Cars collect a startling amount of data about you • Hacker News Board

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#301

Post by PNewling » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:08 AM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #243

noir_lord wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also akin to Roko's basilisk's - the people who don't realise how pervasive and invasive it has become seem the happiest while the ones like us who've often been around computers since the 80's and just watched our society sleep walk into it feel the worst. That many of us then end up working for the companies doing it makes for a bad feeling across the industry.

Except unlike Roko's basilisk, this is not absurd pseudo-game-theory extrapolation based on the hypothetical existence of a supreme superintelligence that is simultaneously infinitely vengeful, infinitely omniscient, and infintely omnimpotent; instead it's just the same authoritarian corporate-backed police-state privacy encroachment that has been tightening around our throats for years.

This is a very pithy comment so I apologize in advance, and I agree with you completely, but all I can think at this moment is:

"The real Roko's Basilisk is the corporate surveillance state we made along the way"

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#302

Post by allthetime » Sat, May 30, 2026, 5:26 AM UTC

J_Shelby_J wrote: post #270

allthetime wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this accounting for the production of batteries and electrical components? That asked, some things I do for myself, and self-propelling is great for my health and longevity.

Yes. I wrote a paper on it a long time ago. Even on the lowest carbon footprint, vegan, diet and even with coal power and even accounting for production and lifetime costs, electric bicycles have a smaller footprint than walking or traditional bicycles. Probably even more so now as the numbers I were using were 20 years ago when e-bikes were not fully enjoying economies of scale. E-bikes are really power efficient, a…

I wait impatiently for the vegan e-biker dominated future

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#303

Post by bflesch » Sat, May 30, 2026, 7:38 AM UTC

cogogo wrote: post #294

coldtea wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I did check but did not find the reference. What exactly are you quoting? I mean man, I didn't ask you to search for my verbatim quote (it's an one-off llm answer). Search for her SSN. You can google it, it's here on the first page under "'Application Info" for example: https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01653... Also in meta pages about the documents: https://github.com/rhowardstone/Epstein-res…

I genuinely gave you the benefit of the doubt. I used duck duck go and searched several combinations of related terms and also asked chat gpt, “man”. And found nothing. Why would you quoting an “one-off llm answer” as a fact remotely be responsible? We all know how reliable that is. Why would you not cite your source in the first place “man”? This is straight up conspiracy theory BS but I wanted to understand where y…

She is British citizen and received the vanity SSN with her first H1B visa application which was done through one of Epstein's companies. Her family was involved with the software for identity management.

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#304

Post by Rounin » Sat, May 30, 2026, 8:07 AM UTC

A lot of articles and videos are reporting on this, but so far there's very little comprehensive information about what brands don't do this.

Clearly, the 25 major brands examined by Mozilla collect a ton of data. Allegedly, BYD does so as well.

What about the Slate truck? Was that even released? What about some of the Indian brands? Surely there's some useful car being produced somewhere that's just a car?

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#305

Post by cwmoore » Sat, May 30, 2026, 2:26 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #277

cwmoore wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how your comment relates to the one it is replying to except to appear to reject its argument in favor of another train of thought. Politics is playdoh. Tax the bots for UBI.

There are many Americans who care about politics. They vote despite not needing to. They often discuss it.

Oh.

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#306

Post by Summershard » Sun, May 31, 2026, 3:25 PM UTC

nbernard wrote: post #114

isodev wrote: post #25

It was totally predictable, unfortunately. At least in the EU it’s quite illegal and even if a car maker slips something in, GDPR is always there so one can request a copy and have it deleted. Wish the regulation was even stricter though.

At the same time, EU mandates that new cars must have a system able to call help if it detects a crash with the driver not responding... And I suspect most manufacturers will argue that telemetry data are not PIIs until taken to court, so since they have to put a cellular connection anyway, why not use it?

You actually don’t need any data plan to call emergency services, 112 is literally baked into the GSM standard. As long as the phone (or car) can connect to a network, it can call 112. It doesn’t even need a SIM card.

A side note, though. This SIM-less emergency calls are blocked in some countries because there were a lot of fake calls. Some other countries put such calls on a less important list of calls. Many countries in EU do allow them, though.

So, car manufacturers could just put in the cellular capabilities without connecting to any network. They just don’t want to.

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#307

Post by fergie » Mon, Jun 01, 2026, 6:05 AM UTC

manincharge wrote: post #237

fergie wrote: post #109

What I actually want is a no-tech, half-price, electric car with a long range.

No-tech car is a contradiction in terms. Even horse carriages are "tech".

Fair. What I mean is no internet connectivity, and no electronics outside of the drivetrain.