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Has anybody built a website with easy instructions for finding and disabling the cellular modems in various models of cars?
> Numerous automakers (e.g. General Motors) have likewise shown presentations stating that data acquisition would soon become an important revenue source for the industry. Does anyone have any links referencing these presentations? I know selling data to data brokers is a hot topic, but from my (extremely limited) exposure to this topic in the industry I got the impression that the actual value of such data was almos…
Programmers and technical people should store this data hoarding fetisj. “Just in case” or “will be very valuable in the future” are bad reasons
Has anybody built a website with easy instructions for finding and disabling the cellular modems in various models of cars?
Predictably, manufacturers keep making this harder and harder. They make money from the data and don't want to lose that. In my old corvette, it was a simple as pulling fuse 27. In the 2022 model that breaks other things (compass, Bluetooth), so I’m going to go find the lte antenna connectors and replace them with 50ohm resistors whenever I have a free weekend next.
I don't care if it stops maps from being downloaded--most cars have vastly inferior navigation software compared to phones.
> The real impact will be the financial handicap that comes with an inability to harvest and then sell customer data to commercial partners. Handicaps are relative. The carmakers just don’t get to make money a new way. There are many ways they don’t get to make more money. Not an actual problem to anyone.
Alternatively: without this new source of revenue, auto manufacturers will be less able to compete on price and maintain the same margins. As a consumer, I don't get to decide whether I'd like a "repairable" car that doesn't harvest my data for $X, or am willing to settle for a data-harvesting, proprietary vehicle for $(X - Y) - the state has made that choice on my behalf and decided the latter should be illegal to s…
> The real impact will be the financial handicap that comes with an inability to harvest and then sell customer data to commercial partners. Handicaps are relative. The carmakers just don’t get to make money a new way. There are many ways they don’t get to make more money. Not an actual problem to anyone.
Alternatively: without this new source of revenue, auto manufacturers will be less able to compete on price and maintain the same margins. As a consumer, I don't get to decide whether I'd like a "repairable" car that doesn't harvest my data for $X, or am willing to settle for a data-harvesting, proprietary vehicle for $(X - Y) - the state has made that choice on my behalf and decided the latter should be illegal to s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alternatively: without this new source of revenue, auto manufacturers will be less able to compete on price and maintain the same margins. As a consumer, I don't get to decide whether I'd like a "repairable" car that doesn't harvest my data for $X, or am willing to settle for a data-harvesting, proprietary vehicle for $(X - Y) - the state has made that choice on my behalf and decided the latter should be illegal to s…
r.e. the state deciding for you - this was a statewide ballot measure, and passed with ~75% of the vote.
> Subaru’s problem is that no such standardized system yet exists, forcing it (and eventually other brands) to have to nix its Starlink telematics offerings and related data harvesting. It does exist, it's called J1939 and it is popular already in trucks and non european truck-like consumer vehicles i.e. pickups. It also allows the effortless integration of aftermarket systems like F+R sonar emergency braking, traile…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alternatively: without this new source of revenue, auto manufacturers will be less able to compete on price and maintain the same margins. As a consumer, I don't get to decide whether I'd like a "repairable" car that doesn't harvest my data for $X, or am willing to settle for a data-harvesting, proprietary vehicle for $(X - Y) - the state has made that choice on my behalf and decided the latter should be illegal to s…
r.e. the state deciding for you - this was a statewide ballot measure, and passed with ~75% of the vote.
So I guess taking the traditional Ancap question about free markets, and reapplying it, it's reasonable to ask: how can regulation that is the result of people's free voting choices not itself be considered free?
And then you can get into whatever responses people have to that question in general about whether free choices can result in coercive structures that are worth opposing, which is not really my point here. My point is, I don't really see a huge fundamental difference between a free market deciding that a product isn't worth producing and a free democracy deciding that a product isn't worth producing. I don't see why one should inherently be viewed as more legitimate than the other.
If the voters don't want automobile manufacturers to violate their privacy, and they want to pass a law about it, that's their choice as a community. It seems just as valid of a choice as anything else the free market could produce.
One is a system called DriverFocus that monitors the drivers face, runs some sort of facial recognition software, and alerts anytime it doesn't think the driver's face is paying enough attention. Unsurprisingly it's horribly buggy and has a ton of false positives, but even worse: you can't disable it! There's a setting in the menu that will turn it off for that trip, but it will turn itself back on during a future start.
To make it even worse, some models can't be purchased without it now. I can only imagine what the company will be doing with that facial data down the line. I absolutely don't want a car that constantly spies on my face in a way that can't even be turned off.
Between that feature, this telemetry article, and some other anti-user features it's incredible what a customer hostile company Subaru has become. It's a shame because they used to be one of my favorites.