Anyone used simaservis1108
08-13-2021, 10:31 AM
#46
Rennlist Member
Since most Porsche radios suck what about replacing the unit with a better car stereo head with apple and android functionality
08-13-2021, 11:04 AM
#47
Rennlist Member
08-13-2021, 11:28 AM
#48
RL Community Team
Rennlist Member
Rennlist Member
08-13-2021, 04:05 PM
#50
It's simple. I would have no problem working with simaservis1108 or anyone else, as long as I can see what they're doing on my PC. If he hoses the FAT or trashes the boot sector, no harm done, I can fix that easily. My own PCM's hard drive has long since been backed up and replaced with an SSD, which is something every long-term 9x1 owner should do anyway.
If the PCM does get bricked somehow, I am not going to try to scam the dealer into replacing it. I am going to chalk it up to Murphy's account and take responsibility for it. Just as I'm not going to go blow smoke up some kid's *** at the WalMart customer service counter.
Yes, if you're willing to engage in all these shenanigans, I'm sure you can find a way to dodge the consequences if the hack goes wrong.
Not trying to preach, just saying what I would do personally, because I know (from experience) that I would feel awkward lying about it and would feel bad afterwards. Carry on...
(Edit: and yes, I wouldn't doubt that the relevant files are in flash memory rather than on the hard drive. Doesn't change the overall point.)
If the PCM does get bricked somehow, I am not going to try to scam the dealer into replacing it. I am going to chalk it up to Murphy's account and take responsibility for it. Just as I'm not going to go blow smoke up some kid's *** at the WalMart customer service counter.
Yes, if you're willing to engage in all these shenanigans, I'm sure you can find a way to dodge the consequences if the hack goes wrong.Not trying to preach, just saying what I would do personally, because I know (from experience) that I would feel awkward lying about it and would feel bad afterwards. Carry on...
(Edit: and yes, I wouldn't doubt that the relevant files are in flash memory rather than on the hard drive. Doesn't change the overall point.)
My PCM bricked? Yeah Porsche, fix it. They've made plenty off my dime and it's okay. I'll be back to spend more. It's the least you could do. The dealership isn't losing a cent, they're making more money and they encourage warranty work even when it's not needed. If anything, you're helping Porsche and it's dealers even more. When the warranty is up, I will fix it myself out of pocket.
Either way. If you need a throw away laptop. Buy and return from wal mart. Don't feel bad. They don't even ask questions. Wal Mart will allow up $3000 in chargebacks and they won't investigate it under 3k. Wal Mart never loses.
08-13-2021, 09:20 PM
#52
Instructor
Sima hooked me up today. Another satisfied customer.
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HooosierDaddy (08-14-2021)
08-14-2021, 02:05 AM
#54
08-14-2021, 06:39 AM
#55
I have a pcm4 in my 991.2 and he updated the maps to 2021 as I couldn’t wait any longer for Porsche to fix the over the air updates.
The process went perfectly and I have zero complaints.
The process went perfectly and I have zero complaints.
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DarienA (08-14-2021),
HooosierDaddy (08-14-2021)
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asellus (08-14-2021)
08-14-2021, 12:43 PM
#57
Three Wheelin'
Anyway, I see that this thread has sparked some serious defensiveness, and I'll make it clear ONE MORE TIME that it is of my own doing and based on a fully admitted ignorance of the subject matter.
End of the day though, the point I was trying to make is still overwhelmingly missed. Maybe I owe a bit more context, because I think mostly the miscommunication has to do with crossing streams of my day job; if it isn't clear by now I've been in the information security industry (cybersecurity, digital security, whatever it calls itself these days) for nearly 20 years. Over those 20 years I've crossed into quite a few separate disciplines; the TL;DR version is that I've seen MANY examples of electronic/computerized things being manipulated in ways 99.9999999% of people would never dream of, and in ways that are to put it bluntly, shocking. This shouldn't surprise anyone, there's plenty of evidence of this all over mainstream media; it isn't some closely guarded secret.
Probably for those reasons I, personally, would NEVER let someone "dial in" to anything electronic, at the very least without knowing every last excruciating detail of what was being done, and ALL of the implications that went along with it. And since I don't feel like studying Blackberry's OS and its associated vulnerabilities, acquiring the requisite hardware and doing hours and hours of testing to find out, I think I'll just pass. The rest of this conversation was pretty much just sheer curiosity, and maybe a couple warnings to make sure someone has at least thought of some of these things. I'm still not convinced anyone has.
So no, even after encotcat's explanation, nowhere near comfortable with this procedure. Actually, sort of the opposite. I'm not a software developer, but anyone familiar with the concept should instantly be aware that "nuking a set of conditionals" can have unforeseen complications. Just simply from a QA perspective; again, I'm not intimately familiar with the realities of Porsche's development procedures, but I'd have to imagine there is substantial effort that goes into testing each and every one of those "conditionals" and "failure/success branches" that are altered by this process. Obviously, they didn't test what would happen if these changes were made during development, and I kind of doubt simaservices did a whole lot of qa testing himself (maybe he did, I don't know).
Hell, you can effectively (temporarily) brick a non-modified, factory PCM that supposedly went through the full QA process with wireless carplay be standing 30 feet away from it with a connected device (ask me how I know). It blows my mind that people are cool with doing this kind of stuff and fully expecting a) nothing to go wrong and b) the dealer to bail them out if it does.
But it's your money (and livelihood?). Carry on.
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asellus (08-14-2021)
08-14-2021, 02:43 PM
#59
I, on the other hand, am a software developer with 30+ years experience in various disciplines including, but not limited to, embedded systems, compilers, database internals, oauth2 implementations, performance optimizations, cloud services, massively parallel complaining initiatives, DevOps, SecOps, etc, etc, etc. So I have some passing familiarity with this stuff.
Assuming simaservice or whoever is doing what I described, or a variant thereof - and which I did myself to my own PCM, as did asellus and several others, there is no concern w.r.t. the PCM unit. The conditional branches are simply SHA2 signature checks for the FEC container.
The level of sophistication needed to place a payload on the PCM unit is extremely high, requires QNX tools - which are not free - and has minimal payback. In short it's not worth the time to try to do something nefarious.
The laptop, OTOH, is a far easier target.
Assuming simaservice or whoever is doing what I described, or a variant thereof - and which I did myself to my own PCM, as did asellus and several others, there is no concern w.r.t. the PCM unit. The conditional branches are simply SHA2 signature checks for the FEC container.
The level of sophistication needed to place a payload on the PCM unit is extremely high, requires QNX tools - which are not free - and has minimal payback. In short it's not worth the time to try to do something nefarious.
The laptop, OTOH, is a far easier target.
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08-14-2021, 09:48 PM
#60
This is a HUGE assumption, and still a ton of trust placed in what still looks to be a pretty shady situation. No one else has confirmed that anyone outside of one guy in Serbia can do this procedure? Even the OP, looked like he didn't get a response and went with another "vendor", turns out to be the same guy? lol WHAT in the hell is up with that? Burner businesses? Not shady at all.
Anyway, I see that this thread has sparked some serious defensiveness, and I'll make it clear ONE MORE TIME that it is of my own doing and based on a fully admitted ignorance of the subject matter.
End of the day though, the point I was trying to make is still overwhelmingly missed. Maybe I owe a bit more context, because I think mostly the miscommunication has to do with crossing streams of my day job; if it isn't clear by now I've been in the information security industry (cybersecurity, digital security, whatever it calls itself these days) for nearly 20 years. Over those 20 years I've crossed into quite a few separate disciplines; the TL;DR version is that I've seen MANY examples of electronic/computerized things being manipulated in ways 99.9999999% of people would never dream of, and in ways that are to put it bluntly, shocking. This shouldn't surprise anyone, there's plenty of evidence of this all over mainstream media; it isn't some closely guarded secret.
Probably for those reasons I, personally, would NEVER let someone "dial in" to anything electronic, at the very least without knowing every last excruciating detail of what was being done, and ALL of the implications that went along with it. And since I don't feel like studying Blackberry's OS and its associated vulnerabilities, acquiring the requisite hardware and doing hours and hours of testing to find out, I think I'll just pass. The rest of this conversation was pretty much just sheer curiosity, and maybe a couple warnings to make sure someone has at least thought of some of these things. I'm still not convinced anyone has.
So no, even after encotcat's explanation, nowhere near comfortable with this procedure. Actually, sort of the opposite. I'm not a software developer, but anyone familiar with the concept should instantly be aware that "nuking a set of conditionals" can have unforeseen complications. Just simply from a QA perspective; again, I'm not intimately familiar with the realities of Porsche's development procedures, but I'd have to imagine there is substantial effort that goes into testing each and every one of those "conditionals" and "failure/success branches" that are altered by this process. Obviously, they didn't test what would happen if these changes were made during development, and I kind of doubt simaservices did a whole lot of qa testing himself (maybe he did, I don't know).
Hell, you can effectively (temporarily) brick a non-modified, factory PCM that supposedly went through the full QA process with wireless carplay be standing 30 feet away from it with a connected device (ask me how I know). It blows my mind that people are cool with doing this kind of stuff and fully expecting a) nothing to go wrong and b) the dealer to bail them out if it does.
But it's your money (and livelihood?). Carry on.
Anyway, I see that this thread has sparked some serious defensiveness, and I'll make it clear ONE MORE TIME that it is of my own doing and based on a fully admitted ignorance of the subject matter.
End of the day though, the point I was trying to make is still overwhelmingly missed. Maybe I owe a bit more context, because I think mostly the miscommunication has to do with crossing streams of my day job; if it isn't clear by now I've been in the information security industry (cybersecurity, digital security, whatever it calls itself these days) for nearly 20 years. Over those 20 years I've crossed into quite a few separate disciplines; the TL;DR version is that I've seen MANY examples of electronic/computerized things being manipulated in ways 99.9999999% of people would never dream of, and in ways that are to put it bluntly, shocking. This shouldn't surprise anyone, there's plenty of evidence of this all over mainstream media; it isn't some closely guarded secret.
Probably for those reasons I, personally, would NEVER let someone "dial in" to anything electronic, at the very least without knowing every last excruciating detail of what was being done, and ALL of the implications that went along with it. And since I don't feel like studying Blackberry's OS and its associated vulnerabilities, acquiring the requisite hardware and doing hours and hours of testing to find out, I think I'll just pass. The rest of this conversation was pretty much just sheer curiosity, and maybe a couple warnings to make sure someone has at least thought of some of these things. I'm still not convinced anyone has.
So no, even after encotcat's explanation, nowhere near comfortable with this procedure. Actually, sort of the opposite. I'm not a software developer, but anyone familiar with the concept should instantly be aware that "nuking a set of conditionals" can have unforeseen complications. Just simply from a QA perspective; again, I'm not intimately familiar with the realities of Porsche's development procedures, but I'd have to imagine there is substantial effort that goes into testing each and every one of those "conditionals" and "failure/success branches" that are altered by this process. Obviously, they didn't test what would happen if these changes were made during development, and I kind of doubt simaservices did a whole lot of qa testing himself (maybe he did, I don't know).
Hell, you can effectively (temporarily) brick a non-modified, factory PCM that supposedly went through the full QA process with wireless carplay be standing 30 feet away from it with a connected device (ask me how I know). It blows my mind that people are cool with doing this kind of stuff and fully expecting a) nothing to go wrong and b) the dealer to bail them out if it does.
But it's your money (and livelihood?). Carry on.
The only difference is an American dude offering this service would charge $999 for a base model and $1299 for a Turbo S... Lambo? $1999. That's the difference.