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U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

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Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#81

Post by [deleted] »

kstrauser wrote: post #34
cogman10 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'd HAPPILY report every single truck rolling coal around me if there was a place to report that information. Hell, I've seen a truck roll coal around cop cars and, obviously, nothing happened. This is just gross privacy intrusion masquerading as "protecting the environment". We don't need 100% compliance to the law and simple prosecution/ticketing of obvious violations would go a long way towards solving the p…

I watched a pickup roll coal in the middle of freaking East Bay, literally within site of downtown San Francisco, on a bicyclist. I reported their license to the California Air Resources Board, and not longer after that I saw it up on jacks in a neighborhood auto shop. That made my day. Asshole.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#82

Post by Tangurena2 »

kstrauser wrote: post #34
cogman10 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'd HAPPILY report every single truck rolling coal around me if there was a place to report that information. Hell, I've seen a truck roll coal around cop cars and, obviously, nothing happened. This is just gross privacy intrusion masquerading as "protecting the environment". We don't need 100% compliance to the law and simple prosecution/ticketing of obvious violations would go a long way towards solving the p…

I watched a pickup roll coal in the middle of freaking East Bay, literally within site of downtown San Francisco, on a bicyclist. I reported their license to the California Air Resources Board, and not longer after that I saw it up on jacks in a neighborhood auto shop. That made my day. Asshole.

California is rather strict on emissions. Other states don't care. I used to work for my state's version of the DMV and the only public facing page where one could report things was to report people who would not register their cars locally (many people who purchase very expensive cars chose to register them in Montana). There used to be a web page to report license plates that were worn and needed replacing (like the reflective coating wore off, or all the paint got scratched off).

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#83

Post by cogman10 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #69
legitster wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on a bike ride with my young kid. We were going up a hill and being passed by a lifted diesel truck. I could tell that the driver was desperately working the throttle to avoid accidentally blowing smoke in my kids' face. Congratulations, buddy. You've designed your life around being such a massive unlikeable asshole to random strangers. But for a brief moment you understood shame. I'm generally pretty libertari…

> I'm generally pretty libertarian, but I'm all for throwing the book at these guys. To me that seems perfectly in line with being libertarian. One of the legitimate roles of the government is protecting people from violence by other people. Libertarians are not anarchists.

Not to my understanding. Libertarian protections are from my understanding all about the quantifiable damages that were done by any given action. They don't usually go beyond that.

That's why most libertarians would be in favor of blowing asbestos insulation with the thought that "well, eventually the mesothelioma victims will sue which will stop the practice". You couldn't preemptively sue, however, as you don't have any damage you could demonstrate until after the cancer starts.

There might be flavors of libertarians that aren't that way but it's my understanding that environmental protections is one of the weaker aspects of the libertarian mindset. Especially since it simply doesn't account for "all the damage is done and the people that did the damage are now gone".

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#84

Post by goolz »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #30
goolz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The saddest part is, most people simply do not care, my parents constantly echo the sentiment that if I have nothing to hide, I have nothing to fear. I would argue this slippery slope came about 20+ years ago during the initial Patriot Act. They normalize the behavior, take a few more freedoms, and keep on trucking. I used to be proud to be American. Now I am just worried.

I understand why they don't care and I don't fault them. The truth is that this doesn't affect most people in their daily lives. It sounds entitled to say that this demands their attention.

A totally fair point, and I think you are correct, wish I knew a solid answer. Because their indifference is watering down all of our rights.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#85

Post by jjk166 »

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #44

The Department of justice needs witnesses because they’re trying to prove that ez lynk is profiting from the distribution of “emission disabling software” They are not going after any of these individual users. Tldr: they’re trying to get the mod taken off the market.

That's the narrative. In reality, you don't need a list of every user to find a handful of witnesses. This is very clearly a power play - the feds can't make their case so they're making distributing the app a major PR headache for the platforms distributing the app. Apple and google will quietly change their user agreements to not permit these sorts of apps on their stores. The company's leadership will likely escape prosecution but their business will be crippled if not destroyed despite not being proved guilty of violating any law.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#86

Post by [deleted] »

legitster wrote: post #49
ericmay wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DOJ first sued EZ Lynk in 2021, accusing the Cayman Islands-based company of violating the Clean Air Act by marketing and selling “defeat devices.” These tools allegedly allow users to bypass factory emissions controls on diesel vehicles, primarily through the EZ Lynk Auto Agent app paired with an onboard diagnostic (OBD) hardware dongle. Opponents say “Investigating this claim does not require identifying each p…

It's worth pointing out that EZ Lynk is a sleezy company that originally tried to hide behind a Section 230 protection (lol). Their more recent legal defense of the product was throwing their own users under the bus: "we can't control if our customers are using the product to break laws". So they are the ones who framed all of the customers as potential criminals.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#88

Post by [deleted] »

cogman10 wrote: post #21
embedding-shape wrote: post #3

> The government says it needs this information to identify and interview witnesses who can testify about how the tools were actually used. Why start this whole thing, if you don't already have this information and have people willing to help you as witnesses? Sounds to me they're saying they don't have this already, but why is this investigation happening in the first place then? Rather than finding every user of th…

Yeah, I'd HAPPILY report every single truck rolling coal around me if there was a place to report that information. Hell, I've seen a truck roll coal around cop cars and, obviously, nothing happened. This is just gross privacy intrusion masquerading as "protecting the environment". We don't need 100% compliance to the law and simple prosecution/ticketing of obvious violations would go a long way towards solving the p…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#89

Post by tylerchilds »

gruez wrote: post #68
tencentshill wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any device with Google services installed has all apps scanned at least once per day. >Real-time protections for non-Play installs Google Play Protect offers protection for apps that are installed from sources outside of Google Play. When a user tries to install an app, Play Protect conducts a real-time check of the app against known harmful or malicious samples that Google Play Protect has cataloged. https://develop…

>Any device with Google services installed has all apps scanned at least once per day. You can turn it off, so it's not "any". At best it's "most".

Also I daily drive graphene and that has no Google play services

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#90

Post by Denatonium »

VLM wrote: post #39
logicchains wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why F-Droid eventually won't work on new Android phones.

We're going to have two phones, the big brother phone you usually leave at home for banking apps and tax filing and boring stuff like that, locked down and nanny up, and the "real phone" from aliexpress or whatever that is purchased rooted and you actually live your real life upon. I would not be surprised to see double sided phone cases so we can carry our big brother phone with our real phone. There is some prior a…

Some of us are already doing this. My main phone is a Google Pixel 8 running LineageOS 23.2 with F-Droid, microG, and Aurora Store installed.

For things requiring Play Integrity, I picked up a $20 burner carrier-locked Motorola phone at Walmart for $30. It's WiFi-only, given that I'm never going to pay for service on it, but I can also tether it to my main phone. It's also useful for writing one-star reviews on apps that require Play Integrity to function, which is something everyone should be doing.

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