Auto manufactuerers want to prevent people from modifying or working on their own cars.

Related article:

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/

HiTempguy wrote:

Granting exemptions would "deliberately weaken" protections put in place to ensure safe operation and regulatory mandates, General Motors said. Without such protection, the company said it would re-evaluate its entire electronic architecture. It could take the draconian step of removing telematics units, which control many real-time safety and infotainment features, from cars entirely

Oh teh noze! (Insert rolleyes here)

Please do this GM...

Problem is that newer and newer cars are more and more complex (AND THE MASSES WANT IT) (Note, pretty much all of us on this forum are very different from the average person from the masses).

The new infotainment systems, GM's cars having WIFI, Auto-follow, Lane departure, autobraking.

Let's say you want to hack in and alter the programming in the lane departure system to make it properly apex turns, however you have a bug in your coding that can cause the system to crash. That system is tied into the steering, and causes the vehicle to suddenly apply full steering lock. BANG, you have crashed. Let's just say its one step worse, the bug caused a crash of the whole CAN-BUS and somehow convinced the airbag system that there wasn't anyone in the passenger seat (you do know they auto switch off dependent on weight sensors in the seats now, right?) and causes a fatality. Now, lets say that before the bug was discovered, you started a business selling the upgraded software as a third party modifier and have reprogrammed a thousand cars.

You get where I am headed here...

I know most of us on here pride ourselves oon being self reliant with our cars and repair/modification. The systems are getting more complex and controlling more things. They cannot address these things on an individual basis if they want to protect the masses, so that is where regulation fits in. You may not be the same as ignorant Sally McSoccermom, but you do have to be treated the same. You might be comfortable DIYing the system for yourself, but are you equally as comfortable with the punk kid up the street who was caught huffing paint doing it?

I think there is a lot of knee jerk reaction to this and not sitting down and seeing the depth of the real issues.

For the record, yeah, I do see things like BMW not fitting drain plugs as a "dick move". Closing off the programming of your air bag system from third party tampering is a wholly different matter.

In reply to Apexcarver:

All of those scenarios could apply to improper installation of a ball joint or adding new geometry doodads that are improperly stress tested so you can drift better.

This is right alongside the self-driving car post. The manufacturers and government wants us to buy toasters dressed up as cars. It's not an overnight thing, but that's the endgame to be sure. We'll still have our automotive toys, but precious few opportunities to enjoy them as we do now. Our kids won't care because they'll have their virtual reality on and wonder what all the fuss over "real life" was all about.

Nah, I'm not cynical. I'll just be hanging with my friends Philip K Dick and Issac Asimov here.

MadScientistMatt wrote:

yamaha wrote: In reply to MadScientistMatt: The question is, how draconian are the OEM's these days? That answer seems to be ever changing towards very.

But there are legal limits on how draconian they can be. For example: 1. OBD2 codes are required to be an open standard, ruling out preventing somebody from marketing an OBD2 scan tool. 2. Reverse engineering a communications protocol to make a more in depth scan tool is likely to be OK - it sounds as if the company Ford was going after went somehow beyond using a sniffer between an ECU and a scan tool to make their own, like using some Ford document that they'd been sent for some other purpose. 3. You can't call copyright violations on something that has no relationship to OEM computer code whatsoever, like an MSPNP.

You may need to start making more MSPNP systems then. Can't tune the stock system legally, toss it and grab an aftermarket system.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: In reply to Apexcarver: All of those scenarios could apply to improper installation of a ball joint or adding new geometry doodads that are improperly stress tested so you can drift better.

Which can be caught with a visual inspection (many states require one)

Kreb wrote: This is right alongside the self-driving car post. The manufacturers and government wants us to buy toasters dressed up as cars. It's not an overnight thing, but that's the endgame to be sure. We'll still have our automotive toys, but precious few opportunities to enjoy them as we do now. Our kids won't care because they'll have their virtual reality on and wonder what all the fuss over "real life" was all about. Nah, I'm not cynical. I'll just be hanging with my friends Philip K Dick and Issac Asimov here.

Kreb

Someday you are going to have to understand that most drivers don't like cars.

Nobody is forcing them to buy trucks or Camry/Accord/Fusion cars. They do that all on their own. Crap, back in the day, we sold hundreds of thousand Tempo/Topaz's- probably the worst driving car I've ever gotten into.

For MOST of the driving public, a car IS an appliance. The whole sporty thing is an image to lessen that personal preception.

As far as I know, nobody is forcing the self driving car. That will come from demand. And it sure seems as if everyone sees that demand.

In reply to alfadriver:

On the head. 99% of buyers want a self driving couch. This is why rich people hirer chauffeurs. When the get the urge to drive, they take something that they control. The rest of the time they don't bother. I am willing to bet my hat that if every driving person in this country had a chauffeur at their beck(?) and call, they wouldn't drive themselves 9 times out of 10. Hell, I wouldn't drive myself to and from work, unless I was taking a motorcycle or my Galaxie on a Fun Car Friday.

Apexcarver wrote:

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: In reply to Apexcarver: All of those scenarios could apply to improper installation of a ball joint or adding new geometry doodads that are improperly stress tested so you can drift better.

Which can be caught with a visual inspection (many states require one)

A visual inspection won't find a cheap chinese knockoff of an OEM balljoint, which can be quite dangerous. And visual inspections looking for mods will fail a big brake kit that may be SAFER than stock, simply due to being not stock.

Very few states require visual inspections and virtually no state would enact new ones due to the sheer cost involved.

Where I live they use OBD2 testing - first that means they simply exempted all pre '96 cars. Secondly, it is a minimum wage, usually part-time job. All they do is scan the VIN bar code on the inside of the door, or (gah) type in the VIN from the dash plate if it doesn't have a bar code, plug in the OBD plug, press run, wait, and tell you if you passed or not. Zero mechanical knowledge or skill required. What that means is that you can do whatever you want, as long as the computer thinks things are hunky-dory (which with early OBD2 cars was very easy).

alfadriver wrote: As far as I know, nobody is forcing the self driving car. That will come from demand. And it sure seems as if everyone sees that demand.

I'm not so sure about that. The self-driving bus? Sure. Totally makes sense. Self driving cab you can pay for a "charter" ride? Absolutely.

I'm not sure there is a real demand for an individually owned car that is autonomous in the real world we live in. A truly autonomous car I could put my kids in and have it deliver them WITHOUT ME would be a selling point, as would being able to avoid responsibility for a DUI if I'm "over sold" :) but neither of those is even a near-future feature so ... once people are asked to pay for something they are responsible for but not in control of only the people who could pay a chauffeur anyway will pay for one. That is no real market. This is a niche idea that sounds cool and makes no sense.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: I'm not sure there is a real demand for an individually owned car that is autonomous in the real world we live in. A truly autonomous car I could put my kids in and have it deliver them WITHOUT ME would be a selling point, as would being able to avoid responsibility for a DUI if I'm "over sold" :) but neither of those is even a near-future feature so ... once people are asked to pay for something they are responsible for but not in control of only the people who could pay a chauffeur anyway will pay for one. That is no real market. This is a niche idea that sounds cool and makes no sense.

Are you kidding? You don't think people would pay for a car that could handle the bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go parts of their commute while they read a book? I certainly would.

codrus wrote:

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: I'm not sure there is a real demand for an individually owned car that is autonomous in the real world we live in. A truly autonomous car I could put my kids in and have it deliver them WITHOUT ME would be a selling point, as would being able to avoid responsibility for a DUI if I'm "over sold" :) but neither of those is even a near-future feature so ... once people are asked to pay for something they are responsible for but not in control of only the people who could pay a chauffeur anyway will pay for one. That is no real market. This is a niche idea that sounds cool and makes no sense.

Are you kidding? You don't think people would pay for a car that could handle the bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go parts of their commute while they read a book? I certainly would.

Not if you are still responsable for any accident that happens...

"I have a self driving car but I have to stay attentive in case the computer berkeleys up? I ain't paying for that!" is what Joe public will say.

The same way that airplanes have been able to fly themselves for a while now and yet there are still pilots to oversee things. And if they fall asleep at the controls they are in deep trouble.

No matter what, the human will always be the last redundancy because machines fail.

WIRED said: The pièce de résistance in John Deere’s argument: permitting owners to root around in a tractor’s programming might lead to pirating music through a vehicle’s entertainment system.

The funny/sad thing about this is that Deere pissing off the farmers will properly be what does this whole stupid idea in. Farmers have some good lobbyists!

In reply to codrus:

When it comes right down to paying for it? No. Those people could already be reading on the Park and Ride Bus if they felt strongly enough about it. I'm not saying that they won't sell any... just that they won't outsell the Nissan Leaf in the next 20 years.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: Those people could already be reading on the Park and Ride Bus if they felt strongly enough about it.

Depends on where you live. The main bus station hub downtown is literally 1 block away from my apartment.

However, taking the bus would mean a 50 minute ride plus a 1.5 mile walk from the station to work.

Or I can get in my car and be here in 15 minutes. A car that would drive itself here would be pretty nice.

Kreb wrote: This is right alongside the self-driving car post. The manufacturers and government wants us to buy toasters dressed up as cars. It's not an overnight thing, but that's the endgame to be sure. We'll still have our automotive toys, but precious few opportunities to enjoy them as we do now. Our kids won't care because they'll have their virtual reality on and wonder what all the fuss over "real life" was all about. Nah, I'm not cynical. I'll just be hanging with my friends Philip K Dick and Issac Asimov here.

At the end of the day, virtual reality will allow people to enjoy these experiences in identical-to-reality settings. It sucks, but it will be the way of the future... Unless we start colonizing other planets ;)

Apexcarver wrote:

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: In reply to Apexcarver: All of those scenarios could apply to improper installation of a ball joint or adding new geometry doodads that are improperly stress tested so you can drift better.

Which can be caught with a visual inspection (many states require one)

NC has a safety inspection along with the emissions inspection … on preOBD2 vehicles I've never had an inspector look under my car, much less get it up in the air (as they're supposed to do) … but it's even worse on the '97 and newer vehicles … there's even less "safety" inspection (again even though they're supposed to)

In reply to wbjones:

In PA they pull the wheels, yank on stuff, check the brakes, lighting, horn, wipers, bodywork and test drive. We no longer have emissions due to some in-fighting about county vs state nonsense.

Interesting, MD has a one-time safety inspection where they pull the wheels and check it all over.

Even failed my Miata for having the rear swaybar removed.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: In reply to wbjones: In PA they pull the wheels, yank on stuff, check the brakes, lighting, horn, wipers, bodywork and test drive. We no longer have emissions due to some in-fighting about county vs state nonsense.

they're supposed to do all that here … in all the yrs of "safety" inspections I've never had any inspector do anything more than toot the horn, flash the lights (high and low) check the turn signals (who uses those anyway ? :) ) and checks that the brake lights work and that the pedal doesn't go to the floor

shocks in good shape, tie rods in good shape, brake pads more than just backing plates … what a laugh … and I guess it counts as a test drive because they drove it into the work bay

I do know of inspectors that tell me they do this … but they're guys I know on line (and in person at the track and a-x's) but they're in other cities

GameboyRMH wrote:

Flight Service wrote: IIRC this isn't the first time this concept has tried and failed. as said before Sema Action Network....

Again, look at computers, especially mobile ones. Locking down computers had been tried and failed many times, and eventually it was considered a suicide plan to even try such a thing...right before Apple successfully locked down smartphones and brought about the dominance of curated computing.

I am talking about from a legal standpoint. When I was at SEMA show many years ago the staff was talking about a similar situation they were able to defeat.

In a nutshell once it is yours, it is yours. You can use it as you please. Now they can try to lock it down, but that is just postponing it. Eventually it will be cracked. To do anything else will have to have some major law changing.

Now that being said, pay off the right crook er politician....

Apexcarver wrote: Interesting, MD has a one-time safety inspection where they pull the wheels and check it all over. Even failed my Miata for having the rear swaybar removed.

so if a car doesn't come with a factory rear sway bar it can't be registered in Maryland? Or did you have it loose/brackets in place and they could tell it had been modified?

My religion doesn't allow me to drive cars that have not been modified, so I'm protected from any law that prohibits mods.