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CCC · Vehicle securityCurated

Dieselgate: Fraud becomes executable code

Summary

Daniel Lange and Felix Domke analyse Dieselgate technically, organisationally and procedurally and examine software extracted from real engine control units. For the analysis, control units from eBay and from Volkswagen were read out. Code can reproduce an organisational lie precisely and millions of times.

Ideas

  • Engine control units detect test conditions from several available vehicle signals.
  • Software can pass formal tests and violate real operating goals at the same time.
  • Firmware extraction makes claimed behaviour verifiable independently of the manufacturer.
  • Control units from the second-hand market enable research without access to a complete vehicle.
  • Organisational incentives shape harmful code as much as technical requirements do.
  • Regulation without realistic spot checks makes manufacturers optimise for the known test bench.

Insights

  • Measurement procedures themselves become an attack surface as soon as their sequence is predictable.
  • Independent hardware access enables public accountability for proprietary systems.

Quotes

  • Take a deep breath into pollution trickery – subtitle of the talk

Habits

  • The speakers combine firmware analysis with procedures, organisation and publicly known measurement results.

Facts

  • Daniel Lange and Felix Domke gave the talk together.

References

Critique

  • The talk was given early in the scandal and could not take later proceedings into account.
  • The firmware versions examined do not automatically represent every affected vehicle variant.

Remarks

  • The talk leads the popularity list on media.ccc.de by a wide margin.
  • Technical analysis and social impact interlock unusually clearly here.

Recommendations

  • Design tests to be random, realistic and independent of the manufacturer.
  • Archive firmware versions together with hardware and calibration data.
  • Give researchers legally secure access to proprietary control units.

Watch the talk

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