I have done a couple of posts on car companies forcing you to pay subscription fees to use features of your car. I have been predicting that a new industry of jailbreaking car software would be coming. A group of researchers has just discovered an unpatchable security hole that will allow owners to unlock all pay to play features on Teslas.
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Toastrider · August 8, 2023 at 7:02 am
Kevin Mitnick laughs from the great beyond.
Big Ruckus D · August 8, 2023 at 10:29 am
Didn’t realize Mitnick bit it last month, that story somehow escaped my attention amongst the endless daily shitshow of “news”. As to jailbreaking Tesla pay for play features, good. More please.
Of course the thing that still hangs over the head of a modern vehicle owner like a sword of Damocles is the always on two way communications linked into the vehicle’s control electronics (and consequent potential for remotely disabling or otherwise fucking around with operation of the vehicle). That is a deal breaker for me, and the primary reason – aside from the extortionate cost of new vehicles – I won’t own one. Disabling the onboard transceiver without bricking the vehicle is an area of research that needs a lot more attention.
Then as to EV’s specifically, the increasing lack of reliability of the North American power grid, and the already obvious wet dream of authoritarians to control ones movement/access to transportation by making it a pay for play service itself (and further subject to carve outs and even outright loss of access, for committing bad think) will be “features” that cannot be easily hacked, if at all. No power means no charging, which means you’re shit outta luck to go anywhere if the battery is low, or if big brother heard you complaining on tiktok about a nigger spitting in your eye, and subsequently locked you out of using “your” car.
I can store decent amounts of gas treated with PRI-G to refuel any old ICE vehicle without the intrusive nanny tech on board. How much solar/battery bank do you need – and at what cost – to put even a usable (not necessarily full) charge on an EV if utility power is out, or throttled via smart metering? As usual, the stupid idealists will make the unsupportable claim “that’ll never happen” even as their schwabian overlords come right out and state that those are exactly their intentions for the future. When they get their inevitable screwing, I’ll be handing out “I told you so’s” by the pallet load.
Landroll · August 8, 2023 at 11:57 am
How the hell do I jailbreak my HP printer that HP Instant Ink locked up when I quit my Instant Ink account? Fkkrs
Big Ruckus D · August 8, 2023 at 2:11 pm
I’m surprised this hasn’t been done, honestly. The inkjet supply scam is such a pervasive issue that pisses off nearly everyone who owns a computer, that it is ripe for some white knight hackers to exploit, and give HP a public bitch slapping. I run laser printers for all normal day to day printing, and being older models, the toner carts are plentiful and dirt cheap on ebay. I have one seldom used Epson inkjet for large format work, it hasn’t printed a page in probably 3 years now. Last time I used it was to print circuit schematics for an old amplifier, after downloading a pdf of the service manual. If I need to use it, I’ll have to get ripped off buying ink for it.
Stephen Brown · August 8, 2023 at 3:22 pm
When my all-singing-all-dancing HP printer demanded that I order HP Original Inks at an extortionate price and refused to do anything until they’d been fitted (I tried some after-market inks -refused) I binned it. I went on a well-known auction site and purchased an old but little used HP printer which happily took the after-market inks and produced very good prints for me. And, NO, it does not communicate with the HP base!
Gryphon · August 8, 2023 at 3:28 pm
Per the article cited – “As cars become more computerized, these types of attacks will likely become more commonplace. Perhaps it will even become the next sort of vehicle modding—albeit with some direct resistance from automakers…”
Exactly. There is No Computer or Software that cannot be “Hacked”. Every ‘Security Measure’ taken by Manufacturers of Anything that is ‘Computer Controlled’ can (and eventually will be) Hacked, providing the Cost/benefit of the Hack is positive.
I just have to Wonder, given the Software Dependency of a certain current USAF “Fighter” Aircraft, that a Sukhoi 57 doesn’t have a Switch on its ECM Panel marked “F35 On/Off”….
Unknownsailor · August 8, 2023 at 6:04 pm
That switch not in the jet, it is a command line executable waiting to be entered in some dimly lit room with lots of computer monitors in it. Then the fancy ultra Secret logistics package of the F-35 that it can’t fly without gets shut down by the next entered command line.
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