Tesla's response to me leaking info about the P100D?

[TaoJones]

Really people? Tesla has included information on an unreleased model in software deployed to customer cars. If they wanted to keep this secret they should have done their jobs in firmware packaging. Tesla software team has been lazy and simply got caught with their pants down.

-Tesla knows several people have root access to their personal cars
-Tesla knows wk057 has access and has been known to share info he finds if deemed unharmful
-Tesla knows info about a new battery option is extremely interesting info
-Tesla knows info about a new potential facelift is extremely interesting info <- I guess this is what wk057 hasnt shared

Yet knowing all of this Tesla still chose to bundle these pictures etc in production-grade consumer firmware installed automatically. This is 100% Tesla messing up as they so easily could have avoided this info being spread into customer firmware. If you want to keep something secret then dont spread information on purpose containing these secrets. Its that simple.

Did you who attack him now also attack the person(s) who leaked the photo of the P85D many days before the launch?

And we have a winner. There's no justifying Tesla's retaliation in this case without reaching out to the owner in question; they got caught twice, plain and simple. It's just another example of communication (or the lack thereof) that could be/have been significantly better. The remaining question is whether Tesla will make it right or ignore it. Smart money presumes the latter, even though past performance is no guarantee of future results.

One thing of which you can be assured - the curious release process will get some additional scrutiny, and that's not a bad thing.

I am not at all surprised that the usual suspects would rush to defend Tesla. Not one bit.

 

[omarsultan]

Any evidence to back this up? I have logs of Tesla trying to push my car back two versions from the latest (2.13.77 -> 2.12.126 -> 2.12.45) and not a single report of anyone else having the same occur. If I saw even one report of this happening to someone else, I would have considered another perspective on the events. But here we are, a full day later, nothing. People still getting and installing 2.13.77.

As of this afternoon Tesla's firmware servers were still not reporting the job to install 2.13.77, so I forced the updater to do so... and in the process learned quite a bit I didn't previously know about the updater.

What you have is log entries to which you have absorbed motive. People are getting 2.13.77 and some people are not. I am at still at 2.12.126 so should I worry about being on Elon's naughty list?

In the scheme of things the the "leak" of 100kWh pack is hardly earth shattering and forcing you back a firmware level seems like a lame and inconsequential way to punish someone.

Yes, Tesla could be blocking you from getting 2.13.77 in a futile swipe for leaking a non-story but an equally valid explanation is that they have figured our 2.13.77 has problems for a set of VINs and is holding those cars at their prior SW until bug fixes are out.

 

[Todd Burch]

I'm going to keep my opinion mostly to myself on this whole thing because forum debates are tiring to me, but I will say this:

I believe the version recall was intentional and targeted. Having said that, if whoever commanded the version recall assumed Jason didn't have a backup, it seems perfectly reasonable to recall the version he had until they could sanitize the extra goodies and send out a cleaned version to his car. I don't have a problem with that.

Obviously that's moot in this case since he does have a backup, but recalling the dirty version until they can send out a clean one seems like a perfectly reasonable attempt to mitigate Tesla's loss of "proprietary" info.

Yes, if Tesla really wanted to keep the info secret, it should have stayed out of builds until it was public info. But I don't view their actions as retaliatory. I think they were just trying to buy time to clean up the build.

Everyone's assuming nefarious intent, which is dramatic and all--and reminds me of high school--but it's pretty presumptive.

 

[eloder]

I'm a bit confused--if you're not happy at Tesla for modifying your car, then wouldn't them disabling updates be the ultimate way to preserve the car you bought exactly as-is?

The employer I work at deals with software and devices. Clients are more than welcome to do whatever they want with their devices, but in doing so they get cut off from official updates and support. What's the difference in this situation?

Also, I definitely would have taken your initial tweet as a taunt, wk. Your response to their actions (or inaction as it may be) is justification enough if someone supposedly did see that tweet and acted on it, because lo and behold--you're following through on your implied threat.

I'd have to side with Bonnie here--white hats don't cause harm. People like you are needed for Tesla to thrive and survive security-wise, but taking info public like that seems possibly more harmful than not as consumers can and will act on that information.

If Tesla refuses to allow my car to receive the same OTA updates as anyone else, then they're effectively reducing the value of my property by selecting to not provide this to my car while they provide it to other customers. Car was advertised as having OTA updates, especially ones relating to key features that were paid for (re: autopilot). Sorry, it can certainly be argued that Tesla is obligated to send the same OTA updates that everyone else gets as was advertised when I bought the vehicle.

Not sure at all how this situation is different than jailbreaking an Apple phone. You can kiss your iOS updates goodbye once that's done.

 

[Skotty]

The truth is a microbrewer can produce a beer for a few thousand dollars in setup.

I (well, my VC's) have to write a check for $10 million for there to even exist a product for you to come and steal. Sure I might have a million customers. One day. If I'm lucky - the odds are overwhelmingly against me.

But it still means I paid $10 to create the thing that you regard as being worthless. In the hope that it would be off some value to you and you would give me $20 for it.

It is every single bit as bad as stealing a beer.


The only rationalization you can maybe have is that it's easier to get away with. Which is true, but if that is the type of person you are, the only reason you are NOT stealing bear more often then is for fear of getting caught. And sorry, but that would make you a sociopath.

This debate off topic, so I'll just say one last thing and let it go (can open debate in off topic if desired). Put simply, I disagree. A simplified scenario is copying a program X off the internet vs stealing a packaged copy of program X from WalMart. It would seem to me, that clearly the latter is a more serious crime. In both cases, the software was stolen, but in the latter case, there is also the CD and packaging that had to be constructed, transported, stocked, etc, making the store theft more serious and deserving of greater punishment.

 

[Naonak]

The truth is a microbrewer can produce a beer for a few thousand dollars in setup.

I (well, my VC's) have to write a check for $10 million for there to even exist a product for you to come and steal. Sure I might have a million customers. One day. If I'm lucky - the odds are overwhelmingly against me.

But it still means I paid $10 to create the thing that you regard as being worthless. In the hope that it would be off some value to you and you would give me $20 for it.

It is every single bit as bad as stealing a beer.


The only rationalization you can maybe have is that it's easier to get away with. Which is true, but if that is the type of person you are, the only reason you are NOT stealing bear more often then is for fear of getting caught. And sorry, but that would make you a sociopath.

Not sure this the place to have this discussion, but whatever... I'll bite.

Stealing a physical object is much different than pirating digital content. One deprives the owner of the item, the other duplicates the item and *potentially* deprives the seller of a sale. The owner still retains their item and nothing is lost. The *value* of the original is *potentially *diminished* through copying, but that is something very different from theft. Just because I download a movie or a song or a piece of software does not necessarily mean I would have purchased said movie, song or software. For example, it may be worth my time to download the latest pop tune off a The Pirate Bay, but not worth my money to pay for it. If I could not get the song for free and don't find enough value in it to pay for it, I would not have it. But since I could obtain it for free, I download it. That neither deprives the seller of a sale nor deprives them of the song, which is completely unlike stealing a beer.

 

[mmccord]

The truth is a microbrewer can produce a beer for a few thousand dollars in setup.

I (well, my VC's) have to write a check for $10 million for there to even exist a product for you to come and steal. Sure I might have a million customers. One day. If I'm lucky - the odds are overwhelmingly against me.

But it still means I paid $10 to create the thing that you regard as being worthless. In the hope that it would be off some value to you and you would give me $20 for it.

It is every single bit as bad as stealing a beer.


The only rationalization you can maybe have is that it's easier to get away with. Which is true, but if that is the type of person you are, the only reason you are NOT stealing bear more often then is for fear of getting caught. And sorry, but that would make you a sociopath.

Not exactly true. Here's the difference:

When i steal a beer, i prevent you from selling it to someone else, whether or not i would have bought it from you.

When i pirate your software/movie/whatever, it doesn't prevent anyone else from buying it. If i would not have bought it from you, you lose nothing by my having it anyway.

 

[bonnie]

Not sure this the place to have this discussion, but whatever... I'll bite.

Stealing a physical object is much different than pirating digital content. One deprives the owner of the item, the other duplicates the item and *potentially* deprives the seller of a sale. The owner still retains their item and nothing is lost. The *value* of the original is *potentially *diminished* through copying, but that is something very different from theft. Just because I download a movie or a song or a piece of software does not necessarily mean I would have purchased said movie, song or software. For example, it may be worth my time to download the latest pop tune off a The Pirate Bay, but not worth my money to pay for it. If I could not get the song for free and don't find enough value in it to pay for it, I would not have it. But since I could obtain it for free, I download it. That neither deprives the seller of a sale nor deprives them of the song, which is completely unlike stealing a beer.

Not exactly true. Here's the difference:

When i steal a beer, i prevent you from selling it to someone else, whether or not i would have bought it from you.

When i pirate your software/movie/whatever, it doesn't prevent anyone else from buying it. If i would not have bought it from you, you lose nothing by my having it anyway.

And it's exactly because of rationalizations like this of 'it's not really stealing if I take your work product' that has created so much IP case law. Sorry, but you're just coming up with reasons why it's okay to steal someone else's work. Not cool.

 

[mmccord]

And it's exactly because of rationalizations like this of 'it's not really stealing if I take your work product' that has created so much IP case law. Sorry, but you're just coming up with reasons why it's okay to steal someone else's work. Not cool.

You took that entirely wrong. I am pointing out a flaw in his logic, not disagreeing with him.

 

[bonnie]

You took that entirely wrong. I am pointing out a flaw in his logic, not disagreeing with him.

Apologies, your 'pointing out' followed immediately after another post using that as justification.

 

[qwk]

It is certainly your choice how you handle the information that you obtained by hacking into the car's system.

It is not your choice nor your place to tell Tesla how to respond to what you did and how to defend their information from your actions and choices you made so obvious to everyone.

It's his car, duh. Tesla has absolutely no right and permission to muck with his property.

 

[Eclectic]

My gut says that while Tesla may be able to suspend delivery of new updates in the event an owner does something to violate the user or vehicle purchase agreement, it would be unlikely that they have the legal authority to go in to the car's systems and take something away that they had already provided (unless they did so to all other vehicles). I'm an attorney, not an engineer, so I don't understand exactly what WK has done, but it's given me a pretty strong interest in reviewing the applicable agreements that we all enter into with Tesla to see exactly what rights they have in these situations. Again, my experience says that what they did (in targeting him for denial of an already provided update) wouldn't survive in court unless the governing agreements are quite clear in vesting Tesla with this specific right.

 

[qwk]

Sounds like wk057 could get a job at TM...

He needs to run the software department at Tesla. Show them boys how to write proper code....

 

[apacheguy]

Any evidence to back this up? I have logs of Tesla trying to push my car back two versions from the latest (2.13.77 -> 2.12.126 -> 2.12.45) and not a single report of anyone else having the same occur. If I saw even one report of this happening to someone else, I would have considered another perspective on the events. But here we are, a full day later, nothing. People still getting and installing 2.13.77.

So what motive would Tesla have to downgrade you? I could see them shielding your car from future updates as retaliation (not saying I agree with that), but I don't see why they would forcibly downgrade you. Especially after the CEO publicly confirmed there had been no order to do so from the top.

 

[Krugerrand]

It's his car, duh. Tesla has absolutely no right and permission to muck with his property.

And yet Tesla has on a number of occasions 'mucked' with all Model S owner's property - stopped the ability of the car to lower for a number of months and then reinstalled a different range of lowering ability back to everyone's car, added features like creep and hillhold, currently is mucking around with AP and the list is becoming endless as the years pass. You (general you, not specific you) love the connectivity of the car when it makes you happy and makes your car better in your eyes, but you don't love the connectivity when it doesn't make you happy and changes the car in way you think is worse. This is where I tell you, you can't have your cake and eat it too, and you have to take the good with the bad.

We all agree it's his car and he can do whatever he wants with it. What we don't agree on is that the hidden (yes, hidden whether deemed hidden well or badly is irrelevant - it's not showing up on the screen for all to see and it was never intended to be available to people to see until Tesla was ready to show it) information is the OP's information to do what he wants with.

 

[Naonak]

And it's exactly because of rationalizations like this of 'it's not really stealing if I take your work product' that has created so much IP case law. Sorry, but you're just coming up with reasons why it's okay to steal someone else's work. Not cool.

It's exactly because of verbiage like this that the certain segments of the population try to equate theft with IP related "crime." Theft is defined as the physical removal of an object that is capable of being stolen without the consent of the owner and with the intention of depriving the owner of it permanently. IP does not fall under this category, it is neither physical (so thus can't be removed) and there is usually no intention of depriving the owner of it permanently (if that were even possible?).

Sorry, but you're just coming up with reasons to call IP infringement "theft" so that it sounds like it's the same thing as actual theft and that the result works out to be the same, which has been disproven time and again by real world research and not some imaginary "possibilities" world conjured up by the aggrieved party in a courtroom. Nowhere do I state that it is justifiable or "okay" to do this, but I will not sit around and let you conflate theft with IP infringement and bring up the tired diatribe about how downloading a song is the same as stealing a beer. It's not. It never has been. It never will be. As a software (and hardware) developer, I much rather have someone pirate my software than steal my hardware. If they steal my hardware, I'm out the production cost of that hardware. If they pirate my software, I'm out... a potential sale? Maybe.

 

[Krugerrand]

My gut says that while Tesla may be able to suspend delivery of new updates in the event an owner does something to violate the user or vehicle purchase agreement, it would be unlikely that they have the legal authority to go in to the car's systems and take something away that they had already provided (unless they did so to all other vehicles). I'm an attorney, not an engineer, so I don't understand exactly what WK has done, but it's given me a pretty strong interest in reviewing the applicable agreements that we all enter into with Tesla to see exactly what rights they have in these situations. Again, my experience says that what they did (in targeting him for denial of an already provided update) wouldn't survive in court unless the governing agreements are quite clear in vesting Tesla with this specific right.

If they were to only take away what was hidden, and thus obviously unintended for him to see/have in the first place or until such a time as they were prepared to unhide it, would that change the viewpoint of the situation?

 

[bonnie]

It's exactly because of verbiage like this that the certain segments of the population try to equate theft with IP related "crime." Theft is defined as the physical removal of an object that is capable of being stolen without the consent of the owner and with the intention of depriving the owner of it permanently. IP does not fall under this category, it is neither physical (so thus can't be removed) and there is usually no intention of depriving the owner of it permanently (if that were even possible?).

Sorry, but you're just coming up with reasons to call IP infringement "theft" so that it sounds like it's the same thing as actual theft and that the result works out to be the same, which has been disproven time and again by real world research and not some imaginary "possibilities" world conjured up by the aggrieved party in a courtroom. Nowhere do I state that it is justifiable or "okay" to do this, but I will not sit around and let you conflate theft with IP infringement and bring up the tired diatribe about how downloading a song is the same as stealing a beer. It's not. It never has been. It never will be. As a software (and hardware) developer, I much rather have someone pirate my software than steal my hardware. If they steal my hardware, I'm out the production cost of that hardware. If they pirate my software, I'm out... a potential sale? Maybe.

Okay. We disagree. Businesses have been lost over stuff like this. Not 'one sale', but loss of the investment in the business, because the IP is stolen. And that is just a *little* more of an impact than the loss of hardware off your desk.

 

[jerjozwik]

wk... during the whole p85d thing I did not really like your posts. after reading 95% of this thread, and your responses, I applaud your efforts and wish you happy hacking.

 

[qwk]

And yet Tesla has on a number of occasions 'mucked' with all Model S owner's property - stopped the ability of the car to lower for a number of months and then reinstalled a different range of lowering ability back to everyone's car, added features like creep and hillhold, currently is mucking around with AP and the list is becoming endless as the years pass. You (general you, not specific you) love the connectivity of the car when it makes you happy and makes your car better in your eyes, but you don't love the connectivity when it doesn't make you happy and changes the car in way you think is worse. This is where I tell you, you can't have your cake and eat it too, and you have to take the good with the bad.

We all agree it's his car and he can do whatever he wants with it. What we don't agree on is that the hidden (yes, hidden whether deemed hidden well or badly is irrelevant - it's not showing up on the screen for all to see and it was never intended to be available to people to see until Tesla was ready to show it) information is the OP's information to do what he wants with.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I would take the FW version my car came with, and stay on it forever if I could. As for the OP, he can do what he wants with the information Tesla sent him. If they don't want secrets out, they need to quit sending them out to everyone. Pretty simple, really.