Its about damn time - vehicle coding to be exempted from DMCA

After years of abuse and misapplication of the DMCA, the Library of Congress is going to allow folks to play with our truck's EDU programming. Maybe we will eventually see a useful tuner chip for our Tacomas.
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltech...k-to-tinker-with-your-cars-software-after-all

 

Is this what was keeping us from having a "useful tuner chip?" - I quote so as not to discredit the current engine management products by the aftermarket community.

Regardless - Good news!

 

Honestly I don't know. I do know that DMCA can be a real disincentive to poking around in the code then sharing the results.

 

IMO the current crop are snakeoil.

 

What do you call the current crop? When I wrote that disclaimer I had URD products in mind, but then again those aren't throw-it-in-stock chips.

 

I wouldn't get too excited just yet. Just because they say it is OK to do it doesn't mean that Toyota is going to open the software up so that it will be easy or able to do it at all.

 

What I understand about the Toyota code, is that it is very severely obfuscated. The reason you don't see people modifying the code on them, is because it is too much of a pain in the butt to read it and understand what the heck it actually does.

So to get from DMCA to useful modable code would require (1) decompiling the binary into source, (2) deobfuscating the source into something that makes sense.
Once you are at the point of having workable source code, then you can start modifying parts of it.
(1) is easy.
(2) is hard.

 

This is good news for farmers too. Even John Deere has ECUs these days.

 

The ECU on a John Deere tractor would make the ECU on most cars and trucks pale in comparison. They are truly amazing pieces of equipment. Unfortunately, the price of the larger tractors and combines, far exceeds that of the average American home. I think you would enjoy checking out their website. It never hurts to dream! Similar to the smell of a new truck, there's nothing like the smell of a new tractor. Smell's like money!

 

Are you referring to the engine management ECU? Or automation control for fancy features of these amazing machines? A diesel engine requires a heck of a lot LESS control oversight than a gas engine. The reality is that most vehicles/machines have multiple ECU's present for controlling all the separate components.

 

I'd be happy with a non-craptastic cruise control algorithm.