Soft and hardware makers, closed ones that is, are extremely secretive over their code and hardware. If there’s a flaw, bug, or error, you are at their mercy to fix their code or issue a recall or something; you can’t fix it yourself. In fact, fixing your own hardware will most certainly void warranty. Since we haven’t had a decent car analogy on OSNews in a while, US Congress handed us one on a silver platter.
Cars are becoming ever more complex creatures (well, non-US ones at least, ba-dum-tish): they are stuffed with chips and software to control everything from low-level aspects like fuel-air mixture all the way up to high-level things like automatic windscreen wipers. As a result of this electronification and computerisation of cars, they have become increasingly more difficult to service.
Most new cars require specialised hard and software in order to diagnose and repair them, which means that it becomes ever more difficult for independent or smaller car shops to take care of their customers’ cars. US Congress is now contemplating a bill (the Right-to-Repair Act 2009) that would force car makers who operate in the US market to provide equal and open access to their tools, equipment, and spare parts. In addition, a wealth of information must be opened up: safety and service bulletins, data needed to diagnose, repair, or replace existing equipment, and so on.
Trade secrets, however, are exempt from this rule. To prevent car makers form abusing this exemption, the bill sates that all information made available to authorised service providers can automatically no longer be regarded as trade secrets. This newly proposed bill is generating support across the US political spectrum (heck, both Libertarian Bob Barr and Green/independent Ralph Nader support it).
I guess you can all see the analogy coming up here (if you don’t, have another coffee): this sounds an awful lot like the stifling effect the DMCA has on the hard and software industry, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Fred von Lohmann notes. The problems the car industry has here stem directly from the use of computers, he argues, which comes with lock-out codes and closed-source diagnostic tools, forcing car owners to have their cars services at certain locations only. Since the computers and software used in cars fall under the DMCA, lock-out mechanisms may not be circumvented.
However, the effect of the DMCA stretches far beyond just computers, Lohmann explains.
The problem that this law attempts to fix is the direct result of the use of computers in cars, accompanied by proprietary diagnostic tools and “lock-out codes.” Sound familiar? It should, as it’s the very sort of thing that can also make it difficult to repair computer systems, sell replacement garage door openers, and refill printer toner cartridges. One underlying legal problem here is the DMCA, which prohibits bypassing or circumventing “technological protection measures”.
So basically, what is going on here is that first the US comes up with the hated DMCA, only then to have to come up with a law to circumvent that same DMCA when it comes to cars. As Lohmann notes, “thanks to the DMCA, we need a Right-To-Repair Act not just for cars, but increasingly for all the things we own.”
Luckily for car owners and small car shops, the American automotive industry isn’t in a position to complain or lobby against this proposed bill, as they are dependent on the US government right now. Sadly, the computer industry is still going strong, so we’ll still have to deal with companies invoking the DMCA to impose post-sale restrictions or lock you in to their hard and software.
It doesn’t matter how often it happens or how old you are…. the sweet smell of irony is always enjoyable
[quote]Cars are becoming ever more complex creatures (well, non-US ones at least, ba-dum-tish): [/quote]
Why pick on US cars? I assure you, they’re getting ever more complex as well, not that you’d have a clue, because you’re clueless about things sold and used outside your small corner case of reality. Most features added to new cars these days are largely software-based, and that’s universal, with no regard to the country which the engineering team is based in. For that matter, a large portion of the “foreign” cars sold in the US these days are assembled by US workers in the United States: I own and drive one of those now, and some of the “Features” it has that my previous american-made cars (designed in the late 80’s for basic engineering, updated mildly as is common, last model year of that line I had was 2001) did not, make it a more obnoxious car to own: I see no point in a car that bitches at you constantly to belt in the passenger in the front seat that doesn’t exist (I was moving boxes of books) or abusing the meaning of the Cruise Control light that’s blinking to tell me the gas cap is loose: if you have to look up something like that in the user’s manual, they’ve failed in user interface engineering towards the purpose of making it cheaper to make the darn thing, while adding that feature to tell you something isn’t “ideal” but may cause you to see a dealer.
Yes, I’m arguing that in many cases, simpler is better: not only for the sanity of the user, but also because there’s less that can go wrong due to needless complexity.
Calling me clueless while you yourself fail to grasp an obvious joke about the current state of the American automotive market. There’s irony all over the place here.
Lighten up.
Edited 2009-05-21 16:37 UTC
aren’t you demonstrating ignorance with your own comment ironically titles “ignorance is ignorance.. and wholly unneeded”
You may want to rent a sense of humour for a day and see how you like it.
Who spat in your coffee? Methinks twas but a joke.
Given the tone of the response I have a feeling that it was more likely a ‘Cleveland Steamer’ than simply someone spitting in his coffee.
I measure the health of the US car industry based on this – how many US made cars do I see on the roads in my country. I see Japanese, Korean and European but apart from classic 1950’s restorations, finding a US made car on the road is akin to locating big foot or a unicorn.
The only saving grace of the US car industry from the full unrelenting force of the Asian car industry has been the massive protectionism that exists whether it be in the form of tariffs or non-tariff barriers (aka, pointless regulations akin to the 6 foot fence Europe used to demand that the NZ abattoir had to be surrounded by – simply to drive up cost of production).
Edited 2009-05-21 20:26 UTC
Right-to-repair? Since when did one have to have an extra right to something you own? Unless of course you only rented the car you bought. Or only bought the use-right. And what happened to possesion?
Oh dear oh dear :p
Think of the bill’s name as affirming your preexisting rights. That’s how I read it.
Edited 2009-05-21 17:34 UTC
Since the day the DMCA exists.
That is the problem with letting RIAA and MPAA make laws. They will write it without a single thought on collateral damage.
I do not understand the comparison between the DMCA and this bill. The bill is providing for a standardized interface, which is a normal requirement for most any product. The bill allows the work behind the interface to remain proprietary, similar to the DMCA. Copyrighted music is accessible through a media player. Automobile diagnostic codes will be accessible through a standardized diagnostic interface. It seems to me the EFF is grasping at straws.
They should implement a POST like the motherboard makers do…
And they should call it CARS ERROR HONK CODES.
My understanding is that the curruption of law known as the DMCA makes it against the law for one to reverse engineer or cercomvent protections on a product. The intent being to control copywrite through law rather than better technologies; why engineer better encryption when you can just legislate the problem off your desk. I originally thought it was meant to protect encrypted communications but nope, it was a RIAA lobby project.
If you buy music on CD and encode it to mp3, you break CD protections to do so and are not within the law. If you rip your DVD to a video file for your media center or pvp, you are again outside the law.
(They have relaxed the DMCA to allow fair use from what I understand but these examples demonstrait the issue I think.)
DMCA extends beyond entertainment media though. Car computers run proprietary code which has technological protections limiting access to certified dealership mechanics. As mentioned in the article, proprietary tools provide a protection as you have to have the controlled item or have your metal fab friend hack one up for you.
As an independent gearhead (car hacker) or mechanic shop, getting around proprietary tools or into the closed software systems means breaking the DMCA even though you may own the machine your working on. Can’t let the unwashed masses close to those patents after all.
DMCA in this manner, can be used unfairly against competition since a fully capable mechanic can’t work on your car unless they pay in the dues to the manufacturer. You also can not take your car to a non-dealership mechanic so your choice of a competent preferred mechanic is restricted.
Now that they have a badly written law, they write more badly written laws in for exceptions. With the first afterthought law to allow fair use, this makes a second law being written against DMCA to allow acceptations.
Respecting industry standards and allowing any skilled mechanic access to information needed to maintaine the car should make the market healthier but we’ll have to see how it’s implemented and what tag-ons it picks up before house acceptance.
An example that I thought of with that last bit; Emannuel Goldstein (Off the Wall, Off the Hook, 2600 Magazine, HOPE) bought a canadian hybrid car and while the same car sells in the states, the two markets have separate “keys” to allow mechanics access. He must now drive to Canada for any servicing because the keys are not available or prohibitively priced in the US though the only difference is those access keys. (I’m guessing it’s a software diagnostics interface thing)
I am still not comfortable with the analogy being made by the EFF in regards to this situation. Maybe there is not enough information in the article. Maybe I continue to miss something.
From the article, “What the bill suggests is that the sort of market created by the DMCA, in which companies are given the right to encrypt and protect information of their choosing, shouldn’t apply when it comes to autos. To be clear, there are implementation differences. The DMCA could still apply in that third-party tools that provide access to encrypted data in a car would still run afoul of the law. But the need for these tools would be severely reduced by the fact that the manufacturers would be required to provide an equivalent. That would also, presumably, eliminate most of the incentive for manufacturers to take action against the providers of third-party tools.”
The statement, “companies are given the right to encrypt and protect information of their choosing, shouldn’t apply when it comes to autos” does not appear correct to me in regards to the DMCA. The following association is how I understand the situation in a comparison between the music industry and the automobile industry.
1) The DMCA allows the music industry to encrypt or engineer the musical content of a song in whatever proprietary format they choose. It is against the law to break or reverse engineer this proprietary format, which is often encrypted.
2) The auto manufacturers are allowed to encrypt or engineer the content of their computer diagnostic software and hardware. It is similarly against the law to break or reverse engineer the software and hardware of the diagnostic tools.
3) The musical content of a song is provided to the consumer through an interface called a media player that interprets the musical content from a standardized media format such as .MP3 or .WMP.
4) The diagnostic codes calculated by the proprietary diagnostic software and hardware will be provided to the consumer through an interface of standardized diagnostic equipment made equally available to everyone.
“A bill introduced in Congress would ensure that automakers would provide equal access to those specialized tools.”
The music industry provides equal access to codecs so media players may interpret the encrypted data in a manner suitable for the end user. The automotive industry will now be forced to provide equal access to their diagnostic codes so diagnostic hardware may interpret the proprietary data in a manner suitable for the end user.
The capitalist market is left to control the “equal access” through costs charged by the company that the repair shops must pay to acquire such access in a manner similar to the end user having to purchase an MP3 player or IPOD to enjoy the music encrypted within the musical content of the song.
There is discussion the auto manufacturers do not really provide “equal access” through prohibitive pricing schemes but the government will leave this situation to the capitalist market to correct. Just as few people use the Sony media players with its proprietary media compression due to prohibitive pricing, availability, and poor marketing; so should be the result for any auto manufacturer that only provides their diagnostic tools through “equal access” with prohibitive pricing, availability, and poor marketing. If a consumer is unable to get their car repaired because auto repair shops are unable to afford the diagnostic tools, then fewer people will purchase those vehicles as a result. Congress is merely enabling the market to better control itself.
Comparing this issue to DMCA is ridiculous. No one is talking about cloning or copying data here, nor is it a copyright issue. Owners want to know what the diagnostic codes mean so that they have a choice when it comes to getting their car repaired. The choice of taking it to an expensive dealer for repairs, repairing it themselves or taking it to a 3rd party repair shop.
You are completely missing the point. The DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent any security measures for any reason. Congress is working on this bill so that car makers do not do what Lexmark tried to do with its ink cartridges. If Ford makes a chip that only Ford can read legally, then they have side stepped anti monopoly laws and created an environment where they can charge whatever they want. Just like the DMCA is used to side step fair use attributes that the RIAA/MPAA couldn’t legislate away.
Kaiwai: I dont know if your country has an auto industry, but the problem in the US is that there are no tariffs on foreign imports (or not enough). Asia will not import any of our vehicles while we import whatever they want to send us. Out in LA there are acres and acres of toyotas sitting at the pier waiting to be sold. They aren’t selling because of the recession, but they are here none the less.
I think you’ll find the majority of those Toyotas sitting out there in LA are actually built at the Georgetown, Kentucky plant.
I think the easiest solution is to augment the DMCA with a single disclaimer:
“This bill does not supersede any previous legislation.”
or
“This bill is not to be misconstrued as to deny rights held prior to the passage of this bill.”
Yeah, I can’t remember the correct legal mumbu jumbo, sorry.
In said manner, all previous rights remain intact, and only those you did not have prior have been restricted.
You see, the law prior to the DMCA was that a U.S. consumer had every right in the world to do WHATEVER they wanted/needed with their copy of a copyrighted material ( book, album, movie… ) in order to use it in a way that did not cause harm to the copyright owner. The law also was such that the copyright owner lost all say in what you did with your copy of the work(s) as soon as the purchase was complete. They couldn’t dictate what you did beyond a few exceptions ( royalty failure / piracy / etc. )
There was even a law provided in order to protect the original data – including transferring to another medium ( a single backup is allowed – with some caveats ).
Indeed, a law was even in place to ensure that you had the right to interoperability!! You have EVERY RIGHT to buy an operating system designed for a RISC infrastructure and run it on a CISC one. Anything you did to make this possible was your intellectual property. You could sell that knowledge, or even make a product that allowed others to do it with no knowledge of how it is done whatsoever.
Another analogy is that you have EVERY RIGHT to buy a DVD and modify it to play in a CD player – or re-encode it to work, if need be. You can sell your method, any tools needed for the job – you can even sell that product as its own product – provided you are honest with what it contains ( the original DVD + your backup copy in a another format ).
Examples:
4.6L V8 with an added supercharger: legal
Same 4.6L V8 bored to 4.9L, with twin turbos: legal
Same V8 with two cylinder grafted on to make a V10 – legal
Same V8 with on bank removed to make an I4 – legal.
An engine made from a casting of the various components of that V8 – illegal.
The only time you broke the law was when you made copies for redistribution.
The only thing the DMCA accomplished was to make it possible for the record companies to go after software developers for making it possible to play a DVD on a computer without buying a special codec or special media player.
I have run into a few of these DVDs recently and I am preparing massive complaints – I ONLY watch my DVDs on computers – PERIOD. I own my copy – I have the RIGHT to use it in any way I so choose that does not violate any REASONABLE laws ( Americans are in the unique position of having the right to tell their government to suck it – you just have to know how ).
I, for one, will make it a point to find and buy a copy of every movie which is so restricted as to be unplayable in VLC -without hacks- simply so I can have the right to complain louder and more often.
Hrm.. I need more money…
–The loon
While GM and Chrysler are now subsidiaries of the US government (more or less), Ford didn’t take any government money has remained independent and apparently is recovering its strength. For now.
FWIW, my 1996 Saturn was a great car, making better gas mileage than nearly all the cars on the road today. I don’t understand why GM could manufacture such a technologically advanced car in 1996 (which sold quite well) then find itself unable to do anything remotely similar in 2006. I think it has something to do with the fact that the glossy auto mags turned their nose up at everything Saturn made as “not exciting enough” or something. Now it’s 2009 and GM is falling apart, go figure.
FWIW, my 1996 Saturn was a great car, making better gas mileage than nearly all the cars on the road today. I don’t understand why GM could manufacture such a technologically advanced car in 1996 (which sold quite well) then find itself unable to do anything remotely similar in 2006.
It’s not a matter of technology, but physics. People expect more power (acceleration) now as well as more options (more weight, not to mention something has to generate the electricity for those options), and something has to give: gas mileage.
My 1995 Dodge Neon regularly managed 38 MPG, but it didn’t have power windows, a sun roof, and only had a 122HP motor. It’s difficult to find cars that weigh 2500lbs now.