lol - my dealership is actually pretty cool. Their service rep knows I'm very paranoid of my car, so they let me hang out and watch the guys while they work on it. I've actually picked up a wrench on more than one occasion too, because in the end I know the car a lot better than they do.

I agree with the second one though, as long as the vendor tells the customer they will lock/scramble the ECU and the customer agrees to that there's no issue.

 

Ding.

 

I'm not going to comment on ethical implications. Nor will I guess as to all the motives involved by all the various players.

However, I do think it is worth noting that, long term, this is a losing battle. Being one of the largest car markets in the world, virtually ever car maker is going to do as Mitsubishi has been doing quite awhile and conform to SAE J2534 to sell in California.

ECUs are going to be reflashable. And vendors locking things, particular for users who want to keep their cars street legal, are going to start getting pressure from multiple directions. They are already finding out that if users want data bad enough they can get it. Now, with reflash capability becoming a legal requirement, 'intellectual property protection' (however you want to take that) may lead them to more regulatory hassles as well.

-jjf

 

So, I'm guessing half the guys that responded on here are using pirated software and you don't understand the need for a tuner to lock his code.

 

Frankly, I think a stolen tune is probably worth what you paid for it. Isn't the whole point to get the most out of my car and my mods, with the decisions made around my desired driving?

But no matter how much I think that the only really worthwhile tunes are custom ones, canned tunes, both purchased and pirated are a reality. Still, I think you are being a little unfair to the posters here. Most, including MJ, seem quite sympathetic to the motives of the tuner, and even the tool makers.

My only point was that, if software, music, and movies are any indication, copy protection is a losing battle. Also, because of new emissions related laws, the copy protection itself might bring tuning and tuning tool activities squarely into the regulatory bulls eye - which is probably not where the people protecting their work (and profits) now want to be.

-jjf

 

Why should they get to collect money for something thats general knowledge? The answer is they shouldn't so they keep the information from becoming general knowledge. You just don't see many of the "tuners" posting tutorials do you. My personal opinoin is that mail in flashes without logging is a waste of money.

 

I've known about this scrambling for quite a while... and helped people unscramble their roms.

What people are doing is basically changing the rom id in the hex address F52 to another different rom id or a rom id that doesn't exist at all.

I used a hex editor to undo their scrambling, but you could easily set it up in OpenECU to do the same thing.

In a sense this scrambling and locking is kind of pointless from my point of view, and hence why I don't lock any of my customers out. It is all about technique and the actual tuning process.

 

Well, to be completely honest, I've known about the scrambling for quite some time. But as I started hearing about additional tuners doing it, and of course, assisting many tuners in what it is, and what it takes to fix a scrambled map, I felt it was something worth discussing.

Its interesting to note that there could be some regulation in the industry, but there has been for quite some time, yet manufacturers and vendors are still selling test pipes, and catless exhausts, and servicing cars that are driven in where its clearly not a legal car.

My whole point is, I would rather not see the industry get scrutinized, but in some respects, its probably necessary.

To get back to the point of the scrambling, I am very sympathetic to people wanting to protect their work, but they really shouldn't do this to customer cars. At the least its an inconvenience, but at the worst, it could use a wrong definition and someone unaware of this could do alot of damage.

 

Now I will begin this by saying I don't believe that tuners should scramble the tune they have put in the car...and that if they do then they have to tell the user that they have done it.

What I am going to attack is this concept that everyone tries to do...they try to make an analogy between software and just about any other engineeering example...which I will continue to contend cannot be really done. The fundamental difference here is that if I as joe schome have your cam design...what can I really do with it?

Can I cheaply go and knock out a production line that uses a design that I copied from your cams? Sure I can if I have a lot of money (corporate espionage) or cheap labour (see Megan Racing et al.)...but i am sure most of us on here aren't financially able to do that...or can approach someone who is.

For software when I give you my code...you have all the tools to easily reverse engineer, and produce your own version of my code right there on your system...for free. Or if your not technologically gifted you can find someone you can approach with it and they can do it for you...and some of them would probably do it for free (look at the ECU dissassembly being done on this board and activematrix for example)...or for a cost low enough that quite a few on this board can easily achieve.

The only cost is time and if you are determined you have enough of that...so software (and certain electronic media) actually does have to be treated differently in certain circumstances.

 

Define "general knowledge"....I don't think knowing how to tune an engine is "general knowledge"...I consider "general knowledge" to be something that I could go up to any joe/jane schome on the street and ask them and they would know.

Last I checked that can't be said about tuning. The mere fact that they make money from tuning cars proves that what they know can't be simply general knowledge.

I'm curious as to what you do for a living (you can see what I do in my profile)...whatever it is I am going to ask "why do you get paid for it". Cause whatever you do I am sure I can go search on the internet and get information on it and side step you to (being super sarcastic here)

 

Thats kind of tough as the regular user here seems to know very little. To the more technical people it is mostly general knowledge. What I have a problem with is the way these guys have operated in the past locking roms and scrambling them and not sharing what this or that map does. It seems to me if they want to use this as their means of income they would make these tunes individualized. Every car is slightly different.

I'm sure you could find out about what I do on the internet but there's a diference if you ask me a question about how to do this or that I'll give you the correct answer and won't charge you for it.

 

Check out current CA law. It seemed far away when it passed, but the time is bearing down when your Mitsu dealer seems obligated to replace that ECU that won't reflash.

-jjf

 

Hi

I read a sugestion that a tuner could flash an unsed section of the ROM with some data, thus giving it a signiture. Each code could be different for each car , or batch of cars. This might be a better idea than locking an ECU, as the lock is fairly easy to bypass. Of course it dosen't help stop the flash being re-used but it might help identify the source car. The code could be over writen, but hiding a sig might prove harder to detect than unscrambling a map.

MB

 

You know man, I know you are a very smart fellow, but this post makes you appear quite ignorant.

Since I'll soon be an MD, its like me being an OB/GYN and after every "tune up" I do on a woman, I promptly send her out with a lock on it....its my "work" and she's not allowed to change it or share it unless I deem it fit. This is obviously not acceptable and neither is locking somebody out of their own property without their permission REGARDLESS of how valuable one thinks their services are.

 

I think of it much like the music industry. A customer pays me to tune a car, just like a customer buys a CD. It's theirs to view/listen to and use however they want. They can back it up as well, but they shouldn't be able to give it away to others OR re-sell it to others.

If someone sells their car they're welcome to transfer ownership of the tune to the new owner.

-Mike