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“Tesla USA engineers have seen a tentative of hacking on my car.”, “can be related to industrial espionage and advised me to stop investigation, to not void the

“Tesla USA engineers have seen a tentative of hacking on my car.”, “can be related to industrial espionage and advised me to stop investigation, to not void the warranty”. So long as you don't cause any damage they can't void your warranty in the US thanks to the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act.

eridius 13y ago
Poking around an unknown device's network and sending arbitrary commands to see how it responds could certainly very well damage something.
- threeseed 13y ago
  So could poking around the physical components of the car. But people are well within the right to do so.
- Maxious 13y ago
  On page 53 of the "Adventures in Automotive Network and Control Units" paper there's a photo of what happened to the researchers garage after a command to run diagnostics on the brakes left the vehicle unable to stop even at slow speeds http://illmatics.com/car_hacking.pdf http://illmatics.com/car_hacking.pdf
jnbiche 13y ago
And that's a mighty hacker-unfriendly stance to take for a company whose client base is made up of a disproportionately large number of engineers and computer scientists, many of whom will doubtless be curious as to the inner workings of their car computer systems. I mean, could you imagine if a car manufacturer took this attitude toward car owners who were exploring the car's transmission, which is clearly just as critical to the car's safety as the car computer system? My view of Tesla just sank a notch (but I still want one). Edit: Actually, I thought about it a bit, and I actually don't want one anymore if this is the attitude that prevails inside the company. For the same reason that I don't want any Apple products. I'm far from a Stallman acolyte, but I'll be damned if I'll buy from a company that wants to forbid me from hacking on hardware that I have purchased and own.
- takeda 13y ago
  Given that the fires were blown out of proportion by the media, I'm totally not surprised that they reacted this way. Imagine headlines if someone would be killed due to not correctly operating component because the owner used a buggy mod.
  - threeseed 13y ago
    The only thing blown out of proportion is the reaction by Tesla and their supporters to the media. The media is doing what they do. Presenting stories that people care about. Major incidents to a brand that is new and popular is absolutely newsworthy. But just because there maybe a bad story or two doesn't mean that Tesla should prevent people from doing whatever they want to their own car.
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    If that's possible from the entertainment system bus rather than hotwiring chips and critical inaccessible wires, they deserve such headlines.
- sebastianavina 13y ago
  Maybe all the source code of the media system is written in Python, and everybody can see / modify the code..
- Vespasian 13y ago
  I think there is a difference between hacking (or even exploring) something like a phone, game console or router and a car, plane or any other thing that can immediately put in danger the live and health of many unrelated persons. Therefore I thinks Tesla acts as responsible as they should when detecting and reacting upon active (as opposed to passively analyzing radio transmissions) manipulation of their cars inner systems. As other comments have pointed out you don't want to find out about bugs in critical systems triggered by your entertainment system jailbreak when driving with 100km/h+ on a crowded highway. Your phone hack / mod fails badly => Buy a new phone Your car hack fails badly => People die It's simply not worth it.

eridius 13y ago

Poking around an unknown device's network and sending arbitrary commands to see how it responds could certainly very well damage something.

threeseed 13y ago
So could poking around the physical components of the car. But people are well within the right to do so.
Maxious 13y ago
On page 53 of the "Adventures in Automotive Network and Control Units" paper there's a photo of what happened to the researchers garage after a command to run diagnostics on the brakes left the vehicle unable to stop even at slow speeds http://illmatics.com/car_hacking.pdf http://illmatics.com/car_hacking.pdf

jnbiche 13y ago

And that's a mighty hacker-unfriendly stance to take for a company whose client base is made up of a disproportionately large number of engineers and computer scientists, many of whom will doubtless be curious as to the inner workings of their car computer systems. I mean, could you imagine if a car manufacturer took this attitude toward car owners who were exploring the car's transmission, which is clearly just as critical to the car's safety as the car computer system? My view of Tesla just sank a notch (but I still want one). Edit: Actually, I thought about it a bit, and I actually don't want one anymore if this is the attitude that prevails inside the company. For the same reason that I don't want any Apple products. I'm far from a Stallman acolyte, but I'll be damned if I'll buy from a company that wants to forbid me from hacking on hardware that I have purchased and own.

takeda 13y ago
Given that the fires were blown out of proportion by the media, I'm totally not surprised that they reacted this way. Imagine headlines if someone would be killed due to not correctly operating component because the owner used a buggy mod.
- threeseed 13y ago
  The only thing blown out of proportion is the reaction by Tesla and their supporters to the media. The media is doing what they do. Presenting stories that people care about. Major incidents to a brand that is new and popular is absolutely newsworthy. But just because there maybe a bad story or two doesn't mean that Tesla should prevent people from doing whatever they want to their own car.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  If that's possible from the entertainment system bus rather than hotwiring chips and critical inaccessible wires, they deserve such headlines.
sebastianavina 13y ago
Maybe all the source code of the media system is written in Python, and everybody can see / modify the code..
Vespasian 13y ago
I think there is a difference between hacking (or even exploring) something like a phone, game console or router and a car, plane or any other thing that can immediately put in danger the live and health of many unrelated persons. Therefore I thinks Tesla acts as responsible as they should when detecting and reacting upon active (as opposed to passively analyzing radio transmissions) manipulation of their cars inner systems. As other comments have pointed out you don't want to find out about bugs in critical systems triggered by your entertainment system jailbreak when driving with 100km/h+ on a crowded highway. Your phone hack / mod fails badly => Buy a new phone Your car hack fails badly => People die It's simply not worth it.