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What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to find out

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Re: What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to find out

#81

Post by dawnerd »

coreyp_1 wrote: post #68

Related story: When I bought my GM truck last year, it came with OnStar. The saleswoman came to the part of the sale where she had to set up my OnStar account. I told the saleswoman that I would not consent to the OnStar trial service. When she tried to cancel it for me through their online portal, she asked for my email address, which was required to cancel the service. I refused to give it to her. She didn't know w…

Similarly I tried to cancel my Car Net subscription and the lady on the phone tried to guilt trip me by saying if I crashed VW wouldn’t do anything to help me.

Re: What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to find out

#82

Post by jb775 »

> Doug also (twice) sent GM a formal request under a 2003 California data law to ask who the company shared his information with. He got no reply.

I wonder if they are planning to follow up on this? If there's a law in place, GM shouldn't be able to get away with simply ignoring requests.

Re: What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to find out

#83

Post by zaroth »

1over137 wrote: post #54
brummm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, except Ford and Tesla, none of the American brands are very popular in Europe. I guess this would move affect European and Asian car makers that can collect more data outside of Europe.

Tesla is not popular in Europe. Two orders of magnitude fewer units sold vs the popular brands. http://carsalesbase.com/european-car-sales-analysis-july-aug...

> Electric car sales grew by 90% in July and by 69% in August, while PHEV sales were down 19% in July and down 29% in August.

Tesla is massively supply constrained in Europe. Hence GF4 which could break ground next month.

Re: What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to find out

#84

Post by driverdan »

coreyp_1 wrote: post #68

Related story: When I bought my GM truck last year, it came with OnStar. The saleswoman came to the part of the sale where she had to set up my OnStar account. I told the saleswoman that I would not consent to the OnStar trial service. When she tried to cancel it for me through their online portal, she asked for my email address, which was required to cancel the service. I refused to give it to her. She didn't know w…

> I should have just removed the antenna!

You should absolutely find the SIM card and remove it. Just because you "disabled" the service doesn't mean they aren't still sending data back.

Re: What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to find out

#85

Post by rootusrootus »

vb6sp6 wrote: post #76
et2o wrote: post #27

It doesn't strike me as ridiculous that a car's nav would keep track of where you've been.

It collects 25gb of information an hour and beams it back to the car marker. So a bit more that just your location.

If there were really 25GB of data going back to GM, I can't imagine what their wireless contract costs are like.

Re: What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to find out

#86

Post by hnarn »

jb775 wrote: post #82

> Doug also (twice) sent GM a formal request under a 2003 California data law to ask who the company shared his information with. He got no reply. I wonder if they are planning to follow up on this? If there's a law in place, GM shouldn't be able to get away with simply ignoring requests.

Luckily for us consumers, at least in the EU we now have GDPR, which you definitely can not ignore.

Re: What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to find out

#87

Post by js2 »

My wife drives a 2017 Volt. I considered disconnecting the OnStar antenna, but I like the monthly report that's emailed to me which provides oil life, energy usage (electric vs gas miles), and tire pressure. I also like that I'll get an email alert if tire pressure is low. There's also this:

https://www.voltstats.net/

https://ibb.co/WHxpm5P

> With paid OnStar service, I could, on demand, locate the car’s exact location.

I haven't paid for OnStar but I can use the "locate vehicle" feature. I vaguely recall that "basic OnStar" is included for 5 years? The myChevrolet app can also be used as a keyfob in a pinch.

We are not signed up for Smart Driver.

Privacy vs functionality is a trade-off. The bigger issue here is that you can't download your data directly from the car, that OnStar is opt-out instead of opt-in, and that you can't fully opt-out w/o physically disconnecting the antenna.

Re: What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to find out

#88

Post by dredmorbius »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #23
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can recognize your face as you tap at the turnstile. Maybe they don’t do it now, but if they currently don’t they will in the name of anti-terrorism.

[flagged]

I read that as realism, not fatalism. And not indicating any level of agreement or support of the prospect.

Your ad hom is utterly uncalled for.

Re: What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to find out

#89

Post by bonestamp2 »

coreyp_1 wrote: post #68

Related story: When I bought my GM truck last year, it came with OnStar. The saleswoman came to the part of the sale where she had to set up my OnStar account. I told the saleswoman that I would not consent to the OnStar trial service. When she tried to cancel it for me through their online portal, she asked for my email address, which was required to cancel the service. I refused to give it to her. She didn't know w…

Were you trying to prevent them from getting your personal info at all? Because, I'd be surprised if GM doesn't share that info with them. I guess you'll know if you get calls or mail trying to sell you the service.

I ask because the last couple cars I've bought (not GM mind you) had XM radio and I never did anything to activate it, yet when the free trial was up they had all my info to initiate a sales call and send mail.

Re: What does your car know about you? We hacked a Chevy to find out

#90

Post by bonestamp2 »

georgeplusplus wrote: post #5
icefog wrote: post #3

Removing OnStar antenna and power was one of the first things I did on my new GM truck. It doesn't require any special tools or knowledge and only takes several minutes. The fact I had to do any of this at all instead of being asked to opt-in to data collection is depressing, but not unexpected in today's data-hungry market.

I’m shocked they didn’t rig it so doing what you did turns the check engine light on or something ridiculous.

It might set a "stored" trouble code already, which won't trigger the engine light (only "active' trouble codes do in most vehicles). Some stored trouble codes are there for the technicians to see which passive systems/sensors are failing or have failed in the past.
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