this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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Right now it's your right to do what you want to your car as long as it still passes vehicle inspection, but it appears that car makers want new laws that prevent you from modifying your own car.
If we just sit on our hands now, well likely move into a future where we will be forced to either pay subscription or take public transit, which requires subscriptions.
The Library of Congress added "software that runs land vehicles" to their copyright exceptions somewhat recently. That's why farmers are legally allowed to use cracked software from Ukrainian grain farmers to run/repair their tractors
Even allowed now I would never ever modify my car firmware due to huge liability in case of any incident. Literally any insurance company figuring out you tempered with car software would try to take all the money paid for damages back from you.
You can inject CAN bus commands if you can sniff what they're sending. No firmware modification necessary. Not saying it's a good idea to do so, but it is possible to do so.
At least public transit is an ongoing service. I'm far less opposed to subscriptions when I'm actually being provided with something for them.
Car manufacturers trying to charge subscriptions for features in the car you own feels like racketeering. They're not providing an ongoing service, they're asking me to keep paying them to not remove a feature.