Ethical ownership and proprietary OEM

So I admit it... I'm that guy that gets a new machine and gets off on breaking any attempt the OEM has in place to lock people out of the logic.

Why? Partly because I'm a geek, and partly because a big part of my job is customizing/optomizing/improving existing equipment to better serve my company, and if i'm limited to electrical only modifications, I can't do my job as well as I need to.

I always kind of feel bad about it though for some reason. Obviously it was 'locked' out for a reason.

We just got a new machine in that the OEM tried to take great lengths to lock the user out of... big problem though, they used an industrial PC running a combination of Rexroth's softPLC and Iconic's HMI. So it runs on XP. Well nothings safe on a windows box, and half an hour after I dug up a keyboard I was right in the thick of the logic. They even removed the start button and have keylocks on all the windows shortcut keys. But they didn't count on the graphics driver having a key combination that pops up a window. Once that window has focus, windows recieves the keyboard commands instead of the keylocker.

So since there are actually fellers here that work at OEM's, what's your take on locking customers out of your work and guys like me that tear up your logic after your gone? I know that the main reason people lock out this kind of stuff is so that customers don't mess it up. But what about when the customer wants access to improve upon?

You just voided the warrantee

You did wait for the warrantee to run out didn't you?

Any problems are now yours. Good luck.



It would be interesting to know what kind of machine this is. I didn't know Rexroth had a softPLC. I have seen incompetent OEMs that leave the machine in a mess, but I would have checked with your management before overriding the OEM's security measures. It may be that your decision makes sense IF production can be improved but if you hacked your system just because it can be done without having justified the need, then I think you were wrong.

Peter is 100% right. The correct answer depends entirely on which party has a warranty or contractural liability on the machine..

Of course all us techie types, with the best of intentions, will always want access to the system, but one of the lessons you learn with age is that contracts, legal liabilities and lawyers have far more clout in this world than we do, and it is best to stay strictly out of the ring with them.

We do not purchase any equipment that does not come with access to the logic. Generally speaking, when a piece of equipment has the potential to cause harm, the OEM is concerned about liability. We work this out before the equipment is ordered. In most cases the OEM will give us access if we sign an agreement assumming some or all of the liablility, in some cases we submit any desired changes to the OEM and they approve them before they are installed. This way everyone is happy.

You have to be extremely careful when working on an evironmental control device that is monitored/licensed by a government agengy. If changes are made, you have to get thier approval and then re-validate the application.

From my 20 years spent with OEM companies:

Most of customers specify in their request for quote: "All logix, HMIs etc must be unprotected and OEM must provide full documentation.
No hidden logix in any Function Blocks, etc..." Don't like it don't quote to us...

Really I liked it - sometimes customer can fix a small problem or bug without calling us - this saves a service call at least.

At my current work place I see now lots of machines locked by OEM and people don't know what to do...

I am on your side - open logic only!

For me , I lock people out for two reasons :-

1) Because too many people make a living off my back , copying work .
2) Because too many people get their ambitions mixed up with their capabilities , and need to be protected from wrecking things .

The best I am prepared to compromise is that open access is allowed to "normal" logic , sequence etc , but dedicated control blocks are locked - these blocks have been exhaustively tested , and as such , their function needs no further examination or modification .
I wish things didn't have to be like this , but with many machines , the only thing that makes it difficult to copy is the logic .
I am finding that more frequently more and more oem's are taking this stance , we have to .

What I forgot to ask was whether your fiddling yealded results ? was there a problem with this machine , or did you just think that you could do it better ?
One suggestion is that instead of buying a control system with your machine , you build it yourself - this should take care of your "geeky" tendancies , and I think that probably you won't bother try to crack OEM codes after your first system , you'll have enough of your own work to refine .

If it were up to me, we wouldn't buy machines that didn't have full access to the logic, but for some reason my company leaves that up to the process engineers and not the facilities group which I fall under.

I actually did have a motive for getting into the logic. There's a downstream "Line Full" eye that makes the machine stop processing, but it's handled almost like a fault instead of a cycle stop. So if the timing isn't just perfect, when the line fills up the machine stops halfway through the cycle, and then has to be manually cleared out. We have "tinkerers" on our maintenance crew so i'm sure it's only a matter of time till i'm on the phone with them in the middle of the night explaining that they need to leave the line full timing alone.

I mentioned it to the field tech helping us install it and he gave some bullshit line about letting the machine cycle to a stop was the "old plc way" and this "computer is much more capable then a plc. you can even play games on it!" I don't know what he was yammering on about.

All i wanted was him to call the engineer and see if they could rework a few rungs.

Technically nothing got broken and I didn't change / steal / modify anything. I just wanted to understand the logic a little bit so when I call the engineer up directly and tell him what I want he'll understand.

I do understand the liability/legal/warantee aspect, and It's something I'm going to approach the process engineer and change managers about. Because even though I could do whatever I want with this particular machine, I won't and they're going to hate me for it. Yes, it's how I'm going to teach them a lesson.

But the other machines that are out of warantee or unsuporrted they're fair game.

I recently did a service call to a company which was complaining about numbers 'changing all by themselves'. These were numbers in a 'password protected' area which only maintenance had access to. It's amazing that, after changing the password, the problem went away. But, of course, it's only a matter of time until the problem will mysteriously come back. It seems that the speed with which a supposedly 'secret' password becomes know by absolutely everyone in a plant rivals the speed of light.

Here is a scenario for you:

Someone on site hacks into a machine, changes code that gets someone killed, then changes the code back to original.

ETHICAL??????

That scares me to no end!!!

Monkeyhead, when you talk to the OEM and describe 'rung #xxx does blah, blah, blah' you have opened a BIG can of worms.

nuff said from me

Rod (The CNC Dude)

Rod said:

Here is a scenario for you:

Someone on site hacks into a machine, changes code that gets someone killed, then changes the code back to original.

ETHICAL??????

That scares me to no end!!!

Monkeyhead, when you talk to the OEM and describe 'rung #xxx does blah, blah, blah' you have opened a BIG can of worms.

nuff said from me

Rod (The CNC Dude)

Click to expand...

I would estimate that half of the modifications to machines that I have made have been to add additional safety features on top of what the OEM had. I pay close attention to both OSHA and NFPA/NEC standards. I involve management (including safety) and document all changes. We are in a distribution environment with smaller media sized packages, are not FDA regulated, and are not in a classified environment. My mods are not going to kill or harm anyone. If they ever did, I'd leave the field in shame. However, some of our OEM equipment that was left in it's original form has harmed the people I work with on a daily basis due to bare minimum gaurding and safety.

And there will be no opening of a can of worms when I talk to the OEM because I'll just say rather than stopping the machine based on this timer, could you turn off the vaccum and wait for the ejection eye to clear. I just want the backup of being able to call out any bullshit reason they have for not wanting to change the process. OEM's have this wonderful way of treating customers like they're idiots asking the impossible. Having a little extra knowledge is a good way to put someone in their place when they're trying to pull a quick one over on you.

AGAIN! I DID NOT CHANGE ANYTHING AND HAVE NO INTENT TO. I did the equivelant of pulling off the cover and looking inside.

bernie_carlton said:

It seems that the speed with which a supposedly 'secret' password becomes know by absolutely everyone in a plant rivals the speed of light.

Click to expand...

Hahaha... very true.

I am in the same industry that Control_conn has worked in. Not one of our customers would accept a machine without full access to logic, etc. Many demand all detail drawings of mechanical parts.

We feel that if it was specially designed for them, they paid for it. That is how we quoted it.

Rick Densing said:

I am in the same industry that Control_conn has worked in.

Click to expand...

During last year and half the work I do is in the middle between OEM and final user, mostly closer to the user.

So what I see is that protection is useless:
PLC vendor can reset OEM PLC password within minutes,
all copy protection disks can be copied,
authorisation restored,
Windows administrator password replaced.
What else?

For person who wants to get in, protection is just a minor inconvinience...

I am not a lawer (unfortunately), but from this stand point what are you buying: Machine or Right to use it?
If you buy any computer program, you buying right to use it.
If you buying car, you own it, you can modify it, but you can't make identical car and sell it.

Industrial equipement: I would say you buy it and you can make any modifications you want as long as you support it yourself.

Monkeyhead,

I respect your stance to a point, let's hope lawyers are not the ones making the point - SHUDDER.

As a vendor of PC based production software AND as a field service tech on the same and various other machines, I see both sides of this arguement.

1) As a vendor, I don't want ANYBODY monkeying around (no pun intended) with software areas they should not have access to, other than allowable parametric changes. As the vendor it is up to us to work with the customer(s) to effect changes the customer requires (within the stipulations of the purchase contract).

MY GRIPE - I worry that the guys tinkering with the stuff can run the machine off into the weeds and blame me for their error - sadly it happens too much.

2) As a field service tech it GREATLY ticks me off when the vendor won't give me the parameters to get the DA***ED info I need to get my 'customer of the moment's' machine to run properly!!

MY GRIPE - I feel the jerks sitting behind a desk think I'm a moron and I should not be tinkering with THEIR machine! Especially when I cann change a few things to back it Rock-n-Roll.

So: Work one-on-one with the machine builders to GET IT RIGHT!! It behooves them to deliver quality product or go home and let the big boys play!!
Get your management's noses deep into the problem. (My nose is tweaked once a month - and I'm THE PRES lol!). They have more weight.
Play it safe ( you said you are).

Force the dum bass(me) that created the code to make it right so that the dum bass on the floor that repairs the machine (me) can kick back and do some crossword puzzles.

I'd like RSDoran and ElevatorMike's take on this - how do we ring their doorbell

I'll quit ranting now. This IS a thorny issue.

Rod (The CNC Dude)