Welcome to the future!

[squatch]

Glad I own an older CUB!

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/

[jimbob200521]

That's a good read! You never really think about how the company who made your cell phone, or car, or tractor, or whatever feel about the stuff once you bought it. I 100% agree; once you bought it, it is yours. As long as you don't copy and distribute the code on it, you really SHOULD be able to do what you want with it. I run custom software on my phone, have modified my Apple TV, run custom software on the routers in my house, and couldn't be happier. Who am I hurting? No one. The company still got their money when I bought the hardware, I just made it better for me with aftermarket software. Yet I'm sure I could be tossed into some court and fined for some BS. Who gets hurt in this equation? Joe six-pack aka the consumer. This world today, yeesh. Just want to crawl into a time machine and go back 50 years some days.

[raytasch]

Wonder how the anti trust laws could come into play here? Sure seems like the manufacturers want control of equipment from manufacture to obsolescence. No more independent repair facilities. And government will suck right up to the manufacturers because it is control.

[Sam Mac]

From what I've read GM is also part of this deal. I find it nice that the taxpayers bailed GM out and this is how they act. So far it is not an issue for me, I don't own any JD or GM stuff that is computer controlled and I have no intention of ever owning any of there products.

[green 4 acres]

I actually think they have a good point though
I mean, I have a couple of subasous sists (lumps of hard fat under my skin on the back ) I have thought about slitting the skin and they pull out . What you say" you idiot you might get an infection and kill yourself"
yeah but I'd only kill me . tampering with todays ECU cars you might kill a dozen ! electronic throttles , PCM controls the trans & engine , traction controls
years ago 96 ? working at Mitsu they were having a rash of cars with the electric components going bad, i worked on one that had everything going bad and they kept going bad P window controlers , all kinds of ecu's , radio units they spent $6000 on a car under warranty ..That was there limit BTW
This was giving Mitsu a very bad reputation they sent all the items back to the vendors who manufactured them they found the IC 's were warped
This was caused only by a old turn the knob to load amps, electronic battery and electric system testor ,which was the case . they found a shop that was responsble for mine, I was being blamed for not fixing this car ... no telling how many millions this cost Mitsu in lost sales from a bad reputation that was not their doing



It was also traced to a problem with a 98 Mitsu diamante ( more than 3 cars )that at 80 mph the RR traction control fired up to lock up that wheel yikes


In canada you need a 4 year degree to work on cars so i'm told

[squatch]

More info.
http://news.boldride.com/2015/04/gm-...illegal/76702/

[raytasch]

So, where would the personal computer industry be today under proposed regulations? We would still be running DOS or maybe Win95 or perhaps the first generation of Apple works??

[j4c11]

I'm resurrecting this thread for some important news, the new DMCA exemptions were published today:

http://copyright.gov/1201/2015/fedre...spectionFR.pdf

"Accordingly, based on the Register’s recommendation, the Librarian adopts the following exemption:

Computer programs that are contained in and control the functioning of a motorized land vehicle such as a personal automobile, commercial motor vehicle or mechanized agricultural vehicle, except for computer programs primarily designed for the control of telematics or entertainment systems for such vehicle, when circumvention is a necessary step undertaken by the authorized owner of the vehicle to allow the diagnosis, repair or lawful modification of a vehicle function; and where such circumvention does not constitute a violation of applicable law, including without limitation regulations promulgated by the Department of Transportation or the Environmental Protection Agency; and provided, however, that such circumvention is initiated no earlier than 12 months after the effective date of this regulation"

[a3v03v0]

John Q Public is not an issue. The automakers are attempting to lock out other companies. But it is a lot easier to get backing if they claim any idiot can make these sort of changes.

I used to write embedded software, but not for cars. So skip the following if it bores you!

We call code programed into a device embedded code or embedded software.

Only embedded engineers and similar hobby types have the background needed to modify embedded code. Only a small percentage of these people know enough about cars to modify the code used in cars.

The human readable computer program developed by the auto maker is not available, so you have to reverse engineer the binary on the computer chips. But automakers read protect their code so you can't get to their binary without breaking that protection.

Even if one has the background it is a whale of a lot of work to reverse engineer the code. It is not something single engineer can easily do. It might be easier to write you own code but that is still complex.

[Cub Cadet 123]

I kind of wonder if this is in response to VW's engineer who re-programmed their diesels to falsely pass emissions tests?

Cub Cadet 123