Cars are a ‘privacy nightmare on wheels’. Here’s how they get away with collecting and sharing your data::Cars with internet-connected features are fast becoming all-seeing data-harvesting machines—a so-called “privacy nightmare on wheels,” according to US-based research conducted by the Mozilla Foundation.
I read at Tesla employees were sending memes around around their offices with photos from inside owners garages that were compromising or amusing.
Wonder if you disabled cellular on these cars, take away its ability to call home, if the car would still be usable, or would it just brick itself?
Also, is there regulations in place that prohibit this from happening?
For example, if my all in one GPS CarOS Bluetooth WiFi CarPlay Android Auto headset decides to take a shit and die, my brake pedal absolutely better fucking work… right?
There shouldn’t be anything keeping the car from running normally. I expect any tech you wouldn’t find in a ‘66 chevelle (anything aside from 12v push lighter, signals) to be busted if telematics are disabled.
edit: anyone remember The Toyota Brake Failure Scandal?
America is a corporatocracy, with automotive as a major player, there will be no help from the government on this.
Well, after the electronic brake scandal with Toyota I’m sure the redundancies Tangler is talking about were set in place. It sucks here but we’re not in the Cyberpunk Dystopia just yet.
These are not Apache helicopters. These are designed and manufactured on a shoestring budget. They don’t have time or money for any redundancy, and there is no current policy in place that I know of that mandates redundancy of by-wire systems.
Electronic throttle and braking have redundancies, you should be safe in that regard
I’m curious what electronic throttle’s redundancy is? I have been in automotive parts and repair almost 15 years, and drive by wire has no redundancy. If that module goes bad, or connection corrodes, you are dead in the water. Braking has always been hydraulic based but with electric actuators for ABS, so I kinda see your point of redundancy there. Steering has to be mechanical, but Lexus and Mercedes have been chipping away at that for a decade, and they are asking for no mechanical fallback, as it would hurt the user experience.
Less of a “backup” and more of a “fail closed” system, from what I’ve seen. The throttle will at least have the decency to drop to idle when it stops working as opposed to staying at it’s last position.
$80,000 brand new luxury sedan with a voided 30,000 mile warranty and permanently enabled check engine light more likely.
I imagine there is a radio stuffed under the hood that you can just pull the fuck out or disconnect the antennas running to it.
See, even if you cut the antenna, the transmitter is still there putting out a signal. Once you get close enough to a tower, in the right conditions, signal could get out, dumping any data stored. Disabling it by removing the SIM or the transmitter would be the best way to go, though I’m sure most are eSIM.
Check this out. Forum talks about Toyota making you jump through hoops to disable it officially, or you can pull a fuse and lose access to hands free and other radio tools.
The move for Toyota seems to be to pull the fuse and install an aftermarket radio, in Ford’s case removal of the actual telemetrics box if the manufacturer has one installed in the select model is sufficient and does not disable anything important. I can’t fathom what Mercedes, BMW, and GM does as they are notorious for making things hard to access.
Edit: I recall GM had made intellisense or whatever the fuck it’s proprietary software is called open source since the car reminded me on every start up. I don’t recall ever seeing anything interesting made for it.
Edit2: Intellilink
There are ways around hardware and software locks unofficially. I’m sure as soon as the same people that hack 3d printers get their hands on these in the second and third hand market the ways of spoofing or disabling the monitoring and feature locks will be many. Feel sorry for the rich idiot that pays monthly for his heated seats and wonders why he gets targeted ads.
Varies widely, sometimes you can call in and opt-out, boom done. It will naturally take the cellular features like hotspot, app stuff with it. It will be very make/model specific. You can do it on Toyota’s by pulling a fuse if calling don’t work and you only lose the microphone.
I have 2 questions: I suppose there isn’t a jailbreaking scene for cars due to potential security/insurance concerns? (beyond unlocking infotainment features) and 2: are any manufacturers using open source software for their systems?
They’re all built on an open source base, but everything they add is proprietary
1: there is, but at this point its pretty niche and scattered. Lots of its hush-hush due to like you said potential security/insurance concerns. Mostly used for cracking and getting system/diagnostics readouts and error codes, Fob cloning, etc. without forking out cash to do so through the so called “proper channels”.
2: not that I’ve seen, and from they software they do use it seems mainly in house additions.
Though im not super into the scene, and i see it growing rapidly over the next few years seeing manufacturers keep doing some scummy shit to lock down their products.
Edit: fat fingered post before i finished typing it out oops.
Countering this is very make-specific and you can have options ranging from calling in (opt-out) to pulling fuses to messing with dash wiring.
Make/Vehicle-specific forums will likely be a good resource to start with but naturally you’ll have to deal with the “you have phone, lul” defeatist idiots anywhere.
Considerations include age (Models with 3G radios are disconnected anyway most likely), trim (maybe only certain trim levels got a cellular radio), and features. (Hotspot, OnStar, an SOS button indicate the presence of such a telematics system)
Honest question. I feel like I’ve seen this same story 5 times already… is it being reposted a lot?
This was gonna be my comment.
I suppose that’s one thing my 2008 shitbox has going for it… Seems like every product is moving towards the advertising mindset
