Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 373 posts

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#51

Post by vel0city »

I went to Carvana to get some idea on what my car might be worth. I gave them the license plate, and it gave me a questionnaire about specific trim and options along with asking about the current mileage. I couldn't remember the exact figure so I guessed rounded to the thousand. The app complained and wouldn't take it as they knew the mileage which was some 150ish miles more. Apparently my car has reported the mileage last time I drive it, which has been about an hour before.

Carvana knew exactly how many miles I had driven within an hour of me driving my car.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#52

Post by CamperBob2 »

bri3d wrote: post #48
CamperBob2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear the next version of Miata will be an encrypted CAN like most other cars have moved to As I understand it, they're required to do that now if they want to sell in the EU. They emphatically do not want anyone tinkering with their cars.

They don’t want people modifying ADAS systems mostly, and the main requirement is SecOC, which is cryptographic authentication but the message is still plaintext. Basically they don’t want third party modifications able to randomly send the “steer left” message to the steering rack, for example.

Yes, and to do that, CAN must be encrypted. The idea isn't just to secure it from hackers. The idea is to secure it from owners.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#53

Post by chneu »

DonHopkins wrote: post #8
more_corn wrote: post #6

Is there anything we can do about it short of avoiding new cars? Our legislators have proven unwilling to pass real privacy laws.

Ride a bike.

Not possible when things are 10+ mile apart and a general grocery run takes 3+ hours and you can't carry more than a backpack, so you have to do it multiple times a week.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#54

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

JoeBOFH wrote: post #29
Retric wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over half of New York City households are car-free. That jumps to 3/4 in Manhattan. Millions of American households don’t have a car, but you rarely hear about it as a viable option.

Because as soon as you leave a major metropolitan area, not having a car is almost a nonstarter.

Over 100 million people live in just the top 20 metro areas alone. It's hardly an edge case.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#55

Post by bri3d »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #52
bri3d wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t want people modifying ADAS systems mostly, and the main requirement is SecOC, which is cryptographic authentication but the message is still plaintext. Basically they don’t want third party modifications able to randomly send the “steer left” message to the steering rack, for example.

Yes, and to do that, CAN must be encrypted. The idea isn't just to secure it from hackers. The idea is to secure it from owners.

> SecOC, which is cryptographic authentication but the message is still plaintext

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#56

Post by chneu »

tguvot wrote: post #43

There is spying and there is spying Back in august IDF banned Chinese cars from entering bases https://www.jns.org/report-idf-bans-chinese-cars-from-bases-... And now banned then from used by officers https://securityboulevard.com/2025/11/why-israel-just-banned... I wonder what IDF knows

[flagged]

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#57

Post by CamperBob2 »

bri3d wrote: post #55
CamperBob2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and to do that, CAN must be encrypted. The idea isn't just to secure it from hackers. The idea is to secure it from owners.

> SecOC, which is cryptographic authentication but the message is still plaintext

Oh, OK, that's better. I can see what my car is doing, I just can't do anything about it.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#59

Post by emidln »

M95D wrote: post #49
emidln wrote: post #20

My 2025 Mazda Miata has a CAN connected Telematics Control Unit that sends a bunch of data to Mazda on ignition off. Among this data is acceleration and velocity data along with coordinates sampled for where you were. It is also used as a gateway for the Mazda app to start your car, query your vehicle's tire pressure, etc. It is claimed that you can opt out of this by calling Mazda and being persistent. The CAN traff…

> The CAN traffic is unencrypted. It was pretty easy to MITM this module with a cheap arm Linux board And you didn't poison their databases and statistics with fake data?? OMG, I'm thinking of buying one of these cars just for this opportunity! (No, I'm not.)

I suspect this data is made "anonymous" and sold to insurance companies and misc data brokers. If it's linked to my insurance company, I don't want to jack my rates. Further, I've thus far avoided a CFAA conviction and I'd like to keep it that way.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#60

Post by [deleted] »

emidln wrote: post #20

My 2025 Mazda Miata has a CAN connected Telematics Control Unit that sends a bunch of data to Mazda on ignition off. Among this data is acceleration and velocity data along with coordinates sampled for where you were. It is also used as a gateway for the Mazda app to start your car, query your vehicle's tire pressure, etc. It is claimed that you can opt out of this by calling Mazda and being persistent. The CAN traff…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN