Seems BMW (the car maker) are going in for microtransactions/subscriptions in their cars

[FAST6191]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alista...scription-for-your-heated-seats/#59ce38803c64
https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/01/bmw-wants-to-sell-you-subscriptions-to-your-cars-features/
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/352659/bmw-make-extras-heated-seats-subscription-based-options


Missed it the other day but just caught the video so here we are.

...

Now Telsa have done something similar (and I have worse stories) but they at least had the vague pretence that it was a computer program (not that I buy it of course).

Anyway it seems BMW are contemplating building a car with everything in but software locking it, indeed even locking it to a subscription service. Whether you are a kitchen in a small restaurant, a low volume car company or a millions of widgets per hour production line company then variation costs you to do so there is a small bit of underlying logic here, and we have seen similar things for patents (there is a reason the wii played DVDs just fine in homebrew, and why your DS technically needed a firmware update to work online via normal network). Slimy as anything though and something those around here probably should be aware of if you are tracking such things in general.

We have seen similar things in games for years (even longer if we count arcades and various expansion packs that would only work with gold versions of the game). We have similarly seen it for some time in oscilloscopes and other such hardware (as in hardware there and all good/down to spec but if you want the fancy probe options even if you have the probe then you pay, or hack the thing ).

Many years ago there was a forum for the M3 flash carts, searching for it one time I found the BMW M3 being discussed. I wonder if again we will see such things in the future but in reverse and those of us used to fiddling inside consoles get to.
The heated seats example is obvious and people can stuff whatever voltage/current they like down the coils and have it working if it comes to it. That said I would not put it past them to try something tricky -- stories I have heard coming out of car dealerships this last few years and things people have to do as far as electronics to get things running for many years now (several years ago now I was fixing a computer for a car garage and a basic hatchback car had its gearbox replaced, would not have moved had it not been coded back in with dealer grade software -- this was not a fancy race car with feedback and computer controlled gears and all that, indeed sensors happened on the wheels for anything fun in this, but a bog standard bunch of gears in a greasy box approach) does not paint a pretty picture.

 

[DinohScene]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA subscription for seat warming, lmao what a joke.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA subscription for seat warming, lmao what a joke.

Joke? If this is a joke, its a really bad one.

I always hated it when my devices disobey. "Buying" things and not owning them is just horrible. We see this in all kinds of places. The transition from physical to digital content. Software that is not licensed by buying but by renting (Adobe Creative Suite, Office 365).

It works for the vendors. People buy -- or better rent -- such things.

• Netflix > Blu-Ray
• Steam > games on DVD/BD/Cart
• Office 365 means "free" cloud storage, always latest version and is cheaper than full license (which still exists)
  
• Phones reducing their performance without notice when battery ages (yes, this gave some kind of backlash)
• Phones not allowing the user to run arbitrary code for "security reasons"

It is so handy, so modern, so easy any cool...
The logical consequence is that privately owning something will slow but sure disappear. One by one. Subscription service for features in a car! As if it wasn't bad enough that you can't even replace the starter battery or a wheel without paying the garage.

If there are only cars left like they are nowadays full of DRM infected electronics... I will only use my bicycle!

But I have zero hope. People will buy/rent this. People will buy anything. "New! Shiny! Uuuuuh! Nice! Must have." Cool marketing name and everything is set.

@FAST6191 Thanks for sharing this. Not that I would have considered buying a BMW anyway.

 

[Alexander1970]

The German automaker hasn’t yet explained exactly how the system will work, but imagine bla bla bla bla

Well,this is how it works today.....nodody KNOWS how it should work (but later we have an Update for it,so,maybe it will eventually work..in the meantime you can buy the next Modell of our Product Line..)

Sick......

...and People responding/react to it and do it......

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

It's, unfortunately, an inevitable "evolutionary path" for the "car of the future", which absolutely sucks, but at the same time I have no doubt in my mind that "jailbreaking" a vehicles software will be the result of this "evolution" and we'll see cars go through the same "security race" game consoles go through now.

Whether it's server emulators to emulate callbacks to enable XYZ feature, or physical hardware dongles that you shove in your OSD port, or as you mentioned above FAST just forcing a current to the heat coils to heat your seat, one way or another this new idea will push hackers towards "cracking" your vehicle to unlock software locked features (CarTemp when??).


Linus from LTT had a discussion a bit ago regarding how sophisticated self driving cars will become that's related. I'm paraphrasing, but essentially he was talking about how cars in general will eventually be sold as a service once they're fully self-driving instead of "to own" or "to lease" as now, with dealerships (or even manufacturers directly) simply selling you a monthly subscription package to some kind of vehicle from a fleet (ie "Sports" package to receive a sports car, "premium" to receive some vehicle with all the trimmings like heated seats or AC, or "utter basic bitch" package for XYZ basic sedan with no extras etc etc). The idea is that they would be treated a bit like a taxi, in that you'd "order" your vehicle, a completely random one from a fleet would self drive to you based on your subscription package, would self drive you and drop you off where you'd need to go, fuck off to someone else who ordered a vehicle (or stay around, if you don't plan on staying wherever long), etc etc, and as a result "owning" a vehicle would no longer be the norm.

And I think that's honestly where vehicles will eventually end up (like 25-50 years down the line, assuming we don't all kill each other first), which I find to be quite unfortunate. It's thought that "manually driving a vehicle" would then purely be considered a recreational pass time for the average consumer, or as a work-related skill for various jobs (like say driving a forklift or excavator or whatever) instead of a daily "necessity".

 

[FAST6191]

Car hacking is already pretty established and advanced on various levels. Go have a look at some of the stuff done to allow dealer software to work outside dealers, maybe some of the stuff with engine/ecu remapping (personally I think most of there to be nonsense but the actual hacking behind it is good, similar to how you can be impressed with the maths efforts behind someone's gambling strategy even if the end result is nonsense), and generally what is done for repurposing gear, making adapters to fit other parts and straight up (re)making of parts as well.
They are also often inclined to drop some actual money at times as well which aids things along, compared to stuff like games where most are tighter as anything. Indeed I have often pondered doing more in cars.

There is some utter nonsense that goes on (if any of you have ever had to shake your head at kids making silly cars then that, but for hacking type purposes).

It is not particularly organised and everybody has their own hacking secrets it seems (custom firmwares and competing flash carts in consoles is nothing compared to what you see here) rather than trying to pool info but that only needs someone to do a good project.

I have also been doing the auto electrics computers (and it is not like I can't handle an oscilloscope either) for a while now. I have also seen the kinds of mistakes the car companies people make.

One example. I will keep it reasonably anonymous to protect the guilty. Because China (IP theft and generally needing cheaper models, even for "luxury" lines) they have separate models for there with any manner of parts. Somehow that made it onto a western model but that is getting ahead of ourselves. Car back in the dealer because something fairly trivial was not working (though if you paid that many thousands and believe yourself in a luxury vehicle then I certainly have no objection to asking for it to be fixed). Short version after harness checks, any number of scans and whatever else then call to the big boy engineers to fix the issue (and the person I heard this from is more than capable in his own right) and eventually they come back with swap out this module because it was the Chinese offering somehow.
Despite this thing hanging off one of the fancy optical can bus (it is so trivial that even if you had such a thing in an old car it would have been mechanical, indeed it is mechanical in just about everything I can think of and nobody would really think otherwise) and not communicating properly the company did not think to do an edge scan wherein the nice serial was sent over and compared against a list of known working things upon the proverbial key being turned aka the thing it effectively already does with fault codes.

Was back some time later and someone had given their car a drink... I thought it was expensive when people did that to mobile phones and laptops but I have much to learn it seems. Anyway taking a leaf from the book of apple the only option was full console "infotainment" replacement. I then get the "scrap" system to pull apart. The barest whiff of blocking of fluid ingress (though a substantial whiff of coffee) I was pleased to see there was some conformal coating... on the back side facing the engine and not a jot on the top side where things would be spilled (being a whole 150 mm at most from the cup holder).

As far as a security race. I will hack my console, I will hack my cable box, I will hack my phone... breaking those will suck but I can wear it if the warranty is actually just a piece of paper probably less valuable than the sales brochure left in there with it. Doing that to possibly the second most valuable thing I own, that my insurance company might have a problem with and, let's face it, someone is going to slip a few notes into wallet of the law makers so they will frown upon it as well (it might crash after all).

As far as highly specialised taxi service. I am OK with that actually. Will be curious to see how stealerships survive though (as it stands they are mainly only there by virtue of some rather dubious laws). Though I am sure much like mobile phones someone will make it suck.

 

[Silent_Gunner]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA subscription for seat warming, lmao what a joke.

That shit comes for free with my Volkswagen Jetta! XD

 

[Silent_Gunner]

It's, unfortunately, an inevitable "evolutionary path" for the "car of the future", which absolutely sucks, but at the same time I have no doubt in my mind that "jailbreaking" a vehicles software will be the result of this "evolution" and we'll see cars go through the same "security race" game consoles go through now.

Whether it's server emulators to emulate callbacks to enable XYZ feature, or physical hardware dongles that you shove in your OSD port, or as you mentioned above FAST just forcing a current to the heat coils to heat your seat, one way or another this new idea will push hackers towards "cracking" your vehicle to unlock software locked features (CarTemp when??).


Linus from LTT had a discussion a bit ago regarding how sophisticated self driving cars will become that's related. I'm paraphrasing, but essentially he was talking about how cars in general will eventually be sold as a service once they're fully self-driving instead of "to own" or "to lease" as now, with dealerships (or even manufacturers directly) simply selling you a monthly subscription package to some kind of vehicle from a fleet (ie "Sports" package to receive a sports car, "premium" to receive some vehicle with all the trimmings like heated seats or AC, or "utter basic bitch" package for XYZ basic sedan with no extras etc etc). The idea is that they would be treated a bit like a taxi, in that you'd "order" your vehicle, a completely random one from a fleet would self drive to you based on your subscription package, would self drive you and drop you off where you'd need to go, fuck off to someone else who ordered a vehicle (or stay around, if you don't plan on staying wherever long), etc etc, and as a result "owning" a vehicle would no longer be the norm.

And I think that's honestly where vehicles will eventually end up (like 25-50 years down the line, assuming we don't all kill each other first), which I find to be quite unfortunate. It's thought that "manually driving a vehicle" would then purely be considered a recreational pass time for the average consumer, or as a work-related skill for various jobs (like say driving a forklift or excavator or whatever) instead of a daily "necessity".

It seems like, more and more, every single passing day, it's becoming less about what you as the consumer own and more about the businesses granting or denying you access. And you know, the worst part about it is, it's not just gonna be businesses. What about governments? You already have people getting paranoid (including this guy) over how various states are handling things with the COVID-19 lockdown:

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethb...efused-to-sign-coronavirus-documents-n2572734

You already have people mentioning that they're gonna be possibly microchipping people and, even as someone who's mostly atheistic, I just find that thought terrifying. Maybe its just my religious upbringing, but its said that those who accept the Mark of the Beast (which many have interpreted as being a microchip, but it could also be a reference to one serving the devil either through the work of their hands or the work of their mind, IDK, there's too many people with too many opinions on a book who's translations are hard to verify because its game of telephone being played throughout history, etc.) are essentially going to Hell, no questions asked.

Even if you remove the religious aspect of it, it's still scary as fuck. Like, if I wanted, I could probably switch to a more minimalistic phone sometime down the road (I remember reading an article about it, it could only hold, like, 10 contacts or something) and not be tracked as hard as everyone unfortunately is today. But with stuff like not owning the things you and I just took for granted as being our property, everyone being treated as criminals for doing something innocent due to cancel culture going way off the rails, and these lockdowns, it's hard to be optimistic atm.

 

[DavidinCT]

It's just progress in a modern age.... You buy a car now... Wouldn't you like to add a feature that didn't have or pay for 6-8 months down the line ? You would have to pay for it at the dealer, so instead you pull your credit card and buy it...

I don't mind buying features if I wanted them but, a subscription... all depends on the value. If I have sub to heated seats, then not so much a value because even a base model BMW, it comes standard with it and you would expect it if your buying a $40K car.

If they do something like, you buy a BMW, you pay $5,000 less and you can BUY features down the line... Maybe, if it's a good value but to pay monthly for something you would buying buying as a feature, not so much.

I personally think it's to make a complete mess out of buying a new car... and if BMW is the ONLY one who does it... I bet they take a big hit in sale because it..

Now if your car is out of warranty, and your paying for a feature, and that feature breaks (common on some BMWs), will they fix it for free because you are paying for it ?

 

[HeartfeltDesu]

inb4 the "EA's making cars now????" jokes.

 

[Rail Fighter]

Nintendo will make a car.

 

[Deleted member 668561]

just like car makers rather have it illegal to work on your own car, and use drm so you have to buy parts from them for an arm and leg

 

[Chary]

I can't wait to use a GBAtemp guide to hack my car...

 

[tech3475]

I can't wait to use a GBAtemp guide to hack my car...

BMW.guide.

 

[Deleted member 668561]

I can't wait to use a GBAtemp guide to hack my car...

funny thing is, i remember on hackaday that someone had to hack their car, i believe they were doing something within the ecu, but the ecu code was drm'ed, iirc it was either a bmw or volkwagen

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Microtransactions for cars? I thought that was called gas. Invented long time ago.

 

[Stealphie]

LMFAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I CAN'T HANDLE THIS, THIS IS TOO FUNNY
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

[FAST6191]

Now being trialled in South Korea.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Now being trialled in South Korea.

And the U.K. as per the video below:



This is really infuriating because these are features built-in and yet they think they have the right to charge consumers for it as a service.

There's one even more disgusting and creepier:

https://www.tyrepress.com/2022/07/black-box-now-mandatory-on-new-vehicles-in-eu/

That's just in EU countries? Come on, eventually it'll spread globally. It's how it always happens.

So, they take away features and privacy. Freedom is next if they can think of a way of taking it away without customers realizing it.

 

[hippy dave]