Just to be clear and on behalf of the OpenSource guys, as I know they would want me to makes this clear. NO OpenSource software currently available can read/write to ECUTek 'locked' ECU's.

 

P.S. - love the scare mongering above, being in 'Beta' hasn't stopped the relentless advance of OS tuning in the EVO community. An ECUTek unlocker tool has been around for years for the EVO guys to regain control of their ECU's.

 

The fundamental reality here is that the microcontrollers used in these ECUs were never designed to be "resistant to hacking", as the idea that this might happen simply wasn't an issue when the cars were designed. Indeed if they were genuinely resistant to reverse engineering, EcuTeK themselves would never have been able to "hack into them" in the first place so this is a self-defeating argument.

By definition, the fact that these units are designed to permit field upgradeability means anyone who has the technical knowhow will be able to read and alter the firmware - and it can be done, whether in the car or on the bench. Fact of life.

The big question here, I'd suggest, both morally and otherwise, is one of where the intellectual property involved in the job of "mapping a car" actually lies. If you, as a mapper, are modifying a base firmware that was initially designed by JECS/Denso/FHI/STi/etc, who owns any IP or copyright in that work?

Does the end user (i.e. the owner of the car) own any data programmed onto the ROM of his physical ECU during remapping, or is he merely paying for the mapper's time (and therefore any changes made relative to the stock firmware image remain the property of the mapper)?

Similarly Tek can't very well copyright the various routines used to reprogram the MCUs as these were devised by the manufacturers of the components concerned. Therefore anything Tek might have worked out wasn't "invented" by them, they've merely discovered how to operate functionality that is present in the ECUs (and cars) when they left the factory.

It's a very grey area at the moment, and both EcuTeK and the open source brigade are operating within it. Indeed, from what I recall, EcuTeK's originator was posting in an open source information sharing group during the early part of his work, up until he decided to exploit it commercially. Grey area indeed.

 

Personally I don't think it should be a battle between OS or ecutek. Just a choice of mapper - what tools they use is irrelevant.

Do you choose a garage because they use snap on tools rather than halfords professional toolkits or draper ? No, you base it on your own research, the feedback of others, their reputation, their customer service, whether you get on with them and lots of others things but probably none of the factors for choosing them is that they use snap on.

 

Does this mean that once an ECU has been mapped by an Ecutek mapper It cannot be overwritten by an OS mapper ?

 

Using OS software, yes.

 

There are always options available.

 

Paul I can assure you that there are non Ecutek mappers out there that can download/copy licenced Ecutek maps and re write to Ecutek licenced ECU's.
I believe it is some guys in Russia that are doing the Ecutek hacking, ask Duncan for more details on this international industrial espionage

Andy.

 

Interesting however that after the basic (hub) dyno tune, the RCMS car is then fine tuned and tweaked at the track by Dave at virtually every event !
Even more interesting ........... The car they have been unable to catch for the past 6 years has rarely been near a dyno.........

Have a good xmas y'awl........

 

Agreed.

 

Hi Andy, that bit of software has nothing to do with the OpenSource project, I was just making that point clear.

Again an ECU Unlocker tool for ECUTek has been around for years on the EVO ecu's, there's nothing legaly ECUTek can do about it.

 

Legally perhaps not but are you comfortable with that morally ?? We have companys such as Ecutek, Cobb etc with full time employees, working on improving the access and functionality of the OEM ECU to the benefit of the Subaru community and then some hackers just come along with the object of letting others copy and redistribute established tuners maps free of charge.

I personally think the map data should remain the property of the car/ecu owner however I also believe that data should be protected from copying and redistributing by a third party.

When you purchase a DVD, music CD or I-tunes for example, you own your own copy of the music, not the rights to copy and redistribute the artists work for your own profit !
Advertise that you are doing that and see where it lands you !!!

Andy.

 

Andy, with due respect, if you are trying to portray EcuTeK as the white knights in this situation, and the "Russian hackers" (or open source people) as the bad guys, I'm not sure how far you are going to get.

In what way exactly are these "Russians" any different from EcuTeK themselves, whose entire business model, let's remember, is built around reverse-engineering other people's work and selling tools to exploit it at a profit?

It's mildly ironic, at least, that you say EcuTeK apparently have problems with people hacking their work, when they are professional "hackers" themselves. Biter bit, or something like that.

If EcuTeK were genuinely concerned about the security of their own work (and that of their agents), the obvious solution would be to design a custom ECU (and matching programming suite) with an encrypted data link and securitised read/write protection built into it from the start.

This, however, apart from putting them into competition with the established players in the aftermarket ECU field, defeats their business model which, as above, revolves around exploiting undocumented functionality in standard factory ECUs, and receiving a revenue from the resulting tools and usage fees.

If TeK are now discovering that this business model is unsustainable in its current form (for whatever reason), then they're going to have to change it or go the way of the dodo. The one thing that isn't going to work, from a purely technical standpoint, is trying to tack "security" onto ECU hardware that was never designed to be "secure".

 

In which case....

Rather than completely locking out an owners ECU to anything other than EcuTek why don't EcuTek just encrypt a tuners maps as well as properly password protect them making a tuners changes or complete maps completely unreadable and useless to anyone else including other EcuTek tuners, just leaving the licence in place. At least this way OS software can overwrite the ROM giving owners of ECuTek'd ECU's another option instead of locking them into EcuTek unless they replace their ECU.

I know they can do that and so does everyone else in the community but instead EcuTek choose to completely lock out the ECU to anything other than EcuTek. This not only ensures the ECU can only be exclusively mapped by EcuTek but protects the monopoly EcuTek dealers have enjoyed for such a very long time.

It's interesting how cooperation between Cobb and EcuTek, two companies that charge for the pleasure of, disclose to eachother details of how to completely overwrite eachothers their maps.

I think you'll find the majority of experienced OS tuners are already competent enough to provide a customer with a quality bespoke tune based on their own efforts rather than copying an EcuTek tune that may or may not be any good!!

How many EcuTek dealers out there tell customers that their ECU and the data on it, which after all as you have clearly pointed out is the express property of the vehicle owner, is going to be locked out to anything other than EcuTek and therefore rendered useless should they wish later on to use an alternative method to recalibrate their ECU's.

How many EcuTek customers have been told this at the time of remap?? How many EcuTek dealers point this out in their terms of business for everyone to see??

Any takers??

 

For the past 3-4 years Ecutek maps on 2006 onwards cars can be returned to standard in 2 mins, The tuning licence remains with the ECU and it is fully open to programming by OS or other methods.

I think it is unfair to bunch Ecutek alongside the 'hackers' when its Ecutek that the Subaru factory use to programme their own factory warranted special editions such as the RB5, RB320, WR1 etc etc including all the 99 onwards PPP cars including the Prodrive works rally cars etc.. Also Mitsubishi commissioned Ecutek for the programming work on the FQ*** range of Evo's.

So really working hand in hand with the manufacturer rather than hacking i would say !

Andy..

 

It is not possible to fully remove ecutek code from the 06/07 ecu once they have been mapped - even ecutek or their dealers cannot do this when they 'put back to std'. The ecutek lock remains in place and it is not possible to access these ecu's using subaru's own reflashing tools nor open source tools from that point onwards. Only solution is a new ecu, shboot rewriting or another way of writing to the ecu.

 

Thats not the information I have from Ecutek, certainly 08/09 can be re written after licencing as I have done a few that had to go back for their factory recall refllash.

 

All that happened only after EcuTeK hacked into the 99-00 ECU, worked out how to program it and commercialised the process Andy.

If you want I'll quote you a post Stephen Done made to an open source tuning forum detailing how he had eavesdropped on communications between a Select Monitor and an ECU using a digital storage oscilloscope, and was using that as a basis for working out the communications protocol used. Hacking, reverse engineering, call it what you will, but there was absolutely nothing "hand in hand" about it at the beginning.

You might say that, but you wouldn't be entirely correct. The "working hand in hand" part came after the hacking/reverse-engineering (delete according to taste) and the establishment of a business based upon the revenue stream it created. IM turned to Tek because it was there and had a good product - ditto for Mitsubishi.

There is little ethical difference between what EcuTeK did and what "the rest" are now doing. The primary difference is that Tek got there first and were able to exploit a monopoly. Nothing wrong with that of course, but please don't paint it as something it isn't.

 

ohhhhh now that's gotta hurt

 

is bill gates running ecu tec ,he had a monopoly on windows but got hiss *** kicked as it was unfair on others , why do they lock em so only licenced dealer can do em , entrapment. do subaru known about it and argee? i thought prodrive did all there upgrades ? and how is it stealing by it been copyied ? i would be sick if i had to give money for a licence , i would copy it and and change company s name and make bigger bucks , the mp s milk it for secounds homes , ull be less or a crim than them , the auto trader is full of them now , there putting people on the dole on the os coures and call em tech men , 2 day s on the tom tom and they can read any map ha , i know nowt , i just love the passion yous have on here beats reading the son hands down, revolution time , ecu tec bringing in trade unions , joke in , stay cool . still think swrx555 has a good point . good luck .

 

Class

 

Hmmmm, an illiterate mapper. If that isn't a recipe for disaster I don't know what is.

 

someone want to translate please. too much Christmas spirit methinks.

 

The AOLer Translator

Try that translator.

 

Lol...Andrew is properly dyslexic and this is the easiest way for him to communicate online. It makes sense to me but that's only because he's a customer and i've had some time to understand and decypher his syntax...

However, the fact he's geordie doesn't help...bloody foreigners!!

 

Hmmm.

 

He loves winding people up too. Well done for taking the bait

Anyway....back on topic...

I'm still waiting for a reply on....
'Is anyone in the UK informed by their tuners either before or at remap that their ECU's are being locked out?', and, 'Is this lockout feature expressed in their T's & C's or anywhere on thier websites?'

I've spoken to many owners that had EcuTek tunes done or were already on the car they purchased and never knew about this until they came across it on a forum, had googled EcuTek, were told by someone they knew, or told by me when i explained their ECU couldn't be mapped by OS and the reason why.

I can tell you they weren't too impressed.

Isn't this one of those small details that should be fully and accurately disclosed from the off, or is it just not relevant??

 

Cars, well I'm a complete novice but software, well I do know about that and i'd want to correct a couple of open source misconceptions. First is the caveats that you see on the open source website - I don't have a copy of the licence that ecutek include but I bet that it will have a similar number of limited liabiity clauses regarding bugs in it breaking cars.

Second, I doubt that there is a piece of software written that has been shipped without bugs, and that includes software used to control nuclear weapons and aircraft control systems (though for safety critical systems there will have been mathematical testing of the software to a certain level of confidence of any errors not being significant) For consumer applications the difference between OS and closed source is that the bug list is is much more likely to be in the public domain. Using full time coders does not guarentee that the software will be of a better quality or that it will be properly tested before it was released (remember windows vista?).

The great advantage of the OS model is that you can get a large number of peope to input and review the code, and if controlled and run in the right way should arguably give a better result than commercially developed software. For example, the web server software of choice in government (certainly in the projects I've been involved in) is the open source Apache software. Why? Because it is as good (probably better than really) the microsoft software and has no licence fees.

That's not to say OS is always a better choice. Commercial companies can offer great support and upgrades and other resources, but then so does the OS community for popular projects. Really the choice should be based on the functionality of the software and the reputation of the company or project developing and releasing it. Some commercial companies can be great, but also some can be awful in the same way some OS projects are great and some a nightmare. OS software is certainly not 'fly by night' as someone mentioned earlier!

 

What bait? I was wondering whether he's standing there thinking he's holding a poster for the African National Congress.

 

Blimey!! I think you're right!! fpmsl