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It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

theregister.com

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Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#141

Post by ShadowBanThis01 »

fzzzy wrote: post #133
ShadowBanThis01 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can respect that. To some extent, though, that's down to the phone UI. iOS, ummm, 6 if I remember correctly was supposed to be more "car-friendly." Of course, that was another Jony Ive failure... it actually changed the system font to a spindly outline that was hard enough to see in normal conditions, let alone in a car. There was absolutely nothing in that OS that offered a "car-friendlier" experience. I was so gl…

That was 7, 6 was the last 'good' one.

Ah, thanks.

Too many regressive releases to keep track of...

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#142

Post by falcolas »

bobim wrote: post #10
supportengineer wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's keep our older cars on the road as long as possible.

Let’s face it, in an energy starved world the car of the future is an e-bike. Side effect it’s free of connected BS. So far…

> Side effect it’s free of connected BS. So far…

"So far" is the right qualifier. As electric scooter rentals have clearly shown, it's trivial to add in the connected BS.

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#143

Post by ShadowBanThis01 »

ShadowBanThis01 wrote: post #110
fho wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no support for audio over Bluetooth So you rant about Bluetooth in cars ... without owning a car that gas Bluetooth? Just checking, because we put after market radios (with BT) in our last two cars and, while not a miracle experience, music playback and handsfree telephony worked without problems.

I guess you don't think people rent cars, or drive family members' cars, or go on road trips with friends. Bluetooth implementations are trash. Rented a brand-new Toyota over the summer and its radio suffered from all the same playback defects that Bluetooth has been offering for a decade or more. Playback randomly starting when not told to... showing the wrong info on the display... showing that no songs were availa…

Oh noes, I've been-modded by some members of the BT consortium, apparently.

Keep up the "good" work, guys! Don't spend all your licensing fees at the pub... unless you're buying a round for the house!

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#144

Post by 93po »

bri3d wrote: post #16
arjvik wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of which require Bluetooth pairing (or at least auto-pair without asking you if I recall correctly) which allows the head unit to siphon data!

You can disable Sync Contacts (PBAP) and Notify Messages (MAP), and then the Bluetooth head unit won't download your contacts or messages.

Unless the head unit refuses to operate unless you share those

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#145

Post by zlg_codes »

bri3d wrote: post #99
gleenn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how you think this isn't nefarious based on your own post. I didn't ask my car to basically give a backdoor to all my texts and contacts to law enforcement. If that exists, it is certainly being used. I find it very sad that you have to prove injury despite the fact that is is clearly not in a user's benefit. Laws are always playing catchup to tech and we shouldn't have to play wackamole for every…

Why do I think these features are not nefarious? * There's an obvious, legitimate want for the vehicle's head unit to ingest this data, in order to display a UI (or provide a voice UI) which allows the user to call a contact by name or read a recently received text message. Is this a poor implementation concept which has mostly been supplanted by better implementations (Android Auto / CarPlay), sure, absolutely but i…

You're totally falling for the plausible deniability governments engage in when conducting surveillance and espionage on their own citizens.

"Oh it wasn't our fault the software was wrote poorly. Not like we wrote laws around it or paid companies to share data with us."

What else do you believe that comes from the govt's mouth? Would you simply never believe they'd take advantage of us unless caught in some precise way, in some precise situation?

Government can start showing us it's loyal to us, or face attack of its own networks.

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#146

Post by zlg_codes »

lrvick wrote: post #127
bri3d wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I think these features are not nefarious? * There's an obvious, legitimate want for the vehicle's head unit to ingest this data, in order to display a UI (or provide a voice UI) which allows the user to call a contact by name or read a recently received text message. Is this a poor implementation concept which has mostly been supplanted by better implementations (Android Auto / CarPlay), sure, absolutely but i…

I have worked for enough IoT and whitelabeled tech companies to know spying is normally never a plan from the start. It is the lack of planning to prevent it that is years later branded as a feature to sell when company leadership looking to boost numbers or build political capitol start talking to law enforcement. Often after an acquisition or two. I personally know a release engineer that was required to quietly se…

I want to include with your great post that civil action will not stop a government hellbent on gathering data.

Destroying the means of surveillance, capturing targets, and reverse blackhatting is what will work.

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#147

Post by zlg_codes »

Caboose8685 wrote: post #18
bri3d wrote: post #15

I dug into the technical details here over the last few days and as usual it's not quite as sinister as the hand wringing: * Automotive head units are just embedded computers. Most run Linux, QNX, or Windows CE, with some proprietary UI system on top. * These machines usually store data in an onboard database in flash (sometimes just SQLite). * Sometimes, phone data is captured using standard Bluetooth mechanisms (Me…

I think an argument should be made against normalizing this, which could then lead to OEMs building in internet assisted data export functionality in new cars and people won't know until a lawsuit (likely) starts years after the fact and the harm is done.

This is why I've taken a more and more grim look at technology and software, in particular.

Stallman was right, about nearly everything concerning power, companies and governments using it, and the role the citizen is viewed to have in such a limited capitalist view.

Without government mandates to open the source of every chip and firmware, none of the modern hardware we use is trustable.

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#148

Post by patmorgan23 »

amelius wrote: post #118
RandallBrown wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent some time around 2012 working on in car "infotainment" units at a large tech company for a large car company. I was told that the infotainment systems were where a large chunk of their profit came from and differentiating their experience was important to the car company. Of course, they wanted to use decade old CPUs and touchscreens to save money, so the experience was horrible. I left shortly after CarPlay…

Once you bought the car they now have a monopoly on the software that is available. There should be laws against this type of monopoly.

There is. You can swap out the head unit with an aftermarket one.

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#149

Post by zlg_codes »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #8
SenAnder wrote: post #2

> In other words, it's A-OK for your car to "automatically and without authorization , instantaneously intercept, record, download, store, and [be] capable of transmitting" text messages and call logs since the privacy violation is potential, but the injury not necessarily actual. So it's effectively legal to sell backdoored hardware and software to spy on people. I wonder what would happen if I sold backdoored phone…

This is a decision made regarding Washington state law’s “statutory injury requirement” [1]. It says “a plaintiff must allege an injury to ‘his or her business, his or her person, or his or her reputation,’” with “a bare violation” of the privacy law being “insufficient to satisfy the statutory injury requirement.” It is particular to Washington state, not all Americans. And it may not apply to a prosecutor versus pr…

As a Washingtonian I am embarrassed that my state loves to pretend its progressive but then I see shit like this, and two party consent laws that businesses can still treat like one-party.

Had the whole state pay for a stadium and a tunnel, in Seattle. So, pointless use of taxes and other wastes of my contributions.

Sadly, not an actually progressive place aside from Mutual Combat laws.

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#150

Post by patmorgan23 »

JohnFen wrote: post #47
bri3d wrote: post #15

I dug into the technical details here over the last few days and as usual it's not quite as sinister as the hand wringing: * Automotive head units are just embedded computers. Most run Linux, QNX, or Windows CE, with some proprietary UI system on top. * These machines usually store data in an onboard database in flash (sometimes just SQLite). * Sometimes, phone data is captured using standard Bluetooth mechanisms (Me…

My personal solution: I won't own a car that has this sort of capability in the first place, and when I rent a car, I will never allow it and my phone to talk to each other for any reason.

Uh dude any car made in the last 15 years has this capability.
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