According to records filed in the case, Achtemeier conspired with mechanics in garages and operators of truck fleets to disable the anti-pollution software installed on diesel trucks. Coconspirators who wanted to disable their trucks’ pollution control hardware system—a process commonly known as “deleting”—sought Achtemeier’s help to trick the truck’s software into believing the emissions control systems were still functional, a process known as “tuning.” Monitoring software on a deleted truck will detect that the pollution control hardware is not functioning and will prevent the truck from running. Achtemeier disabled the monitoring software on his client’s trucks by connecting to laptops he had provided to various coconspirators. Some of the coconspirators would pass the laptop on to others seeking to have the anti-pollution software disabled on their trucks. Once the laptop was hooked up to the truck’s onboard computer, Achtemeier could access it from his computer and tune the software designed to slow the truck if the pollution control device was missing or malfunctioning. Achtemeier could “tune” trucks remotely, which enabled him to maximize his environmental impact and personal profit.
So it’s a Captain Planet villain, but dumb.
Right, a Republican, exactly.
The way they’ve all reacted to climate change denialism by actively trying to make pollution as bad as possible is wild. Even if the entire world’s scientific community was somehow wrong about global warming, shit like this and “rolling coal” would still be terrible for air quality, but these fucknuts apparently don’t care as long as they get to “own the libs”. This is peak “eating a shit sandwich to force other people to smell your breath” energy.
It’s not an anti environment thing, it’s a money saving thing. You spend 4.5k to make your engine reliable for hundreds of thousands of miles instead of having to spend 10k (if you’re lucky) every 100k miles to keep it running.
Remotely? Sounds like the manufacturers are up to no good as well.
Manufacturers try really hard to stop their proprietary software from getting out into the world, because when it does this is exactly what happens.
Case in point: I have a $35 phone app that lets me change software configurations on my BMW, and it is great. Can’t change anything related to engine, aftertreatment, or safety though…which is a good thing.
Flipside of this coin: this results in repair monopolies because users cannot repair their own vehicles and equipment and manufactures use this exact excuse to claim they HAVE to run a monopoly cause the EPA. Literally John Deere has said this.
In truth, illegal vehicle mods have been and will always be a thing. Manufacturers should still provide all the tools to users to repair, and emissions checks on trucks will have to be smarter to catch cheaters. Make the penalty for a deliberate violation (willful not accidental) so egregious that no one would consider it, even if it saved 50k+ per truck.
The summary says he was having accomplices connect a laptop to the vehicle and then remotely accessing that laptop. Sounds like regular old ssh or rdp.
If you read the article he was remotely connecting to laptops that were plugged into the vehicles.
