### part 1: tentative final article From: "Michelle Delio" To: "'*Hobbit*'" Subject: RE: Car hacks Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 17:58:13 -0500 Attached in plain text, and pasted below because the plain text didn't look all that readable. YMMV. _michelle People have been tinkering with their cars since the first horseless buggy hit the road. But, thanks to onboard computerized systems that control everything from engine management systems to radios, hackers can now customize their rides in ways that are likely to have Henry Ford doing back flips in his grave. For some, the whole point of hacking a car is to upgrade its performance, which can be done by replacing the appropriate components with aftermarket chips. Others don't feel the need for speed. To them, hacking is a hands-on activity that enables them to understand the car better, save money by doing their own work, ensure the work is done right, add new features, and circumvent dumb design decisions. "Car makers definitely make their share of stupid or annoying user-interface decisions, such as requiring the ignition key be turned to engine-run position before the power windows will work. One of my hacks is a simple switch that enables all the power windows with the key out. Great in summer for opening everything up without having to sit down in the hot seat," said a hacker known simply as "Hobbit." "Really, you hack to get the work you want done," Hobbit added. "There is no conventional shop where you can walk in and say 'Hi, this is my car. Can you make it a hybrid?' or 'Hi, this is my car. I want to video conference with my friends when I'm driving and I want my instant messages to be read to me.' As a result, you have to take matters into your own hands." Another reason why some people modify their cars is to get access to the fun features that people living elsewhere and driving the same vehicle enjoy. "If you own a Mercedes you can hack it by getting the European factory navigation package which boosts engine power and also gives you in-car DVD, and the ability to plug in video games and computers and use them in the front seat," said Damien Stolarz, CEO of Robotarmy Corp, a software/R&D consultancy and Carbot, an in-car computer company The U.S. market doesn't offer these features because the industry worries a driver will get distracted, get into an accident and sue the manufacturer, said Stolarz. "But if you've ever seen the cockpit of an airplane, you've seen how many screens and dials a human could conceivably deal with," said Stolarz. "I hope that a good precedent is sent that puts responsibility where it belongs - with the driver - and lets some of these very useful automotive devices reach the U.S. market. But barring that, it will be up to hackers to get the features they want into their cars." Stolarz drives a 1950 Nash, and his favorite car hacks include setting up a remote control surveillance camera that lets him use a cell phone to look at what's happening around his car. Another hack he's working on is car-to-car music sharing; not MP3 swapping but figuring out a way to allow people to listen to the music that a nearby driver has in their onboard sound system. "Another very cool hack we're integrating into our CarBot products is a video jukebox - you can copy all your DVDs onto a hard drive, connect it to your car computer, and let your passengers watch any DVD from your collection like a hotel video on demand system," said Stolarz "And a hack I plan to do personally when I have the time is to put a digital projector in the car, so I can create my own drive in movie theater on any blank building wall." Adding another computer system to a car is a technique that many are exploring. "A general purpose computer in your car opens up a whole range of possibilities," says Raffi Krikorian, director of Synthesis Studios, a hardware/software design and consulting firm, and until recently a graduate student at the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms/Media Lab where he worked on designing large organic networks. "Not only is it your entertainment device, providing access to MP3s, videos, XM radio, games, etc., but it also allows you to integrate everything the car is thinking about. When your car's "check engine" light turns on, why should you have to pay your dealer $100 to tell you that it's just because something is jammed open? Why not let your car computer figure that out, and then tell you so you can fix it?" "Also, you could hook up a GPS to the computer, and write a program that would log your car's performance in different locations. If you drive that route often, then your car computer can 'learn' how your car should function and tell you if something is going wrong." Krikorian's favorite hack is the custom mounted touchscreen LCD in the dashboard of his Corolla that's connected to a CarBot entertainment system in his trunk. He's thinking about installing a stealth radar detector system in his Corolla which would be integrated into the car's computer. "But my hacking over the holidays is going to be limited to writing software for my car computer to make it work better," said Krikorian "Its cold in the north east. It's no fun to be poking around my car when I'm freezing." Cold or not, even the most devoted car hackers don't suggest that you just wander outside and start tweaking your engine. Mucking with a car's computer system means you're altering the systems of a several-ton something that could kill someone. But most agree that the most likely outcome of a failed hack is a blown engine. "The most frequent screw-up scenario involves loss of warranty coverage and/or expensive repairs," says Staten Island mechanic Steve Ferrello. "So you might want to wait until the warranty is about to run out before you start fooling around. And I think the most successful car hacker is going to be someone who knows how to do repairs the old-fashioned way, that is - someone who knows cars. If you haven't had a lot of grease under your fingernails at one point or another, find someone else to do the work." "What I see a lot of people thinking about these days is getting telemetry from their cars -- engine information, etc., modifying it in the computer, and feeding it back to their cars. A lot can be done to cars these days without having to modify the actual engine," said Krikorian. "You just have to be really careful." "Sure, making changes away from the 'engineered design' carries certain risks, but if the manufacturer refuses to tell you why a design was engineered in the particular way that it was, what else are you going to do?" said Hobbit. "Other than what's in the service manuals, one has to guess fairly often as to what the designers were thinking and how much consideration they might have given to reliability or serviceability. Often the answer is fairly obviously zilch, when people get told 'you have to replace the engine computer, and that's $1200.' For a brain-box no more complex than a network card?" Hobbit's favorite car hack is something he fondly calls the "yuppie button" -- a box of relays wired into the lighting harness that when activated would light every possible stock lamp on the rear of the 1989 Trooper he once owned. "It was fairly bright, and definitely distinctive," said Hobbit. "Useful for trying to get high-beamers off my butt, or warning the person screaming up behind me that maybe I'm not accelerating hell-bent after turning out of a side street, and they need to pay attention and think about the math of 2.5 tons of lumbering scrap metal vs. the four undernourished hamsters slaving away under my hood." ### part 1a: an important correction To: mdelio@nyc.rr.com Subject: RE: Car hacks Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 18:46:42 +0000 (GMT) From: hobbit@avian.org (*Hobbit*) The plaintext is eminently more readable than the RTF, thanks. Already, a bit of a problem. "Really, you hack to get the work you want done," Hobbit added. "There is no conventional shop where you can walk in and say 'Hi, this is my car. Can you make it a hybrid?' or 'Hi, this is my car. I want to video conference with my friends ... I didn't say that. Please find the proper attribution... ... _H*