alt Hacker NewsDid you miss the
> Making software that's usable by independent shops and consumers costs money
sentence before “calling BS”?
> The black market on stolen parts isn't affected by this.
Cars have more parts than a catalyst, and the used parts market is absolutely, 100% affected by software adaptation locks. You can watch the price of used engine control modules, instrument clusters, and infotainment modules rise as soon as aftermarket tools come out which bypass protections, and the tools to do so are worth a significant sum of money.
> Hellcat engines get swapped all the time
Yes, all protections are eventually bypassed, especially weak Stellantis ones, but that doesn’t mean that the goal wasn’t anti-theft, just that the goals were badly achieved.
Anyway, I think we broadly agree that vehicle diagnostics should be more open, but discounting crime and “security” as objectives doesn’t work, because they’re the main arguments used against regulatory efforts to improve the situation.
EDIT: I read again and I suppose you are arguing that diagnostic tools don’t or shouldn’t cost manufacturers money to make; I simply can’t agree with this argument, any software has a support and maintenance cost which scales with the type and number of users.
Didn't miss that making software costs money. The point is making it protected costs more money and mainly hurts independent repair shops and consumers. Afaik, manufactures can set obd2 codes outside the mandatory codes, but still compatible with the protocol. If they elect to not do this in favor of creating their own protocol, I think we can agree that it costs more but does not have any benefit other than to the manufacturer and dealer network.
I do agree that diagnostics need to be open. I discount security because at the end of the day, an engine is a bunch of metal. Put a haltec on it and all that security means nothing. Doesn't mean we shouldn't have immobilizers, strong encryption in our key fobs, etc. Security should be to keep the car and the contents from being stolen in the first place. But a flat bed bypasses all security as does a chop shop. So given that low value of bcm to ecu and similar "security" once a vehicle has been stolen, I'd rather be able to swap a good engine into a good body and keep a car on the road rather than in the junk yard.
Sorry for the hot take of bs. I own both of my cars outright and the industry trying to keep me from fixing what I own has me a bit upset. The security argument in the parent post sounds a lot like the "don't give our keys to China" propaganda.