Tesla 'Self-Driving' NDA Hopes To Hide The Reality Of An Unfinished Product

from the I'm-sorry-Dave-I-can't-do-that dept

There isn't a day that goes by where Tesla hasn't found itself in the news for all the wrong reasons. Like last week, when Texas police sued Tesla because one of the company's vehicles going 70 miles per hour in self-driving mode failed to function properly, injuring five officers.

If you hadn't been paying attention, Teslas in self-driving mode crashing into emergency vehicles is kind of a thing that happens more than it should. In this latest episode of "let's test unfinished products on public streets," the Tesla vehicle in "self-driving" mode's systems failed completely to detect not only the five officers, but their dog, according to the lawsuit filed against Tesla:

“The Tesla was completely unable to detect the existence of at least four vehicles, six people and a German Shepherd fully stopped in the lane of traffic,” reads the suit. “The Tahoes were declared a total loss. The police officers and the civilian were taken to the hospital, and Canine Officer Kodiak had to visit the vet."

Of course for Musk fans, a persecution complex is required for club membership, resulting in the belief that this is all one elaborate plot to ruin their good time. That belief structure extends to Musk himself, who can't fathom that public criticism and media scrutiny in the wake of repeated self-driving scandals is his own fault. It's also extended to the NDAs the company apparently forces Tesla owners to sign if they want to be included in the Early Access Program (EAP), a community of Tesla fans the company selects to beta test the company's unfinished self-driving (technically "Level 2" driver-assistance system) on public city streets.

The NDA frames the press and transparency as enemies, and urges participants not to share any content online that could make the company look bad, even if it's, you know, true:

"This NDA, the language of which Motherboard confirmed with multiple beta testers, specifically prohibits EAP members from speaking to the media or giving test rides to the media. It also says: "Do remember that there are a lot of people that want Tesla to fail; Don't let them mischaracterize your feedback and media posts." It also encourages EAP members to "share on social media responsibly and selectively...consider sharing fewer videos, and only the ones that you think are interesting or worthy of being shared."

Here's the thing: you don't need to worry about this kind of stuff if you're fielding a quality, finished product. And contrary to what Musk fans think, people concerned about letting fanboys test 5,000 pound automated robots that clearly don't work very well are coming from a valid place of concern. Clips like this one, for example, which show the Tesla self-driving system failing to perform basic navigational functions while in self-driving mode, aren't part of some elaborate conspiracy to make Tesla self-driving look bad and dangerous. There's plenty of evidence now clearly showing that Tesla self-driving, at least in its current incarnation, often is bad and dangerous:

Ever since the 2018 Uber fatality in Arizona (which revealed the company had few if any meaningful safety protocols in place) it's been clear that current "self-driving" technology is extremely undercooked. It's also become increasingly clear that widely testing it on public streets (where other human beings have not consented to being used as Guinea pigs) is not a great idea. Especially if you're going to replace trained testers with criticism-averse fanboys you've carefully selected in the hopes they'll showcase only the most positive aspects of your products.

We've been so bedazzled by purported innovation we've buried common sense deep in the back yard. Wanting products to work, and executives to behave ethically, is not some grand conspiracy. It's a reasonable reaction to the reckless public testing of an unfinished, over-marketed product on public streets.

Filed Under: cars, nda, self-driving, transparency
Companies: tesla

Law Enforcement, Social Media Users Turn An Act Of Kindness Into A Human Trafficking Investigation

from the some-people-are-just-the-worst dept

With enough self-delusion, any act of humanity can be considered a criminal act. It works for cops. It also works for the general public. When you're a suspicious busybody with an overactive imagination and too much time on your hands, you can waste everyone's tax dollars by panicking.

A Walmart employ, who is apparently convinced human trafficking is as common as the common cold, decided to get law enforcement involved, resulting in this message from the Coshocton (OH) County Sheriff's Office:

On 2/15/2021 the Sheriff’s Office received a call from the Walmart Security Department in regards to suspicious activity in their parking lot involving a vehicle and two, what appear to be, males looking into vehicles and placing a single red rose under the windshield wipers of those vehicles. While reviewing the Walmart Surveillance Cameras, the two unknown males are seen exiting from, what appears to be, a newer style dark gray Ford Explorer, or similar looking vehicle, with chrome rims and side mirrors and placing a single red rose on it. This same sequence occurs multiple times on several vehicles that are parked on the outskirts of the parking lot. The males then get back into the vehicle and leave the area. Although there have been several Facebook posts of similar instances that have happened in Ohio regarding Human Trafficking related techniques, it is unclear at this time if this incident is related to such type of crime.

Pay attention to the last sentence and mourn with me over the state of online discourse. "Several Facebook posts of similar instances… regarding Human Trafficking related techniques." Oh wow. Maybe Facebook shouldn't be considered a trustworthy source of information about "Human Trafficking related techniques." Perhaps Google might provide a more, better informed perspective on the red rose=human trafficking assumption.

Here's a 2019 Snopes post detailing (and debunking) another stupid panic originating from Kentucky. A photo of a long-stemmed red rose slid into a car's door handle was accompanied by something even writers for Law & Order: SVU would find too far-fetched:

“There have been recent incidents in Northern Kentucky about sex traffickers leaving roses on victim’s [sic] cars. The roses have a chemical on them to make you pass out, so they can grab you. One incident happened in the Walmart parking lot in Florence, KY! Please be careful, ladies!”

The photo used by this Facebook user dates back to 2014. And the original post containing it said nothing about human trafficking. Instead, it was captioned with nothing more than a bunch of words some people might have mistakenly believed were insightful or original.

"Growth is Not Pretty"

This was local law enforcement's response to Snopes' queries:

“This is completely unfounded and has been floating around for quite a long time. There have been zero incidents anywhere in Florence, or anywhere else that I have heard, of anything remotely related to this.”

But maybe the Kentucky cops were wrong. Let's scroll through a few more search results…

Here's another fact check from September 2020, roughly a year after the Snopes debunking, deflating yet another social media panic attack dealing with roses on cars. In this case, the roses were placed under the windshield wiper.

The viral copy and paste warning is the latest in a never ending stream of baseless, alarmist, and panicked posts that claims to describe the latest and trending method used by kidnappers or sex traffickers to kidnap vulnerable females.

The warning joins a countless number of other equally spurious warnings including the plastic bottle in the wheelwell warning, the zip tie on side mirror warning, the drug laced business card warning, the paper or $100 bill on the windshield warning and the baby car seat on the side of the road warning.

Anything that looks a little strange -- but is otherwise explainable without having to conjure up waking nightmares involving swarthy men and helpless (presumably white) minors -- tends to turn into a OMG SEX TRAFFICKING when handed over to excitable social media users.

Hey, falsely reporting a crime is [wait for it] a crime. And yet, these people never seem to get charged with anything, no matter how many law enforcement resources are wasted. If there are no consequences, there's no deterrent.

One more time for the people in back who are still insisting on getting their news from internet randos:

“My mom just informed me that a new human trafficking thing that is being done is putting zip ties on girls’ [mirrors on their car doors] when they see that they are alone so when the girl comes back to her car [she is] distracted trying to take it off then they come up behind [her] and take [her],” TikTok user @ohokaygirl said in a video now deleted from the platform. “If you see one of these on your car door, please get in your car, lock your doors, roll up your windows and drive away immediately.”

Following the spread of a similar social media post last year, the San Angelo Police Department in Texas made a statement dispelling the rumor, assuring area residents that neither it nor the Angelo State University Police Department had received any reports of zip ties on cars, lamp posts, houses, apartments or fences.

Here's another law enforcement response to a similar bout of hysteria:

Michigan State Police are warning about misinformation on social media. You may have seen the viral post warning about a zip tie sex trafficking trap.

It all started with a photo of a car on Facebook with a zip tie around the side mirror.

“It's essentially like an urban legend or a scare-lore. The whole idea of the intent is just to scare people,” said Lt. Brian Oleksyk.

Oleksyk says sex traffickers are not leaving zip ties on cars.

“There’ve been other hoaxes that have been proven false like a flannel shirt on a windshield of a car or a specific parking lot of a shopping mall is grounds for sex-trafficking,” said Oleksyk.

Oleksyk says sex traffickers aren’t warning victims at all.

Everything is cyclical, including panics based on nothing more than someone seeing something unusual and deciding it must be something nefarious.

Here are the facts behind the Ohio human trafficking panic -- one unfortunately obliged by local law enforcement. But before we get to the details, let's examine the rest of the Sheriff's statement:

After contacting surrounding Law Enforcement Agencies, this type of incident involving flowers being left on vehicles has not been reported to their Agencies.

This is the law enforcement version of Google. And I would normally applaud doing due diligence, but…

This incident is being treated as suspicious at this time.

Well, neverfuckingmind.

Here's what really happened:

Brittaney Strupe had a fantastic Valentine’s Day weekend.

She got engaged and had plenty of leftover red roses to show for it.

“I think (my fiancé) ended up saying that he spent over $300 in just roses,” Strupe said. “He was just going to throw them outside or in the trash, so I told him, instead of wasting, we should pass it on.”

So Strupe enlisted the help of her sister and daughter, and the trio headed out to spread some love, by placing roses on vehicles.

Strupe’s daughter, Kiara, had the idea of going to a place where the group could find a lot of vehicles.

“We should just go to Walmart, thinking like, oh yeah, this will be a good idea, people are going to come out and think it’s awesome, and that didn’t happen,” Kiara Strupe said.

It certainly did not. And the initial report from Walmart -- one involving its surveillance cameras -- said something about two males when it was actually two females. This detail, that eluded the sharp eyes of Walmart employees, might have ended this before it began. But it didn't. And we're left with this unfortunate chain of events.

Welcome to the law enforcement version of America: no good deed goes uninvestigated, if not actually unpunished. An investigation was opened as calls "started coming in," according to Deputy Chris Johnson, who participated in the needless investigation. But it turned out to be nothing, which is where it started several hours and several hundred tax dollars earlier.

Here's the update from the Sheriff's Department:

After investigation of the Walmart rose incident and as a result of getting this information out to the fine citizens of Coshocton County, we are pleased to announce that the case has been solved and is in no way related to Human Trafficking in our county. A resident of the county called to inform us that they were the ones responsible for the incident and only had good, harmless intentions in mind. They had received the flowers as a Valentine’s Day gift and instead of throwing them way after beginning to wilt, they decided to pass on the love by leaving them for someone else to enjoy. They never meant to alarm anyone or cause any panic in our community.

This sounds great, but the Sheriff's Department genuinely wants people to remain alarmed/panicked.

Deputy Johnson also agreed that the community should keep up the good deeds. But he added that it is very important for everyone to be vigilant and aware of their surroundings. He advises people to follow their guts and to not hesitate to call law enforcement about something suspicious.

[heavy sigh] Look, we do need vigilance to keep people safe. But we also need some cooler heads -- especially heads being paid with tax dollars -- to stop encouraging people to engage in fantastical conspiracy theories just because they saw something they hadn't seen before. This may have resolved itself quickly and mostly quietly, but adding law enforcement to wild-ass suppositions is just a good way to get people hurt, killed, or at least temporarily robbed of several freedoms.

And, if you'd like some irony sprinkled on top of this social media/Sheriff's Department shit sandwich, there's this:

Every Friday night, volunteers with Out of Darkness drive the streets. They offer roses to the women for sale in our city. It's free of charge. It's a way out.

"I need to take care of my business and get myself together," one woman told them.

"Don't feel like you need to get everything together, because none of us have it all together," a volunteer responded.

The rose comes with a hotline number -- (404) 941-6024 -- and a promise: if they call, someone will pick them up any time, day or night.

The program has rescued more than 500 women from forced prostitution in the past nine years. While some of them go back, 60% of the women move on to a meaningful life outside of sex trafficking. That's double the national average for programs that do the same thing around the country.

LOL

So -- using the same logic that determined this to be a sex trafficking operation -- this spreading of roses could have been an anti-sex trafficking operation.

In the end, I'm glad no one was harmed. But it easily could have gone another way. The Sheriff Department's decision to feed an echo chamber a statement that erred on the side of uninformed statements rather than caution didn't help anything. People do need to be aware of things that are happening around them. But they shouldn't end that awareness once they've reached a conclusion that isn't supported by information only a few clicks away.

Filed Under: cars, ohio, overreacting, panic, police, roses, trafficking

The End Of Ownership: Tesla Software Updates Giveth... And Tesla Software Updates Taketh Away...

from the you-don't-own-what-you've-bought dept

A few years back, we wrote about how Tesla automagically extended the range of Teslas in Florida as a hurricane was approaching. While this sounded good, we warned that this wasn't a good thing, when you realized it meant that what you bought could magically and secretly be changed without your permission or desire. In the Florida case, it was for a good purpose, but that wouldn't always be the case. So, it's little surprise that approximately half of all Techdirt readers decided to send me this story from Jalopnik of how Tesla remotely disabled its Autopilot feature on a 2nd hand Tesla Model S after it had been sold:

Tesla officially sold the car to the dealership on November 15, a date I’ve confirmed by seeing the car’s title. On November 18, Tesla seems to have conducted an “audit” of the car remotely. The result of that audit was that when the car’s software was updated to the latest version in December, the Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self Driving Capability (FSD) were removed from the car.

The Jalopnik story is very, very thorough. And, just to be clear, because this is important: Autopilot and Full Self Driving capabilities are not subscription services. It's a one-time payment and the car is supposed to have it for life.

This is all very puzzling. Alec bought the car from a dealer based on a set of features that the dealer understood the car to have when purchased at auction. If Alec saw that the car had Autopilot and FSD when he paid for it, how, exactly, did he not pay for those features?

Those features together are worth $8,000, but as they were already on the car when he bought it, it’s hard to understand how he somehow didn’t pay for them?

I realize that these are software features, but they act like any physical feature of a car. You don’t pay a subscription for FSD or Autopilot, you pay a one-time fee, just like you would for an electromechanical cruise control system on any other car.

If you buy, say, a used Ford Ecosport (not my first choice, but you do you) that has lane keeping assist and active cruise control, and Ford somehow thinks you didn’t pay for those particular features and sends over a service tech to physically remove them from your car, I think we’d all consider that pretty wrong. We might even consider that theft. I’m not clear how what Tesla did here is any different.

The article notes that the purchaser, Alec, then even tried to find out if Tesla would remove such a feature if he wanted a cheaper sale price on a used Tesla, and the company told him it would not. What's even worse is that Jalopnik points to other cases of this happening as well.

In an update to the original post, the dealer who sold the Tesla to Alec says that this isn't even the first time he's seen this kind of thing happen:

I sell dozens of Teslas a year, and sold my father in law a Model X P90D with ludicrous speed package. 60 days after the purchase of the car, Tesla removed his ludicrous speed package. Upon complaints to them they said he never paid for it. We have video evidence and multiple pictures of the vehicle with it. They even removed the line under the P90D. I am still shocked at these acts.

Tesla's only response at the time of writing this is that the car was "incorrectly configured." But, remember, Tesla itself sold the car to the dealer, who then resold it to Alec. And throughout this process, the car clearly showed that it had these features enabled. So, for Tesla to change that after the fact seems like it would dip into outright fraud. Indeed, I'm surprised lawsuits have not been filed.

On a related note, it also opens up a possibly sneaky business model for Tesla: if it takes back out of lease Teslas, or Teslas it's bought back, that had these expensive features enabled, and then disables them before resale, it could double sell these features to new owners who want them. That also seems pretty crappy.

But all of this just highlights how the very concept of ownership is eroding in a world where everything can be software updated automatically. While this has some potentially cool side effects (improvements on the fly!), it can also be used to remove features you paid for, without any obvious recourse. That should concern everyone.

Filed Under: autopilot, cars, elon musk, ownership, software, updates
Companies: tesla

GPS Service Vulnerability Opened Door To Remote Vehicle Shutdown

from the I'm-sorry-I-can't-do-that,-Dave dept

We've highlighted for years how flimsy (read: often nonexistent) privacy and security standards in the internet of things space is opening the door to all kinds of problems, from historically-massive DDOS attacks to your refrigerator leaking your Gmail login data. And while your your not-so-smart kettle exposing your network credentials is intimidating enough, the problem is far more worrisome in the "smart" automobile space, where a compromised system could prove decidedly more, oh, fatal.

Most modern car infotainment GUIs hint at the sloppiness lingering just beneath. Security researchers have routinely highlighted how many cars are absurdly vulnerable to not just hacking but a near-total takeover of in-car systems. They've similarly noted how historically, automaker efforts to patch these vulnerabilities are slow to arrive--if they arrive at all.

Granted it's not just retail vehicles that pose a security risk. Last week, researchers highlighted how GPS units installed in many fleet automobiles (designed to help companies track their shipments or employees as they travel) could also be somewhat easily compromised, allowing attackers to track these vehicles and their drivers without their permission:

"The hacker, who goes by the name L&M, told Motherboard he hacked into more than 7,000 iTrack accounts and more than 20,000 ProTrack accounts, two apps that companies use to monitor and manage fleets of vehicles through GPS tracking devices. The hacker was able to track vehicles in a handful of countries around the world, including South Africa, Morocco, India, and the Philippines."

The origin of this vulnerability? The manufacturers of these systems thought it would be a good idea to give all customer accounts the default password of..."123456." Worse perhaps, because these systems are so closely tied to a vehicle's network and computers, the hacker found he could actually disable some vehicle systems (since that's a function already embedded in these services app platforms). In this case (fortunately), only if the vehicles are traveling at speeds slower than 12 miles per hour.

The researcher who discovered the problem noted it wouldn't be hard to use such vulnerabilities to create some notable urban headaches:

"On some cars, the software has the capability of remotely turning off the engines of vehicles that are stopped or are traveling 12 miles per hour or slower, according to the manufacturer of certain GPS tracking devices...“My target was the company, not the customers. Customers are at risk because of the company,” L&M told Motherboard in an online chat. “They need to make money, and don't want to secure their customers."

Comforting. Over the last decade some have tried to argue that dismal vehicle security practices are being over-hyped, yet a steady parade of reports have indicated the problem is very real. As everything becomes interconnected and the quest to build interlinked smart cities and smart vehicles takes off, the door opens ever so wider to somebody using our collective privacy and security apathy in a very troubling way at an even more troubling scale -- something security experts like Bruce Schneier have been warning about for some time.

Filed Under: cars, gps, remote vehicle shutdown, security, vulnerability

Auto Finance Company Sues Massachusetts City Over Its Unconstitutional Sale Of Seized Vehicles

from the money-v-power dept

An opponent of asset forfeiture has arisen from an unexpected place. Honda's finance division has taken the city of Revere, Massachusetts to court over the seizure and sale of a vehicle it still technically owned.

American Honda Finance Corp., based in California, alleged in its lawsuit filed Feb. 12 in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts that its constitutional rights were violated when a Honda Civic was seized in 2016 by Revere's police department.

"Plaintiff brings this action to remedy a deprivation of its long-settled and fundamental rights to be free from unreasonable seizures and to due process of law under the United States Constitution," American Honda Finance Corp. said in its 13-page complaint.

The complaint [PDF] makes it clear the company thinks this is some bullshit: seizing and selling a vehicle that still belongs to the company holding the lien. Until the vehicle is paid off, Honda still owns the car. But Massachusetts law enforcement doesn't appear to care who owns the car so long as they get to profit from its sale. The narrative detailed in the lawsuit makes it clear zero effort was made to make the car's real owner aware of the city's plans for the seized car.

On or about November 2, 2016, HONDA obtained a purchase money security interest and lien in The Subject Vehicle.

On November 28, 2016, The Subject Vehicle was officially titled in the State of New York with Shanasia Hackworth recorded as the owner and HONDA recorded as the first priority lienholder.

On or about December 30, 2016, REVERE took possession and custody of The Subject Vehicle pursuant to REVERE’s police officers acting in the course of their duties as law enforcement officers.

On or about December 30, 2016, REVERE, through its police officers acting in the cause of their duties as law enforcement officers, and pursuant to laws enacted to further official state interests, directed Mario’s Service Center, Inc. to tow and detain The Subject Vehicle.

On or about December 30, 2016, Mario’s Service Center, Inc. towed The Subject Vehicle and retained The Subject Vehicle on behalf of REVERE as part of an “investigation.”

REVERE did not notify HONDA that The Subject Vehicle had been seized.

REVERE thereafter concluded its investigation. REVERE did not, thereafter, return The Subject Vehicle to HONDA or anyone else. Instead, REVERE authorized its agent, Mario’s Towing Service Center, Inc., to detain and dispose of the vehicle pursuant to Massachusetts G.L.c. 255, §39A.

REVERE did not notify HONDA that after the investigation ended that REVERE authorized Mario’s Towing Service Center, Inc. to detain and dispose of The Subject Vehicle.

REVERE did not ensure that its agent, Mario’s Towing Service Center, Inc., notified HONDA that REVERE had authorized detention and disposal of the Subject Vehicle.

On or about May 18, 2017, REVERE’s agent, Mario’s Towing Service Center, Inc., sold The Subject Vehicle and The Subject Vehicle was retitled through the Massachusetts Department of Transportation with HONDA’s lien not recorded on said title.

Under Massachusetts law the sale pursuant to Massachusetts G.L.c 255, §39A and subsequent retitling extinguished HONDA’s property interest in The Subject Vehicle.

At no time prior to the sale or retitling of The Subject Vehicle did REVERE or any person provide any notice to HONDA relating to The Subject Vehicle.

There's a genuine question of property interest in a vehicle whose title still resides with the financing company. This can't be the first time a company has complained about a vehicle of theirs being auctioned off without notice, but this is the first federal complaint I've seen directly challenging a state's seizure of vehicles from drivers who don't actually own the vehicles they're driving.

This was filed ten days before the Supreme Court held that certain forms of asset forfeiture violate Constitutional protections against excessive fines. Honda's complaint seems to anticipate the high court's displeasure with abusive forfeitures and pulls no punches in its description of the program the city of Revere participate in. (Emphasis in the original.)

Massachusetts G.L.c. 255, §39A effectuates the Commonwealth’s interest in enforcing traffic laws and in protecting the public from hazardous street conditions. The statute provides a means for the state to compensate private parties who assist the state by towing and storing vehicles at the direction of police. The statute has, however, fallen out of step with modern developments in constitutional law which confirm that a duly perfected security interest and lien in a vehicle is a constitutionally protected property right.

A program that takes property away from the property's true owner -- an entity completely disconnected from the underlying criminal activity/accusations -- appears to be a violation of the company's Constitutional rights, if not the greater protections given to property owners by the state's constitution. The suit alleges a host of violated rights, as well as conversion under state law, arguing the sale of the vehicle without notifying the lien holder is basically theft of Honda's property.

Is it going to take the deep pockets of pissed off corporations to finally make a serious dent in abusive forfeiture programs? It might. This case may be more tow-and-sell than most forfeitures, but the principle behind it -- the state depriving companies of their property without notice -- is identical. If this case adds to the judicial dialog on forfeiture programs, I'm all for it.

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, cars, leasing, massachusetts, ownership, theft
Companies: honda

Bad Ideas: Tesla Bars Ride Sharing Drivers From Using Its Superchargers

from the pray-we-don't-alter-it-any-further dept

Tesla remains a fascinating company. Elon Musk famously likes to do things his own way, and doesn't much care for convention. And that's often a great recipe for innovation. At times, it leads to really awesome things like giving away all the company's patents for anyone to use without licensing. But, sometimes it does some weird things that should make people think twice about buying into the Telsa vision -- even when at first pass it may make sense. For example, a few months ago, we were concerned about the "surprise" remote range extension that Tesla gave to drivers in Florida to help them evacuate before Hurricane Irma hit. On its face, this obviously seems like a good thing. Helping people evacuate a hurricane by extending their mileage is unquestionably good.

But it did raise some concerns -- about a company remotely, and without notification, updating the car you purchased from afar. Because if it can be used for "good" reasons (like giving you extra range to escape a hurricane) it might also be used at other times for bad reasons. What if, for example, Elon Musk decides he doesn't like you. Last year, Musk famously banned famed venture capitalist Stewart Alsop from buying one of Tesla's cars after Alsop publicly complained about a poorly staged event by Tesla. Could Musk "brick" someone's car for displeasing him? The backlash to that would be massive, which probably keeps such a move out of the realm of likelihood, but there are still problems with the company changing your car after purchase.

Similarly, last year there were reports that Tesla was banning people from using its self-driving car technology as part of any ride-sharing project. This seemed like an anti-competitive move, as Tesla has talked about setting up its own sort of Uber using self-driving cars that people would buy (basically, you'd "rent out" your car while you weren't using it). We thought that was a neat idea, but were troubled by the idea of contractually blocking Tesla owners from working with other vendors on such a project.

And now there's another troubling move: Tesla is telling "commercial" drivers of its vehicles (mainly ride-sharing drivers) that they can't use the company's Supercharger network to charge their cars. There are perfectly legitimate, non-nefarious reasons for this. Mainly: there are apparently problems with Superchargers being overcrowded these days, and you could see why the company doesn't want them clogged up with ride sharing drivers, effectively subsidizing their driving jobs. At the very least, the company has made it clear the policy only applies to new Tesla buyers, so it's not a bait-and-switch situation.

But, still, there's something troubling about the idea that the company can ban you from using its Superchargers based solely on the type of driving you're doing. Again, that leads to questions about what other situations may arise where Tesla bans people from using its chargers in one form or another. I'm sure that many won't think this is a big deal -- and will point out that the company needed to do something to avoid congestion. But we should be concerned about how this is subtly changing our relationship to the products we (thought we) own, and the control that companies have over our usage, post-purchase.

I don't think Tesla is doing anything nefarious here, and there are plenty of seemingly good reasons for why the company chose this path. But we should be quite careful and thoughtful about how we move into a world where the company that sells you something retains an astounding amount of control over how and even if you are allowed use it, based on how much it likes or dislikes you or your profession. Because sooner or later, these issues are going to get bigger and more problematic -- and it might help if we really thought about them now, before things get messy.

Filed Under: cars, elon musk, internet of things, ownership, ride sharing, superchargers
Companies: tesla

Massachusetts Lawmaker Wants To Make It A Felony To Have Secret Compartments In Your Car

from the big-problems,-small-minds dept

A Massachusetts lawmaker is looking to give law enforcement another way to bust people and seize vehicles. Modify a vehicle you own in a certain way and you can expect to never see that vehicle again.

Blame it on the war on drugs and pressure from law enforcement lobbying. Stephan Hay, a Democrat state representative for Fitchburg, has introduced a bill that would criminalize operating a vehicle with a hidden compartment designed for the purpose of secretly transporting drugs and related contraband, equipment, currency, or weapons.

The bill, H.1266, separately criminalizes the process of altering a vehicle with the intent of creating such hidden compartments. In each case the bill calls for a two-year mandatory minimum sentence, five years for subsequent offenses. The bill also allows police to seize the modified vehicle.

Notably, the bill wouldn't limit "secret compartment" busts to those containing contraband. The presence of an aftermarket "concealed storage space" is enough to trigger an arrest and seizure. The state would have to prove there was intent to use the compartment to store contraband, but the wording in the bill [PDF] flips the burden of proof when it comes to the vehicle itself.

Proof that a conveyance contains a hidden compartment as defined in this section shall be prima facie evidence that the conveyance was used intended for use in and for the business of unlawfully manufacturing, dispensing, or distributing controlled substances.

As Reason's Scott Shackford points out, Massachusetts already has the worst forfeiture laws in the nation. This built-in presumption of guilt only makes this worse. Defendants will start out in the hole, asked to prove a negative simply to have a small shot at recovering their seized vehicle. Unknowingly purchase someone's drug-running vehicle? It's as good as gone if the police discover any secret compartments. Seeing as criminal charges would result in something more aligned with due process, it will come as zero surprise if the law is used to seize vehicles but leave prima facie "drug traffickers" otherwise unharmed.

Filed Under: cars, compartments, massachusetts, privacy, stephen hay, storage

When The 'Sharing Economy' Turns Into The 'Missing Or Stolen Economy'

from the anybody-seen-my-300,000-umbrellas-lying-around? dept

The sharing economy -- actually better-described as a rental economy -- is very much in vogue, inspired by the high-profile examples of Airbnb and Uber. But Western enthusiasm pales in comparison to that of Chinese entrepreneurs, who seem to have taken the view that the model will work for anything. For example, alongside the companies that rent out homes and cars, there are now some that will let you pick up an umbrella in a public spot, use it for a short while, and then return it. At least, that's the theory. But the South China Morning Post reports that the Sharing E Umbrella startup ran into a few problems:

Just weeks after making 300,000 brollies available to the public via a rental scheme, Sharing E Umbrella announced that most of them had gone missing, news website Thepaper.cn reported on Thursday.

The company was launched back in April, and is operating in 11 Chinese cities. Customers borrow umbrellas after paying a deposit of about $3, and a fee of 10 cents for every 30 minutes. Undeterred by the fact that each missing umbrella represents a loss of $9, the company's founder says he hopes to proceed on a larger scale by making 30 million of them available across the country by the end of the year. Here's why he's convinced he's on to a winner:

After seeing the launch of bike-sharing schemes across the country, the Shenzhen-based businessman said he "thought that everything on the street can now be shared".

Perhaps he should have waited a little before modelling his business on bike sharing. Caixin reported last month that Wukong, one of the smaller players in this crowded market, has just closed down -- after most of its bikes went missing:

Wukong operated its 1,200 bikes in the southwestern city of Chongqing. But most of the bikes were lost because the firm didn't embed GPS devices in the vehicles. By the time the company decided the devices were necessary, it had run out of money and failed to raise more

Wukong isn't the only rental company that lost track of most of its bikes, as Shanghaiist.com notes:

Wu Shenghua founded Beijing-based 3Vbike in February, using 600,000 RMB ($89,000) of his own money to purchase the first 1,000 bikes. But only four months later, he told the Legal Evening News that there were only dozens left.

Despite those failures, money continues to pour into the Chinese bicycle rental sector: last month, one of the leading startups, Mobike, announced $600 million in new funding, which it will use it to expand outside China. Let's hope people there remember to bring the bikes back.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: bikes, cars, china, sharing economy, theft, tracking

Volkswagen Created A 'Backdoor' To Basically All Its Cars... And Now Hackers Can Open All Of Them

from the backdoors-are-bad-m'kay? dept

And... for our latest example for why requiring companies to build backdoors into encryption or similar technologies is a bad idea comes from automaker Volkswagen. Researchers are now revealing that approximately 100 million VW vehicles can be easily opened via a simple wireless hack. The underlying issue: a static key used on basically all of the wireless locks in VWs.

The researchers found that with some “tedious reverse engineering” of one component inside a Volkswagen’s internal network, they were able to extract a single cryptographic key value shared among millions of Volkswagen vehicles. By then using their radio hardware to intercept another value that’s unique to the target vehicle and included in the signal sent every time a driver presses the key fob’s buttons, they can combine the two supposedly secret numbers to clone the key fob and access to the car. “You only need to eavesdrop once,” says Birmingham researcher David Oswald. “From that point on you can make a clone of the original remote control that locks and unlocks a vehicle as many times as you want.”

In other words, VW created a backdoor, and assumed that it would remain hidden. But it did not.

This is exactly the kind of point that we've been making about the problems of requiring any kind of backdoor and not enabling strong encryption. Using a single encryption key across every device is simply bad security. Forcing any kind of backdoor into any security system creates just these kinds of vulnerabilities -- and eventually someone's going to figure out how they work.

On a related note, the article points out that the researchers who found this vulnerability are the same ones who also found another vulnerability a few years ago that allowed them to start the ignition of a bunch of VW vehicles. And VW's response... was to sue them and try to keep the vulnerability secret for nearly two years. Perhaps, rather than trying to sue these researchers, they should have thrown a bunch of money at them to continue their work, alert VW and help VW make their cars safer and better protected.

Filed Under: backdoors, cars, encryption, hackers, research
Companies: volkswagen

Arizona Law Enforcement Charging Innocent Car Owners $2,000 To Reclaim Their Wrongfully-Seized Vehicles

from the a-victor-even-in-defeat dept

If you'd like some more evidence on how civil asset forfeiture has become legalized theft, you need only look at this investigative report by Curt Prendergast for Tuscon.com. Not only is it extremely easy for the government to claim assets are tied to criminal activity, but the obstacles placed in front of individuals to reclaim seized assets are numerous and expensive to navigate -- sometimes outweighing the value of the items seized.

On top of that, even when the state loses, it still wins. Arizona residents who have seen their vehicles seized for extremely tenuous connections to criminal activity are still forced to pay an incredible amount of money to reclaim items the state has agreed to return to their owners.

The fortunes of a local woman took a disastrous turn when she loaned her car to her son so he could take her granddaughter to school.

Her son was arrested on suspicion of credit-card fraud in Oro Valley and police seized the woman’s orange 2005 Mini Cooper, which she said in court documents she needed to drive to her $14-an-hour job at Red Lobster.

She hired a lawyer — the court does not provide lawyers in civil matters — to challenge the seizure and subsequent forfeiture proceedings. Authorities agreed on July 7 to return her car, but first she had to pay $2,000 into the Pima County Anti-Racketeering Fund, with $1,500 going to Oro Valley police and $500 to the County Attorney’s Office.

The state is the only entity allowed to engage in racketeering, apparently. Someone has to make sure all of these agencies who have already penciled in expected seizures on theirs annual budgets can still hit their numbers. Even if the government withdraws its claim on an asset, every agency with its hand out still needs a cut of the bogus take.

This case isn't an anomaly. It's standard operating procedure in Arizona when the government decides to "return" a vehicle.

Attorney Rogers, who represented a man who loaned his 2002 BMW to a friend arrested for selling drugs, said the case was typical and ended with a compromise in which his client agreed to pay $1,500 to the multi-agency Counter Narcotics Alliance and $500 to the County Attorney’s Office, as well as $190 in storage and towing fees.

Officers seized a 2013 Toyota Corolla in August 2015 at an illegal marijuana grow site in Tucson. The owner of the car said he let his son, who was arrested at the grow site, use the car, but that he had no knowledge of the grow site. His son’s name was on the registration, but the father said his son did not pay for the car in any way.

Prosecutors agreed to return the car in February in exchange for $3,431 and $316 in storage and towing fees. The Counter Narcotics Alliance received $2,573 and the County Attorney’s Office received $858.

As can be ascertained by these stories, there's no innocent third-party defense available to people whose vehicles have been used for criminal activity while not in their direct control. If you loan a vehicle to someone, you're directly responsible for their actions while using it. The local district attorney claims -- in comments to Prendergast -- that there were no "innocent" parties here… or possibly ever. This ensures a steady flow of ~$2,000 payments by unfortunate car owners in exchange for the full release of their vehicle by the agency performing the seizure.

Not that there's any shortage of seized vehicles. The county attorney's annual list of "significant accomplishments" always includes the dollar amount of seized assets, as though the abuse of a process meant to deter criminal activity still means something when it's used to separate innocent car owners from their vehicles. Presumably this dollar amount also includes payments resulting from the government's relinquishment of a person's vehicle -- but not its apparent entitlement to a hefty payout in exchange for returning belongings to their rightful owners.

Prendergast notes that the attorney's office tracks every vehicle it seizes. It's not quite as enthusiastic about providing information on the number of vehicles it's returned to owners at $2,000/per.

There's a reason the forfeiture process is largely opaque. It does law enforcement agencies no favors when citizens find out they're viewed more as revenue streams than people with rights and property.

[W]hat began as a means to a laudable end has, in many instances, become the end itself, where law enforcement authorities appear to focus more on forfeiting money and property than catching and convicting criminals. The reason for this is the perverse profit incentive built into civil forfeiture law: Much, if not all, of the proceeds of successful forfeiture cases are retained by the agencies that do the initial seizing, providing them with a funding mechanism that is totally outside the normal legislative appropriations and oversight process. Police and sheriff’s departments and prosecutors’ offices often end up having a significant budgetary stake in the outcome of forfeiture cases and of the process in general. Indeed, a deputy sheriff in Kane County, Illinois, wrote in a training book that “[a]ll of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine.”

And what a gold mine it is. When the government can cushion its losses with a $2,000 fees, there's nothing discouraging law enforcement agencies from seizing everything they can get their hands on, no matter how tenuous the connection to criminal activity.

Filed Under: arizona, asset forfeiture, asset seizure, cars, civil asset forfeiture