930man

folks ... when i down loaded the info of the 2004 GT3 they told me exactly how many over revs there we how many mechanical overreves there were how long they occoured and the rpm range.

this isnt a major discovery, and if you have nav and its on good luk with it. if it is a problem where an ambulance chasing attorney is involved or porsche is going to have to spend there money you can beleive that they will dig for anything they can.

and it is not that hard to find

SrfCity

Yea, but are you with us or the terrorists?

Did anyone get that e-mail floating around awhile ago whereby someone calls up to order a pizza and the person at the other end knows absolutely everything about them off of their computer screen? Scarey stuff.

'ringmeister

there was an article (one of csaba columns i think) in car & driver about a year ago about telementry downloaded from a ECU helped get a conviction in criminal case. i don't remember all the details but a woman & her daughter were backing out their driveway in residential neighborhood and were hit by a guy resulting in one, or both being killed. he claims he wasn't speeding, the DA subpoenas GM for ECU data and it showed he had exceeded 100 within X seconds prior to impact.

Jim Michaels

Pugnacious:

There has always been a running debate over how to balance freedom and security, even in Ben Franklin's day. I imagine Ben voted a few times for more security himself.

Our right to privacy does not extend to how we drive on public roads; just one place where we've agreed to give up quite a bit of personal freedom in order to gain more security (i. e., to lower our risk of injury or death at the hands of those expressing their freedom to drive however they choose).
And the black box is still under development. Some day we'll probably be paying traffic fines based on black box recordings. No hit-or-miss law enforcement or speed traps will be necessary; exceed the speed limit, and you get a speeding ticket in the mail; or maybe it will just be automatically deducted from your credit balance.

Leader

So, there's a "black box" in every Porsche that "records" everything the car is doing/has done and this information can be "downloaded" by someone in the future to "tell" the authorities how the car was driven at some specific point in time? But this device is something Porsche does not tell owners about - in fact it's not even acknowledged in any of the consumer literature?

And we know this to be true, how?

There's a disclosure law in California that states if such a device is in the new car you buy, you must be informed at the time of the purchase. Nobody said anything to me about a "black box" in my car.

Jim Michaels

Leader: All cars sold in the USA since 1996 have OBD II systems. It was in all the newspapers and car magazines, as well as owner's manuals. While the initial idea was to provide recordings likely to help in problem diagnosis using fault codes, Pandora's box was opened to a large number of measures. Some of these have been used to indicate "car abuse" by the driver, thus aiding in collision and warranty repair judgments.

Leader

I guess my question really is: are current OBD II systems really capable of the advanced telemetric functions most of the posters on this thread are talking about?
It was my understanding that more sophisiticated "black box" type of recorders are being developed for automobiles, but other than a few models of GM and Chrysler cars with advanced OBDs, most of the current boxes are diagnostic tools keeping track of fault codes.
I'm not trying to be antagonistic, just curious as to how something this important went from possibility to reality with so little fanfare. If it "was in all the papers and car magazines," I missed it.

Jim Michaels

I've never seen the list of measures that can be monitored and recorded by OBDII when an out-of-normal-range condition is detected. My understanding is that there is a list of measures that must be included, primarily for the purpose of fault diagnosis. Thus, all OBDII's will record these, and the fault codes are readable by any OBDII reader. I don't know what other measures are also included that may vary by manufacturer. The number of various types of engine over-revs can be read on the newer Porsches, for example. I've only experienced one engine fault code, and it was with the OBDI in a 1993 RS America. The Porsche tech read the code and related the information given; that the engine temporarily experienced an emissions value out of the normal range. He also related the oil temperature at that time, and the engine rpms. I asked what might have caused that and he said that he wasn't sure, but maybe it was the charred paper bag he found stuck over the engine that he showed me. Thus, once the fault code is read, the tech still has to determine what caused the condition. I'd like to know a lot more about this topic myself.

PTEC

What exactly does having this little bit of privacy do for you? This isnt used to mail you a ticket because the car knows you went a 100 mph down the freeway.

PTEC

While I dont know the exact contents of a crash event recorded in a Porsche airbag control unit (what most people here are calling a black box) the functions arent all that advanced. Inside the control unit (among many other things) is a sensor which measures large increases or decreases in lateral acceleration, such as would occur if someone hit you or you hit something. It uses this data to trigger the airbags. The other functions its recording are very simple like speed, steering wheel angle, were the brakes applied, how hard, etc. This is fact.

kauai_diver

Good to know, thanks! I don't allow any liquids, box cutters, or jihadists in my car so I think I'm safe.

Queram

Big bother is watching you more day by day. It also sounds like some of you deserve it and like it (based on your opinions)