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▲Car Is a Smartphone on Wheels. Here's Who's Listening (automatictransmission.khoury.northeastern.edu)
mahboi 3 minutes ago [-]

  if an owner decides they are uncomfortable with the data sharing described within them, they are faced with (arguably) unfair choices:
  - 01 accept the agreements regardless of their concerns
  - 02 stop using their car's connected-vehicle features - which includes remote start, the app, and other very useful features
  - 03 stop using the vehicle entirely
Easy, I take #2. Is that it? I thought it'd phone home anyway.
hattar 26 minutes ago [-]
I currently drive a mid 2000s Ford truck, which runs great and meets my needs, but lately I got interested in minivans/people carriers. I pretty quickly realized that newer vehicles seem to not just record, but export a lot of driving data.

The minivan market is small. There are really only 4-5 available and every single one sends telemetry data from the car and makes it hard/impossible to opt out of selling your data. Additionally, without pretty extensive work there is no means of physically disabling the telemetry, which forces you to trust they'll honor your opt out request (vs re-enabling it with some update).

I'm clearly in the vast minority on this, but it's so frustrating that there are no options beyond buying and installing a third-party bypass to disable this type of tracking. Worse, I'm aware that the absence of data is data itself. Is my insurance going raise my rates because my vehicle won't provide telemetry for them to buy?

sippingabonedry 14 minutes ago [-]
Ford until recently sold a minivan that was ugly as sin (looked like an '87 Vanagon) because it was a panel van with seats added. They are popular with the campervan community.

As it was essentially a commercial vehicle meant for upfitters, it would probably be easiest to disable telemetry.

From what I can find, permanently disabling FordPass at the hardware level is as simple as unplugging the cell modem which is a standalone box.

helterskelter2 1 minutes ago [-]
I know some models of Ford allow you to pull the modem out. It doesn't even nag you about a connection problem.
mistrial9 15 minutes ago [-]
> absence of data is data itself

oh that is endless.. if you are aware enough to do something about telemetry IMHO do that and don't obsess about loose ends.

tartoran 7 minutes ago [-]
Hope to see a new market for disabling telemetry and phonehome features from cars. It should be legal to do so, if you own the car I suppose. I'm thinking that rigth now few pople even know how much spying their new car does to them but this will change and as awareness grows more and more people will want to do it.
ourmandave 21 minutes ago [-]
Ha ha, you fools! No one is collecting my data from my 22-year-old Scion while I drive past Flock cameras every day.

Wait...

eckelhesten 5 minutes ago [-]
There’s “oh he’s at the grocery store” data,

and then there’s “he’s driving in a way we don’t like, let’s make him pay more for his insurance” data.

deepsun 39 minutes ago [-]
> As one notable exception, Honda improved its data collection practices to prevent sending precise geolocation to a third party associated with user tracking.

I know what my next car will be.

rdtsc 22 minutes ago [-]
I already like Honda and own models before they were connected to the cell network. But they are still not 100% there current models:

> Amplitude received from HondaLink: VIN, Location. Cross-context tracking: Amplitude received the VIN plus Location from HondaLink — an unresettable identifier tied directly to other personal data.

They are so close they should say "fuck it, we're going to be different, we'll disable all the crap" and then market the heck out of it.

bnc319 25 minutes ago [-]
While the researchers noted Tesla as having privacy options that can be enabled in the car’s settings, they didn’t seem to test how this changes the # of ATA results. Would have been interesting to see how enabling privacy features changes things.
slowin 23 minutes ago [-]
judge2020 17 minutes ago [-]
This was taken while the data privacy option was enabled. An employee going against policy and sharing it in slack for non-work related reasons does not change whether or not the toggle actually stops x camera from sending data back to the mothership.
filoleg 18 minutes ago [-]
The grandparent comment doesn't talk about anything Tesla (the company) says. They are sharing findings from independent researchers.
kazinator 9 minutes ago [-]
[delayed]
gwbas1c 23 minutes ago [-]
This seems like something that needs legislation to address.
goodmythical 4 minutes ago [-]
I'm sure that will go about as well as protecting the privacy of individuals in the face of "but the CHILDREN!" age verification.

In-vehicle monitoring allows car manufacturers to remind the user to buckle up, keep their eyes on the road, stay off their phones, remind them to take breaks, turn the radio down in tense traffic, remind the driver to take a breath based on increased heart rate to minimize road rage, etc.

Heck, we could really reduce lack of seatbelt related injuries and deaths if we could eliminate the 'drive' function while seatbelts are not properly worn (which we can now check with our AI cameras )

What are you some kind of anti-safe-driving nut?

milkytron 3 minutes ago [-]
Until people care about this, there is no reason for our representatives to limit it.
attila-lendvai 9 minutes ago [-]
good luck!

sadly, politicians are very happy about the centralization of power... they are the same team with the corporations.

steelframe 30 minutes ago [-]
Still driving my GR Corolla with the data communications module fuse pulled.
jmdeon 9 minutes ago [-]
Such a fun car! It's my first fun car and oh man what a toy.
eckelhesten 3 minutes ago [-]
Really? I’ve never heard a Corolla be considered a fun car. It’s a point a to b car afaik.

Not to hate on your experience! They surely are reliable though.

prasadvara 59 minutes ago [-]
The ongoing theme of all these responses was shifting the blame to the consumer.

As expected. I think consumers also need to push back on these practices, but the problem is, majority of consumers are tech savy but not privacy savy.

slowin 44 minutes ago [-]
I'd love to push back, I'm not sure what that looks like though. I can't even get an open source/open hardware phone that's decent, let alone a car.
0c3ca83 23 minutes ago [-]
It looks like lobbying for increased consumer protection laws. Either you put on a suit and talk to politicians, or you work with and donate to groups that do.
devin 17 minutes ago [-]
For my part, I will not be purchasing a new car until they bring back physical controls and dump the spyware.
ad_fontes 29 minutes ago [-]
You might want to check out Slate. It's about the closest thing to an open vehicle platform I can imagine.
wiml 12 minutes ago [-]
Does Slate actually make any statements about the level of telematics/surveillance in their vehicles?
ad_fontes 5 minutes ago [-]
IIRC, they don't have a cellular radio in the vehicle (or even a FM radio). All the connectivity is done via Bluetooth with a mobile app.

It's been a while since I read up on them and things might have changed, but I have a lot respect for what they're doing. Full embracing right to repair and customer privacy when the entire industry is moving at lightning speed in the opposite direction.

goda90 7 minutes ago [-]
They say their vehicles have no modem by default, only leaving it as an option for fleet users. They also have no infotainment system to contain any sort of camera or microphone.
CarVac 5 minutes ago [-]
They do have a backup camera.
slowin 24 minutes ago [-]
Interesting and thank you! Just like I'd like a "dumb" tv that I could just plug a Linux machine running Kodi into, I'd like a car that was 100% free from smart features, yet gave me the hooks to power any of the systems with my own software/hardware.
AlexandrB 22 minutes ago [-]
DMCA needs to be repealed or at least radically changed. Currently it's used as a cudgel by manufacturers to prevent customers from modifying the software in the stuff they buy. Legislation that requires vendors to provide documentation and stuff like "right to repair" would also go a long way.
gib444 17 minutes ago [-]
> I'm not sure what that looks like though

Two wheels and some impressive leg muscles !

newspaper1 27 minutes ago [-]
I don't trust any of my devices anymore (including/especially my car). At the very least I figure that they're spying on me. In the most extreme cases, such as Israel's terrorist pager attack, they may even kill you.

I wonder if this is going to create a market for older tech/vehicles that were made prior to ease-of-malware integration? I imagine some sort of cyberpunk future where people are scouring landfills for old 16-bit video game console chips that haven't been backdoored.

Ccecil 5 minutes ago [-]
I was kinda wondering the same. Only issue will be when insurance companies refuse to insure you because they can't get the "commonly available" data.
stego-tech 14 minutes ago [-]
When I buy an EV, one of the first things I intend to do is disable or block the chips using Wi-Fi and/or cellular from broadcasting further. If that means a faraday shield around the computers in question, so be it.

Everything I need can be handled via CarPlay or physical dials/buttons in the vehicle. All this surveillance - on post-COVID priced vehicles no less, averaging ~$50k - is absurd, and I refuse to engage with it.

iamronaldo 28 minutes ago [-]
Not to take away from the point but wow absolute ai slop of a website
trickypr 9 minutes ago [-]
I think it does take away from the point. I could not be bothered trying to filter the information out of whatever this llm layout is.
theowaway 32 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
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