5 ms·

Here's a hot take: legislate an airgap between operation control and infotainment/convenience horseshit.

Loughla 3y ago
Exactly. The infotainment bullshit should be in zero way connected to the actual operation of the vehicle. There is zero reason why the laggy, nonsensical software that controls my radio should control my engine. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.
- sidewndr46 3y ago
  The reason is optimizing for lower cost.
- PeterisP 3y ago
  It's not as simple. For example, look at the distance sensors used for parking and the data coming from them over the CAN bus. That bus needs to be able to (at least indirectly) reach the brakes so that automatic emergency braking can take their measurements as inputs. And that bus needs to be able to reach the audio system to provide audible feedback to the driver when parking, and also mute the radio. Ergo, you have a bus that reaches both brakes and radio. Now, you might want to prevent the radio firmware from sending data to the brakes over that bus, but physically you have to have a connection between them, as we don't really want to make many separate buses for reasons of complexity, cost and maintenance; moving from a separate end-to-end wire for each specific purpose towards a shared bus was a great improvement.
  - RealityVoid 3y ago
    Current cars usually have gateways that route messages around different busses. This would protect you from having unwanted messages arriving on secured buses, but pass through the wanted messages.
    - Tangurena2 3y ago
      Unfortunately, those gateways are pretty poor when they do exist. There are some thieves in the UK popping off headlights to access the CAN bus, where they then inject a message that tells the system that a valid key has been used so go start the engine.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    Parking assist is the very definition of bullshit convenience. In this case apparently it's dangerous as well?
    - 542354234235 3y ago
      >According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), approximately 188,000 passenger vehicles were backing in crashes reported to the police in the United States during 2015…The combination of Rear Vision Camera and Rear Parking Assist reduced backing crash involvement rates by 42%. When Rear Automatic Braking was added to the Rear Vision Camera and Rear Parking Assist, vehicles with all three systems had backing crash involvement rates that were 78% lower than vehicles with none of the systems.[1] The data would seem to contradict that statement. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022437518303451 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00224...
      - RoseRose 3y ago
        I think "Rear Parking Assist" would be better phrased as "Rear Proximity Sensors", as the "Automatic Parking Assist" (which is what I thought we were discussing) only brings a (likely statistically insignificant) marginal risk reduction of 2% and seems to fall under the "bullshit convenience" category. I do agree that the proximity sensors are themselves huge wins but (if I'm understanding correctly) this could be fairly trivially conveyed on the dashboard instead of the infotainment system. As I see it, the issue here is that it's in automakers interest to tie together the safety improvements (which are great and benefit people) with the cost-reduction mechanisms consolidating controls and monitors into a single screen which seem to conflate operation with infotainment and, I would argue, reduce peoples' safety. This is only tangentially related but different to the repair question, so I modified what I said a bit to reflect I was going off topic.
      - forgetfreeman 3y ago
        You misunderstood my intent, I'm saying that introducing these systems apparently produces a infosec threat significant enough to warrant federal legislation. In response to your post however I think we can dispense with the notion that folks backing into parked cars, light posts, etc, represents anything more than a nuisance to whoever owned the property that got backed into. Yeah it says "crash" in the writeup but we're not talking Michael Bay style 8 lanes of exploding cars here.
  - snarfy 3y ago
    > And that bus needs to be able to reach the audio system to provide audible feedback to the driver when parking, and also mute the radio. Ergo, you have a bus that reaches both brakes and radio A $2 speaker would work just fine. You would still hear it over the radio. If your radio is so loud you couldn't hear it while parking you have bigger problems. A shared bus might be more efficient, but it is not more redundant. I would rather spend $2 on redundancy here.
  - 83 3y ago
    Seems like that would be trivially managed with a firewall (canbus security gateway). Is it purely cost that they don't lock down or segment off the canbus? Being able to steal a car by talking to the immobilizer through the headlights comes to mind.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > Ergo, you have a bus that reaches both brakes and radio. But do you? Why not have a plain old audio connection that goes to the audio system? It doesn't have to be on the CAN.
- sonic45132 3y ago
  Without all that being connected how else would they use the built-in lte to send back all of the data about you from the car? Car companies cant be missing out on selling customer data too.
- VectorLock 3y ago
  Because people want things like remote start, remote climate control, etc. that they can control from phone apps.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    Do they though? I mean if it's there sure people will mess with it but I don't recall any public outcry for either center dash ADHD factories or keyless anything.
    - dsr_ 3y ago
      In my experience, people like the following remote features: * Where's my car? Press the button, get a honk. * Lock the doors. If they're powered, close themi first. * Unlock the doors. If they're powered, open them afterward. * Warm up the car, it's cold outside. * Cool down the car, it's hot outside. So that's five buttons on a remote, maximum. None of them require connection to infotainment systems.
      - dsr_ 3y ago
        If I didn't care about discoverability, I could reasonably reduce that to: * Lock button. Hold it down to get a honk. * Unlock button. Hold it to get the car started; if the interior temperature of the cabin is outside a set range, warm or cool it appropriately. Make one button big and round and smooth and bright, and the other one big and square and textured and dark.
        fragmede 3y ago
        That's easy enough for the salesman to tell the customer when they're looking at the car. Still need a button to open the trunk tho.
    - VectorLock 3y ago
      I do, yes. It'd also be nice to know things like state of charge/how much gas I got, whats the car temperature now - tell me when it reaches X, look at my car's cameras. There are plenty of compelling use-cases.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  No, your radio has to be able to talk to the engine controller. How else can you get the engine to backfire in time with the beat?
- stjohnswarts 3y ago
  There really isn't any reason why your infotainment system can't be separate from core functioning control. It's just cheaper for the manufacturer to slap it all in one platform with the added advantage of huge profit margins on getting it fixed when something simple fails.
aoweijrti 3y ago
Nice in theory but almost impossible in practice, unless you start installing two copies of many things, one for safety-critical purposes and one for infotainment purposes.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  I fail to see the problem. Ditch the bullshit or at least corral it into a corner where it can't fuck with anything vital to vehicle operation and safety. ABS systems (for example) worked swimmingly decades before the first net-connected infotainment system was theorized.
- groos 3y ago
  Tesla already does this. You can reboot the user screen while driving the car. Everything works but the only negative thing I've noticed is that you get no indication of turn signals working (they're flashing).
- JohnFen 3y ago
  What's wrong with doing that?

Exactly. The infotainment bullshit should be in zero way connected to the actual operation of the vehicle. There is zero reason why the laggy, nonsensical software that controls my radio should control my engine. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.

sidewndr46 3y ago
The reason is optimizing for lower cost.
PeterisP 3y ago
It's not as simple. For example, look at the distance sensors used for parking and the data coming from them over the CAN bus. That bus needs to be able to (at least indirectly) reach the brakes so that automatic emergency braking can take their measurements as inputs. And that bus needs to be able to reach the audio system to provide audible feedback to the driver when parking, and also mute the radio. Ergo, you have a bus that reaches both brakes and radio. Now, you might want to prevent the radio firmware from sending data to the brakes over that bus, but physically you have to have a connection between them, as we don't really want to make many separate buses for reasons of complexity, cost and maintenance; moving from a separate end-to-end wire for each specific purpose towards a shared bus was a great improvement.
- RealityVoid 3y ago
  Current cars usually have gateways that route messages around different busses. This would protect you from having unwanted messages arriving on secured buses, but pass through the wanted messages.
  - Tangurena2 3y ago
    Unfortunately, those gateways are pretty poor when they do exist. There are some thieves in the UK popping off headlights to access the CAN bus, where they then inject a message that tells the system that a valid key has been used so go start the engine.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  Parking assist is the very definition of bullshit convenience. In this case apparently it's dangerous as well?
  - 542354234235 3y ago
    >According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), approximately 188,000 passenger vehicles were backing in crashes reported to the police in the United States during 2015…The combination of Rear Vision Camera and Rear Parking Assist reduced backing crash involvement rates by 42%. When Rear Automatic Braking was added to the Rear Vision Camera and Rear Parking Assist, vehicles with all three systems had backing crash involvement rates that were 78% lower than vehicles with none of the systems.[1] The data would seem to contradict that statement. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022437518303451 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00224...
    - RoseRose 3y ago
      I think "Rear Parking Assist" would be better phrased as "Rear Proximity Sensors", as the "Automatic Parking Assist" (which is what I thought we were discussing) only brings a (likely statistically insignificant) marginal risk reduction of 2% and seems to fall under the "bullshit convenience" category. I do agree that the proximity sensors are themselves huge wins but (if I'm understanding correctly) this could be fairly trivially conveyed on the dashboard instead of the infotainment system. As I see it, the issue here is that it's in automakers interest to tie together the safety improvements (which are great and benefit people) with the cost-reduction mechanisms consolidating controls and monitors into a single screen which seem to conflate operation with infotainment and, I would argue, reduce peoples' safety. This is only tangentially related but different to the repair question, so I modified what I said a bit to reflect I was going off topic.
    - forgetfreeman 3y ago
      You misunderstood my intent, I'm saying that introducing these systems apparently produces a infosec threat significant enough to warrant federal legislation. In response to your post however I think we can dispense with the notion that folks backing into parked cars, light posts, etc, represents anything more than a nuisance to whoever owned the property that got backed into. Yeah it says "crash" in the writeup but we're not talking Michael Bay style 8 lanes of exploding cars here.
- snarfy 3y ago
  > And that bus needs to be able to reach the audio system to provide audible feedback to the driver when parking, and also mute the radio. Ergo, you have a bus that reaches both brakes and radio A $2 speaker would work just fine. You would still hear it over the radio. If your radio is so loud you couldn't hear it while parking you have bigger problems. A shared bus might be more efficient, but it is not more redundant. I would rather spend $2 on redundancy here.
- 83 3y ago
  Seems like that would be trivially managed with a firewall (canbus security gateway). Is it purely cost that they don't lock down or segment off the canbus? Being able to steal a car by talking to the immobilizer through the headlights comes to mind.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > Ergo, you have a bus that reaches both brakes and radio. But do you? Why not have a plain old audio connection that goes to the audio system? It doesn't have to be on the CAN.
sonic45132 3y ago
Without all that being connected how else would they use the built-in lte to send back all of the data about you from the car? Car companies cant be missing out on selling customer data too.
VectorLock 3y ago
Because people want things like remote start, remote climate control, etc. that they can control from phone apps.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  Do they though? I mean if it's there sure people will mess with it but I don't recall any public outcry for either center dash ADHD factories or keyless anything.
  - dsr_ 3y ago
    In my experience, people like the following remote features: * Where's my car? Press the button, get a honk. * Lock the doors. If they're powered, close themi first. * Unlock the doors. If they're powered, open them afterward. * Warm up the car, it's cold outside. * Cool down the car, it's hot outside. So that's five buttons on a remote, maximum. None of them require connection to infotainment systems.
    - dsr_ 3y ago
      If I didn't care about discoverability, I could reasonably reduce that to: * Lock button. Hold it down to get a honk. * Unlock button. Hold it to get the car started; if the interior temperature of the cabin is outside a set range, warm or cool it appropriately. Make one button big and round and smooth and bright, and the other one big and square and textured and dark.
      - fragmede 3y ago
        That's easy enough for the salesman to tell the customer when they're looking at the car. Still need a button to open the trunk tho.
  - VectorLock 3y ago
    I do, yes. It'd also be nice to know things like state of charge/how much gas I got, whats the car temperature now - tell me when it reaches X, look at my car's cameras. There are plenty of compelling use-cases.
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
No, your radio has to be able to talk to the engine controller. How else can you get the engine to backfire in time with the beat?
stjohnswarts 3y ago
There really isn't any reason why your infotainment system can't be separate from core functioning control. It's just cheaper for the manufacturer to slap it all in one platform with the added advantage of huge profit margins on getting it fixed when something simple fails.

aoweijrti 3y ago

Nice in theory but almost impossible in practice, unless you start installing two copies of many things, one for safety-critical purposes and one for infotainment purposes.

forgetfreeman 3y ago
I fail to see the problem. Ditch the bullshit or at least corral it into a corner where it can't fuck with anything vital to vehicle operation and safety. ABS systems (for example) worked swimmingly decades before the first net-connected infotainment system was theorized.
groos 3y ago
Tesla already does this. You can reboot the user screen while driving the car. Everything works but the only negative thing I've noticed is that you get no indication of turn signals working (they're flashing).
JohnFen 3y ago
What's wrong with doing that?