-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Please Enter Access Code
- Thread starter brianman
- Start date
-
- Tags
- Model S User Interface
lmao. nice one.Originally Posted by NigelMIt means being fussy about writing implements.
Do you also have a penchant for singing to them?
Guess I'm getting to this thread a little late, but personally I welcome any input from the folks at Tesla. I can understand that company policy may require that only certain high level employees post in the forums (so that any information provided is accurate, not counterproductive from a legal aspect and non-proprietary), but I hope that that there is not a perception at Tesla or in this Forum that "official" Tesla input is unwelcome.
I also think that many Tesla owners are very curious as to how certain aspects of their car works, and many of us read the service manuals which are made available for almost all other automobiles. I would encourage Tesla to develop a better owner's manual (the current version is really just a quick guide), and/or an owner's service manual (either of which would cover non-proprietary services which many owners are ready to perform such as wiper blade and fuse replacement, tire rotation, brake repairs, 12V battery location (for a "jump" start), or its replacement etc).
Considering the current problems that some owners still seem to be experiencing with their 12V batteries, some additional information with regards to how often the battery is topped off, and how the need to top off is determined might prove helpful. Owner's of other EV's can find this information in their owner's or service manuals, and can modify their driving and charging habits to help insure that their 12V battery enjoys a long service life, especially since it seem a paradox that your electric car won't start for the want of 12 volts, despite having a fully charged 400V Li-ion battery pack on board.
B>
For folks who are squeamish about getting stern warnings from Tesla I would agree not posting any controversial material is for the best. I would also like to point out though that if Tesla intends on courting "hackers" and early adopters in general, it would do best to be as open as possible with the diagnostic screens. Frankly we have made a large financial and emotional investment and we want to know as much as we can about it. We're entheusiasts. That's what we do.
I'm also a bit worried that Tesla thinks a reply from George is enough to curtail potential competitors from giving the 'S a once over for tech details. I have a lot of respect for George but I think its a foregone conclusion that someone (has) will break into the diagnostic screens.
I don't get why everyone is so worried that a ranger would experience trouble diagnosing an issue caused by customer edits to the configuration. Isn't it as simple as having an audit log and/or a "defaults" button? Many softwares also keep previous copies of the configuration for such an occasion. Furthermore if a Mercedes customer modifies the ECU values, Mercedes can see this when the car is returned for repair. They can then determine if the issue was caused as a result of the customer's changes. If so, it's no longer a warranty issue. Same with safety repercussions. If I modify my Hyundai and subsequently get into an accident as a result of the modifications, Hyundai is not to blame. It's not reasonable to assume Hyundai can test every modification a user could make and hence they would likely be held harmless in such a scenario.
In many countries reverse engineering is permitted for the purposes of academia. (Including for personal research, of course.) (Reverse engineering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) Locking us out from the diagnostic screens only means people will need to find alternate ways of discovering the same information. Unfortunately in my home country (Canada) we seem to have poorer laws with regard to reverse engineering: Copyright Law | Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC). Regardless, wouldn't it just be easier to admit people are going to get the diagnostic-level info anyways and make everyone's lives easier?
Tesla -- All I want to do is be able to investigate the car. I want to understand it intimately because I am a geek. If you want to prompt me with a warning screen that absolves your company of liability and identifies the patents protecting what I'm about to look at, I understand entirely. But please do not stop me from looking.
Thanks for listening.
I'm also a bit worried that Tesla thinks a reply from George is enough to curtail potential competitors from giving the 'S a once over for tech details. I have a lot of respect for George but I think its a foregone conclusion that someone (has) will break into the diagnostic screens.
I don't get why everyone is so worried that a ranger would experience trouble diagnosing an issue caused by customer edits to the configuration. Isn't it as simple as having an audit log and/or a "defaults" button? Many softwares also keep previous copies of the configuration for such an occasion. Furthermore if a Mercedes customer modifies the ECU values, Mercedes can see this when the car is returned for repair. They can then determine if the issue was caused as a result of the customer's changes. If so, it's no longer a warranty issue. Same with safety repercussions. If I modify my Hyundai and subsequently get into an accident as a result of the modifications, Hyundai is not to blame. It's not reasonable to assume Hyundai can test every modification a user could make and hence they would likely be held harmless in such a scenario.
In many countries reverse engineering is permitted for the purposes of academia. (Including for personal research, of course.) (Reverse engineering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) Locking us out from the diagnostic screens only means people will need to find alternate ways of discovering the same information. Unfortunately in my home country (Canada) we seem to have poorer laws with regard to reverse engineering: Copyright Law | Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC). Regardless, wouldn't it just be easier to admit people are going to get the diagnostic-level info anyways and make everyone's lives easier?
Tesla -- All I want to do is be able to investigate the car. I want to understand it intimately because I am a geek. If you want to prompt me with a warning screen that absolves your company of liability and identifies the patents protecting what I'm about to look at, I understand entirely. But please do not stop me from looking.
Thanks for listening.
lolachampcar
Well-Known Member
At the risk of getting hammered here, I've been in the calibration (and source, but that is a different discussion) area of BMW, MB and Porsche Engine Control Modules to name a few. I did not tear up a single engine or otherwise do any damage and this area really is highly sensitive calibration data.
I did the work out of curiosity and a desire to understand modern fuel (and transmission) controls. I really have no desire to look inside Tesla's speed controller or inverter calibration data but I would think the information available to RoadRangers through the diagnostics screen would be interesting and useful. Having the ability to transfer data logs (see Roadster threads on this.. bright people doing interesting and non-destructive things) and screen shots to a USB stick would be nice along with being able to do simple maintenance like activating circulatory pumps to purge different systems.
I view these areas of the vehicle not as proprietary source code or calibration data but more as test tool interfaces. Large OEMs are obliged to publish their test tool interface specifications to allow groups like Autologics and the like to build third party test tools. I believe there are laws compelling the OEMs to do so but never really had a need to look into it. In my opinion, having diagnostics tools in responsible hands is not really such a bad thing.
- - - Updated - - -
Most tuners will put a car back to the stock calibration before having the customer go in for service. The OBDii specification requires Software Verification Numbers (SVN) be assigned to each calibration (and code) release. This number is a cryptographic (hash RipeMD if memory serves me on MB) checksum of the code in question and there are very heavy fines for hackers modifying code to provide false SVNs. The car comes in and the dealer simply does an SVN query and checks that against the expected value for the firmware release. If even ONE BIT is changed, the SVN is wildly different.
I did the work out of curiosity and a desire to understand modern fuel (and transmission) controls. I really have no desire to look inside Tesla's speed controller or inverter calibration data but I would think the information available to RoadRangers through the diagnostics screen would be interesting and useful. Having the ability to transfer data logs (see Roadster threads on this.. bright people doing interesting and non-destructive things) and screen shots to a USB stick would be nice along with being able to do simple maintenance like activating circulatory pumps to purge different systems.
I view these areas of the vehicle not as proprietary source code or calibration data but more as test tool interfaces. Large OEMs are obliged to publish their test tool interface specifications to allow groups like Autologics and the like to build third party test tools. I believe there are laws compelling the OEMs to do so but never really had a need to look into it. In my opinion, having diagnostics tools in responsible hands is not really such a bad thing.
- - - Updated - - -
Most tuners will put a car back to the stock calibration before having the customer go in for service. The OBDii specification requires Software Verification Numbers (SVN) be assigned to each calibration (and code) release. This number is a cryptographic (hash RipeMD if memory serves me on MB) checksum of the code in question and there are very heavy fines for hackers modifying code to provide false SVNs. The car comes in and the dealer simply does an SVN query and checks that against the expected value for the firmware release. If even ONE BIT is changed, the SVN is wildly different.
I never knew the method by which this happened but I have friends who've been caught before! Now I know. Thanks for the info.
bonnie
I play a nice person on twitter.
All reasonable requests. But there is an assumption that interesting diagnostic information is all that is hidden from you. What if there is information that would point to future configurations and offerings? It is not unheard of for a smart software developer, knowing what the next round of updates will be, to code that in and then disable. If I were Tesla, I might not want my competition knowing those details.
I have no doubt that Tesla will make the kind of information you're asking for available. But perhaps not 'quite yet'.
I have no doubt that Tesla will make the kind of information you're asking for available. But perhaps not 'quite yet'.
Fairly easy to implement a 'not posible to crack' password.
Every time the car connect to tesla the car recive 10 random passwords ( or pins)
the car then uses the first from the list as the first valid password, after a sucessful login it the changes password to the next on the list ( circular buffer)
Tesla will then have a online list of passwords for any given VIN.
ranger will allways need to go online to access current valid password list (or have looked up forhand)
it will then be almost imposible to hack, as not 2 cars will have same password, even if you look over your Rangers shoulder, you would not be able to use the password as it would be a one time use password.
ofcourse if the car does not recive new valid passwords due to offline, it would need to reuse Thise currently held 10 passwords.
sceen should therefor display the password seq # out of the 10 it expect.
- - - Updated - - -
Forgot to mention, after 5 failed passwords, it should prevent logins for 5 min. After 10 failed passwords it should lock the promth for 10 min ect.
it also posible best practise only to update the 10 passwords No more than once a day.
since a ranger always will need to login to a online portal in ordet to get the current 10 valid passwords, tesla can log witch ranger did access the passwords for any given car at any given time.
Every time the car connect to tesla the car recive 10 random passwords ( or pins)
the car then uses the first from the list as the first valid password, after a sucessful login it the changes password to the next on the list ( circular buffer)
Tesla will then have a online list of passwords for any given VIN.
ranger will allways need to go online to access current valid password list (or have looked up forhand)
it will then be almost imposible to hack, as not 2 cars will have same password, even if you look over your Rangers shoulder, you would not be able to use the password as it would be a one time use password.
ofcourse if the car does not recive new valid passwords due to offline, it would need to reuse Thise currently held 10 passwords.
sceen should therefor display the password seq # out of the 10 it expect.
- - - Updated - - -
Forgot to mention, after 5 failed passwords, it should prevent logins for 5 min. After 10 failed passwords it should lock the promth for 10 min ect.
it also posible best practise only to update the 10 passwords No more than once a day.
since a ranger always will need to login to a online portal in ordet to get the current 10 valid passwords, tesla can log witch ranger did access the passwords for any given car at any given time.
Last edited:
agree. i also have the suspicion that besides diagnostics there are feature settings in this mode and while i assume tm will eventually, if they haven't already, move those toggles to an even more secure area, they very understandably don't want customers to access those settings. perhaps they will open some diag screens to users after they sandbox out some of the more secure settings. hopefully. i too love to see behind the curtains of the gear i own. learn a lot.
before all this however i'd like to see valet mode and wifi, etc. so. i'm not holding my breath for this above other things.
my 2¢.
Same issue occurs when companies like Nvidia (interestingly the purveyor of the CPUs in the screens within the 'S) and AMD update their GPU drivers. New product SKUs often appear in the *.inf files before the products are released. Similarly ATI and Nvidia have had modified drivers crafted by "hackers" that re-enabled formerly disabled functionality in their video cards through software. (The 9800 to 9800XT Soft-mod was one example.) Whether tech companies like it or not, hardware buyers will figure out how to enable the functionality they desire or to snoop around. Given the fact that Tesla needs to sell as many cars as they can for the maximum profit, I see their motivation in attempting to lock these interfaces down but I think ultimately these efforts are futile. It would be better to concentrate on keeping folks like us happy and debugging to the best of their ability.
Ron95030
Member
I recall sitting in an early white beta model at the Menlo store during early 2012, with a store manager, who pressed and held the big 'T'. There was no password at that time. IIRC, I soon saw a large graphic display of the battery layout, with each cell having what looked to be an identifier on it; most were green, a rare few were red. In the time I stared, they all looked remarkably similar. In retrospect, I believe this 'identifier' was actually the cell temperature.
And then it was gone, as the person brought up a command line interface, (which looked to be Linux) and some log files went scrolling quickly by. That was it. He quickly returned to the GUI, as I asked another question...
Yeah, surely there is interesting info in there, and surely it's protected for good reason. I have to admit - the car is just too much fun for me to be concerned with "all the sausage making". Yet in time, I'll get more curious.
My 2 milliwatts.
-Ron
lolachampcar
Well-Known Member
The world is going to need some documentation on the car at some point and access if there is to be non-Telsa maintenance.
Diagnostics Mode: interesting look under the covers
When I got my Tesla back from service, they hadn't turned off the diagnostic mode, so I got to poke around a bit.
Hoping some of the settings indicate future features:
* Adaptive cruise control y/n
* Blind spot sensor y/n
* Lane departure warning y/n
Slightly different Linux kernel versions for the cluster and the center display: 2.6.36.2 and .3. Tomcat 7. A zillion version numbers for all sorts of components.
Lots of temperature data, including a nice graphical view of various components and temps. Seems like they could show us some of this under normal conditions.
I thought about leaving it in this mode, but I was getting some weird errors so I rebooted out of it. Would like to know how to boot back into it though
When I got my Tesla back from service, they hadn't turned off the diagnostic mode, so I got to poke around a bit.
Hoping some of the settings indicate future features:
* Adaptive cruise control y/n
* Blind spot sensor y/n
* Lane departure warning y/n
Slightly different Linux kernel versions for the cluster and the center display: 2.6.36.2 and .3. Tomcat 7. A zillion version numbers for all sorts of components.
Lots of temperature data, including a nice graphical view of various components and temps. Seems like they could show us some of this under normal conditions.
I thought about leaving it in this mode, but I was getting some weird errors so I rebooted out of it. Would like to know how to boot back into it though
Ohms.Law
Member
MrOteece - those settings are extremely tantalizing. Good find. You have just ignited the ferver of hundreds of speculation theorists!
vcor
Tech Specialist
Thanks for posting! To get back in you would need a special Tesla code. You press on the "T" top center for 4-5 seconds and then get the entry mode (for Tesla personnel). Since none of us know the code (and I suspect it changes often) you'll not be able to get back in.
Others have seen these screens before, but I think you're the first to get it active on the way home!
There was some talk before that the options may be related to a licensed software component sold to many car makers. If so, the options are listed (y/n) may be more as generic items and not any guarantee that the MS will ever have them (of course parking assist has been announced for European deliveries).
Others have seen these screens before, but I think you're the first to get it active on the way home!
There was some talk before that the options may be related to a licensed software component sold to many car makers. If so, the options are listed (y/n) may be more as generic items and not any guarantee that the MS will ever have them (of course parking assist has been announced for European deliveries).
Similar threads
