Researchers jailbreak a Tesla to get free in-car feature upgrades::A group of researchers found a way to hack a Tesla’s hardware with the goal of getting free in-car upgrades, such as heated rear seats.

  • Jarmer@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    I’m amazed that it’s legal for a car company to sell you something, and then after you own it, remotely disable xyz aspects of the functionality unless you pay them more. How can that be legal? I own the car, it’s MINE now, how can I not use every single thing that’s in it?

    • Lev_Astov@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’ve seen a bunch of lab equipment do this as well. For some, there are firmware hacks available to enable features only available on models twice the price.

    • lazyplayboy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s a bit inevitable. There’s a market for a range of features - i.e. some people don’t want to pay extra for extra features. But it’s simpler (i.e. cheaper) to produce all models with the same hardware. So, to fill the market, some features are simply disabled in software.

      • ∟⊔⊤∦∣≶@lemmy.nz
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        1 year ago

        Imagine buying a house but you didn’t want to pay extra so one room is padlocked, or several windows boarded up, or a pool walled off.

        • lemmycolon@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          If it brought down the price of the house, people who didn’t need those things would absolutely take the deal, and that’s the point.

      • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
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        1 year ago

        So, when Tesla installed a rear seat heater module that’s unusable by the car owner because they didn’t pay for it, is the heater module actually legally owned by the car owner (even though it doesn’t work), or is it still owned by Tesla?

      • just_browsing@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        Oftentimes it’s done because it’s cheaper, though oftentimes it’s actually more expensive but they calculate that money from licenses post initial sale gets them more revenue and margin in the end anyway.

        Still, even if it always was cheaper for the manufacturer this way, the point here is companies should not be able to control something you physically own once you have purchased it. It’s a dangerous precedent to set and things like this will creep into more and more products if we let it.

        • Aux@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Companies have owned your hardware for decades. Apart from a few open hardware systems like x86, everything comes software or mechanically locked to the price you pay.

  • cybersandwich@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Technological serfdom. You don’t own anything anymore. You can perpetually rent from your lord or you can suffer the consequences.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The “you wouldnt pirate a car” crowd will be shook when they finally realize " yes we would"

      • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I used to think " I wouldn’t because that’s a stupid metaphor" but now that it’s not a stupid metaphor oh yes the fuck I would.

  • afa@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    of course it was the PSP. I’ll say it again and again; secure computing is like adding a back door that you know about. Fuck intel me, fuck amd psp, fuck apple sep, fuck microsoft tpm, and fuck anyone who wants to have control over a device I own.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    A group of researchers said they have found a way to hack the hardware underpinning Tesla’s infotainment system, allowing them to get what normally would be paid upgrades — such as heated rear seats — for free.

    This may also give owners the ability to enable the self-driving and navigation system in regions where it’s normally not available, the researchers told TechCrunch, though they admitted that they haven’t tested these capabilities yet, as that would require more reverse engineering.

    “We are not the evil outsider, but we’re actually the insider, we own the car,” Werling told TechCrunch in an interview ahead of the conference.

    Werling explained that what they did was “fiddle around” with the supply voltage of the AMD processor that runs the infotainment system.

    With the same technique, the researchers said they were also able to extract the encryption key used to authenticate the car to Tesla’s network.


    I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • JaymesRS@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      Why would you want to be behind the heated seats? Seems like it’d be warmer on the seat, not to mention that there’s no 3rd row in a Tesla so you’d be in the trunk…

  • mydickismicrosoft@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    This is great. When you buy the car, you own it. I don’t care what kind of weird licenses and contracts they put together. If I buy the car and there is hardware in the car that allows for heated seats, there is no reason why I shouldn’t be able to enable it myself, tear it out, or do whatever I want with it. It is mine.

    I can understand there being safety concerns for modifying a car. But the owner of the car already accepts liability for the operation of that car. If I do not modify the car and I get into an accident due to Teslas auto pilot feature or another thing baked into their system, does Tesla accept liability? No, they do not. If it is my responsibility for the safe operation of the vehicle, then it is also my responsibility to modify a vehicle in a safe manner. 

  • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Why the heck would they install the equipment in the first place if it’s only to block it??? Is that why the base model is so expensive? You’re basically buying the deluxe version but are simply stuck using basic features because of the software???

  • Boogeyman4325@reddthat.com
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    1 year ago

    Quick question: Couldn’t Tesla’s telemetry servers detect this kind of jailbreaking and, say, remotely disable the device? I’m kind of thinking of Nintendo consoles and their bans on some jailbroken consoles (typically the ones that play pirated games online).