Locked ECU Hacking

[Tre-Cool]

I notice that a certain thread has disappeared in the gen3 section, probably because it went off topic a bit.

I was just wondering what EFI's stand point is on the discussion of privateers attempting to hack the seed/ key combinations of locked pcm's?

The reason i ask is because i have a few friends that had their pcm's modified by hptuners software and thus efilive cannot overwrite the pcm.

I'm not interested in reading any existing tune, i just want to overwrite the whole flash, so we can get it to a usable base with efilive.

Sure we *could* pay someone to unlock it, but seeing as i have a bench harness and plenty of time to wait for some software to find the seed & key, well why not.

Perhaps if you guys all ready have a program that can do this, you would be willing to release or sell it to customers and lock it to their V2 Serial number, Thus limiting it's distribution.

[5.7ute]

I noticed that thread disappearing, but I am not really surprised.
I am sure that Ross or Paul believed it was in their best interests to not have that kind of information publicly available here. Hence the deletion.

[mr.prick]

It takes a lot to get a thread locked or deleted here.
Ross & Paul are cool about the open exchange of ideas but obviously there is a limit.
The fate of that thread should be your answer.
IBTL.

[Cougar281]

The reason i ask is because i have a few friends that had their pcm's modified by hptuners software and thus efilive cannot overwrite the pcm.

I'm not interested in reading any existing tune, i just want to overwrite the whole flash, so we can get it to a usable base with efilive.

For this reason, I agree with the spirit of that thread 100%. The people that "complained" thus getting that thread shut down and deleted are worried about their tuning being broken into and stolen. There are two problems with that though. First, not everyone has the skill, paitence or equipment to do what was posted, and second, if someone REALLY wants to steal some commercial tuning in a locked PCM, all they need to do is sacafice the PCM; rip it open, pull the flash chip and read it (and again, not everyone can do that either). Bypass the "almighty" lock completely. If these people are that concerned, then with all due respect, they should throw in the towel and quit now, because the ONLY way they can really prevent someone from getting their tuning that REALLY wants it is to not send out the PCM. As with pretty much anything: Give physical access, and ANYTHING can be broken into. The only question is degree of difficulty (Give me physical access to any Windows PC or Cisco device and I WILL get into it inside of 5 minutes ).

[Tre-Cool]

For this reason, I agree with the spirit of that thread 100%. The people that "complained" thus getting that thread shut down and deleted are worried about their tuning being broken into and stolen. There are two problems with that though. First, not everyone has the skill, paitence or equipment to do what was posted, and second, if someone REALLY wants to steal some commercial tuning in a locked PCM, all they need to do is sacafice the PCM; rip it open, pull the flash chip and read it (and again, not everyone can do that either). Bypass the "almighty" lock completely. If these people are that concerned, then with all due respect, they should throw in the towel and quit now, because the ONLY way they can really prevent someone from getting their tuning that REALLY wants it is to not send out the PCM. As with pretty much anything: Give physical access, and ANYTHING can be broken into. The only question is degree of difficulty (Give me physical access to any Windows PC or Cisco device and I WILL get into it inside of 5 minutes ).

I look at it like this aswell, If i can replace a competitors tuning product with an efilive solution, i'm going to purchase more licenses from efilive (or a stream if it becomes financially economical to do so, though im only helping out friends and will never do tuning as a source of income)

Or the 2nd potential choice is send the locked pcm to someone who can overwrite the tune with a factory one and change the pcm serial 2 one im allready licensed with efilive to tune = Loss of income to EFILIVE.

I'm also unsure if there would be a way to differentiate say a locked hptuners ecu vs a locked efilive tune, but if efilive had product that could do this would it would be a step over the competition.

I can also understand back in the early days of ls1 tuning the locking of pcm's was to prevent other "tuners" from reading out someone elses work and then selling it as their own, but 6 years later, this doesnt really make sense any more and any true workshop tuner (those who charge $$$ for their tuning skills/services) would start from their own base tune than trying to rejig someone elses "Shit".

[Tre-Cool]

To throw some idea's out there, what if the guys at EFILIVE could integrate this "cracking program" so that once it found the seed, key combination it would only allow you to send a full flash tune.

That way they are "protecting" other people's work but not locking out new users who say purchase a pcm from the wreckers,ebay etc etc.

[Cougar281]

To throw some idea's out there, what if the guys at EFILIVE could integrate this "cracking program" so that once it found the seed, key combination it would only allow you to send a full flash tune.

That way they are "protecting" other people's work but not locking out new users who say purchase a pcm from the wreckers,ebay etc etc.

That's not a bad idea, except for the time required to execute the "crack". They didn't implement full A40 reading because it takes 45+ minutes to read the TCM, so I doubt they'd implement something that could take DAYS.... no offence meant, Ross & Paul . I'd love to be wrong though, since that would give them an "edge" IMO; allow EFILive to recover PCM's that have been locked where the tuner is no longer around to unlock or modify it for whatever reason, for example. I wonder if that might work for the "Braindead" LB7 ECM's that get the seed and key screwed up?

[Tre-Cool]

That's not a bad idea, except for the time required to execute the "crack". They didn't implement full A40 reading because it takes 45+ minutes to read the TCM, so I doubt they'd implement something that could take DAYS.... no offence meant, Ross & Paul . I'd love to be wrong though, since that would give them an "edge" IMO; allow EFILive to recover PCM's that have been locked where the tuner is no longer around to unlock or modify it for whatever reason, for example.

who cares how long it takes, atleast the option is there.

Hell, it only cost me about $150 to get an ls1 bench harness from efi connection to OZ and less than a week for delivery anyway and i managed to pick up a 2nd hand pcm as a spare changeover for less than $200. So the time it takes for the program to crack the locked pcm doesnt really matter as i can have it chugging away on my desktop at home.

[5.7ute]

That would be a better option. You would have to wait for 10 years though as Ross & Paul have a big enough wokload as it is.

[Cougar281]

who cares how long it takes, atleast the option is there.

I said the same thing about A40 reading