Toyota, Progressive Insurance, and a data analytics firm are now being accused of collecting detailed personal driving information without proper consent
Honestly if a car has any form of internet connectivity built in, it should raise so many red flags before you even sit down to talk financing.
Good luck finding a modern car that doesn’t, I just yank out the power to the modem
My '24 Civic has no connectivity but bluetooth. I don’t know about the 25s.
So, OnStar, for decades now, has had cellular activity whether you were paying for it or not. They just used to be careful about not selling data. But even if the user didn’t pay and the manufacturer didn’t sell, those models are trackable by ISP.
Sounds logical.
Anyone know any good reference projects for building a ras pi based car stereo replacement?
You could, but you’re better off just making an insert for a tablet. It has music, GPS, cell service optional, easily replacable.
What amazes me is how many people not only willingly giving up their privacy without any understand of what it means to do so or the implications of it, but also so many have a defense of ‘if you are in public you have no right or expectation of privacy at all’.
This is bullshit. While you have a reduced expectation of privacy by virtue of being in public, the fact that your movements are alp documented so completely either by private or public entities without warrants, your face and expressions and dress scanned, and even videos you watch on your phone based on some flock cameras I have seen is an outrage.
People have a right to sometimes just go out and disappear for a while. I used to do it all the damn as a teenager and very young adult. I didnt run away from home or skip school, but I needed genuine alone time to think and let my mind and body feel free for a moment and give myself a minor mental reset. This is impossible if I am on camera all the damn time. The last thing I want is to take a walk through some artsy parts of town or a park and then get ads on ‘want to escape? Here are some nice vacation spots to go to’, or get ads on shit just because I did some window shopping or in-store browsing.
And then there is this shit. How all that spying affects you financially and maybe even professionally as AI now is reviewing CVs and you better damn well believe that they will be integrating all information on you if you apply anywhere.
And for the ‘this prevents crime’ shit no it does not. Crime resolution rates have been dropping throughout even the wealthiest most surveillance heavy countries. A study from around 20 years ago in the UK showed thay the places with the most cameras don’t have less crime or more solved crimes than those with less cameras. More funding for police and more police tools have ironically lead to a massive reduction in murder rate resolution in the US and elsewhere. Which is surprising snd terrifying… because just how many innocent people have been put in prison in the past without anyone knowing?
It is entirely about social control. Have you ever wondered why protests seem to be less effective and there aren’t that many revolutions or successful coups as there were last century? That is why. (And yes I am aware they still happen, but they are much harder to pull off)
The best example I’ve heard is, if I wait outside your house and follow you around everywhere you go, every single time you leave the house, even though you’re “in public,” that’s still a crime and it’s called “stalking.”
Even searching for someone obsessively online and being a little TOO interested in them online is cyberstalking.
The line there is different than in off-line settings, but it does exist. Someone who is a fan of an entertainer and likes all of their online posts is one thing, but a person who has plans that involve harassment is something else.
Precisely right. We should press charges against all the big tech companies for stalking us.
Spyware in our cars? This is unacceptable.
YEAR OF THE LINUX CAR
2036 maybe
There’s probably already 10-15 linux computers in your car.
But can I choose the distro?
i use carch btw
My car drives Arch, by the way.
Like Jackie Welles rides an Arch in CP2077? Count me in!
The infotainment system probably runs Yocto Linux, so it is already the year of Linux card
But is the system libre enough to make it year of the linux car
Because Android phones (linux kernel fork libre per gpl obligation, rest of os proprietary and evil) do not constitute the year of the Linux phone
Car insurance is a scam.
There won’t just be an “AI” bubble burst if this surveillance tech bros crap goes on for too much longer. Everyone wants to be an overlord. No one just wants to make a reasonable healthy profit anymore.
It’s because high constant profits were never sustainable. Perpetually maximizing GDP in the short term was never a good idea to begin with. But that’s the macroeconomic policy.
We’ve been preventing all forest fires at all costs and guess what - there’s still gonna be a big forest fire.
Can’t you rip out the wifi radio, or cover it in aluminum foil or something? This is ridiculous.
TCU is what we are looking for here, in modern automotive terms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telematic_control_unit
This is the spyware box in most modern vehicles. Can you find it? Can you unplug it? What happens when you disconnect it from the computer bus of the car? Those are the questions we need answered for every car on the road, for our mutual benefit.
Plus they can pull the data if you bring it for service.
You can pull the fuse but this also disables Bluetooth iirc.
Pull the fuse, good idea! I bet that would set off all kinds of alarms in the car’s computer and it would constantly tell you to go in for service but that’s a decent trade off.
There’s always another fuse you can pull to make that go away as well.
At this point just throw the car battery away.
Super conflicted about this one. For sure, im against their (mis)use of user data and that is bad in all sorts of ways. buuuuut, i cant help but smile a bit about the fact that asholes driving like maniacs are getting some sort of punishment. I’ve met them and i wish them hell.
They ding you for everything even you have this feature enabled for you (knowingly or unknowingly). Remember hearing about a user whose cat would run in front of his car when he was parking it at the end of the day. Car registered it as him almost hitting an object.
Drive on super bad/winding roads with bad lines? Lane assistance might show you as going over the lane lines that aren’t even there.
This service won’t be used to lower rates.
Hmm, ok. Didnt know that and Im a little bit less conflicted now.
It would be kinda cool if you could submit dashcam footage of people cutting people off and blowing down the road at 3x the speed and have their insurance company see it though.
Another reminder why I chose to own a bicycle.
Not an option for many of us. Even in the city, where I’ve gotten around on bicycle for years and years with no car before, it was a hostile environment, and motorists hate bicyclists with a passion. I didn’t ride in the street either like in the lane holding up traffic either. But many would go out of their way to hit you, including police. I was too quick for them though.
As we learned in Minnesota, vaguely gesturing your car in someone’s direction is grounds for summary execution without investigation. Things are different for bicyclists now.
You pointed that bike at that agent. Clearly you are an antifa death squad. Or I’m sorry three star antifa general involved in terror plots on american greatness, likely out of your freedom hatred. Something something transexuals woke radical left you had it coming! /s
This is such a bad precedent because it’s on video, there is no question as to the truth of the matter. The agent engineered the situation, used his phone hand to touch the car as it was moving to make it appear like he was hit, and they cynically used that to claim so, despite frame by frame analysis that gives lie to all of their story.
Their cheerleaders supporting this, pretending to believe the lie, or god forbid believing it, because they think they don’t like the executed, are fools. Federal agents should not be summarily executing anyone on the street without cause then slandering their victims to justify it afterwards. That is something everyone agreed on not long ago. A good share of conservatives might still agree, but just believe the execution was self defense, but too many don’t, and relish the others getting targeted as if they will forever remain safe from being labelled an other. As if when they achieve absolute power they won’t shrink the old boy clubs.
I rode my bike in the a smaller city for nearly a decade regularly just fine. The one time I was hit by a car, luckily barely, I was on foot.
To me, here at least, when I left the small city,that’s where it gets wild. When the place has no pedestrians, and it’s all cars only, with really limited side walks. Those are the scary places to ride.
Yeah in the country it’s a different beast entirely. Riding on the shoulder of highways and county roads. I do the left side so I can see the cars coming at me and get out of the way. Going with traffic on the shoulder is madness and trusting everyone to see you and not hit you, yet half the population thinks that’s the way it should be done.
But good luck getting anywhere in the country right now on a bike. There are snowbanks piled up, little shoulder is left off of main highways, you would have to ride in the road, switching back and forth left to right to avoid incoming cars, or stop and pull yourself into the snowbank. It’s just not possible for me here. Half the year it’s just not possible in much of the north.
I’ve always been more comfortable riding with traffic, and I don’t understand how it feels safer going opposite. But I’m not a rule enforcer, do what’s best for you. Anywhere without common walkers/public transport too. Its not just like, “the country”. Suburbs and strip malls.
I’ve also ridden in winter, in New England. It’s baby thought thinking you can’t. No bad weather, just bad dress, and you warm up quick.
I’m saying on the shoulder of a highway, not in the lane. Riding on the right hand side means constantly looking back over your shoulder, and trusting cars to have seen you and not decided to bust onto the shoulder. It’s madness, and it’s a misunderstanding that leads some people to think you are supposed to, experts have made it clear it’s safer to see traffic coming at you in such situations so you can get out of the way.
And ha, no, you can’t ride your bike where I am right now as I explained. There is no shoulder, you are in the lane, lanes covered in packed down snow. Baby thinking is a rather insulting way to respond to a situation you clearly do not understand. Riding in the lane with cars going 55 mph or faster on ice and snow cannot be done here right now, snowplows leave 4 or a 5 feet of snowbank off the road, something someone from new england should know, city boy.
I got a laugh out of that “baby thought” jab. I’ve lived where it wasn’t safe to walk by the roads during winter, much less cycle there. With no bike lane or even a road shoulder to speak of and a foot or more of snow, you end up with two choices: cycle in a snow bank or hope traffic isn’t coming when you end up horizontal in the road.
So do nothing. Don’t fight for better infrastructures, just stay car centric. I love paying thousands of dollars a year to get to work/shops/friends. Wah wah.
I’ve ridden these roads in winter. I’ve done it from necessity. Yeah it’s scary at first. No, not all places it’s possible, yes, it could be done more if not for your preference for comfort. Wahhh “I can’t and nothing can change this”. Fucking hell. I’m a down vote queen today eh? Y’all need to watch some “just not bikes” and maybe help change perceptions.
Or stay in your comfy car. I don’t care. I’m literally in the position where I can’t get a job because I don’t have a car, or a bike, or public transport, and a kid with mad appointments right now. And I’m extra spicy about it. I miss being free on my bike and marking open availability on job apps. I’m spicy okay? Down vote away. I uses to ride 7 miles in winter, snow, sleet, ice, to be at work for 6 am. Then seven miles home, 6 days a week. Two years. It can be done. Its not fun no, but its not like, the most difficult thing either. Y’all just used to comfort. I’m used to poverty. It’s fucking fine.
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Shut the fuck up.
Thanks.
Love you :*
I saw someone riding a bike the other day on the road and feared for his safety.
I couldn’t do that to my ancestors
Time to make data sharing illegal. If it is technically needed, the industry needs to have a written contract with the user, which describes in detail which data is shared. It must be a separate contract from anything else, and one each for each industry partner.
In the owner’s manual, it says you consent to data collection by driving the car and if you don’t consent, you should return the car to the nearest dealer.
Fuck them and the horse they rode on. Stuff like that needs to be made illegal.
it is technically needed, the industry needs to have a written contract with the user, which describes in detail which data is shared. It must be a separate contract from anything else, and one each for each industry partner.
That’s the Terms and Conditions that nobody reads.
I’m not talking about a “one click for everything”. I’m talking about a separate, written contract that can be cancelled at any time, without cause for any other obligation.
The t&c are not a separate contract, though. Its a “take it or leave it” signing here gets you the car and the agreement to be spied upon.
I read them all now with Chatgpt. Just fed it in and summarize
Notarized. The agreements need to be notarized.
And you have to be able to cancel it at any time.
Why
“T&Cs update : please agree to 80 pages of impenetrable legal jargon before you can continue to use your vehicle”
That’s why I say it must be a written, separate contract. And not signing it must be without consequences regarding other contractual obligations.
Hahaha welcome to the eu
I’ve wondered a bit about taking the head unit from my jeep and playing with the data it receives, like telling it I’m going 3MPH all night long, or telling it I’m going 600MPH. Ultimately though I’m just going to get rid of it and get something older.
I want it shut off. I like the safety sensors but those can be passive and not telemetric.
I want people who look in my cars computers to search for info to find NOTHING.
- Step 1: Place peanut butter on spyware box and wireless antenna cables
- Step 2: Hold varmint near cables and allow it to chew through them
- Step 3: Maintain your plausible deniability.
Why would I need plausible deniability? Despite what CEO’s think, its my car. I can rip out and destroy any part of it I want.
Maybe it’s time to create some rules about data brokering? It’s not really about tracking and consent, it’s about who can sell what data about whom to what parties.
It’s become an enormous business, it deals with you and I, it delights in living in the shadows, and it is almost completely unregulated. I don’t really care if Toyota records my data, I care that it’s allowed to sell it or share it.
I think a reasonable first step would be that all data about a specific person belongs to that person and nobody else. We have rules about photos, we need to expand them to data brokering, because the problem is the same: if you can be identified and placed, you are at risk.
Maybe we can just learn to disable the parts of the vehicle that spy on us. It’s actually a federal felony to alter programming on products like this that we own. But maybe a surgically placed electromagnet or cut wire could do the trick?
Because government will not be fixing anything for the better. This is the best the government will be for the forseeable future.
When approaching this proposition, remember that there will be a lot of push back that might sound sincere but remember that there are a lot of people in the data mining business and they will definitely not be arguing in good faith.
You can’t even assume they’ll be people at this point.
But think of the poor shareholders and their yearly revenue growth being slowed down. Don’t be selfish bro.
/s
Yeah i agree with most of what you said. I don’t have massive issues with companies tracking and recording data. By default they should only be allowed to use that data themselves (which can get a bit murky when the company in question is that of a conglomerate) and you should have to explicitly allow the sharing of data to third parties that is separate to standard TOC’s.
GDPR tried to solve this but it kind of made a lot of the options available to the user a bit of a mess and overwhelming because there’s not much regulation about what can be done with data (somewhat - there actually are limitations but it’s not very well enforced), just that the user has to say they agree. And that’s not even thinking about how the banners and pop ups are obtrusive as fuck.
I’m not smart enough to know what the actual solution should be other than I know it needs to be better than it is now.
Maybe it’s already called GDPR?
The same GDPR that allows every website or app to share your data with their 816 partners, as long as they claim they have a ‘legitimate interest’?
I like this one. I hate other drivers on the road. This is an area where if they’re getting like speeds and how fast people were driving through neighborhoods or taking turns, fuck it. Oligarchs already steal all my data at least this instance can improve my commute
The Mozilla foundation did a great report on cars & privacy.
I bought a new dishwasher and that wants to be connected to the internet “to let me know when it’s finished”.
Matter over Thread is what you want. It means it can work locally with anything. You do need a Thread controller (called a “thread border router”), but most people already have one. Google Home, Alexa, or Apple things all do it.
Ikea is starting to move over to this stuff. Just be aware that they’re also trying to get rid of the old tech still.
Why though? Why does he want a networked dishwasher at all? There’s no benefit or reason for that in the first place
I really hate those guys, you know. They really are the creeps of the cosmos, buzzing around the celestial infinite with their junky little machines that never work properly or, when they do, perform functions that no sane man would require of them and,’ he added savagely, ‘go beep to tell you when they’ve done it!’
Ford Prefect
“So long & thanks for all the fish” Douglas AdamsLove Hitchhikers, but I’m not sure that replacing annoying machine beeps with annoying mobile notifications is the improvement you’re suggesting :p
Some people would like the feature where they are notified that the job is finished but don’t want to allow it to connect to the manufacturer. That would be possible if you could get one that uses Thread over Matter.
Most people either don’t care about the feature or don’t care about their privacy so it’s a real niche market.
My 15 year old dishwasher makes a happy little jingle when it’s done to let me know it’s finished. Alternatively, I can just look at it the next time I’m in the kitchen and see if it’s done. I can’t think of any scenario where I am so pressed for time that I must be notified the second my dishwasher is done, but also be far enough away that I don’t hear it’s pretty loud jingle. All so I can… What? Do another load of dishes? Who would ever need that?
Yeah but it seems clear from @[email protected]’s comment that they also think this is frivolity, so the unrelated niche market is a moot point in this case.
My new air purifier wants to connect to my wifi network. No thanks, I’m good.
