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Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

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Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#211

Post by hosteur »

tomrod wrote: post #6

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.

> How can this be stopped, from a technical perspective?

It can't. Not realistically.

It can be stopped by legislation. But that would require politicians who have our interests as a priority rather than the various industries. So not going to happen anytime soon.

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#213

Post by KurSix »

bitparadox wrote: post #34

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…

At that point "opt out" starts to feel like a UI feature rather than an actual description of what the car is doing

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#214

Post by KurSix »

torginus wrote: post #76
bitparadox wrote: post #34

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…

Tangential, but one of the concerns I have about these 'smart' cars is they have an expiration deadline. 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 t…

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Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#215

Post by teekert »

It's a complete shadow economy, users don't want it and mostly don't know it. But sometimes it surfaces, ie we had a public gathering in my village about the plans to restructure one of our main streets, since people don't feel safe walking an biking there naturally we want it 1 way or 30 km/u. In response rhe person from the municipality whipped up some graphs with speed profiles along the street as it is now. Naturally I ask how they get that data and he says "you can just order it online, I think from Google and Apple originally? Oh, yeah sometimes you can identify things, like a cop once speeded along this road and he could see his datapoint (a far outlier)!" Nobody saw any problem with this. And it's such a small step away from direct actions based on this data (although people would probably take action themselves the moment they understand there are direct downsides for them.)

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#216

Post by KurSix »

tomrod wrote: post #6

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.

It should be as mundane as pulling the SIM card from a phone (or must be)

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#217

Post by KurSix »

hosteur wrote: post #211
tomrod wrote: post #6

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.

> How can this be stopped, from a technical perspective? It can't. Not realistically. It can be stopped by legislation. But that would require politicians who have our interests as a priority rather than the various industries. So not going to happen anytime soon.

You probably can't make this reliable across every modern car without breaking something, but that's different from technically impossible

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#218

Post by teekert »

KurSix wrote: post #213
bitparadox wrote: post #34

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…

At that point "opt out" starts to feel like a UI feature rather than an actual description of what the car is doing

Right?! There is so much of this! In my country, for financial products, there needs to be a very clear label with some obligatory fields (we don't allow pharma commercials, but I think Americans know this as the details rattled off after a pharma commercial). It's time we get this for any tech. Companies just let you opt-out, but some weasel words in the terms and conditions let them still do 90% what they did before you hit the switch.

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#219

Post by b0rtb0rt »

aceazzameen wrote: post #172
Loughla wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if I'm unconscious?

Other drivers will phone it in. This isn't a concern for me at all, but I suppose it could be if you lived in a low population area.

other drivers will assume someone else already called it in and drive past

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#220

Post by surcap526 »

bitparadox wrote: post #34

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…

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