To be clear, I mean disabled so that there is no traffic. I realise that the port is physically up (and negotiable), but it is pretty trivial to shut down all traffic to/from that port (so long as the port is individually addressable).
If they wanted to stop 'us' from playing with the port, but keep it usable by engineers, putting an on/off setting in the DIAG menu of the car is my best guess (that is how I would do it).
If that is the case, is there anyone out there who still had access to the "maintenance" console? (pressing and holding the T at the top of the screen for like 30 seconds). I know people had access but based on the request of Tesla people kept that access to themselves. I would just ask that they go in, and see if it is a new menu option. If so then that will solve that and keep people from wasting their time
Also, I feel like it is inevitable that Tesla and other car makers are going to have to continue to up their security on the cars. Given some of the terrible things you can do, even to basic cars like a prius if you have access to the CAN, this is certainly something that the entire industry needs to work on.
That being said, I do think, on some level Tesla needs to break down and give people some control and some level of access. Even if it is a walled garden to play in... Because otherwise people are not going to quit until they get what they want. Which in this case, is primarily driven by the desire to modify certain aspects of the car. Most hacks of this nature is totally non-malicious in nature, and in the result of the company not really giving people what they really want. It then opens the door to other nefarious purposes since now the hard work has been done. I point to the PS3 as the leading example of this in action.
