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Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

reuters.com

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Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#111
post #107
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second part of what you said is a widespread myth. There is a crossover point after you drive a certain number of miles in an EV, after which the lifetime carbon cost is lower than that of an equivalent ICE car. For Model 3 the crossover point is estimated at around 5,000 miles. Not "many years." The sources and methodology for this estimate are discussed in detail in Tesla's 2020 Impact Report. https://www.tesla…

I like this youtube video that goes over various crossover points. The tesla beats the RAV4 prime at ~45k miles and a rav4 ICE at ~28k miles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEqxaH47DTs I think 5k miles is a bit low, and using tesla as your only source biased.

I wouldn't count out the possibility that this YouTube channel is receiving affiliate commissions and is not as reliable a source as you think.

Putting that up against Tesla, which would have a lot to lose by putting the wrong analysis into their Impact Report, I would give Tesla more credibility despite the fact that they have a vested interest here.

Their vested interest is out in the open, not a secret… it's the mission of the company even.

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#112
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Tesla knows more info about how you use or operate the car, the big piece that matters to your privacy is arguable the vehicle location and that is not at all unique to Tesla. Many (most?) vehicles produced in the last decade have a GSM modem that pretty much continuously leaks your data at least to the cellular networks, and likely the vehicle manufacturer/operator. I used to physically remove the modem from m…

Why did you stop if you 'used' to do it?

I cannot do it on Teslas. (Or at least the trade off is undesirable)

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet. As soon as data is stored/archived, it can be used later for any purpose. Even if the original company has no desire to do so, acquisitions/mergers/sales/trusted-third-parties could.

No, stored data cannot be later used for any purpose. In recent years there have been numerous laws and regulations passed concerning data rights and privacy. If you get consent for data usage in one way, but then use it in a way that differs with what the user consented to, that isn't in compliance with the law. It would be fairer to say that even if the original company desperately had the desire to do so the legal…

Your point is valid; however, I would say that something being legally possible and technically possible are two different things. I think there have been several data breaches in the past couple years that have shown data to be kept or used beyond its assumed intended purpose.

Even if the company itself followed the law completely, there's nothing technically stopping a bad actor (internal or external) from doing whatever they want with it if they access it.

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#114
post #38
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone promises you’ll have it any day now, so you pay them a lot of money, but they delay it years and years - and you note it’s a really hard problem - at what point is it fraud? Most legal precedent I’ve seen says a lot less time than they’ve already delayed it, frankly.

> at what point is it fraud? It's fraud when someone is harmed. People like you who didn't buy the product and don't want it don't have standing here. People like me, who did, do. And almost without exception, we're all lined up to get the beta release. Offer me a $10k refund today in exchange for never getting access to FSD releases, and I'd turn it down. "People willfully paying for something I don't like" isn't fr…

My admittedly layman understanding of 47 USC §1001 is that no actual harm needs to be demonstrated for it to be an instance of fraud:

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—

(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;

(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or

(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;

So if Tesla is knowingly taking pre-orders for FSD without being certain on when they could deliver it _and_ they don't make it clear that they don't know when or if FSD could be delivered, that would likely qualify as fraud.

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#115
post #81
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those data items, speed and control position, don't seem equivalent to the data Google, Amazon and Facebook collect. They do seem like legitimate telemetry on a machine operated by a human though. If my pedal position differs from someone else's, that tells you nothing about me other than that was where the pedal was. Those tell Tesla nothing about my personal habits, my political leanings, who my friends are, what o…

Could be used to calculate the price of your car insurance. If the data is distinct enough, it could be used to identify the driver (with some degree of probability). It then could be shared with car insureres / law enforcement agencies / private investigators / random concerned citizens.

They can't, without your consent. The problem with google & fb is not primarily that they will share their data with 3rd parties (without your consent). It's that they will use it against you. E.g. they'll show the right adverts to nudge your behaviour in directions you may not want but for what they are being paid for. E.g. imagine a political party wanting to efficiently gain new supporters by converting those who are most susceptible. FB and google will have a lot of information about a lot of aspects of your life and they can sell services (not the data!) to interested parties based on that knowledge.

Tesla will just know about your driving habits and probably won't be able to sell anything based on that. It's a huge difference. Law enforcement, now that's a different story. You'll probably want to keep the privacy laws of your country strict and not allow peeking into the memory or recording of your car too easily.

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#116
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The emissions cost of building a new car and shipping it halfway across the world will significantly affect this calculation. You can drive a less efficient car for many years on the carbon cost of building a new one, as long as you're not driving some huge pick up or other obscene gas guzzler.

The second part of what you said is a widespread myth. There is a crossover point after you drive a certain number of miles in an EV, after which the lifetime carbon cost is lower than that of an equivalent ICE car. For Model 3 the crossover point is estimated at around 5,000 miles. Not "many years." The sources and methodology for this estimate are discussed in detail in Tesla's 2020 Impact Report. https://www.tesla…

That report compares the total lifetime emissions of a Tesla with an ICE, as far as I can tell. Also, I don't see any discussion of the cost of mining, smelting, etc the chassis and engine parts, it seems that those are acquired and not included in the production costs. Furthermore, it assumes that the car is locally built, it doesn't seem to include the cost of transporting the car and/or parts long distance. Finally, the 24.8MPG number they cite is pretty large consumption compared to the usual fuel economy of cars I've seen around me at least: it's basically 10 l/100 km, where the cars people around me own are at ~4-6 l / 100 km in real driving (maybe a difference between EU and US?).

Regardless, the discussion wasn't about replacing an ICE car with an electric, it was about replacing an old ICE car with a newer ICE one.

I will also note that personally I have a a very low level of trust for any statements put out by Musk's companies - they have a clear history of greatly exaggerating various good news.

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#118
post #86
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The giant leap is Tesla is an AI company. Most companies gather data if they can, you wouldn't call them an AI company. A concrete example: Amazon, Walmart, and Target collect a lot of data on their respective ecommerce websites. Are they AI companies? They also and use train machine learning models. Tesla is trying to fix left turn regressions [1] in an if statement it introduced with its latest over the air update.…

I mean in the same event that you list, Elon literally opens with: "Tesla is much more than an automotive company, and we have lots of deep AI activity..." I think it is fair to say that a company that is literally inventing its own AI training supercomputer is probably an AI company as well :) https://youtu.be/j0z4FweCy4M?t=2833

Elon says a lot of things. Elon also brought out a person in a robot costume to dance. I stand by it takes giant leaps to think Tesla is an AI company at this stage and them collecting data doesn’t change that.

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#119

I'm not sure folks understand the comm arch in a Tesla. CAN probably still is the main way data are slogged around between ECUs (this info is five years old). CAN works by broadcasting data values at some periodic rate (1 PPS, 10 PPS, 100 PPS usually) and there is no 'publish/subscribe' except that all data are 'published' and any ECU can listen. What the other ECU does with the data, the originator doesn't know. If…

If every ECU has OTA update capability then how could the secure bus possibly be air gapped? You could attack it remotely via OTA updates to an ECU on that bus.

Re: Dutch forensic lab says it has decoded Tesla's driving data

#120
post #115
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be used to calculate the price of your car insurance. If the data is distinct enough, it could be used to identify the driver (with some degree of probability). It then could be shared with car insureres / law enforcement agencies / private investigators / random concerned citizens.

They can't, without your consent. The problem with google & fb is not primarily that they will share their data with 3rd parties (without your consent). It's that they will use it against you. E.g. they'll show the right adverts to nudge your behaviour in directions you may not want but for what they are being paid for. E.g. imagine a political party wanting to efficiently gain new supporters by converting those who…

Tesla is a for-profit company. It will monetize your private data to the best of it's abilities.
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