scorp508

Does anybody have pointers on how to make a BIN file unreadable to anyone but yourself? For example this would be if I were to charge people for chips to lock them out from viewing the changes in Tunercat, Tuner Pro etc.. Is it a matter of editing some HEX values and keeping to myself what ones I changed?

Thanks.

91L98Z28

So..uhmm.. yeah....

This is just a random post from me.

A few times in the past, folks have visited DIY PROM for a time, then disappeared, only to resurface selling what they've learned for profit.

Most of us are here to learn, both established material and new material as we all contribute what we can.

There have been staggering losses to the DIY community because the folks who put in the immense time and effort required to do the REALLY neat stuff, don't like seeing the summation of their work, for sale by someone who is using the results of their work they gave to the community for free. This is why we don't have a 2nd generation DIY-WB. Or the really neat ion knock detection setup that has been mentioned from time to time. Or probably a number of other stuff that never even got mentioned in the light of day.... or perhaps stuff that even exists and is already done; but the designer(s) don't want to release because it will just get copied/regurgitated and sold for profit.

Perhaps instead of expending effort to hide from these people what you've done, you could instead expend and equal amount of effort to educate them on what you've done? Maybe a few will get into DIY-PROM and come up with something that benefits you or the rest of the community.

The more people who know and understand, the better.

So, I'm hoping I just read your post wrong or perhaps that I'm jumping to conclusion?

1981TTA

The only ways to "temporarily" do this (that I can think of) would be to either rewrite the software/calibrations so *all* of the locations change *or* move the calibration tables around (i.e. main spark advance table placed swapped with EGR table). There's no way to keep someone from seeing the "1"s and "0"s on the chip. While this wouldn't be permanent since your BIN could be disassembled and hacked like the stock BINs, it would probably delay things for a while. And, if your customers are buying chips rather than doing it themselves, this might be more permanent.....

Of course, you'll have to become much more of an expert at assembly (or whatever your chosen programming language). Unless you already have a phenomial grasp on the ECMs and their code, you should be up-and-running in a year or two working on this full time! And, if you do move things around, you'll want to spend a *lot* of time testing the changes so your customers don't destroy their engines, fail emissions, etc due to a programming error. You'll want this test information available for any potential court appearances to prove you didn't break things.....

scorp508

You did read it wrong. I help all of my friends however I can for free and try to add as much to the online community as I can. BUT.... there are some individuals who I fear would turn around and take my own work and sell it for profit. I'm looking to avoid this. I've heard stories in the past of Formato chips and the like being unreadable by normal means, yet still run perfectly fine in a stock ECM.

JP84Z430HP

So you're wanting to make the chip unreadable, correct? Not a BIN file. From what I understand, there is a pin that you can clip off a chip that will make it unreadable, but I don't know which.

I don't think that I would do anything for anyone that I would be worried about that sort of action from. Besides, if you're just tuning, they should know that the chip is tailored to their car, and likely wouldn't be as good in another car.

scorp508

It isn't the person I do it for, it is their not-so-honest friends.

Grumpy

You can't.
You can slow em down for a few hours maybe, but that's about all. While the thread about how to disassemble, and reassemble makes it all common knowledge, of how to undo whatever your thinking of.

Shy of using a really sophisticated laser, and reengraving the guts of the prom.

Grumpy

Helping them means teaching them how to do it themselves.

??, how come your name really isn't that familiar, if your such a contributor?. Just curious is all.

Grumpy

Doc says, he can get around that in less then 5 mins..

Ken73

Sure there is!

[shameless plug]

Solder in a Prominator, then download your BIN to it. There isn't any software available to read the data *off* of the Prominator. Unless they're going to do some massive reverse engineering, they won't be able to get that data off.

[/shameless plug]

scorp508

I primarily post on corvetteforum.com in the C4 Tech section. I'm over 60,000 posts there with primarily meaningful content in each.

Grumpy

??.
The ecm must be able to read it, so something that can emulating the ecm should be able to?, no?.
Logic Analyser?.

Kinda expensive thou for doing free chips, thou.

Grumpy

Oh, over there.........

SMasterson

I don’t normally get into these type of discussions but I don’t get your logic in coming into a DIY forum and asking how to encrypt the binary code on the PROM. Since you have 60k posts in a similar forum about burning chips and whatever then you surely know how individual a well tuned PROM is to each vehicle combination.

And…, if you’ve got secrets that your not sharing or that the typical editing software doesn’t already allow us to change then you’re the one worried about the profit.

I just don’t get it… My trucks fast because of the DIY community and Thirdgen.org in general, but I’m still pretty slow in my logic.

BTW, I help who I can and only charge for hardware I permanently use on their vehicles. If they can learn the *secrets* I have here just by breaking down my binary file and finding out what I’ve done to it then they are surely smart enough to decrypt any scheme I could come up with the keep them from it. There are no secrets in my binaries. Only ideas I have lifted off people here at DIY.

It takes months to get this stuff figured out well enough to impress anyone above an average tune, so let them have at it. Oh, I forgot, you don’t want them to know how you did it.

Also, as mentioned I believe, just move some of the code around in the chip and editing software won’t read it correctly. And another thing, I’ve put my name into a binary file had TC to recalculate the checksum and it worked.

I guess I didn’t answer your question, or did I?

scorp508

lol nope. I didn't think you guys would be so offended by this simple question. My logic is to try and help save the DIY community by preventing those who want to take somebody else's work for nothing and sell it to make profit of their own. No need for anyone to get their briches bunched up.

dimented24x7

iTrader: (2)

I guess if you had a real fast ECM that was as powerful as a high end supercomputer and had lots of processing power you could encrypt all the data on the chip and have some hardcoded software that decrypts each byte once its read you could. Something like a digital Enigma with 1024 bit enryption. Oh, and the computer would have to self destruct if it was tampered with, killing all around in a ten ft. radius with deadly radiation beams.

Or... After your done burning a chip you could dip the entire ecm in a very hard thermal set polymer with randomly oriented kevlar fibers and encase it in a brick of rock hard plastic. This would make it so monumentally difficult to get at the chip that no one would ever bother.

Hehe... All joking aside there really isnt any way to encrypt the data on a chip. If you move the stuff around, one can jsut disassemble and figure out where you put everything. Anyway, new and neat hardware aside, jsut about all the info on these ECMs is open to anyone who wants to get access to it, so there really arnt alot of secrets to steal.

JPrevost

Don't let anybody see it... ever, as in keep it in your own car and never share.
On a serious note, you COULD weld the case making it nearly impossible to get too.
Another way, the best way, would be to do a hardware change. Move a pin in an adaptor and get a cusom chip made .

Grumpy

The only way to take profit out of anything is to public domain it, and **give it away**.

There's always some slime, that'll figure out how to make a few bucks off of someone else's work. And that's about work ethic, and morality.

Long term the universe takes cares of things.

Mangus

Oh, but that is only a temporary thing. For a number of reasons that I don't feel like typing, TunerPro *will* allow you to read off o the Prominator. (OK, I'll give you the main reason: I upload a kick *** bin that I spent 2 weeks making perfect. A year later I want to remember where I was. Short of being really good at data management on the PC side, the best way to do this is to *read the bin from the Prominator*!).

=)

To answer scorp's question: Don't bother. You might be able to make it more difficult, but most of the people in the DIY (and especially the professional business of) PROM community are savvy enough to undue any electrical stuff you may do, and especially any data shifting or re-arrangment. Not to mention it wouldn't be worth your time.

ben73

LOL.. I can back scorp for being one of the good guys on corvetteforum.

Unfortunately tho, that place is inhabited by a number of guys trying to profit from the DIY-EFI effort.. Any request there to share a 'starter' .bin for something like a superrammed 383 for example will not get the same positive response you may get on genuine DIY boards, like this one ;-)

SMasterson

I never doubted he was "one of the good guys". With 60k posts you're certainally sharing something.

My land line BBS was "Dedicated to the FREE exchange of information" from 1986-1995 and if he's got secrets I want to know them!

I hate jumping through hoops trying to figure out how someone did something. I'm willing to do my share of learing and footwork as to WHAT to do, but to spend time decrypting the methods of keeping something secret isn't productive.

Anyway, whatever the motives for wanting to do it, if I knew how I would have already told him! That's the kind of guy I am!

I still think moving the code around would work for all but the most determined and even then they would have to do some pretty heavy hacking.

Vader

Seems to me (the average, off the streeet idjit) that all of this is moot, since the contnents of the ROM can evidently be read through the ALDL with the right software: www.moates.net

Tony89GTA

iTrader: (7)

Worked like a charm on my Jet stage 2 chip crap! It was the only way I could read it.

Craig Moates

Who needs to emulate an ECM when you have one in hand, right?

The encryption thing is possible. There's a couple things you can do pretty easily.

For instance, if you just want to impede someone from loading up your BIN in TunerCat and making further changes and looking at the tables, that is doable with like 3 or 4 bytes changed. Real easy. Just change up the mask ID. Remember that it's referenced in more than one place. And take care of the checksum.

I've also seen where some folks will have a custom adapter hack that prevents easily reading a soldered-in chip. They'll reroute a power wire or chip enable line to ground elsewhere than straight through as expected.

Another thing that can be done is to solder in a 'special' adapter which swaps around pins and what-not so that if the chip is pulled, the data and address lines will be scrambled. This requires some processing of the BIN but it is nonetheless dead-simple to do. Of course, if they dig the adapter out they could read it straight-through.

Then there's a more complex approach where you can add CPLD/logic processing similar to what Bill has done with the Prominator. If you design it correctly, it can look for startup sequencing and timing of read events that are characteristic of the ECM and provide correct data only in that instance. Otherwise it'll lock up. Could even program it to self-destruct! You up for it, Bill?

But that's all a lot of extra effort. I guess the key is that anyone worth their salt will likely be able to find a way around most of these approaches . But then again, you don't need to worry about the folks that are worth their salt. They're out pursuing their own original thoughts.

So in that vein of thought, maybe one of these approaches or something similar would be helpful to keep the sticky yet not so apt fingers out of the mix so to speak? I mean there should be some threshold of knowledge and skill that one should need to develop prior to being privy, right? I'm all for sharing wide-open in terms of info and knowledge, but if someone isn't willing to put forth a little effort then they shouldn't get it in my opinion.

The society we live in today is just so rife with a current of self-entitlement. Everyone thinks they've got it coming to them if it's a good thing and feels slighted if something bad comes their way. I've watched, and continue to witness, kids getting everything handed to them. They don't even need to ask. These same children grow up to be adolescents with no hunger or drive, just a 'gimme' attitude. Then they become adults due strictly to their age classification. So you end up with a whole generation of people that don't know how to work hard. Don't know the value of a dollar. Worse than anything, they don't know the joy and value of accomplishment in the face of challenge. So, that being said, maybe folks should have to work a little harder toward knowledge, which is one of life's more valuable intrinsic rewards.

Sorry about the rant. Figured that, due to the philosophical slant this thread and others like it, these words were at least appropriately positioned.

-Craig

VetNutJim

So what defines the level of expertise that will be considered the 'entry point' of DIY-PROM reading/writing/analyzing?

I thought reading twenty-seven dozen articles strewn all over the internet, reading several thousand post on several different boards and figuring out the basics of this stuff did entitle me to burn chips for myself.

Now I feel somehow like I've cheated or something.

I never learned assembly, never hacked an ECM and never invented any of the neat things some of you guys have.

Am I now ostracized from DIY-PROM ?

If someone asks a simple question how will 'the community' determine whether or not an answer is 'deserved'?

IMHO, 'Hiding' what one does just seems to be the reverse of what these boards advocate as their 'core value' to society.

I can vouch for Scorp. Over on the Vette forum, he's one of the good guys.
There's something up that probably involves the less than scrupulous intentions of whoever he's dealing with.

The fact remains THIS FORUM is miles ahead of CF as far as DIY-PROM is concerned.
A majority of folks over there have the mindset of "I got mine,now you can get your's any old way you can' as far as sharing information goes.
Not to mention almost everyone over there is Einstien's twin brother.

And as Paul Harvey says, That's why I'm HERE more than THERE and that's the rest of the story.

You guys are great. Don't change.

scorp508

If I still had my F-Body I'd post more here, but I don't so it makes sense.

Grumpy

You wouldn't believe all the head nodding in agreement going on, over here. I think that it was Doc that even woke Sleepy up just to make it completely unanimous.

Grumpy

I try to make it a point that every guestion gets an answer. I don't have all the answers, but try to make sure at least someone gets pointed in the right direction.

Darn right I *hide* my bins, that being said, I'll give just about anyone all the clues to get to where I am.

It's DIY, Do It Yourself. What's DIY if all we do is pass around .bins?. DIY, means knowing what to do, and then doing it, or recording changes, and trying to understand what happened.

Grumpy

Ugh, I haven't had an F-Bod in 5 years now. For some reason, thou, I've found this community to be the best for sharing and developing info.. Seems just to make sense to support the community that's actively trying to push the DIY Frontier Forward.
YMMV

JPrevost

Oh that's nice, well at least it was YOUR generation that screwed my generation by not leading by example. Your generation and everybody born after WWII has had it VERY WELL. The economy has been strong and stable so you give to your kids the best and then you say that the "whole generation of people... don't know how to work hard." That's just rude and I resent that remark.
When you said you were sorry for the rant you should be.

Mangus

Perhaps Craig unintentionally (in his blind, fervent anger - that ANIMAL!) overreached with the "whole generation" generalization.

With that understanding I, being a Gen X'er myself, don't resent the remark. In fact, I grew up with many who resemble the remark. Craig's statement is not unfounded, if only over-general.

What Craig didn't touch on was the fact that many, perhaps a majority, of the members of these forums are quite young (me included), and there is a lot of social ineptitude that comes with being young (hurtful as that might be, its the truth). Certainly some are more in tune (pun intended) with social norms, and they are typically identified with much more coherent and intelligent, not to mention grammatically correct, posts. But then, some aren't so in tune.

So, in my opinion, its not really a generational thing, its an age thing.

Z69

Being about 4yrs older than Craig, I'm not sure how to take that.
But I just had a kid, so I guess I'll move aside and let that shot go by.
It has been interesting (humorous) watching the neighbors 18 yr old learn the hard way...
Amazing how his tune changed when he got booted out of the house and had to feed himself for a change.....

People with Phd's aren't considered lazy, so I can see his frustration. Not that I have any degree, just lots of work to get where I am.

JP84Z430HP

I agree, there are some that do still work hard, and I can tell JPrevost is one of them, so you can quit being offended by this Jon!

Sorry, but when I turned 16, I didn't get a nice sports car given to me, like many do today (I see it first-hand, we work on them!) I got a $400 Chevette! I was around 25 when I finally got my Z. Worked my butt off to get there, too, and still working my butt off to get it done!

Quote:

not to mention grammatically correct, posts. But then, some aren't so in tune.

Now they're picking on your spelling Grumpy! Time to send the troops out after them! (For the record, I almost always get what you're saying, even with typo's! I also make plenty of my own!)

Lionsden

Craig Moates

Sorry, didn't mean to come off as over-generalizing. You're right, there's a majority percentage of people in any given age group that do work very hard and earn what they achieve. It's a joy to see it, too. I think you're also right about the whole generational blame thing. Lazy people come out of poor parenting, they don't just come into existence spontaneously. With so many parents now working multiple jobs, I think people lose sight of the importance of values and properly instilling them into their children. You can't just throw money at your kid and expect them to turn out right.

Guess most of us here didn't have to walk uphill both ways to get to school, but heck, I had to walk a couple miles at least just to get to the bus stop. Bought my first car, a 70 Mustang coupe, for $500 after working at the local hardware store for a good while. Bought my very first new car just a couple years ago (still wondering if it was a good idea or not!).

Anyways, just to reiterate, there's plenty of good people in any given generation. These are the people who know the value of accomplishment, at least that is my opinion.

JP84Z430HP

For some reason, it just seems there are the same number of them with each generation, although each generation is a little bit bigger than the last.....

To keep this somewhat on-topic, and hopefully not get the thread locked......

Have you decided on trying to utilize any of these methods? Personally, I don't think I'll do any tuning for anyone other than myself, and a FEW select, very close friends for the same reasons you are concerned.

BTW.....It is an unwritten law to not sell a DIY-EFI vehicle, and I think this idea sort of falls along those lines (doing it for someone else...)

JPrevost

I won't sit here and say that my whole generation is hard working but it's far from lazy.
I bought my car by working 3 jobs in 1 summer 7 days a week ~65 hours with 1 week of vacation. Then working 35 hours a week during high school. That's how I bought my car, I won't lie... I made a deal with my parents that if I bought the car and paied for the upkeep they would pay for insurance until I was out of school. I'm lucky, but it doesn't keep me from working hard. All but 2 of my friends are the same way, work hard, pay there own way. The 2 friends that aren't are VERY weal to do so it's just stupid for them to not enjoy it. They do get stuck with the dinner bill every once in a while though .
Age is definatly a factor and having 2 jobs isn't an excuse to not giving your kids enough attention. Understand that spending 6 hours a day watching TV or keeping to yourself isn't the same as 1 hour a day in the backyard or park doing something fun and stimulating. I think that's todays problem, too much TV. Oh yeah, and not enough family sit down dinners .
Wow has this gotten off topic.
Now to through a little thirdgen tech into this thread before lockdown. Tonight there was a car club gathering at the local Fuddruckers. It was a nice car show gathering where 2 car clubs almost got into a fight. My club is a bunch of thirdgen and 4thgen owners and we wanted to park in the show like we had been doing for YEARS now (this was our night first). When the club arrived they got told to park elsewhere and that it was reserved for hotrods. This was by older gentleman that were all overweight and looked like they would have a heart attack if we yelled loud enough. The funny thing was that THEIR car club was letting in none members with late model trucks (with rims), and C5 vettes but not some nice f-bodies. It was a perfect example of this generation gap . At least we were mature about it and parked at the end. What was the worst was the guy that first started telling my friends not to park there was the new owner of my FRIENDS old car, 69 camaro... how funny is that. The guy that's telling the f-body's not to park near him was the guy that bought a car that I helped build AND it was an f-body!!!! I just found it too funny to be mad at him.
Can't we all just get along and hate the ***** croud together?

Grumpy

Kids.
Grumpy

Ya, right,
Doc

Work, LOL, wondering how many folks had to haul water in the house because there was no indoor plumbing?. Had to start a fire to boil water for coffee. Worked during daylight cause lighting was so expensive. Mind you my home wasn't like that when I was going up, but when vacationing with some of the family it was. Learned to get real greatful about how easy I had it.

BTW, it was estimated in the real old days, man spent 12+ hours a day *working*. Now a days it's down to a few hours. So now the *ego* has time to generate and work out new problems. Look at how much most people worry about things that just really don't matter.


BTW, been trying a new strategy, using the timing correction to control idle speed, and use a very limited IAC count.

3.8TransAM

Hey now lol
Im almost 28(25th)

I have busted my butt and payed for school and had fun along the way amassing my fleet. I would never sell my parents short and say they have never helped me, but they are great people and taught me how to work honesly :-)

All of this has been me banging my hea don a wall in what little precious spare time i have ti pursue further endeavours and Im trying to buy a house and should be able to without having a killer mortgage:-)

Technically I work 8 hrs a day, but with the drive its over 10 a day easy and when im here Ibook an avg of 12 hrs a day b:-)

Work hard anmd spend harder :-)
later
JEremy

JP86SS

iTrader: (1)

NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, TOO MUCH TV!
Believe me when I say my kids have it better than I ever did.
Not that my parents wouldn't give me the things, they couldn't!
I have been busting my A@# since I was still doing 1/2 days in high school (working the afternoons).
My first was $300 73 Rustang. no floor, bad brakes, insurance (high risk, another story) all paid by me.
I taught myself how to draw with Autocad, how to program databases, how to do many of the things I'm paid to do today.
Not because someone paid me to learn it, I rewarded myself by learning it!
At 37, 3 kids and a house (BTW, cool DIY-EFI Monte SS in the garage)
I do spend the time with the kids and they don't get a free ride!
I do my best to insure the "free" stuff is earned.
Call me a *****, but they need to be taught that lesson about what a $ is worth and that thing cost.
They constantly remind me how the "other" kids stay out till midnight and get everything they want just by whining enough.
Doesn't work in my castle.
Thay've also been warned. if it gets peirced, it will hurt when I rip it out!
The kid that gets a new car handed to them will wreck it almost immediatly, don't check oil, water ???, burnouts, etc because it didn't cost $20, 000 worth of effort to get it.

Back to the sub,
I'm just getting my feet wet with code and do plan to share anything I can with the DIY comunity. I have ideas of things but still don't have the knowledge to implement them.
People need to discuss and create, not beg and bitch its not everything they deserve.

Mangus

So, to summarize the last few posts:

It is possible to hide the data at most temporarily by making it difficult to access via a number of mechanical, electrical, and coding methods (see specific posts for details).

Futhermore, it is thought by some that this may not be such a bad thing to do in that access to such information should be earned. Therefore, by making the data not-very accessable, those who can't or won't put out the effort will not have access to the data, and those who put out the extra effort to jump through the hoops required to access the data get rewarded with personal satisfaction and, ultimately, the data!

Does that about sum it up? Sounds like GMs original plan. How are we doing?

JP86SS

iTrader: (1)

Simply, To the victor goes the spoils!
The point is the same, If they work for it then they can get it.

Good save Mark