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

141–150 of 373 posts

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

#141

Post by caconym_ »

rconti wrote: post #120

I think it's wild that people spend their own money to surveil themselves every second they're near their car. Maybe I've seen too much lawyering on TV and in movies, but if I'm in a collision with you, I'm definitely asking the cops to pull the SD card from your dashcam. Whenever I point out I think this self-surveillance is crazy, the response ends up sounding something like "oh, no big, if I think I did something…

Why do you think potentially self-incriminating self-surveillance is "crazy" when you also think lying to the cops and other involved parties about what happened is bad? If you believe it's important to tell the truth in these situations, you should have no problem providing your own recordings of a collision, regardless of who is at fault.

Or is your point just about the cost of the dashcam being "crazy"? In that case, hypothetically, what if your insurance company cut you a check to buy a dashcam of your own choice and install it on your car?

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

#143

Post by jimnotgym »

jeroenhd wrote: post #126
ryandrake wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that a 20 year old car is unsafe is auto industry FUD. Yes, there have been great safety advances since the 1970s and 1980s. They've kind of tapered off though. I would absolutely trust my family's lives in any year 2000+ vehicle.

Airbag and crumple zone safety requirements for crashes that aren't head-on are much more recent than the 2000s. Many car makers designed their cars to pass those, but will leave you dead or worse if you get T-boned. ABS wasn't even a requirement in the EU until 2004, and American cars could be sold without ABS all the way until 2012, when traction control was also made mandatory (which the EU then also followed). Th…

Of course, just because it wasn't a requirement to have ABS, doesn't mean your car doesn't have it...

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

#144

Post by jeroenhd »

chasing0entropy wrote: post #17

Remove the antennas. Do not give in to the mirage of convenience. Use a stand alone generic GPS. Vehicle GPS devices are anti privacy for so many reasons. Listen to stored music from an SD card if terrestrial radio (NO SATELLITE). Did you know almost ALL late model cars can play a TURN YOUR PHONE OFF. Your phone does more than track you - the Bluetooth and wifi beacon scanners are always running. When you come across…

> Did you know Orange dash error lights are non critical?

Your car will happily display an orange light while a bad fuel mixture is poisoning your catalytic converter to the point where it needs replacing to meet any kind of emissions test. Same with other signs of engine stress.

Don't ignore dash lights unless you know what they mean or you're willing to pay the cost of disposing of your car.

Of course many places won't even allow you to disconnect all the antennae as a non-functional TPMS makes your car unroadworthy in various jurisdictions. You could quickly reconnect everything and clear the error codes before testing, but I'm not sure if the hassle is even worth the illusion that of being untraceable.

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

#145

Post by elzbardico »

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.)

Oh man. Logging insane average speeds and ludicrous acceleration during rush hour. Deliciously tempting idea.

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

#146

Post by elzbardico »

monerozcash wrote: post #105
mindslight wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be an extremely totalitarian dynamic to be persecuted with the CFAA for modifying a device you own based on part of it having been (nonconsensually!) programmed by a third party to upload data to their own server. You own the device, so anything you do within that device is authorized. And the code that uploads the data is authorized to do so because it was put there by the same company that owns [controls]…

Prosecuting someone for deliberately injecting garbage data into another persons system hardly seems totalitarian. > You own the device, so anything you do within that device is authorized You're very clearly describing a situation where at least some of the things you're doing aren't happening on your own device. >I do know that the CFAA essentially gets interpreted to mean whatever the corpos want it to mean - it's…

My device. I generate whatever the fuck the data I want. If you log it, kiss my ass.

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

#149

Post by jeroenhd »

mindslight wrote: post #78
SoftTalker wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check your tire pressures when you get gas, along with your oil and other fluid levels. Eyeball the tires every time you get in the car. These habits are not hard to develop and they will work even when the sensors malfunction (which is not infrequently). All that these sensor-based systems do is train you to be an inattentive car owner.

Throughout my entire life, I don't know if I have ever seen anyone measuring their tire pressure or checking their oil at a gas station. Visually assessing tires can be quite misleading as well - my TPMS indicator was just on, visually it looked like one tire (its pressure was fine), and the tire that was 10psi low looked normal. Falling back to an attitude of not needing automation and instrumentation is a cope , an…

I don't see it often either, but my government has been very active trying to get people to do bi-monthly tire pressure checks at the very least.

I don't think most people know how to do it, to be honest. Partially because people seem to think reading two pages in a manual is some kind of sisyphean task that no mortal should ever be cursed with.

It's pretty crazy how little people care. Even if you don't care about the safety aspect, keeping your tires inflated well saves you a ton on fuel and tire replacements.

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

#150

Post by toofy »

jimnotgym wrote: post #39

Is all of this data collection from the driving aids actually us doing R&D for their autonomous car projects?

people participating as beta testers with no way to opt out is absolutely the norm now.

from video games to software to “self-driving” cars, we’re all unpaid beta testers for unfinished and often unsafe products.

Post reply on HN