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Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

samcurry.net

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Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#81

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

duxup wrote: post #41
mavdi wrote: post #20

Not surprised. I've had a few interactions with Subaru connected services dev team as an external contractor from another car company, everyone was everyone else's cousin, friend, homeboy from India. Nepotism was rampant, no one wanted to listen to advice, a strong culture of corporate antibodies had formed. I'm surprised they even got it to work at this level.

I love my Subaru as far as reliability, all wheel drive performance in snow and ice, and such. But OMG it's consumer tech was dated when I bough it, and it's just full of inexplicable issues and caveats and such. Even just the limitations and the UX issues are so obvious that it sends a message that if they tried to fix them they would introduce just as many new issues. I'm at the point where despite the car being go…

Subaru infotainment is also very controlling. Want to use the keypad while you’re taking a phone call on the go? No, it won’t let you if the car is moving. You’ll need to use your phone’s UI. Other CarPlay cars don’t do this.

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#82

Post by TheCondor »

neeeeeeal wrote: post #11
plagiarist wrote: post #5

I wish that keeping this much data was a liability. I want companies to be liable for damages in the millions of dollars if they share an entire year's worth of location data without express permission from the vehicle owner. HIPAA for "just" PII.

This is the way. What legitimate interest could Subaru have in maintaining this much data about their customers?

Are you new?

That stuff is probably more valuable than many of us want to admit. There is the maybe more noble value: training data for maps, traffic analysis AI, engineering duty cycle data, things like that. Then there are the other uses, for example various surveys and studies are needed for new roads or signal changes, can this kind of data proxy for that? We would be talking about cutting millions of dollars out of some of these projects and months or even years off a timeline. Then the ad-tech, where do you put billboards and signage? Where do you build a shop? Probably other uses we aren’t even thinking about.

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#83

Post by fullofideas »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #58
fullofideas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked article is about a fraud conducted by a few bad apples. I can see people colluding with others that are similar to them for criminal activities - gangs, drug smuggling, and probably other frauds too. I am not sure how you inferred caste based nepotism among *all* indians in tech from that article.

For one, I didn't say "all Indians" are bad apples, just that the nepotism and cast issues are rampant enough that it's a know issue at this point in the tech industry where Indians are sometimes overrepresented. Secondly, do you expect people to post links to all cases of Indian nepotism/cast issues in the tech industry, when Google is at your fingertips with enough cases that it's not an isolated incident? That lin…

Fair enough that you did not say all Indians. But, your statement was broad enough to say nepotism is widespread among Indians in tech. And the article you linked was about fraud which doesn’t imply widespread nepotism in tech. I am not asking for articles for all instances but something that is more relevant to the point that you are making.

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#84

Post by quesera »

jeroenhd wrote: post #25
yapyap wrote: post #14

Buying a car that is connected to the internet sounds horrific.

You'll have a hard time avoiding it if you buy a new car: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/categor...

Wow, thanks for that link! I've been wishing for something exactly like this.

Mozilla Foundation's "Privacy Not Included" product review site

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#85

Post by spelunker »

duxup wrote: post #41
mavdi wrote: post #20

Not surprised. I've had a few interactions with Subaru connected services dev team as an external contractor from another car company, everyone was everyone else's cousin, friend, homeboy from India. Nepotism was rampant, no one wanted to listen to advice, a strong culture of corporate antibodies had formed. I'm surprised they even got it to work at this level.

I love my Subaru as far as reliability, all wheel drive performance in snow and ice, and such. But OMG it's consumer tech was dated when I bough it, and it's just full of inexplicable issues and caveats and such. Even just the limitations and the UX issues are so obvious that it sends a message that if they tried to fix them they would introduce just as many new issues. I'm at the point where despite the car being go…

I have a car from another Japanese manufacturer (Mazda) - their connected services app is weird and clunky and was down twice this month. And I'm expected to pay $10/month for this thing after the first year! Cmon.

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#86

Post by mmmlinux »

aftbit wrote: post #29
like_any_other wrote: post #2

> After reporting the vulnerability, the affected system was patched within 24 hours and never exploited maliciously. So 'only' Subaru, Starlink, their business and advertising partners, and law enforcement, can remotely track (and disable - don't think you can run from the law!) your car? > I didn’t realize this data was being collected, but it seemed that we had agreed to the STARLINK enrollment when we purchased i…

I was lucky to have the DCM in my 2019 Outback (which is responsible for cellular communication and thus this whole STARLINK thing) replaced with a bypass box under the warranty program related to the end of 3G service. My car was trying to go online 30 times an hour or something like that, draining the battery enough that it needed to be replaced after just 4 years. They don't have enough new DCMs so they were willi…

FWIW i never replaced the 3g box in my 2018 subaru, and never have a battery drain issue. the battery did fail about 4 years in to owning the car, but it was a cell failure not a drain issue.

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#87

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #26
mavdi wrote: post #20

Not surprised. I've had a few interactions with Subaru connected services dev team as an external contractor from another car company, everyone was everyone else's cousin, friend, homeboy from India. Nepotism was rampant, no one wanted to listen to advice, a strong culture of corporate antibodies had formed. I'm surprised they even got it to work at this level.

[flagged]

> Indians are some of the most racially nepotistic out there

I’ve heard this claim made often here but never observed it in real life. I think you and others who repeat this claim are confusing nepotism with just using one’s network to accelerate hiring. If someone happens to have a social or professional network mostly of one race, that doesn’t mean they’re automatically nepotistic when they draw from that network. Somehow this label rarely arises when white managers end up with mostly white teams. Why is that?

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#89

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

UltraSane wrote: post #71
fullofideas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked article is about a fraud conducted by a few bad apples. I can see people colluding with others that are similar to them for criminal activities - gangs, drug smuggling, and probably other frauds too. I am not sure how you inferred caste based nepotism among *all* indians in tech from that article.

I can only say that every Indian boss I got started hiring only Indians.

You’re making the same mistake others here are. People hire from their networks just like they hire referrals. If you worked in India or China or wherever, you probably know some talented people of those ethnicities just as a result of your experience. Using your network to hire those talented people is normal and not discriminatory. Everyone does it. Somehow Indians are singularly attacked for it on hacker news and all kinds of assumptions (like nepotism) are made with zero evidence.

Re: Hacking Subaru: Tracking and controlling cars via the admin panel

#90

Post by js2 »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #81
duxup wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my Subaru as far as reliability, all wheel drive performance in snow and ice, and such. But OMG it's consumer tech was dated when I bough it, and it's just full of inexplicable issues and caveats and such. Even just the limitations and the UX issues are so obvious that it sends a message that if they tried to fix them they would introduce just as many new issues. I'm at the point where despite the car being go…

Subaru infotainment is also very controlling. Want to use the keypad while you’re taking a phone call on the go? No, it won’t let you if the car is moving. You’ll need to use your phone’s UI. Other CarPlay cars don’t do this.

My 2017 Mazda with CarPlay does something similar. It truncates any lists (songs, podcast episodes, contacts, etc) that CarPlay displays to 10 items. All it does is incentivize folks to use their phone. It's incredibly annoying because the Mazda command dial for interacting with CarPlay is otherwise excellent and I don't think that limiting the list size does anything to reduce distraction.
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