bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

so started my '15 jeep grand cherokee and the "uconnect" touch screen says an update is available would i like to install it or do it later. being a software guy and one who likes to be updated, i went for it. it takes 20 minutes (!) with car in run position - engine doesn't have to be running, but since i'd already started it, i just left it running. once finished downloading it installs and retarts the system but apparently goes on for another hour or more (when the car doesn't have to be on) to finish the upgrade. this one was a pretty big upgrade since mine is '15 where newer '16, '17, and now '18 already had some of the upgrades from the factory.

lots of improvements in features, user interface, voice recognition, bug fixes, speed, etc. pretty cool.

anyway, this was a first for me having the update come over the air (with the built in sprint cellular connection)... in the first year with the car i did an upgrade via download onto usb memory stick which was fine but a pain to have the usb memory stick formatted right, etc. the over the air is much nicer. i guess that last usb upgrade enabled the over the air capability.

now i feel a bit like a tesla owner.

JDR76

I've had a few Enform updates pushed over the air as well. I don't have any issues with it.

mmarshall

So auto-computer updates can now be done wirelessly? It used to be that you had to take it to the shop and have a technician feed the update through the diagnostic port (under the dash) or another electronic-access to the computer.

Sulu

Have you not heard Elon Musk brag about the ability of Tesla change the performance of their customers' cars with wireless, over-the-air software updates? That is how Tesla changed their "60-kWh" cars to 75-kWh cars so that they could get that much further from Hurricane Irma before having to recharge.

Sulu

I have no issue with over-the-air software updates. I am concerned, however, with the safety and security of these updates.

Are we at the point we were at with personal computers 20 years ago when we first started to connect all these computers to the Internet? At the dawn of the widely-accessible Internet, few were aware and so were not concerned about the sudden spread of malicious software (computer viruses) broadcast over the Internet. With wireless access to the Internet now available to our in-car infotainment systems, are we opening them up to attacks by malicious software?

Do our infotainment systems have anti-virus software? How secure is the interface between our infotainment system -- the in-car gateway to the Internet -- and our cars' electronic control systems (we are able to change some operating parameters through the infotainment system, so there is some connection between the 2 systems)? Is there a firewall between the infotainment system and the electronic control systems?

If our cars are open to over-the-air software updates, they will be open to other over-the-air software also. How safe are our in-car electronics systems from malicious cyber attacks?

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

Sulu - good points... but with digital signing and other protocols interception or forgery is all but impossible just like hackers intervening in ecommerce on the web, which is possible, but very unlikely. Now a hack of the car makers software distribution servers is easier and therefore more likely, so hackers could potentially use the car maker's own server to deploy rogue software. But this is no different than say google, apple, or microsoft having their cloud servers hacked, but a lot of the smartest people on the planet have architected these systems for security.

mmarshall

Tesla, I can believe.....but I wasn't sure about others.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

yes, and for obvious reasons that's not convenient, and is expensive. Imagine having to take your mac to the apple store for every software update. So OTA updates is the only way.

RXSF

I wish more companies did over the air updates. Its like pulling teeth asking for a version update, let alone a firmware update at any dealership and you usually have to pose it as a problem

KahnBB6

iTrader: (5)

Personally I prefer software and firmware updates the to be administered via physical connection. I'm not interested in a cellular/wifi enabled connection to anything in my car unless it's completely separate from the engine/powertrain control system and any standard user interfaces.

The convenience of wireless updates aren't a winning selling point to me, given the potential security risks and the ability for a manufacturer (such as is the case with Tesla) to change parameters automatically without the vehicle owner's consent. We own our cars for which great sums of money are paid and can do with them and modify them as we like. That involuntary wireless software/firmware update practice suggests otherwise in models so affected.

Of course, this is where most companies are going today, along with going away from physical keys or key transponders in favor of your cellular phone being the key to your car. I don't prefer that either and I look forward to seeing what happens in a few years when I go to buy a car and do not provide a cellphone to "link" to it as my "car key".

An overall take I get from a lot of this is diminishing ownership control on the part of the buyer. In contrast to the many exciting new drivetrain, power source, chassis and suspension technologies we're getting today these do not strike me as plusses to ownership and enjoyment of a very expensive privately purchased commodity.

On the other hand, in the case of renting a car or using a cab/ride share service I have no issue with these trends-- since I don't own those vehicles and am contracting a service rather than paying a lump sum (or financing) for a title of ownership for a complicated machine I plan to keep, use and enjoy and even modify on my own terms.

Bringing my post full circle to the over the air software update question, suppose I administer my own custom software/firmware flash tweaks to vehicle parameters that better suit what I want the vehicle to do for me. I would assume the manufacturer's official software/firmware updates would overwrite my own custom changes which has echoes of the early days of iPhone operating system custom hacks for features that weren't available or were not intended from Apple... which Apple of course pushed back on. They famously even deliberately bricked a few iPhones in the process when their update software detected that a custom iOS hack had previously been administered.

The irony with the comparison to how a person can modify their iPhone or Android phone is that I just do not see a privately owned vehicle at all in the same way as I see consumer electronics. But the subject of this thread topic brings up that parallel because of how shockingly similar it is to update a car's control and function instruction sets and interior GUI controls the same way a mobile device OS is updated. This is more than likely why auto manufacturer marketers and think tanks parrot each other when they compare modern and future automobiles to smart cellphones and mobile devices.

Which is extremely annoying, since the experience of owning and driving a vehicle is nothing at all like using the latest mobile gadget to consume content or communicate over various means on the internet. Even if your car has several of those functions built in... it is still a vehicle which is fundamentally used for entirely different purposes.

Particularly for commodities like cars and other vehicles, even if software and firmware are updated in a way very similar to personal computers and small mobile devices there has to be the understanding that the person who owns a vehicle has full ownership of it and ownership of how they can use and even modify physical, electronic and software aspects of their vehicle should the so choose to at any time. Obviously a factory or extended warranty would have something to say about this but the protection must still be there for the user/owner/consumer.

There has been an interesting case that has popped up more than once involving how John Deere, among other manufacturers, views how consumers can work with and even modify the software that controls their machines. This falls under the DMCA and currently such an exemption for consumers exists. But it will be reviewed again in the future.

This really isn't off of the main topic but rather integral to the larger debate it brings up about the very definition of vehicle ownership:

https://thegarage.jalopnik.com/farme...r-o-1783925135

https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-o...ip-john-deere/

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/a...inian-firmware

https://ifixit.org/blog/8510/car-repair-illegal-dmca/

coolsaber

If they somehow lockdown update servers and have a trustworthy failsafe mode where I dont get stuck if the update is bad all well and good. However that isnt possiblle with current high volume mfgs (Tesla will only become volume with the 3, so until then boutique). So maybe in the future. With the crappy updates of BMW being service bay only, it was a blessing if the car crapped out half way through since the service dept dealt with it not myself. However bad updates after sucessfully installing still ruined the day outside as well soo nothing is foolproof with a physcical connection

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

Kahn great post.

i believe we're rapidly moving to 'taas' transportation as a service, even if the 'driver' is left with the impression for now that they're 'driving' even if the car can stop, go, steer, evade and any number of other things by itself.

Modifying the software in cars by the 'owner' will soon be impossible, because the car will simply be an AI beast.

Sulu

You are bringing up another topic, and that is the ownership of the software that you buy. When you buy a hard product, like a refrigerator or car, you own that product (and you are allowed to modify it as you wish), yet when you buy software, you do not own it, you are merely buying a licence for the right to use the software -- that is what the long-winded legalese called EULA (End-User Licence Agreement) tells you. And if you ever modify that software (which, admittedly, is difficult to do), you can be sued for modifying something that is not yours.

KahnBB6

iTrader: (5)

bitkahuna, it seems we are slowly moving in that direction. There will be at least a heavily unbalanced division between 'TAAS' vehicles and driven vehicles... which probably will become complicated by new models that challenge traditional 'ownership'. However there will always be people who want to own their own cars even when there will be those who prefer not to.

The increasingly complicated and advanced nature of car control systems and software mean that it will take significant experience in coding to modify those systems but if the consumer electronics industry, the short history of vehicle ECU flashing and especially the extreme resilience and ingenuity of the hacking community at large are any indication, it will never be impossible to modify vehicle software or replace that code with something else entirely (an insanely time consuming undertaking but nonetheless still possible).

There may be future road blocks to doing that legally but it will never be impossible to achieve even in the A.I. era.

For average owners who are not coders and hobbyist engineers it will be considerably difficult, however.

Conversely, there will still be the area of personally owned retrofitted cars (classics) with commercially available drive and control systems and also specially constructed new vehicles or kit vehicles (which are usually limited in registration numbers per year in most states). As 3D printing and carbon fiber technology advances and becomes more common those niche markets will continue to be sustained. They will not be for everyone, of course.

^^ This is absolutely on point with how software EULA's are treated legally, however that is at the heart of what the DMCA/John Deere case is about since at the end of the day this software still controls hard products (vehicles, cars, trucks, farm vehicles) and even the act of being able to repair, service and diagnose and yes, even modify those hard products (vehicles) which are legally owned by the consumers suddenly became a legal debate since it involved copyrighted software... since they do not legally own the software itself despite legally owning the expensive machines that use it.

Respectfully I only brought this up because the main topic of over the air updates was a recent thing with Tesla Motors and highlighted their ability to change, add or subtract vehicle features at their own whims at any time. That precedent on their part does, for me, make the debate over ownership control of a hard good like a vehicle ruled by software (that is legally and privately owned) very relevant to the main topic of this thread.

Having made my arguments about it I'm stepping back and leaving it to other readers and posters to comment on if they feel it has continued merit in this discussion but I do feel it has been relevant to bring up considering the paradigm of over the air software updates for modern vehicles that exists already in September 2017.

In my post above I said I preferred a hard pluggable connection into vehicles for any software and firmware updates versus wireless over the air connections and one reason for this is to prevent the slippery slope of diminished owner control over the hard vehicle product they have bought. The more effort it takes to bother with a code update the less likely people will be to get used to the idea of their car's functions and features frequently changing in all directions liked and disliked in the same sandboxed way that their Windows PC's, Macs, iPhones and Android devices do. Obviously one person's personal preference versus a multi-billion-dollar industry isn't going to go very far but there it is.

riredale

Whether it's with cars or computers I think I'd like to be able to turn off the auto-update "feature" so that I could let others be the pioneers (you know, "pioneers" are the ones who get arrows in their backs). Once it's pretty clear there aren't going to be any issues, then I'd be happy to proceed.

As for wireless, I guess it depends on how likely the possibility of hacking would be. Also, it seems kind of creepy to think a wireless connection could be tracking your every move ("Hey Tesla guy with license 123ABC, you're pretty close to a Taco Bell a quarter-mile up on your left! Try our new Fire Nachos for only $1.99!").