc.com/i/follower/p/notes-open-consumer-electronics http://web.archive.org/web/20200119053707/http://www.labrado... * http://web.archive.org/web/20200119061518/http://www.labradoc.com/i/follower/p/notes-fair-electronics http://web.archive.org/web/20200119061518/http://www.labrado... * http://web.archive.org/web/20200119061518/http://www.labradoc.com/i/follower/p/notes-fair-electronics http://web.archive.org/web/20200119061518/http://www.labrado...
- nraynaud 5y agoOuch, so much for the argument that self-driving is safer if the car was tail-gating another car and didn’t have the reaction speed to brake.
- runj__ 5y agoIsn't tail-gating more common in non-self driving cars though?
- lixtra 5y agoWhile the software might have failed here, so did the human driver who failed to stop the unsafely operating autopilot. And this very problem could be fixed with the next software upgrade. The more appropriate question if the autopilot is worth it if it has to be carefully watched by humans.
- oefrha 5y agohttps://archive.md/SQpJz https://archive.md/SQpJz
- smartbit 5y agoThe original article in Dutch https://www.forensischinstituut.nl/actueel/nieuws/2021/10/21/opgeslagen-data-in-autos-bevatten-een-schat-aan-informatie-voor-strafrechtelijke-onderzoeken https://www.forensischinstituut.nl/actueel/nieuws/2021/10/21... and google translate to English https://www-forensischinstituut-nl.translate.goog/actueel/nieuws/2021/10/21/opgeslagen-data-in-autos-bevatten-een-schat-aan-informatie-voor-strafrechtelijke-onderzoeken?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=nui https://www-forensischinstituut-nl.translate.goog/actueel/ni...
- smarx007 5y agoThanks! And the conference publication with technical details: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355202701_Reverse_engineering_and_evaluation_of_Tesla_vehicle_logs https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355202701_Reverse_e...
- faebi 5y agoWhat if not all sensor data is accurate or reliable? For example their new cars have no radar and therefore the distance is just an assumption of the AI model and can be wrong. It would be pretty bad to rely on unreliable data for the justice system. If they want to use all data I assume some form of interpretation should be done by the Tesla to avoid false positives or false negatives. Especially in crashes where FSD was driving.
- bumbada 5y agoRadar data is also an assumption, way weaker than cameras. Cars radar sensors are not the F22 ones, they are very simple, limited and it is not the sky in which metallic objects are foreign and there is empty space everywhere. The world on earth surface is full of metallic objects with very complex shapes and reflections everywhere(and you have military safety standards, my uncle got cancer(and died) after working with military radars as an engineer and working so close to them). My uncle could not prove the connection but if thousands of people start getting cancer after those devices are common it will be much easier to prove. With cameras you have millions of points array for cheap that lets you differentiate things much better than simple radars do. Imagine that you integrate all the colors that go in a camera to a single color. That is what you have with radar sensors.
- kortex 5y agoDid you mean single pixel? Even with a single color, a camera provides a wealth of information. Radar is not quite a single pixel - there is speed, phase, and timing information - but it's much closer to a single pixel than to a monochrome camera. The driving radar I mean. The kit on used in aerospace sweeps out an area so it's more like a camera in the actual output. Side note: Sorry about your uncle, but I do wish to point out, radar is non ionizing and extremely unlikely to cause mutation. What is more likely carcinogenic is stuff like degreasers, paints, fluids, and open burn pits the military likes to use.
- firebaze 5y agoIf he was a radar technician, and worked close to the radar itself while it was operating, there's quite a chance this causes cancer. See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ijc.23988 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ijc.23988
- MrDresden 5y agoFrankly I feel that for this kind of investication (car crashes and accidents) the manufacturer should be required to hand over all data relevant to the investigation. On device logs are probably the most relevant data you could get in these cases. That this lab decided to try to decipher the data, and found troves of it that wasn't known to exist before, speaks to how the relationship must be. They didn't trust Tesla to hand everything over. In my humble opinion, any region should force all manufacturer of cars that will be sold in that region to hand over data (or methods by extracting the data) in cases like these, lest their license to sell their product be rescinded.
- dan1234 5y agoI’d go further, and say that the data should be exportable in a predefined format (ideally an open standard), so that investigators can use 3rd party tools to investigate any make of ‘smart car’.
- kalium-xyz 5y agoI feel like the owner should get access rather than institutes or the manufacturers. Anyone else should figure it out with said owner.
- ls15 5y agoHah, you were a minute faster. :)
- xg15 5y agoWhat if the owner caused the accident and has an interest to deny access to the data?
- 10000truths 5y agoThen you obtain a warrant for that data, as intended by due process of law. If the owner still refuses to hand it over, you have them on obstruction of justice.
- tdrdt 5y agoI just read some Dutch news sources to get some more context. Some things to know: Tesla hands over all requested data in case of an investigation. But only the requested data. Because we now know what data is stored more data can and will be requested in the future. The crash was caused by the driver because he thought lane assistance was turned on but only adaptive cruise control was turned on. This caused the vehicle to move to another lane. So the question about this accident is: how obvious is it for the driver what is going on and what assistance to expect.
- mft_ 5y ago> So the question about this accident is: how obvious is it for the driver what is going on and what assistance to expect. - you have to deliberately turn the full assistance on/off - there are audio cues when it turns on, and whilst it’s on, and when it turns off - the visuals on the screen are different when it’s on vs. off - the steering wheel feels very different when it’s on - when it’s on, there are regular cues to generate torque through the wheel to show you’re paying attention - the overall concept is that even when it’s on, you should keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention - though this is obviously subject to human failings TBF, I’ve done something similar once or twice —-only turned on cruise control when I thought I’d turned on full assist—- but if you’ve got your hands on the wheel it’s pretty natural and quick to correct and then realise your mistake.
- arghwhat 5y agoSo we're down to small UI differences on the dashboard, and having the driver notice the control forces...
- mft_ 5y ago…and multiple audio cues. Not being facetious, but aren’t audio, visual (=the dashboard), and touch (=control forces) the only ways a human is able to interact with a car? They could make the engagement or not of FSD more obvious in the UI, and maybe have spoken alerts? (Although at the moment there are so many audio alerts in a Tesla, I think it’s approaching saturation - the point where if everything is an alarm, then nothing is an alarm…)
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoI wish there were more information about how they were able to "decrypt" the data. I put that in quotes because often times journalists or laypeople don't differentiate between a file format that is just compressed or obfuscated in some way, and true encryption. After all, it would be trivial for Tesla to provide essentially unbreakable encryption: just encode all the stored data with a public key where only Tesla has the corresponding private key. But if NFI was able to decrypt, they obviously don't do that, so I'm curious what manner of "encryption" is used in the car.
- jeroenhd 5y agoThe paper about it [0] calls it "reverse engineering and evaluation" to the word "decrypt" was probably used wrongly. [0]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355202701_Reverse_engineering_and_evaluation_of_Tesla_vehicle_logs https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355202701_Reverse_e...
- warp 5y agoLooks like they published their code and tools here: https://github.com/NetherlandsForensicInstitute/teslalogs https://github.com/NetherlandsForensicInstitute/teslalogs
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoThank you very much. That repo has a detailed description of their procedure [1], and it's clear they just reverse engineered the binary file format. 1. https://github.com/NetherlandsForensicInstitute/teslalogs/tree/master/writeup https://github.com/NetherlandsForensicInstitute/teslalogs/tr...
- orev 5y agoThe word “decrypt” means “make (a coded or unclear message) intelligible”, which is more broad than the IT-specific jargon of using cipher algorithms. It’s perfectly fine to use “decrypt” in the general sense in an article meant for general people to read.
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- aquatica 5y ago> The NFI said the decrypted data showed Tesla vehicles store information about the operation of its driver assistance system, known as Autopilot. The vehicles also record speed, accelerator pedal position, steering wheel angle and brake usage Aren’t these the same things twitter.com/greentheonly publishes very often? Example: https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1431094320296235008 https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1431094320296235008
- throwawaysea 5y agoQuestion for Tesla owners: is it possible to opt out of such telemetry? I like the cars but find the idea of being closely tracked and monitored very creepy.