The Biden administration to car companies: ignore the right-to-repair law, it's a safety...

[wiyosaya]

I saw an article hop on a similiar idea as you, everyone should be looking at cyber security as one of the forefront issues of their business, albeit an app, or their data in-house.

I get your point that technology and anything moves forward, well time does to be fair, technology isn't moving forward and that is the problem. OR it is that the technology, has no place in our society, if said tech means, we don't have a future.

But alas then you really need to crunch some numbers, and you need to work out your idea population per island, compared to resources, space that needs to be divided into, housing, industrial, roads, and design a proper infrustructure to make it work properly.

You are talking about continuously living the way we are heading which will end up with us, dead. basically. Most jobs cause so much pollution, the people that drive their in rush hour every day. the crap they make, the materials in landfill, all so you could buy some crap that ends up in landfill.

I said in another post, russia / china not commies, and america / uk and the likes, are not democtratic places. They are both capitalistic with *****s at the top keeping the money, an invention by man, to barter for goods, where greed has destroyed its value and worth.

Thing is as much as I am moaning, I know it doesnt change anything, and I know your post is more accurate of how things will go, because people are dumb, and think that society is a great thing, and not a social construct to make us think we have freedom and choice, when we don't because if we did, I would like to think people would want to live a free life, and get rid of the stuff thats choking us out.

So, fudge it, I am starting a cult, lets do this people, lets bring hydrogen trains to the people.

You won't get any argument from me that capitalism is no longer useful to modern society, and I agree, its part of the problem not part of the solution - especially with the Jack A$$es that control most of the wealth in the world today.

However, most commercial hydrogen production comes from some petroleum based source and is far more polluting than all other fossil fuels. There needs to be some advancement in production of clean hydrogen. There's plenty of research in the labs, but nothing that has been commercialized - so far.

 

[computeruser1000]

First of all, states rights are states rights under the Constitution and the NHTSA needs to shut up or be sued by the state of Mass along with other states. Second of all if built in wireless service connections are available, they should not be turned on unless the consumer (owner) has authorized them to operate. So if a security risk is the NHTSA's statement, then the negligence would be on the manufacturers that leave a service broadcast on when the vehicle's owner did not authorize it's "interception" Shame on the NHTSA. Many states have their own laws on cars. As an example, Wisconsin requires front and rear plates, Michigan only requires rear plates. Wanna sell a car in Wisconsin? It better have a mount for that front license plate.

The bottom line is that there is no reason that cars should have wireless service connections. But if they do, then like the wired ones, the owner has the right to access and control them. NHTSA ain't gonna win this.

 

[wiyosaya]

No, Technology actually makes repairing your car easier, not harder. All this is about is forcing servicing directly with the manufacturers and kicking out any chance of independent shops or simply your average joe from doing anything with the car.

You are I are in agreement.

Have you seen Modern day electric cars? There's not much to them, It's simply the software behind them is being locked up so us normies can't plug a laptop in and it tell us what's wrong.

It's all a farse, If our governments were in anyway trying to help it's citizens, it would force all car manufacturers to use a common software interface for diagnostics and explicitly allow independent workshops.

A common software interface without adequate security protections would, IMO, further exacerbate the situation. We've already seen examples of the possibility of malicious actors taking control of cars, hijacking exchanges between the car and its fob to surreptitiously unlock the vehicle, etc. Security, for critical systems in cars needs to be a primary concern especially to manufacturers, not an afterthought when a security hole is discovered.

That, first and foremost, is my point. Surely, we should be able to repair our own cars and have the right to do so as well as access to anything needed to be able to enact repairs. However, such open access without adequate security on the systems, is a nightmare waiting for realization.

Weirdly, the EU forced USB-C on all electronics to save waste and to stop the crap corporations pull, yet they won't go after car manufacturers making cars impossible to diagnose.

IMO, that may just indicate a lack of technical knowledge on the part of the politicians that passed the law - which was also another of my points. The knowledge of politicians, most of them anyway, of all things technical is dismal at best.

 

[mbrowne5061]

As years go on and cars become more and more dependent on everything running through the CPU, it gets harder and harder for people to repair more and more things on a car. So it starts to become more and more inevitable to avoid taking your car to a certified dealer/mechanic.

Everything on my computer runs through the CPU, and I can repair that just fine. No shortage of diagnostic tools and software to help me figure out what parts to replace - and almost all of it is either an 'open' industry standard, or OSS.

It got harder to do it yourself because the automakers like to pretend that having things "electric" makes them too complicated to repair on your own. Its a different skillset; not black magic. This MA law seeks to reverse this behavior among automakers. Hopefully other large markets (CA, NY, TX, etc) will follow MA's lead on this one.

 

[bandit8623]

I'm not in agreement with this but considering all of Biden's successes, why not wait and see how this plays out?
He has not been so successful by accident.

The internets is already flooded with "fixes" for highly technical problems that are just for views and clicks, and that end up creating even more problems that the consumer can't fix. Then that is followed up buy a flood of tears when they find out what it will cost to fix their mistakes.

Cars today can't be fixed with a craftsman tool box and a can of dip.


We could all do what my daughter has done. Her daily driver is a 1966 Olds Toronado and the only changes I made to it was a switch to HEI ignition, disk brakes all around, and MSD fuel injection.

EDIT: There is a contributor at Youtube called "just rolled in". If anyone hasn't seen it, I myself think it would be a good idea to check it out. The things people do to "fix" their cars is absolutely pitiful, and I shudder to think what will happen with vehicles from the recent years as they go out of warranty.

true but there comes a time where you cant get parts anymore.

 

[tipstir]

Yes I have the code reader for years. What's new! Still need parts OEM parts cost arm-n-a-leg. Clone parts are cheaper but might not hold up as well. That's the problem today is parts some parts you can't even get today. They don't stock-up on all parts for all models you stuck going to the JUNK YARD for your vehicle.

 

[wiyosaya]

It got harder to do it yourself because the automakers like to pretend that having things "electric" makes them too complicated to repair on your own. Its a different skillset; not black magic. This MA law seeks to reverse this behavior among automakers. Hopefully other large markets (CA, NY, TX, etc) will follow MA's lead on this one.

NY has also passed such a law, however, it sounds like it was gutted with amendments by, you guessed it, politicians with a dismal knowledge of all things technical - https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/29/23530733/right-to-repair-law-new-york-tech-hochul-oems-parts

 

[wiyosaya]

true but there comes a time where you cant get parts anymore.

And that's typically many many years after a product is first manufactured. At that point, perhaps its time to consider a new (whatever).

One time, I was driving to work, and I was behind an elderly gentleman in a car that looked like it had come from the 1950s or earlier. I had my window open and all I could smell was the ton of pollution from the vehicle. It stunk like . Personally, I'd be ashamed to be driving such a vehicle as new ones are far cleaner.

 

[nulll]

Y'all might not like what I have to say, but I'm saying it anyway...

So what's your solution? We deny technology and revert to stone knives and bearskins? Technology has its place whether it makes it easy for you to repair your vehicle or not. To quote Kosh from Babylon 5 "The avalanche has started; its too late for the pebbles to vote."




As I see it, this would have happened regardless of administration. It comes from a lack of technical knowledge that is commonplace among politicians. The phrase "cyber security" is a phrase with which politicians are familiar, but have no idea what it means or what it entails. IMO, NHSTA should know better, but that is, apparently, too much to hope for.

Likewise, IMO, it is auto-manufacturers implementing insecure gateways in their vehicles that have enabled this. Unfortunately, no politician has any understanding of what that means and who is responsible for it, much less, that the fact that those insecure gateways are there means there's an avenue for them to be exploited by bad actors regardless of who has their hands on the technology to access them.

The worst gateway, as I see it, is wireless access to a vehicle's critical systems that should be secured - even if they are password protected. If it were a NHSTA requirement that you had to have a physical connection to those systems, that, alone, would eliminate most of the security risk. But Nooooooooooo, dumb-a$s manufacturers have to implement wireless OTA access to their systems in the name of convenience with security an absolutely distant afterthought if they even considered it in the first place, or worse yet, a profit motive of enabling "premium" paid features in their vehicles - in a manner similar to the lack of security manufacturers of IOT devices implement. With physical access necessary, manufacturers could sell a diagnostic access device to anyone and have a significantly reduced possibility of a malicious actor gaining unauthorized access to a vehicle's critical systems. Think those recent security risks revealed in Intel/AMD processors that can only be exploited by having direct, physical access to the computer using them.

IMO, there's plenty of blame to spread around here and laying all of it on one specific entity is to entirely avoid the point and to take the same unknowledgeable viewpoint as the politicians have.

"Understanding is a three edged sword, your side, their side and the truth", or so someone should inform the NHTSA.