71–80 of 276 posts
How can this be stopped, from a technical perspective? Can I wrap the comms in a Faraday cage? Obviously it would be better to have this action be illegal. But with legal privacy protections eroding in the US and other countries, it seems prudent to have a better understanding of the systems involved in the immoral surveillance.
I posted a flavor of this comment on an article a few months ago, but it's relevant here: I have a seven year old Volkswagen, not financed. I'm security conscious and made sure to disable all the data collection I could find in the companion app before removing my account, turn off remote access services, dig through the infotainment to turn off what I could, etc. Last year I requested a Carfax on it, and one of the…
All it would need is a wi-fi antenna internally, and then it could connect to an open wi-fi network anywhere. And it's going to be pretty much impossible to avoid ever driving your car within range of some open network.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I want a car that doesn't collect the data, not one that gives a pinky promise not to sell still collected data.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but it's not going to be market based if you look at any recent trends. Interest in privacy is unfortunately a niche concern outside of places like HN.
Anyone who has tried to market a privacy oriented product knows what I am talking about.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you need remote access to your car? What updates does your car need?
You can do stuff like like turn it on to heat or cool the cabin, live track it's location, lock/unlock doors, open/close trunk, and updates are mostly for the infotainment systemn and driving assists. Their is a cell modem in the car, so all these features are available anywhere the car has cell service.
Are any of those things more important than your security (e.g., against hackers) and privacy?
I posted a flavor of this comment on an article a few months ago, but it's relevant here: I have a seven year old Volkswagen, not financed. I'm security conscious and made sure to disable all the data collection I could find in the companion app before removing my account, turn off remote access services, dig through the infotainment to turn off what I could, etc. Last year I requested a Carfax on it, and one of the…
"Resistance is futile." See also: LG TVs, etc.
I posted a flavor of this comment on an article a few months ago, but it's relevant here: I have a seven year old Volkswagen, not financed. I'm security conscious and made sure to disable all the data collection I could find in the companion app before removing my account, turn off remote access services, dig through the infotainment to turn off what I could, etc. Last year I requested a Carfax on it, and one of the…
There's an exceedingly common type of failure I have seen myself in industrial electronics and (has happened with Tesla at least once), that some module keeps a log of some kind in a nonvolatile flash, and this flash has a limited lifecycle, which the equipment reaches at some years into its life (or earlier, if the flash came from a bad batch, or more logging happens than planned).
At this point the board usually gets bricked and replacement is very hard due to cryptographic handshakes between components.
I notice that not one comment here, nor the article, notes that this doesn't happen with a Tesla.
I posted a flavor of this comment on an article a few months ago, but it's relevant here: I have a seven year old Volkswagen, not financed. I'm security conscious and made sure to disable all the data collection I could find in the companion app before removing my account, turn off remote access services, dig through the infotainment to turn off what I could, etc. Last year I requested a Carfax on it, and one of the…
This is never enough. You can't trust a software switch. You need to remove the hardware capability if you want to make sure the car isn't spying on you. In the best case, the telematics box has it's own fuse, and that may be enough. In other cases, you need to find the box and unplug it. The service manual will have it's location. In some cars it's easily accessible, in others less so and you need to remove the glove box or part of the dash. Dealers will probably refuse to do it, my advice would be to DIY or find an independent mechanic who will do it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try finding the fuse and pulling it. It will be in the manual.
I would be very surprised if it was that simple - systems in modern cars are so interlinked that I would expect that pulling a fuse would cause something else to break, resulting in dash lights or broken functionality.
I notice that not one comment here, nor the article, notes that this doesn't happen with a Tesla.