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A CBP contract shows the risks in connecting your vehicle and your smartphone

theintercept.com

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Re: A CBP contract shows the risks in connecting your vehicle and your smartphone

#121

Post by vkou »

rthomas6 wrote: post #19
BlueDingo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, aside from the range like the GP said, will still be fully tracking all usage. Why does the car manufacturer get to see and sell my location information?

Aren't electric vehicles a lot simpler conceptually? No engine, no transmission, etc. Maybe someone could start a company that made the equivalent of a battery with wheels for very cheap.

> Maybe someone could start a company that made the equivalent of a battery with wheels for very cheap.

Those cars exist in India and China, but for some reason Americans don't want to buy them. It could be that outside of the techie bubble, nobody cares very much about this problem, and within the techie bubble, most people stop caring the moment that they can be the first person on their street to own a Tesla.

Re: A CBP contract shows the risks in connecting your vehicle and your smartphone

#122

Post by virtue3 »

Loughla wrote: post #89
jmnicolas wrote: post #54

So do I have to ride horses to get my privacy back now? I would totally buy a brand new car without all the "visible" electronics (by visible I mean all the screens and doodads. I don't mind ABS and other "invisible" electronics as long as they are reliable which is not a given nowadays). I don't get the point of turning the interior of a car into a smartphone experience. I watched a YT video of a Mercedess class S r…

Honestly, non-tactile buttons on a car seems ridiculous. You HAVE to look away from the road to do anything. Tactile buttons let you feel around to do things if you need to. That change has made zero sense to me.

Especially with the shit microcontrollers they put into the toyota mid range cars and their lack of responsiveness. Really forces you to look at the screen when you fidget with it.

Re: A CBP contract shows the risks in connecting your vehicle and your smartphone

#123

Post by yardie »

calvano915 wrote: post #85
FreakyT wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, this seems more like a UX problem than a "people don't value privacy" problem. No reasonable person would ever expect that connecting your phone to a car's wireless audio system would transfer all your contacts -- but that's Bluetooth for you!

Every phone I've ever had on every car system I've ever paired to via Bluetooth has requested permission for contact sync before it would happen. Windows Phone and Android. Perhaps iOS works differently.

It's the same for iOS. But, I'm also guilty, most users configure their bluetooth while leaving the parking lot. If you're reading the request you aren't looking at the road, and vice versa. I've been quick to press OK before fully reading what the car is asking simply because the car and the phone are asking similar questions.

Re: A CBP contract shows the risks in connecting your vehicle and your smartphone

#124

Post by mixmastamyk »

yardie wrote: post #57

One of the cars I rented (A Ford using the Sync console) had bluetooth contacts synced from the previous renter. It was just sitting there: names, phone numbers, addresses, email addresses. Being privacy conscious I deleted the contacts and the 20+ bluetooth profiles stored in the console.

"Deleting" is probably not good enough in modern devices with cheap copious storage.

Re: A CBP contract shows the risks in connecting your vehicle and your smartphone

#125

Post by kingsuper20 »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #93
userbinator wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's only sales of new cars? Otherwise I can't imagine the classic car community is going to be happy about that... And laws like that will just make even older vehicles more desirable.

There's already a classic car exception from a lot of road rules, there's a special numberplate for them.

Those rules are radically different depending on state or country (dunno if non-US countries mess with automotive rules depending on region).

Re: A CBP contract shows the risks in connecting your vehicle and your smartphone

#127

Post by saruken »

ethagnawl wrote: post #109
saruken wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here with my '93 Saab. I replaced the smart (for its time) HVAC control system with an Arduino running software I wrote, but otherwise it's bone stock. I'd love an electric too, but the way I figure it, continuing to use a fairly efficient vehicle that already exists is probably better for the environment than buying something new anyway. It takes a lot of resources and material to build a car.

That sounds very interesting. I don't own a Saab but I'd still like to see a write-up on your project.

I haven't written anything up for it yet, but I've been thinking about a hackaday post. Ideally I'd like to integrate the other chassis electronic systems at some point too – lights, radio, ignition, pretty much everything but engine management. Then you could add support for a yubikey or something before it would start, but it already has a manual transmission to that's probably sufficient antitheft these days.

[Very relevant BlipShift t-shirt I saw today](https://www.blipshift.com/products/enable-2fa)

Re: A CBP contract shows the risks in connecting your vehicle and your smartphone

#128

Post by m4rtink »

gnfargbl wrote: post #95
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am always shocked when people make these sorts of pairings with devices they don't even own. I often see employees pairing person phones with corporate fleet vehicles too. It's unfortunately an example of where people rank convenience over privacy almost every single time.

I'm not sure that most people would see taking a copy of their phone contacts as a serious invasion of privacy. Maybe your mind (and the mind of many HN readers) quickly skips to the various social engineering and metadata attacks that such a dataset could enable, but the average guy on the street is more likely to think "what are you going to do, call my hairdresser?"

With a phone contact book it's not about you, it's about protecting the personal phone numbers others entrusted you with. If you are careless and loose them (for example by using any of these "modern" IM systems that insist on getting all your contacts so you don't have to add people you know one by one) it's you fault friends will be getting advertising phone call at 3 in the morning or worse.

Re: A CBP contract shows the risks in connecting your vehicle and your smartphone

#129

Post by rsync »

toss1 wrote: post #9
gowld wrote: post #2

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." CBP's warrantless searches are plainly unconstitutional.

Probably true, but good luck with that. As my grandfather said: "You might be right, but you don't want to be dead right." CBP already have extra authorities due to border control because crossing the border is not a constitutional right. The most egregious expansion was the declaration that all territory within 100 miles of the border is 'authorized' for all CBP's nonsense. That happens to cover about 90% of the US…

" ... because crossing the border is not a constitutional right."

Yes, it is.

"In Nguyen v. INS (2001), on a separate matter of citizenship, the Supreme Court put down, in writing, that citizens of the US have the absolute right to enter its borders. It was in recent times more or less presumed to be the case, though historically there have been a wide range of decisions that did deny entry by citizens, mainly by denying the underlying citizenship. This right extends to lawful permanent residents, so long as they maintain their status."[1]

[1] https://www.quora.com/Can-a-U-S-citizen-be-denied-entry-into...

Re: A CBP contract shows the risks in connecting your vehicle and your smartphone

#130

Post by thatcat »

tashoecraft wrote: post #75
saruken wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here with my '93 Saab. I replaced the smart (for its time) HVAC control system with an Arduino running software I wrote, but otherwise it's bone stock. I'd love an electric too, but the way I figure it, continuing to use a fairly efficient vehicle that already exists is probably better for the environment than buying something new anyway. It takes a lot of resources and material to build a car.

The problem with older cars, is that safety standards have improved dramatically in that time. So while you might have a "dumb" car that isn't spying on you, in the event of an crash, you are going to be much more likely to be injured. If I had to weigh being spied on with being injured, I'd guess the odds of being injured actually impacting my life negatively as greatly higher. I do miss my old Saab though...

What about when the data is collected from all the spying and used to deny your claim?
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