EFF is fighting for vehicle owners’ rights to inspect the code that runs their vehicles and to repair and modify their vehicles, or have a mechanic of their choice do the work. At the moment, the anti-circumvention prohibition in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act arguably restricts vehicle inspection, repair, and modification.
This is true. Ask any company that has tried to make a forced induction unit for the JK. FCA introduced a 'scrambler' into their little black boxes with the introduction of the 3.6L - if you want to tune YOUR beast... fugetaboutit.
This is a very complicated for everyone involved and it will take a while to reach a reasonable compromise.
One one hand we have freedom, owner's rights and apple pie.This group includes product owners and a bunch of manufacturers that are clueless about how to properly, responsibly and safely program and control the electronic brain of a vehicle. It's one thing corrupt the logic on your vehicle but what about hacking others.
On the other side of the fence there are vehicle and component manufacturers that are highly liable to ensure that their products operate safely, efficiently and safely. There is also vast amounts of investment in the R&D and Engineering to create the Intellectual Property in the control system.
Pick your side, this isn't going to get resolved over night.
Arguments about having 3rd party mechanics have access to information relevant to repairs are valid. I think a good law would be that any access to proprietary data necessary to support the repair of any vehicle must be provided by the manufacturer free of charge unless the dealer offers that service free of charge. On the other side if I were an automotive manufacturer and you modded the codes, you also completely voided your warranty for the entire vehicle except maybe rust protection. Modding codes is like installing bigger breakers in an electrical panel without installing thicker gauge wire. Unless there are other mods to the vehicle, you are unleashing power that was not designed into the vehicle.
Also have to worry about having vehicles seized if found "to be responsible for or complicit in, or to have engaged in, directly or indirectly, cyber-enabled activities" "that are reasonably likely to result in, or have materially contributed to, a significant threat to the economic health or financial stability of the US".
Absolutely a farfetched scenario now, but scope creep is a fact of life.You just know corporate counsel are going to push the limits farther than any reasonable person can imagine.
Like your computer, you ought to be able to choose your own software. The vehicle tuning parameters are one thing. The operating system and enhancements are another. Most will choose the factory software but you can't pretend there aren't individuals and companies that understand this stuff and can develop better OS's and apps to manage out vehicles. Who knows what thrid party vendors or open source projects might provide us.
AFAIC, the auto manufacturers can take all their damn computers and shove 'em right up their tailpipes! I hate everything electronic in my vehicles except for the radio! I'll take a carburetor and a spaghetti mess of vacuum hoses any day!
We don't "own" the code to the operating system in our iPhones, the formula of the antihistamine we pop in in the morning, nor the recipe to the Diet Coke we drink every afternoon, either.
I'm a car dealer and I could see how they are protecting us with this law. We are in a small town and cars now a days are so high tech. The shade tree mechanics in the area use to work for us or another store at one time. At least a couple. I know you can't mess with diesels anymore and that's the epa. I'm a little confused also because people use to chip their diesels(can't anymore) and I have a procal. Or is this taking about a straight up computer hooked up like our wifi tech system we have in the shop?
"When I was young I thought money was the most important thing in life, now that I am old I know that it is."
To me, more immediate on my wish list is the ability to seamlessly use the head unit as an extension of my smart phone, so I can listen to free music in the Jeep, Google the web using the touch screen, use the phone GPS through the touch screen, etc.
Some of it is being integrated, but we already carry so much computing power in our pockets, why not just let the head unit become a seamless interface instead of building so many redundancies into it?
Through industry groups "Association of Global Automakers" and "Auto Alliance" FCA supports the move to criminally penalize the 'right-to-tinker' with your Jeep.
Aldo, check into a CarPlay head unit if you have an iPhone.
-JD
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