More attempts at control from our government/corporate owners…
by: Eric Peters
The government wants to control your car – how it’s made, what it comes equipped with and (of course) how you’re allowed to drive it. Now comes the other half of the pincers:
The car companies want to prevent you from working on the thing.
Modifications – performance enhancements – and even routine maintenance are to become illegal via the application (and enforcement) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to cars.
They are claiming propriety rights to thesoftware embedded in the computer – technically, the Electronic Control Unit or ECU – that pretty much runs a modern car. They claim – and you knew this was coming, right? – thatsaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety is threatened by people doing their own maintenance or tweaking/tuning as such might affect how the varioussaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety systems embedded in the car and controlled by the ECU operate.
A blind stroke victim ought to have seen this coming.
Cars, claim the car companies, are mobile computing devices – you know, like sail fawns – and so fall under the aegis of the DMCA. Have a read:
“Automobiles are inherently mobile, and increasingly they contain equipment that would commonly be considered computing devices… Many of the ECUs embodied in today’s motor vehicles are carefully calibrated to satisfy federal or state regulatory requirements with respect to emissions control, fuel economy, or vehicle safety. Allowing vehicle owners to add and remove programs at whim is highly likely to take vehicles out of compliance with these requirements, rendering the operation or re-sale of the vehicle legally problematic. The decision to employ access controls to hinder unauthorized “tinkering” with these vital computer programs is necessary in order to protect the safety and security of drivers and passengers and to reduce the level of non-compliance with regulatory standards. We urge the Copyright Office to give full consideration to the impacts on critical national energy and environmental goals, as well as motor vehicle safety, in its decision on this proposed exemption. Since the record on this proposal contains no evidence regarding its applicability to or impact on motor vehicles, cars and trucks should be specifically excluded from any exemption that is recommended in this area.”
This statement (see here for the full text) was issued by the Auto Alliance – the great collective that speaketh for every major car company doing business in the United States, including Ford, GM, Mazda, Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota, VW/Audi, Mitsubishi, Mercedes, BMW and Volvo, et al. 
Note carefully the way that government edicts relating to saaaaaaaaaaaaafety (and emission and fuel efficiency) are now being turned outward, against the car owner. Heretofore, these mandates directly affected the car companies, who were forced to add, as an example, a (cue El Guapo) plethora of air bags to new vehicles, or direct injection and auto-stop/start (more recently) to eke out a fractional gain in MPGs in order to appease the federal government’s Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE)fatwa.
But now, the wheel turns – and what’s been good for the goose (the industry) is going to be good for the gander (us), too. It’s a kind of vengeful lashing out, on the one hand. The industry – sick, probably, of taking these endless demands on the chin – with most consumers being engineering illiterates and just expecting cars to become ever saaaaaaaaaaaafer, ever more fuel efficient, by decree.
Just – cue Captain Picard – make it so.
Well, no.
It takes a lot of brain sweat to figure out how to – for example – maintain the capability to get to 60 MPH in less than 10 seconds while also averaging 35.5 MPG (next year’s CAFE fatwa). Let alone 50 MPG (the proposed CAFE fatwa for 2020). Let’s make the consumers feel our pain, they reasoned. Perhaps they will begin to ask questions and come to understand that there truly ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
More likely, though, is that the perfect vehicle for exercising complete control over “our” (air quotes) cars was conceived – and is now in the process of being born. It is genius, really. You have to admire it.
First, establish the principle in law that the government’s job is to be your parent – to protect you from yourself. From theoreticalrisk, as defined by government. You mightwreck your car. If you do, an air bag mightsave your life (it might also gouge out one of your eyes, but that’s a mere incidental). Ergo, government has the right to require that you buy a car equipped with an air bag.
Because the government is your Mommy.
And now – drum roll, please – government (egged on by the car companies, which are big cartels and becoming indistinguishable from the government) has the right to criminalize any “meddling” by you with the car that could even theoretically compromise thesaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafetyof the vehicle.
Or its emissions output.
Or its gas mileage.
It will be become an actionable offense to use more gas than you’re allowed. Notwithstanding you paid for it. High-flow injectors? A conical air filter? $500 fine. Or maybe they just seize the car.
Or, just turn it off – remotely.
None of this is new, by the way. For decades, it has been illegal in California and some other states to “modify or alter” any drivetrain (the engine) components that affect emissions output. Even if emissions themselves are not affected at all. Or affected for the better. Ask someone who lives in California about this. It is even illegal (in CA) to put a more modern (and less “emitting”) engine in an older vehicle, regardless of whether the newer engine’s tailpipe outpourings are less than those produced by the car’s original/factory engine. You could, however, file paperwork with an entity called the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and – maybe – get an exemption.
DMCA will close that “loophole” – and do it nationally.
What’s been implicit for a long time in American politics and law is becoming quite explicit:
We don’t own anything anymore.
The government does.
What does it mean to own something? Is it your name on a piece of paper?Renters also have their names on a piece of paper. It is called a lease. You are allowed temporary and conditional use of the property.
We are all renters now.
Your home is a rental – whether you’ve got a mortgage or not. You pay rent in perpetuity to the county/state in the form of property tax. If you decline to pay the rent, you will find out in short order who truly does own “your” home.
DMCA will apply the principle to “our” cars, too. You will make the payments – but you will only be allowed to use the car as decreed. And the enforcement mechanism is already in place.
It is already in the car.
Every new car not only has an ECU, it also has the capability to be accessed electronically without your knowledge or consent. If it has a system such as GM’s OnStar (and other automakers have similar systems now) your car can have a furtive conversation with the car company that built it – or the government – which (again) increasingly amounts to the same thing.
They see you when you’re sleeping, the know when you’re awake, they know if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake…
Or else.
The “or else” being they’ll simply shut you down once alerted. Once the car narcs you out.
In the same ofsaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety.
It calls to mind a famous epitaph, that of novelist H.G. Wells:
Goddamn you all: I told you so.
http://ericpetersautos.com/2015/05/06/your-car-not-so-much/
“I guess the reason why I miss the old vehicles – and the mindset that created them – is that they remind me of a better time. A time when this country wasn’t so damn fucked up and teetering on the edge. And somehow I equate hanging on to those old vehicles with saving a bit of the way things used to be… a living, fire-breathing example of what we could do, if we wanted… ” ———– Billy
So full of emotion, and a sense of forlornness. I read it three times. Love it. +100
“That’s the crayon that nobody used and everyone hated – every other crayon in the 64 pack would be stubby – damn near wore out – and the “burnt orange” one would be unused… and YOU dumbasses painted a car that color… congratulations, dumbass.)” ———– Billy
Ha ha hardy har har!!
Remember the “flesh” colored crayon?? WTF? I have actually cut my flesh … and I gotta tell ya …. it’s RED!!!!!
Raaaayciss motherfuckin’ crayon!!!
[img
[/img]
[img
[/img]
Stucky,
“Forlorn” is a pretty good adjective to use…
We had a good thing. And then a bunch of assholes killed it – spiked it right through the heart – then celebrated the good thing being dead.
One time, I was ramrodding a shop and this old duffer comes in. Hands me an 1897 Marlin .22 lever gun. Says he wants it DCOA’d… (disassembled, clean, oiled and assembled). Nothing more. Just clean it.
I sign it in, rack it, take the duffer’s information and go back to doing whatever it was I was doing…
Meanwhile…
Some idjit comes in and sees the ’97. It’s beautiful and a living example of an earlier, better time. A time traveller meant to show us how things could be done, if we only wanted to… and my philosophy is that we don’t really own anything. Not really. We make things and take care of things for the time we are here, and then they get passed on to the next generation.
There’s the right way to do something, and then there’s everything else. A lesson from my old Daddy.
So anyways, Idjit comes in and sees the ’97. He skips over a bunch of other stuff that needs done and signs out the ’97. All this idjit has to do is take it apart and clean it.
Cardinal rule: Every weapon has a manual. Either from the factory, or from your predecessors who wrote one. It’s there for a reason. Use it.
Does Idjit try and find the manual in our WALL OF MANUALS? Nope. Just freeballs it.
He ends up bringing me a part he destroyed during the process of “disassembling” it. It was irreplaceable. Literally. The survival rate of those old rifles is vanishingly small, so “spare parts” don’t exist. Literally.
Idjit: “Hey B? I need you to order this part”.
Me: (wondering) “Uhh… what did this come from?”
Idjit: “Oh, it came from that old .22 lever gun.”
Me: (thunderstruck) “You… did this to that rifle?”
Idjit: (Sheepish) “Shyeah… it was tough to take apart.”
Me: (Smoldering fury) “You know what this is, right?”
Idjit: “Uhh… just some old rifle.”
Me: “No. This was made during the height of the machine age. There’s few surviving examples. And this one managed to survive over 100 years and provide service and enjoyment to it’s owners.
Idjit: …..
Me: “And then it met you… and you fuckin’ killed it. There’s no chance to find a “spare” for this… zero. None. Now not only did you kill an irreplaceable rifle, but the shop looks like a bunch of incompetents – can’t even take apart something and put it back together again without destroying it… ”
Idjit: “But… ”
Me: “Go get the rest of the rifle and give it to me. It’s gonna need major surgery and I hope to God the owner doesn’t kill me… ”
Idjit: “Well, you don’t have to… ”
Me: “I don’t wanna fuckin’ hear it. This is indefensible and you’re incompetent. If I could fire you, I would. Get out.”
I almost got fired for reaming his ass, since it was not my place to do so and I seriously overstepped my authority, but it was worth it. Message received loud and clear.
We marvel at the things we have made in the past and hold on to them like they’re magical totems. Compare them to what is made today, and there is no contest. And on some level, subconsciously perhaps, we know that those “better times” that gave birth to whatever it is we favor, those times are gone and will never come back….
And that makes our own time look pretty shabby by comparison… mores the pity.
Pretty close to the one Idjit killed…
http://www.gunauction.com/buy/7420078
‘Cept the one he killed was in much better shape…
Incompetent asshole…
Stucky,
Heh… crayons…
In grade school, those old nuns were hell on us… we found little ways to get them back.
In one classroom, they had a forced air wall heater. During warm weather, those of us who sat right next to the heater would tear up paper into little confetti-sized bits and drop them down into the heater. This went on for Spring, into Summer and then after the break and into Fall.
When the heaters were turned on for the first time in the Fall, hopefully us being out of the room at the time, those fans would kick in and clouds of confetti would blow into the air… heh… Sister MaryAnn damn near had an aortic infarction…
Other rooms had old timey radiators.
We’d take our crayons and bust off little bits, then set them on top of the radiator. Not too many. Once the radiators kicked on, they’d melt the crayons, which would then run down the radiators, turning them into wonderful technicolor art projects… 🙂
Good art wasn’t appreciated back then, apparently…
Bea – seriously, fuck you.
You are calling me dumb when in fact you are simply envious.
I drive new cars because I then ensure my family has the safest, most reliable cars on the road. My family has never been stranded because of a broken down car – never. Not for one second. And the cars never go out of warranty.
There is a substantial cost to that security. I have made the decision it is worth it, given all the factors, and given I can afford it. It probably costs me an extra $10k a year than if I kept the cars 6 years.
In 6 years tech advances significantly re safety, and are out of warranty, and the cars are no longer the safest and most reliable. So I replace them every 3 years.
So blow me, asshole.
Alpoh
Seriously, I don’t give a flying fuck what kind of car you drive or how often you buy one. There is nothing wrong with Billy’s truck, I think it has character, but you come in like Mr. Blowhard cutting it down…..so why don’t you blow me hard.
Bea – Billy is quite capable of responding for himself. And I said nothing about his truck specifically, just pointed out the one he is interested in is terribly underpowered relative to modern vehicles.
I understand Billy’s penchant for old cars/trucks. Good for him. They have character, granted. But I would not drive one anymore, nor let my family. My comments were to provoke him a bit – that is always fun, and to point out that all that glitters is not gold. And it worked. He answered quite well. He was wrong about the safety aspects, as Stuck pointed out.
Your envy is showing. It is not pretty.
Stuck/Billy – my old man would begin to worry like mad when one of his cars hit 100k. It was on borrowed time then. If one got 120k, it was a godsend. It was time to rebuild the engine.
Today, you can change the oil every 10k, never look under the hood, and get 200k out of it easy. Possibly lots more. And if you rebuild the engine, they would go for another 200k.
But the thing is, no one knows how to work on a modern car – it is impossible for folks like us. It takes special equipment. Hell, I am no great mechanic, but I can get an old car up and running from top to bottom pretty near, anything from rebuilding the engine to brakes, etc. But in the end, it would be an old car, burning oil, refusing to stop on a dime, needing plugs and points all the time, etc.
I could see owning old cars just for the fun of it. My partner has a couple of award winning beauties. But he never drives them – they simply do not match even the worst of modern cars in ride/handling/performance/safety/comfort. They are for looking at and working on.
And as far as trucks/four wheel drives go – the modern beasts are so far ahead in tech and performance as to be incomparable. Check out a modern Jeep Wrangler Rubicon for example:
[img
[/img]
Those things, and others like them, can go where only mountain goats have gone before.
Alpoh
Me……N V U…….heh….now that’s funny.
llpoh says:
I could see owning old cars just for the fun of it. My partner has a couple of award winning beauties. But he never drives them – they simply do not match even the worst of modern cars in ride/handling/performance/safety/comfort. They are for looking at and working on.
______________________________
I’m sure you didn’t mean it this way, but your comment could be construed to imply that you are gay. LOL. Gotta love language.
Billy says:
Damn…
Zara steps up and shows his mechanical chops. Who woulda thunk it? Here I thought you were camped out on a prayer rug all this time…
Okay… I partially take back all the bashing I’ve done on you… you’re still not off the hook, but I got some respect for you now. You know what you’re talking about re: Mopar, engines, etc… credit where it is due.
_______________________________
I have always been part redneck, part mechanic and part intellectual; I am also an engineer. To this day I know far more about pre-war engines than about any modern ones. Having said that, when I was in college and got freaked out on some drug at some party where didn’t know many, I got into my 64 1/2 mustang and headed to country roads where I drove until I came down. I drove that car on acid several times. I and it were one. I knew exactly what it could do. I never even so much as run over a possum and the only problem I can remember is when I failed to negotiate a 90 degree corner and ran into a dirt road. When came down enough to read road signs, I would find my way back to home.
PS, I also owned for a brief time, a 1968 Chrysler 300 Convertible (I traded it for a boat). I called it 6,000 lbs of road eating monster. It had a 25 gallon gas tank and burned only ethyl, but you could watch the gauge drop if you put your foot into it. It had the high performance 383 engine. Red with a black interior and a white top. Good luck trying to parallel park with it.
Let’s see if this works:
http://www.chromjuwelen.com/de/network/320-hooniversecom/145809-hooniverse-big-ass-convertible-weekend–a-1968-chrysler-300-convertible.html
Damn Zara….who woulda thunk you was a redneck boy. I thought you were a towel head for a while then decided just not a fan of the joos.
Z – not that there is anything wrong with that, right?!
I am not gonna be politically correct for you monkeys.
I do not have a “partner” except in the business sense – I have a wife. Folks that introduce “significant others” or “partners” to me give me the creeps. Fuck modern bullshit.
I have a wife, and if I was not married I might have a girlfriend. But I would never call either my partner or significant other.
Bea Lever says:
Damn Zara….who woulda thunk you was a redneck boy. I thought you were a towel head for a while then decided just not a fan of the joos.
____________________________
I grew up in semi-rural Oregon, back in a time when there were still junkyards where vehicles sat for decades. I wanted to find an original radio for my 1940 plymouth and found a few in a shed that was full of old tube radios, including several of the ones I wanted. Unfortunately the roof had rotted off and all of them had been rained on, rendering them useless.
Bea Lever says:
Damn Zara….who woulda thunk you was a redneck boy. I thought you were a towel head for a while then decided just not a fan of the joos.
_______________________________
I used to be sympathetic to the Israelis, until I wised up.
Billy says:
. Granted, disk brakes are light years better than drum brakes, but come ON!! The least they could do is make them so you can’t fuck them up just by doing regular maintenance.
______________________
Properly adjusted, drum brakes were just fine. My ’40 plymouth had lockheed drum brakes. Each shoe had two points of adjustment. You used a feeler gauge to set them, but once adjusted correctly, you could slam on the brakes at 60 mph with your hands off the wheel, and the clutch and it would skid to a stop in a perfect straight line.
Zara,
Not saying that drum brakes were not or cannot be effective.
It’s brake fade I’m talking about. And there’s no getting around it. Hot metal expands – because physics – and if you use drum brakes enough on a hot, dry day, the drums heat up, expand and it’s effectiveness is compromised. Pulling a loaded cattle carrier up and down hills will do that.
I’m old fashioned, but not an idiot.
My old 73 had it’s main fuel tank in the cab of the truck! One gallon of gasoline – if it is aerosolized – has the same explosive potential as 3 sticks of dynamite. It’s a 15 gallon tank. Do the math.
I didn’t want to be a crater, soooo, adios in-cab fuel tank. Yanked it, sealed up the filler tube and put a locking cap on it. It will be replaced by a proper 20-something gallon tank back below the bed, where it’s supposed to be. With the saddle tanks, that should give me almost 50 gallons of fuel at my disposal. (I gave serious thought to a fuel cell behind the cab – a half-truckbox, half-fuel cell out of diamondplate – and it can be done – but it’s cost prohibitive).
The spare tire – which was where the fuel tank should be – was a piece of shit, so it and all it’s mounting shit were cut away and tossed. I’ll get a proper matching spare later on and mount it somewhere else.
The truck came with a seat belt, but it was only a lap belt. Uhh, no. We found a full set of 3-point restraints out of another F250 and retrofitted them into my truck.
The lighting has been upgraded as well and the next big project is a cow-catcher for the front – welded 3 inch steel tube with a winch plate. (Heh… sorry about your Prius… hope ya got airbags!)
After that, I’m going to retrofit the front axle with a set of disk brakes from a 1976 F250 specifically because they’re better. (About warping those puny disk brakes on small cars – the car company is nice enough to give you a donut for a spare, but NOBODY – except dorks like me – carries a torque wrench in their toolbox. And few people know the torque specs for their lug nuts. If you reef down on the lug nuts swapping out the donut for your flat, you’ll bend the shit out of the brake disks. That’s what I’m talking about – not having some grease monkey with an impact wrench getting froggy while rotating your tires…)
I know that Old Fugly won’t ever be as “safe” as modern shit, especially with regards to airbags, etc. But it’s as “safe” as I can make it, and I’d rather have my son driving 7,000 lbs of rolling steel (suitably upgraded) and be able to self-rescue than some riceburning shitbox made of tin foil and bottle caps that can be flipped over by a stiff breeze or wadded up like a dishrag in an accident…
Llpoh,
Did the Jeep thing when I was in my 20’s.
Had a ’84 CJ7. The straight-6 258 cu.in. was the best engine AMC ever made. It might not have been the most powerful engine out there, but you could by-gawd shoot holes in it – shoot holes all the way through it – and it would still get you home. It would take an evil genius intentionally trying to kill one, to kill one…
I spent a small fortune building that CJ into what I wanted – moderately lifted, more travel in the suspension, beefed up drivetrain, forged heavy duty U-joints, snarly off-road tires, a snorkel, Warn winches fore and aft…
One of our favorite things was to pick a spot on this old 1960’s-era map of where we were stationed, load down the cooler with eats and beer, grab a compass, the map, etc, and just go! The roads were little more than goat tracks at that point, being overgrown with decades of foliage. Trees down across the road, gigantic potholes – some so huge we had to fill them partially with rocks just to cross them…
Pop out of the jungle at our destination and literally find some little village that hadn’t seen a white man in 25 years… it was fun. Don’t know how many times I heard a variation of “Here. Marry my daughter!”…. tempting, but no. We were like the early explorers…