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What kind of data is my new car collecting?

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Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#181

Post by clucas »

magduf wrote: post #175
clucas wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't aware of that, but perhaps it will hearten you to know that I don't deal with warranty law in my day-to-day. So, I clearly have more to learn - not sure why you felt it necessary to call my credentials into question over it though. But in any case, your post does strengthens my main point, which is that fear over surveillance of vehicles by OEMs, with no consumer recourse, is somewhat overblown. EDIT: Just r…

I only questioned your credentials because you said you were in legal counsel, and at an automotive OEM of some kind. Most people who've done any significant DIY car work know about this law, because it's protected them for decades from dealers that would try to deny them warranty coverage for completely unrelated non-dealer repairs or maintenance. For instance, a dealer can't claim that some kind of engine trouble i…

Fair enough. Thanks for the reply, that all makes sense.

I have never run into a situation where my current company tried to limit its warranty in legally interesting ways (and it wouldn't necessarily get to my desk anyway), so I never really had call to dig and find Magnusson-Moss. I suspect that knowledge of that law is probably more top-of-mind for DIYers than for OEM lawyers.

I still think that whether requiring telematics is a "reasonable" condition for a warranty is more complicated than you think, but what you're saying is exactly the counterargument I would make.

And, I hope I've provided some assurance that I am, in fact, a lawyer. Whether I'm a good one is perhaps up for debate. :)

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#182

Post by xg15 »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #66
xg15 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why can I not gut my catalytic converter & change some programming so my car says the outputs are fine? Because the state wants me to get rid of my old functional car to support the economy of newer more expensive vehicles. ...also probably to protect the environment?

You have to have an incredibly inefficient vehicle for manufacturing and shipping a new one to be an environmental positive...

But the "manufacturing and shipping a new one" part is temporary until the majority of cars are replaced. The reduced emissions from more efficient cars will be permanent.

Yes, retrofitting would be better, but if that's not possible, what else would you do to get converters into cars?

Also, I think GP was talking about removing a converter from a car that already had one. Literally not doing anything would be better for the environment than that.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#183

Post by ASalazarMX »

Seenso wrote: post #123
falcolas wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that Tesla is now in this space, and turning off Tesla's access to it will turn off your car, period. I have a hard time believing that others in the industry will not take the blase reaction to this and then do it themselves.

> Don't forget that Tesla is now in this space, and turning off Tesla's access to it will turn off your car, period. Which is super scary. A couple years ago one of their firmware engineers had his NDA expire, and he posted some stories about his time there in some forum. One of the stories that stuck with me is they were really sloppy with their updates. One time the pushed one that wasn't fully cooked (it might hav…

This was really iffy even then. If the car is connected by cellular, it doesn't have a unique IP address to SSH into. If it is connected to WiFi, the router has to be configured to forward that port.

Since the author remains anon, I always thought it was just a troll.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#184

Post by wearenotsafe »

bagacrap wrote: post #109
geocrasher wrote: post #96

I'm proud to say that my vehicle has zero tracking, is user serviceable, and my purchase of it had zero carbon impact. It's also 32 years old, gets 14-15mpg, and drives like a truck. It's a 1988 Chevy Suburban. I bought it a few years ago, for $1450 and really haven't put much into it overall. It runs reasonable well (still some things to figure out) and is comfortable. If I had some money I'd fix some of the things…

I'm glad you're happy with your ownership of that thing, but I'm more glad that most of them are off the road by now as we've made great strides in emissions and crash safety since the 80s, not to mention mileage. These are factors with measurable real-world impact on your fellow citizens, and, I would submit, more important than your paranoid secrecy wrt your dietary habits.

> paranoid secrecy

Do you work in the industry or have you simply been conditioned to parrot the notion that anyone concerned with being spied upon is crazy?

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#185

Post by Gracana »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #172
Gracana wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can move the points just like you'd rotate a distributor. One set of points drives one coil which provides ignition for two cylinders, one which is firing (near the end of its compression stroke) and the other non-firing (near the end of its exhaust stroke). For a four-cylinder engine, two sets of points and two ignition coils are used. This setup is even used on modern-ish vehicles, where two transistors drive t…

Sorry. What do you mean with points? On my old car the distributor also had a vacuum line that would adjust ignition depending on revs.

If your car has points-based ignition, you'll find them in your distributor underneath the rotor. They're switch contact points or breaker points or whatever you want to call them, that are driven by a cam on the distributor shaft. They're closed most of the time, allowing current to pass through the primary side of the ignition coil. When they open, the ignition coil field collapses and you get spark out of the secondary side.

Unless your car is very old, chances are that you have a more reliable reluctor-based ignition, where instead of points you have a magnetic pickup that's triggered by a toothed wheel on the distributor shaft. That pickup drives an ignitor (which may also be inside the distributor, or it might be a separate module) which generates the high current input to the ignition coil primary.

You can twist the distributor to change your base timing, plus you have the vacuum mechanism that moves the points or magnetic pickup to adjust timing according to manifold vacuum, and it probably also has sprung weights that swing out as rpm increases, which moves the cam or reluctor wheel to advance timing.

The actual distribution part of the distributor consists of the rotor and terminals on the cap. That's what routes high voltage from the coil out to each spark plug.

On an old motorcycle, you just have the points (one set for each coil for each pair of cylinders as described above) without the distributor cap and rotor part. You can move the points around the cam to adjust base timing, and you might have springs and weights to advance timing as rpm increases. I don't think vacuum advance was nearly as common on bikes as it was on cars.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#186

Post by Ididntdothis »

Gracana wrote: post #185
Ididntdothis wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry. What do you mean with points? On my old car the distributor also had a vacuum line that would adjust ignition depending on revs.

If your car has points-based ignition, you'll find them in your distributor underneath the rotor. They're switch contact points or breaker points or whatever you want to call them, that are driven by a cam on the distributor shaft. They're closed most of the time, allowing current to pass through the primary side of the ignition coil. When they open, the ignition coil field collapses and you get spark out of the seco…

Thanks! This makes me almost miss the “good old” days when I worked on my shitty cars almost every day just to keep them going.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#187

Post by Gracana »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #186
Gracana wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your car has points-based ignition, you'll find them in your distributor underneath the rotor. They're switch contact points or breaker points or whatever you want to call them, that are driven by a cam on the distributor shaft. They're closed most of the time, allowing current to pass through the primary side of the ignition coil. When they open, the ignition coil field collapses and you get spark out of the seco…

Thanks! This makes me almost miss the “good old” days when I worked on my shitty cars almost every day just to keep them going.

Hah, yeah. I like my shitty car projects. I'd like to replace my current daily driver, but I just can't get excited about new stuff, so it hasn't happened yet.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#188

Post by ohazi »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #183
Seenso wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't forget that Tesla is now in this space, and turning off Tesla's access to it will turn off your car, period. Which is super scary. A couple years ago one of their firmware engineers had his NDA expire, and he posted some stories about his time there in some forum. One of the stories that stuck with me is they were really sloppy with their updates. One time the pushed one that wasn't fully cooked (it might hav…

This was really iffy even then. If the car is connected by cellular, it doesn't have a unique IP address to SSH into. If it is connected to WiFi, the router has to be configured to forward that port. Since the author remains anon, I always thought it was just a troll.

Busting through NAT is really easy... The car could just ping home and open the tunnel by itself when it sees the appropriate signal.

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#189

Post by shadow-banned »

Seenso wrote: post #123
falcolas wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that Tesla is now in this space, and turning off Tesla's access to it will turn off your car, period. I have a hard time believing that others in the industry will not take the blase reaction to this and then do it themselves.

> Don't forget that Tesla is now in this space, and turning off Tesla's access to it will turn off your car, period. Which is super scary. A couple years ago one of their firmware engineers had his NDA expire, and he posted some stories about his time there in some forum. One of the stories that stuck with me is they were really sloppy with their updates. One time the pushed one that wasn't fully cooked (it might hav…

FYI, those details were originally posted on YOSPOS, a SomethingAwful sub-forum which is the world's best Internet forum for computer touchers.

They regularly lambast HN via this thread. It would be great if more people read their criticisms of the community here.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=39...

Re: What kind of data is my new car collecting?

#190

Post by ASalazarMX »

ohazi wrote: post #188
ASalazarMX wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was really iffy even then. If the car is connected by cellular, it doesn't have a unique IP address to SSH into. If it is connected to WiFi, the router has to be configured to forward that port. Since the author remains anon, I always thought it was just a troll.

Busting through NAT is really easy... The car could just ping home and open the tunnel by itself when it sees the appropriate signal.

The whole thread doesn't hold water. It was just a mix of plausible, implausible, jargon and some profanity for relatability.

Full quote:

> model s and x use openvpn to talk to their backend. inside that backend there are metadata services that feed info to the system, one of those things being a ~20MB+ (generated by the worst erp system) json payload that describes supercharger shit for the map in the touchscreen. somebody was smart enough to do automated linting but forgot to validate against the custom parser the car runs which caused a segfault in the qt app that runs the ui, which in turn for a variety of reasons forces a reboot of that component. I think we clocked about 15 seconds before it read the file and faulted after boot. it was doing that for an hour before everyone panicked and got me and qa on the phone to fix it. i wrote a quick python/fabric script that ssh’d to as many cars as possible at a time to rm the file

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