Tesla remotely deactivates rapper's vehicle for singing about the Cybertruck

I was under the impression that that was standard practice for this sort of letter, lest merely being in this role at a company results in numerous examples of your real signature being given to a ton of random people? I mean, the original there doesn't even look like a "real" signature.

(I agree that the wrong title, though, tells us this is almost certainly fake.)

Yeah, it seems very unlikely that a legal VP would send a doc out with an outdated title.

Would they really put "comply with cease & desist to reactivate" on the screen?

https://imgur.com/a/aCaZZEP

What's the alternative here? A rapper went to the effort to publish an MV, then figured out how to display a fake disabled message in the vehicle, then faked a C&D, knowing that these actions would give Tesla a very legitimate claim against them?

Ockham's razor is not favorable to the alternative.

If it is fake, it's a good one.

Hey anything is possible but there is content that's not just "dude said it happened" too.

I would bet up to $5k through any trusted intermediary at even odds that this story is false.

1% unsure because.. well, I'm sure I Dont need to explain why.

This might be some error from OCRing or otherwise trying to extract the content from a frame from the video, but I laughed here when I got to 'monora de co compete per ravit' and I googled it thinking it might be an arcane Latin legal expression

In my defense I am tired and Latin and monora de compete sounds Latiny

  7G2CEHED8RA017384

  ^^^-- World Manufacturing Identifier (WMI) = 7G2 = Tesla Inc.
     ^-- Make/Line/Series = C = Cybertruck
      ^-- Chassis/Cab Type/Restraints = E = Truck with Type 2 manual seatbelts (FR, SR*3) with front airbags, PODS, side inflatable restraints, knee airbags (FR)
       ^-- Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) = H = Class H – Greater than 4082 kg. to 4536 kg. (9,001-10,000 lbs.) (Designated for Cybertruck)
        ^-- Fuel Type = E = Electric
         ^-- Motor/Drive Unit/Braking System = D = Dual Motor – Standard (Designated for Cybertruck)
          ^-- Check Digit = 8
           ^-- Model Year = R = 2024
            ^-- Plant of Manufacture = A = Austin, TX
             ^^^^^^-- Sequence Number = 017384

Step 1. VIN of 7G2CEHED8RA017384 is mapped to the number 77235854891017384.

Steps 2-3. Position weight factors applied, results summed and the sum divided by 11: (78 + 77 + 26 + 35 + 54 + 83 + 52 + 410 + 99 + 18 + 07 + 16 + 75 + 34 + 83 + 42) / 11 = 36.363636364

Step 4. Assign check digit of "4" from remainder 0.364 (4/11). Check digit should be 4 not 8 therefore the VIN is invalid.

https://service.tesla.com/en-US/vin-recall-search also reveals no knowledge of 7G2CEHED8RA017384 as a valid VIN.

[1] https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/mid/home/displayfile/9e960dca-5b8...

[2] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/part-565/section-565.1...

This guy didn't even bother to hire a tow truck to make the story at least somewhat more believable!

This is a good point. Being against regulations as a matter of principle is not at odds with wanting regulations that a person likes bec

This actually happened to me some years ago. I rented a car from one of those "on demand" rental services - a Zipcar competitor who are no longer in business (AFAIK). While picking it up from Heathrow airport, either I managed to not unlock the car correctly from the app, or the device inside the car which controls this was buggy/faulty. Either way, I was still able to start the car and drive away normally.

But after about 10 minutes of driving, the car suddenly stalled and shut down in a live running lane on the M4(!!) and would not restart. Thankfully traffic was slow moving at the time so there wasn't too much danger of being rear-ended at high speed. Called the customer support line from within the app and within about 30 seconds of explaining the problem the car was unlocked again and started normally. The way they responded to my situation so quickly and without seeming at all surprised suggested that it was certainly not the first time it had happened...

1. Both Michigan[1] and the US[10] have statues that criminally prohibit "Access... to a computer program... to alter... or otherwise use the service of a computer program... without authorization or by exceeding valid authorization." Potentially a stretch, I can't find any super-relevant precedent.

2. The same statute[2] also prohibits ~"using a computer program... to (attempt to-)commit a crime", which obviously doesn't matter on its own, but could be added on to other charges, such as (drum-roll please)...

3. Attempted murder[3]. This one seems like a stretch indeed -- the law does leave room for "any means not constituting the crime of assault," but proving "intent to murder" seems basically impossible (unless there's some absolutely crazy texts to be found in discovery?).

4. More appropriate is assault[4], which leaves room for any "assault" with a "dangerous weapon without intending to commit murder or to inflict great bodily harm less than murder."

That last one is the most plausible+serious potential charge IMHO, but it really gets at the heart of the issue, as my understanding of assault is based on "harmful contact"[5]. Would shutting down someone's pacemaker be "contact"? On one hand it could be seen as akin to throwing something (which is definitely still assault), but on the other hand, the massive distances involved (CA -> MI?) stretch the colloquial understanding of "contact" by a lot.

There's a whole section on Civil(/tort?) penalties, but I'll spare y'all the details since that comes down to contract debates I don't comfortable even vaguely attempting to sorta-kinda speculate about! Namely: "was this authorized by some clause in the bill of sale?" In short, Claude brings up 1. Conversion[6] (" intentionally destroying or altering a chattel in the actor's possession") and 2. a variety of statues[7] prohibiting deceptive advertising. The latter would be particularly tricky in a world where searching "Tesla remote shutdown" returns many hundreds of articles on this being possible!

Claude cites the Michigan precedents of Owens v. Allis-Chalmers Corp. (1982)[12] and Prentis v. Yale Mfg. Co (1984)[13] to establish that you can't sell dangerous cars, but those cases were about manufacturing defects and not intentional tampering.

Finally, on a federal level: the NHTSA has broad authority to regulate therein "vehicle cybersecurity"[8,9] and the FTC is similarly charged to regulate "unfair or deceptive [commercial] acts or practices"[11], tho IDK how helpful those would be in the post-Chevron hellscape that we now reside within, to say nothing of the "First Buddy" angle.

TL;DR: No matter what happens, I think it's clear that there's little precedent on any level for such a brazenly-dangerous act of digital sabotage of a "protected computer" by the computer's manufacturer. I doubt much will happen either way, but I'd really love to see some precedent get made here one way or another!

[1] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-752-7...

[2] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-752-7...

[3] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-750-9...

[4] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=MCL-750-8...

[5] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/assault

[6] https://withoutmyconsent.org/50state/state-guides/michigan/c...

[7] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=MCL-445-9...

[8] https://www.nhtsa.gov/research/vehicle-cybersecurity

[9] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/30111

[10] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030

[11] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/45

[12] https://law.justia.com/cases/michigan/supreme-court/1982/619...

[13] https://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/torts/torts-keyed-to-eps...

The letter states: "Please be advised that this vehicle has been remotely deactivated due to violations of Tesla's Terms of Use"

I'm LMFAO because I just made a Threads account like 15 minutes ago because I want to stuff my photos any place I can [1], like https://nextdoor.com/profile/01QZ_TJjbFxhyjc7L or https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-houle-a18809320/ or https://www.behance.net/paulahoule (glad for more suggestion... particularly if I can teach my autoposter to import from my real social https://mastodon.social/@UP8) Threads was easy because you can post there automatically if you post to Instagram but Instagram is next for the autoposter because it's got the slowest and most difficult posting interface of about 11 that are on my list)

Big "told ya so" for privacy and security nerds and common sense

Even if you trust Tesla completely, a malicious actor could gain access to this feature and wreak havoc.

It's right in the letter in the video.

It could be fake of course - I'd probably regard it as fake until I saw some corroboration, but saying that "It is just a video of a cybertruck broken down with software issues" is wrong. There's no evidence of a software issue in the video, but there is evidence of a purposeful de-activation due to a dispute over the use of Tesla's trademarks.

>We represent Tesla, inc. ("Tesla") and are writing to formally address the unauthorized use of Tesla's tellectual property in musical content distributed under your name. Specifically, this concerns your use of the Tesla Cybertruck name and imagery in one or more songs, including but not limited to the track titled:

>"Cybertruck"

The letter is a hint of proof.