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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

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most horrible part this crime is I read somewhere That the amount the car companies get for spying on your locations is some pathetic paltry amount like $1-$5 one time. These car companies sell you out to insurance companies and such so they can collect data and use it AGAINST you. Ghouls everywhere now. Random Public data: Honda sold data on roughly 97,000 cars to Verisk for $25,920—amounting to about 26 cents p…

That doesn’t smell right. Why develop the telemetry and go to all of the trouble for such a paltry return? That probably wouldn’t even cover the legal consulation to cover their ass, much less go through the trouble of implementing and selling the telemetry. It would be cheaper to do nothing if that were true.

Telemetry is used to push service, which is the big money maker for dealerships. Roadside assistance, maps subscriptions, driving data for market research.

Selling it is pure icing on top.

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most horrible part this crime is I read somewhere That the amount the car companies get for spying on your locations is some pathetic paltry amount like $1-$5 one time. These car companies sell you out to insurance companies and such so they can collect data and use it AGAINST you. Ghouls everywhere now. Random Public data: Honda sold data on roughly 97,000 cars to Verisk for $25,920—amounting to about 26 cents p…

That doesn’t smell right. Why develop the telemetry and go to all of the trouble for such a paltry return? That probably wouldn’t even cover the legal consulation to cover their ass, much less go through the trouble of implementing and selling the telemetry. It would be cheaper to do nothing if that were true.

There are less questionable things they can do with all that data: I'm sure it's really useful to figure out how electrical and mechanical faults correlate with driving conditions / weather / region etc. The result from this is just a better car in the next iteration.

Then someone offers them $1 each for a fleet of 1M cars, who is going to turn down $1M for a few TB of data?

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#233
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS uses a different frequency and a very weak signal. The antenna is typically separate from the others but it's very small 1. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/gnss-chip-antenna-hooku...

I thought most would use their “shark fin” on the roof for everything (if there is one but there usually is). Terminating on the other end somewhere with a color coded FAKRA connector.

That's quite far away for the weak GPS signal over RF cable, but they still do it. Or maybe the GPS unit and LTE modem are also in the shark fin or nearby and they use a serial, CAN FD/XL or single pair ethernet connection to it? Another choice is in the center of the dashboard under the winshield or under the mirror.

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#234
post #5

Another reason to use a car from 90's or 2000's.. Also they wont burn oil like a modern car + more durable and repairable metal parts. https://youtu.be/Ft12aZffCEg?si=qP1J5k6RXAxmZChf https://youtu.be/SeMZGICNSMg?si=-YLnt5Q477xpFbra https://youtu.be/8Kp108x4tQA?si=j7JV-_Dpl5afP99F

I am driving a vehicle from the 90s. Works very well. Old British Vehicle so it leaks out oil everywhere but any vehicle that is more the 20 years old will be leaking oil. Have significantly less problems than the car I sold (which was 20 years newer).

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#235
post #5

Another reason to use a car from 90's or 2000's.. Also they wont burn oil like a modern car + more durable and repairable metal parts. https://youtu.be/Ft12aZffCEg?si=qP1J5k6RXAxmZChf https://youtu.be/SeMZGICNSMg?si=-YLnt5Q477xpFbra https://youtu.be/8Kp108x4tQA?si=j7JV-_Dpl5afP99F

>Another reason to use a car from 90's or 2000's Talking as an eastern european: unless you live in a sunshine place (~Mediterranean) most of the 90s car already eaten by the rust + the salt used for defrosting on roads in the winter. Also by my experience cars (except from SUVs) somehow never kept up with the road quality. Pot holes are a problem everywhere but you can see that certain brands for example japanese an…

> Talking as an eastern european: unless you live in a sunshine place (~Mediterranean) most of the 90s car already eaten by the rust + the salt used for defrosting on roads in the winter.

You can still find good examples in the UK where we have salted roads. I've paid for mine to be dinitroled. Pot holes etc are a problem here and they will affect newer vehicles too and used to go through a tyre a winter.

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find the telematic's antenna, and put a 50ohm resistor across it. It can scream into it's own private void.

It seems like this is not enough: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/simpler-solution-for-dis... The most reliable way to permanently silence the cellular modem is to pull the relevant fuse. In the above case, this also disables the microphone, which I think is a positive. Unplugging the DCM entirely, however, seems to disable to right speaker, which is wired through the DCM for some reason.

>Unplugging the DCM entirely, however, seems to disable to right speaker, which is wired through the DCM for some reason.

I'm cynical, but unnecessarily coupling the ability to send telemetry with some feature people definitely want seems like exactly the sort of thing that would be done intentionally.

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#238
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mileage went from VW->telematics vendor->broker->carfax, thats the chain it usually follows. The fuse stops it but the real issue is the owner is the only one without the record. You could probably find some interesting info if you send out some privacy requests through the chain. LexisNexis and Verisk are consumer reporting agencies, so they have to provide you a disclosure on request. Start there.

Is there usually a fuse that just turns off the telemetry? I would be surprised if that is the case. I could see the design being "if you turn this fuse off to turn off telemetry, you'll also lose these functions: ..." and if they did it "right" they'd make the car non-functional. My car is from 2011 and I do wonder if there is any telemetry in it.

Just looked up my 2016 Toyota. My car has no telemetry module, and for cars that do there are companies that sell harnesses that plug into the module, terminating the antennas and/or cutting power without affecting anything else

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Good god thats a bleak thought, where do you live that people behave like that?!

Re: Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

#240
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN on average is a little behind on the general EU "privacy" stance (though I saw some recent topic about that here). EU was about privacy, a few decades ago. Nowadays it did a complete U-turn and legislates mandatory anti-privacy union-wide laws every year. - Chat Control law, now all messaging must be intercepted and monitored. - eIDAS law, mandating that web-browser vendors must now accept state issued root certif…

Breathtaking levels of misinformation here. There is no EU law that mandates "all messaging must be intercepted and monitored." There is no EU law mandating permanent, non-disableable cameras and microphones in cars. ProtectEU is not a law, not related to email and does not demand any "backdoors." The AI Act bans real-time facial/biometric recognition in public places... which is a good thing. It does not "legalize A…

Two can play this game.

Chat Control - a) it is a law, mandatory in whole EU (because it is a "EU Regulation", and that is a law); b) I was indeed to broad and made a mistake, for now only not E2EE messages must be intercepted and monitored. E2EE is on a the chopping block in Chat Control 2.0 which is being drafted, in progress.

Advanced Driver Distraction Warning (ADDW) - a) it is EU Regulation and so it is a law; b) ADDW mandates a non-disableable surveillance camera (not sure about microphone) inside a car.

ProtectEU is indeed Chat Control plus extra, so here I was incorrect. Encrypted emails are temporarily safe, until Chat Control 2.0 is passed. And given how they bruteforced CC 1.0 in multiple blatant retries, it will eventually pass.

Regarding EU AI Act you are replying to something I didn't write. Sure it doesn't allow real-time surveillance. I wrote that it does allow surveillance over the recorded materials. This technicality allows passing all video through storage, then monitor suspects via AI programs all without judicial approvals.

And finally EMFA does authorize deployment of the spyware against journalists in cases of investigating a crime carrying 3= years penalty. Do I need to spell out how laughable that is? Practically any national security crime carry similar or heavier penalties and govt. can start a very broad and arbitrary investigation for any reason. This means that the matter of starting surveillance is a small technicality really with zero oversight.

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