There aren’t that many Tesla Model S owners around, but those who are do seem to comprise of people who have a different way of seeing things. Apparently, some Tesla Model S owners have already tried to hack their ride by wiring into the Model S’ communications system. A forum user who goes by the moniker of “nlc” managed to locate a number of ports and tap into the data which flows straight to the center console and navigation screens. It seems that these “hackers” found out that the sub-system actually ran on a version of the Ubuntu operating system, which so happens to be a variant of Linux.
Heck, there was even someone who managed to circumvent this discovery in order to have Firefox up and running on the center console touchscreen, although it does not seem as though there are other more invasive efforts to be made via the Ethernet entry point.
Tesla is not too happy to hear about this news, where via its service center, it has already informed the original Ethernet exploiter that Tesla knows what has gone on, and that such activity would lead to the warranty being void. After all, the Motor Vehicle Purchase Agreement (MVPA) comes with a clause which reads, in part, “You may not, or may not attempt to, reverse engineer, disassemble, decompile, tamper with or engage in any similar activity in respect of a Tesla Vehicle, nor may you permit any third party to do so, save only to the extent permitted by applicable law.”