Tesla Hacker Launches Open-Source Project 'FreedomEV' To Run On Rooted Teslas, Bring New Wi-Fi Hotspot and Anti-Tracking Features (freedomev.com) 118
Slashdot reader internet-redstar writes: The Tesla Hacker, Jasper Nuyens -- who uncovered Tesla's "unconfirmed lane change" last year -- now launched at FOSDEM an open-source project called "FreedomEV" to run on top of rooted Teslas. It adds new features to the vehicles, such as a "Hotspot Mode" for in-car Wi-Fi and a "Cloak Mode" to prevent all location tracking and more. It hopes to become available for other cars too. Full presentation video can be found here. The Github project and the website. He is looking for contributors and support from Tesla.
If i was an insurance (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if i was an insurance company, i would call the insurance void for any car with rooted software.
Not because this particular software is so dangerous, but other software maybe is. That, and the manufacturer can no longer be held liable and/or the vehicle is not on the road as when in tested conditions that approved it. Rooting your car's software might have all kind of unexpected side effects. Even if it's only the entertainment system, in a Tesla that's still highly integrated with the rest of the car.
Now of course i'm not an insurance company, and i would prefer cars to have a full stack of open-source software, that the user could upgrade or change at will. But i do think there are legal issues that have to be dealt with, in case of an error, being it user or software or company's fault.
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Agreed. Rooting a mobile phone is one thing, rooting something that weights 2 tons and can do 150mph is something else entirely and could have fatal consequences to occupants and bystanders.
Re:If i was an insurance (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet you can do complete overhauls of mechanical cars legally.
Personal responsibility is what is missing here. If you don't have the skill to do it. Don't
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Ooogy-boogy! It's software! It's magic! Mere mortals should not be allowed to meddle with it!
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Yet you can do complete overhauls of mechanical cars legally.
Personal responsibility is what is missing here. If you don't have the skill to do it. Don't
The problem is that this software will be available to Joe Schmoe, who can just plug it in without understanding the repercussions. You can't completely overhaul a mechanical car without at least a little knowledge.
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No, but you can pay someone else to do it for you, not much different.
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You don't have to present any sort of certificate of mastery to the guy at the parts counter.
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You don't have to present any sort of certificate of mastery to the guy at the parts counter.
No, but you generally have to know something to actually make substantial mechanical changes. Most people who are capable of making the vehicle make substantially more power, for example, are also capable of understanding the value of increasing braking force. People who just buy a tune off the internet get into trouble all the time.
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Where I grew up, seeing a Mustang or Nova with steam pouring out of it was a common sight. The owners either forgot or never knew that if you increase engine output, you need more cooling. They tended to have stock brakes.
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Those vehicles (in the Nova era) had inadequate brakes from the factory :)
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So imagine how much less adequate they were after the engine got a power boost!
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Re: If i was an insurance (Score:2)
Are you implying a random mechanic who dropped out of high school is a smarter and more balanced person that a software professional with an engineering degree?
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Most people who are capable of making the vehicle make substantially more power, for example, are also capable of understanding the value of increasing braking force.
You mean like chip tuning?
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You kind of miss the point. Yes, you can screw with your car mechanically or it's programming but if it causes the car to crash, you will lose your insurance coverage, be sued by your victims and of course if the change was proven reckless, be charged with reckless operation of a vehicle and the penalties on top like manslaughter should you kill someone.
Do not hack you cars software, you make yourself fully legally liable for all consequences and in the event of an incident, you will have to prove your inn
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If you don't have the skill to do it. Don't
Be at ease, citizen -- Dunning-Kruger Man is here you rescue you from your folly!
Re:If i was an insurance (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If i was an insurance (Score:4)
Changing the injection profile of a ICE car has a very circumcised impact and does not have the same security risks as mucking around the same computers that control the steering acceleration and braking on a Tesla. Do you also play with matches and wonder how people die in building fires?
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This is how privilege escalation starts. Combine this with an exploit to break out of the sandbox, voila! you pwn the whole car.
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Nope. They are two entirely separate computers. The MCU (Media Control Unit) is a physical computer that controls the main screen. I think it also controls the small dashboard screen, but I'm not 100% certain. In MCU1 cars, they are based on NVIDIA Tegra. In MCU2 cars, they're Intel-based.
The autopilot computer is an entirely separate piece of hardware. In AP1 systems (all MCU1), the AP computer was built by MobileEye. In AP2 setups hardware (all MCU1), they are based on NVIDIA Tegra. In AP2.5 cars
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Not all ICE cars driven today have a smog-check certificate or ECU's that control ABS or airbags. However, all Tesla's have computers that go much further, controlling the steering, acceleration and _all_ braking, not just ABS & airbags. I'll agree with you that mucking around the computers of ICE cars with computer controlled security features can be a bad idea but with the computers being the heart of Teslas critical driving functions, people doing so approach Darwin Award levels of poor judgement bec
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Any teen is free to DIY their brakes. It's even fairly common because guess who is more likely to have some free time than they are to have enough money to pay a mechanic?
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Teens with Teslas are already pretty uncommon.
Teens with Teslas and sufficient knowledge to start mucking around with the car's internal systems without the Tesla shutting down due to unsigned & unrecognized code or know how to get around these checks are going to be exceptionally rare. Not all teens are Bunny Huang (who isn't a teenager anymore either).
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Meaning anyone who manages to successfully hack their Tesla will be well more qualified than we require to be permitted to work on a safety critical automotive system. My point exactly.
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Changing the injection profile of a ICE car has a very circumcised impact and does not have the same security risks as mucking around the same computers that control the steering acceleration and braking on a Tesla.
No. This is EXACTLY the same thing in all/most modern cars.
You would think that the various electronic subsystems would be segregated, but no. That is not natural to how people think. Even modern airplanes don't have true separation between the entertainment systems and the bus that routes the signals to various elements that control the plane in the air.
So yeah, if you modified the injection profile on my car, built all the way back in 2004, you also have the ability to crash any safety features present in
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Tesla cars are Powerful. A non-Elon should never be afforded that kind of power!
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There is a level of debatable difference between previous iterations of car modding (more power, better/worse handling, appearance, sound) and modifying software that has the ability to fully drive a car. Sure, adding a supercharger and 200 HP to a car could make it more dangerous in the hands of an average driver, or potentially push the physics of the car to the point where it's no longer 100% safe on the road, but that's still in a different realm than messing with the brain of a car that you didn't desi
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Standard insurance question - is your car "modified"? Modify the car and fail to declare it and yes it'll void the insurance. Tell them and they'll insure you but you'll be subject to much higher premiums as they can't assess the risk accurately any longer.
Re: If i was an insurance (Score:3)
I've always wondered about that. What exactly does "modified" mean? If I have to change my calipers and use non-OEM ones, is the car now modified? What about if a shop installs non-OEM shocks? Is that a modification?
The previous guy talked about even software changes to the entertainment system could potentially be dangerous ... how is that different than having a custom deck put in? Does the insurance company consider a custom deck to be a "modification" which can void your policy?
It all seems rather
Legal in Canada (Score:3)
See Ghaffari v. Co-operators General Insurance Co., 1996 CanLII 8031 (ON SC), http://canlii.ca/t/1vtth [canlii.ca], as retrieved on 2019-02-09
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What exactly does "modified" mean? If I have to change my calipers and use non-OEM ones, is the car now modified? What about if a shop installs non-OEM shocks? Is that a modification?
Yes, if insurance (or even the state) wants to play it that way, they would be within their rights. We already have those rules for aircraft.
The previous guy talked about even software changes to the entertainment system could potentially be dangerous ... how is that different than having a custom deck put in?
C'mon, man, you d
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The deck isn't integrated with the cruise control, it just taps power.
Welcome to the 21st century, where the 'deck' generally taps into the vehicle CAN bus for things like integration with the wheel controls.
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The previous guy talked about even software changes to the entertainment system could potentially be dangerous ... how is that different than having a custom deck put in?
It's software. Software has bugs. Changes to the entertainment system shouldn't cause problems elsewhere, but how sure are you that they don't? And the problem with insurance is not that they may not pay out if the software caused a crash, they may declare your insurance void if they find out the software is modified. Of course they will only do that after an expensive accident, and return say $2,000 insurance payments instead of paying out say $20,000 for damages.
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And so, your honor, we're absolutely certain the brake failure was caused by the pine tree air freshener hanging on the rear view mirror.
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Usually anything that a) increases risk or b) increases value/repair cost. So pretty much any change from factory, including things like adding a protecting coating or wrap.
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I actually went to pay my car insurance today at state farm. I asked about modifying vehicles and they have no rules against modifying. Also my state doesn't do emission inspection. State farm even insures golf carts here cause many many people in my town put blinkers and brake lights on a golf cart and use for for in town travel.
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Nope, never been asked that.
I have my car way over-insured too. Even full coverage with everything, they don't ask me that question.
As long as I start from a car in their database, I can modify it as much as I like and they don't care. If it was a pure custom car, then it would be more complicated.
I don't doubt that they asked you that, but I've never been asked that, so how "standard" is it?
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Now if i was an insurance company, i would call the insurance void for any car with rooted software
When you are making modifications to the drive train, or modify your car so it's value increases, you should report it to insurance. These things are different in most countries, but car modification, modding or tuning exists already for a long time. Advise for your specific region is certainly available.
It is typically focused on things which DO MATTER with respect to safety: changing the suspension, making the car more powerful and things like that. An insurance can't claim that the cause of an acciden
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>"Now if i was an insurance company, i would call the insurance void for any car with rooted software."
I agree that it is way dangerous to just "root" a car and start changing stuff. But what if it were a professional tuning/mod company who does it for a living and spends a lot of time, money, and effort making specific, tested changes that are even independently reviewed/certified? I could envision "Private Car Inc" or something where they offer a mod that gives the user an on/off switch for privacy-
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Not well thought out. (Score:3)
I'm not saying it's a bad idea but do you really want to be messing with your car using JavaScript, Unix shell and PHP? I know you're thinking, "but those are the most reliable languages!" and I'm going to have to disagree because that title clearly belongs to Adobe Flash and Microsoft ActiveX. ;)
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I think it's hilarious that the mods went crazy on this. I guess they didn't read the post subject... or anything else. ;)
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It was probably just stupid and anti-intellectual, and this is a site for nerds.
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Arduino is:
1) A brand of carrier board for AVR microcontrollers
and
2) A programming GUI that comes with a C library that makes it easier for newbs to write C for microcontrollers.
There is nothing there that would make any connection with spaghetti code.
You're just smooshing two pejoratives you don't understand together, and tossing them at somebody. For shame.
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You know whats even cooler? Licking your fingers & sticking them in an electrical socket. You should do that right away! Better yet, throw yourself off a multi-story building face first! Nobody cares if it's dangerous, it's cool so you gotta do it...
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Just shout that question up the stairs and find out, jeeze.
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Hey Ivan, Americans don't have a "fatherland."
Countries that use that metaphor are usually countries we're about to have to go to war with.
Will it Pass DMV Inspection? (Score:3)
I suspect vehicle manufacturers will soon lobby state DMVs to fail the inspection of any vehicles that is running has non-manufacturer approved software.
It's for the safety of the children.
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I live in Georgia, we've never had emission inspections lol
That's West coast Cali bullshit
Health/Life Safety (Score:1)
Hacking anything that falls under health/life safety is really not a good idea.
Imagine how much faster I could get things done if I hacked the light curtain on the guillotine paper cutter at work!
Yeah, lets not go there.
Filthy statists. (Score:1)
I read this thread and omg... do you guys even car? One can change any mechanical or software component on current vehicles. And that's not even the half of it; the ones screeching the loudest about this probably wear their brake pads to a nub and refuse to fix anything until it becomes catastrophic. Guess what, their insurance isn't dropping them, they don't get tickets, they keep driving. Then they argue with the mechanic on why things need to be replaced so they don't actually kill them cuz they're getti
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I tell my mechanic I want to replace stuff, and he says, "Why don't we just test it first?" Come on man, I feel better when I have some new parts.
In any case, there is no conflict in these people's opinions; they're mostly Republican neckbeards. As is well documented, most of the people who support deregulation have a false belief about what the current rules are. When I talk to people who want to deregulate about what sort of safety rules they would support, they always describe safety rules that are broad
wow. Some of the comments here (Score:2)
Look, I buy a thing. It is mine. We own a Tesla. It is ours. We extended our warranty and even when it expires, we will continue with Tesla service. Why? Because they are excellent.
Obviously, if you root your car, then Tesla no longer has any responsibility to your. At that point, Tesla can, and should, shut down all communications to the car. That means that the telephony connection should be stopped. No more tracking. But, also no more internet/ip ra
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Dangerous as hell! (Score:2)
No one should use this for any reason.
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tesla hire this guy (Score:2)
tesla should hire this guy, let him do his thing, make sure that his works gets officially released to your vehicles.
people who don't care about it, wont mind and those that do, will be thrilled and happy to promote your vehicles to others.
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News flash: "regular chumps" don't "deal with... depreciation liabilities."
They simply buy a car, and years later they sell it for much less.
Re:It's not your car (Score:4, Interesting)
Tesla is shipping 100kWh batteries that are software limited to 75kWh for their cheaper cars. Would be nice if you could unlock the extra 25% capacity.
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Those purchasing the 75kWH batteries are getting batteries that will last much longer and get 25kWH upgrades in case of emergencies like hurricanes.
Unlocking the latent capacity permanently is simplicity itself: Pay for the 25kWH upgrade -- Oh but you want it for free... Do you still want a pony too?
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You can just set the charge limit to 75% if you want to extend your battery life by the same amount. And yeah, I want it for free, it's my car and if I decide I don't need Tesla's on-going support I'll maximize its performance and utility for myself, thank you very much.
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Only superficially. 75% of 75kWH != 100% of 75kWH in terms of range and performance, and 75% of 100kWH will have a longer lifetime as well. That just leaves your wanting to get a freebie 25kWH which you attempt to justify with "because I want".
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They don't need to justify it.
Tesla sold and shipped the hardware. They just shipped better hardware than was paid for. But they still shipped it.
It's now the buyers hardware, they can do with it whatever they want, so long as they stay within the law
So no, they don't need to justify wanting a "freebie", Tesla already gave them it.
What people like you are doing however is attempting to justify why people can't do stuff with the hardware they undeniably own.
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No, I'm saying I'll hack my car to unlock it. GP was correct.
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Do you pay your electrician a monthly fee to come over and turn your living room light on for you at sunset?
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Why? Do you? Do you also pay him to post obtuse remarks here on /.?
As I noted earlier there are legitimate reasons for people to prefer buying the 75kWH capacity that is delivered in a 100kWH package that are not nullified by your wanting a freebie 25kWH upgrade.
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Just like I want my light on for free. There exists a switch. It's mine, I paid for it. I expect to be allowed to flip it.
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