Texas sues GM for unlawfully collecting and selling drivers' private data [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Texas sues GM for unlawfully collecting and selling drivers' private data [pdf]

#141

Post by Bloating » Wed, Aug 14, 2024, 9:27 PM UTC

14 wrote: post #64

nullfield wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what else does it break-break, even if you do kill the antenna, more that just the annoyance of a light? Integrated GPS, because it uses cellular to “enhance” that? What other risks are there? Haven’t we seen CAN bus “hacked” over the air to shut down vehicles before? (Even ignoring the intentional ability to do so by the OEM, granted to law enforcement)

In my opinion who cares if it breaks the car gps. I have my phone that already does this function and never needed my car to do this. I would a thousand time over delete my car gps if it meant no tracking.

So you perfer your phone to track you rather than your car

Re: Texas sues GM for unlawfully collecting and selling drivers' private data [pdf]

#142

Post by jltsiren » Wed, Aug 14, 2024, 9:28 PM UTC

hansvm wrote: post #93

jordanb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, the entire port of insurance is to spread risk. If the the market for insurance is "too efficient" at determining who is high-risk and who is not, then it is no longer fulfilling its social function. Secondly, you seem to be implying that only aggressive drivers are getting flagged by the data. But the computer doesn't know if you accelerate and brake hard because you're an aggressive driver, or if your circ…

> If the the market for insurance is "too efficient" at determining who is high-risk and who is not, then it is no longer fulfilling its social function. Then we need to break whatever that social function is away from the umbrella of "insurance." Mandatory car insurance is predicated on the fact that you can pay enough on average to cover your damages to others but might not be able to do so in the worst case. If we…

Mandatory car insurance is essentially a welfare benefit. The benefit is just administered by insurance companies, because they are believed to be more efficient than the government. (This is pretty common for all kinds of benefits around the world.) Mandatory insurance is not a private contract two parties have reached at their own initiative, and the usual business considerations don't apply. If an insurance company wants to provide mandatory car insurance, they must follow government policies, not their own policies.

If someone drives recklessly and causes excessive damage, the government has other tools beyond insurance premiums. They can, for example, revoke the license and confiscate the car. Or issue a fine or put the driver in prison.

Re: Texas sues GM for unlawfully collecting and selling drivers' private data [pdf]

#143

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Aug 14, 2024, 9:28 PM UTC

Scaevolus wrote: post #94

fooqux wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not just massive. It needs to be an order of magnitude more than they made from those deals. Too many times companies get slapped on the wrist for an amount considerably less than they made from their illicit activities. Which I never understood. Normal people that get caught doing things like selling stolen goods have to pay a fine on top of all money they may have made from selling it. Why aren't companies trea…

IIRC the amounts involved were absolutely pitiful compared to the reputational damage-- they were being paid on the order of $10/car/year.

What reputational damage?

I know it's a number that gets calculated on cybersecurity assessment sheets, but I've never seen it being in any way connected to reality. Best I can tell, the actual reputational damage is almost universally $0. Security breaches are non-actionable oopsies - unless your product is literally preventing such breaches[0], it's going to be seen as a random event that has no bearing on customers making their purchasing decisions. After all, it could've happened to anyone, and might just as well happen to any of the competitors, and it doesn't even impact any of the subjects directly.

--

[0] - And not even then - see e.g. CrowdStrike, who're busy turning the greatest security fuckup to date into a net positive event for them.

Re: Texas sues GM for unlawfully collecting and selling drivers' private data [pdf]

#144

Post by AmVess » Wed, Aug 14, 2024, 9:30 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #105

akira2501 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why aren't companies treated the same? It's more of a hostage negotiation. You want to hurt the company and it's owners, but if you sue too hard, you're likely to just hurt it's workers and it's customers. It's why preventing companies from reaching _anything near_ monopoly size is so important for corporate jurisprudence. "Too big to fail" is just the tip of this insane iceberg we've allowed to grow into our econo…

>You want to hurt the company and it's owners No. What you'd really want if you really wanted to fix things is to hurt the top and mid-managers who decided to commit those offenses. Unfortunately it almost never happens.

The only way to fix things is to drag the occupants of the c-suite into civil court and start dropping massive fines on their heads. Do that, and this type of behavior would vanish within days.

Re: Texas sues GM for unlawfully collecting and selling drivers' private data [pdf]

#145

Post by mrcsharp » Wed, Aug 14, 2024, 9:38 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #105

akira2501 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why aren't companies treated the same? It's more of a hostage negotiation. You want to hurt the company and it's owners, but if you sue too hard, you're likely to just hurt it's workers and it's customers. It's why preventing companies from reaching _anything near_ monopoly size is so important for corporate jurisprudence. "Too big to fail" is just the tip of this insane iceberg we've allowed to grow into our econo…

>You want to hurt the company and it's owners No. What you'd really want if you really wanted to fix things is to hurt the top and mid-managers who decided to commit those offenses. Unfortunately it almost never happens.

Don't forget the board. Top managers are made to break the law due to demands of infinite growth.

Re: Texas sues GM for unlawfully collecting and selling drivers' private data [pdf]

#146

Post by bobthepanda » Wed, Aug 14, 2024, 9:39 PM UTC

devman0 wrote: post #129

jajko wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but if you really optimize it to ad absurdum, everybody will pay according to damages they will cause, negating whole point of 'socialized' spread-across-variable-population insurance. End users shouldn't generally want insurance to run over-optimally, that benefits just shareholders of given insurance and not population overall. That I consider myself above-average driver changes absolutely nothing in this. And…

Hot take: maybe that is actually desirable? If insurance has a plethora of good actuarial information and risk modeling, and one's insurance costs are high, that's the market telling that person that they probably shouldn't be driving. If high insurance costs promote alternate means of transportation for highly risky drivers, that's a net win for everyone on the road.

the point of insurance is to make sure if you get into a crash with somebody else and they are at fault, that they even have the means to pay you in the first place. if forced to, people make the decision to drive uninsured because it is nigh impossible to travel around this country otherwise, and then it's worse when they do get into an accident and cannot pay the other driver's costs. you can't squeeze blood from a stone.

this is also partially the reasoning behind ACA requiring health insurance; hospitals were struggling because they could not collect from people with no money that were winding up in the ER.

Re: Texas sues GM for unlawfully collecting and selling drivers' private data [pdf]

#147

Post by mjevans » Wed, Aug 14, 2024, 9:44 PM UTC

subsubzero wrote: post #41

Fun fact, as a owner of a GMC auto I got a innocent looking email about the discontinuation of the Onstar Smart driver service which was the service in question that violated many US laws and sent data to insurance companies without customers authorization. I hope this hits GM really hard as this type of behavior will never cease until massive amounts of money is extracted from the perpetrators(GM etc).

I'd be fine with letting the company get to choose between a sufficiently large fine, and board level executives who encouraged the behavior going to jail for real durations of time.

They can pick one of three choices: Don't be evil. Pay more than they made. Go to jail for the same duration of time as having stolen Option 2's money, and not the scapegoats, people actually in charge.

Re: Texas sues GM for unlawfully collecting and selling drivers' private data [pdf]

#148

Post by beambot » Wed, Aug 14, 2024, 9:45 PM UTC

stainablesteel wrote: post #101

subsubzero wrote: post #41

Fun fact, as a owner of a GMC auto I got a innocent looking email about the discontinuation of the Onstar Smart driver service which was the service in question that violated many US laws and sent data to insurance companies without customers authorization. I hope this hits GM really hard as this type of behavior will never cease until massive amounts of money is extracted from the perpetrators(GM etc).

its not just that i don't want electronics built into cars i don't want data coming from my car i don't need a phone to be built into my car i don't need navigation to be built into my car they need to stay in their lane we need anti-enshittification laws

Let's add "renewable energy sources" for good measure.

Then the only viable solution is a horse. Ha!

Re: Texas sues GM for unlawfully collecting and selling drivers' private data [pdf]

#149

Post by steelframe » Wed, Aug 14, 2024, 9:49 PM UTC

When it came time for me to buy my most recent car I made a list of requirements. If I couldn't find a car that meet them I was resolved to not bother buying a car at all. The requirement at the top of the list was, "It doesn't spy on me." I ended up finding one that checked all the boxes once I removed its Data Communications Module (DCM) fuse.

Re: Texas sues GM for unlawfully collecting and selling drivers' private data [pdf]

#150

Post by dontlikeyoueith » Wed, Aug 14, 2024, 9:50 PM UTC

EvanAnderson wrote: post #140

akira2501 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why aren't companies treated the same? It's more of a hostage negotiation. You want to hurt the company and it's owners, but if you sue too hard, you're likely to just hurt it's workers and it's customers. It's why preventing companies from reaching _anything near_ monopoly size is so important for corporate jurisprudence. "Too big to fail" is just the tip of this insane iceberg we've allowed to grow into our econo…

> You want to hurt the company and it's owners... The owners of big companies include lots of pension plans, index funds, etc. Hurting those owners, who didn't have any say in the bad decisions, is probably not what we want. Jail for executives who approve or have knowledge of illegal activities sounds good to me.

> Jail for executives who approve or have knowledge of illegal activities sounds good to me.

But then who would write the campaign contribution checks on which our government depends to survive?