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Toyota: Car location data and videos of 2M customers exposed for ten years

bleepingcomputer.com

151–160 of 314 posts

Re: Toyota: Car location data and videos of 2M customers exposed for ten years

#151

Their privacy policy is wild and every customer is opted into the connect services by default. Interior images, exterior images, facial geometry, voice recordings, location/driving data, "multimedia screen data", https://www.toyota.com/privacyvts/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230512182022/https://www.toyot...

This needs to be made illegal.

If companies want to collect such personal data it should not be by default, and each clause should have to be independently validated by the customer including what data, how it's used, where stored, for how long, who it's shared with.

Nobody will accept basically so that says something about the asymmetry here.

Re: Toyota: Car location data and videos of 2M customers exposed for ten years

#152
post #76

It is clear that automakers are utterly failing at technology. In-vehicle control systems are typically garbage. Several hacks have been shown where vehicle data is exposed over cellular links, in some cases with remote attackers being able to actually control elements of the vehicle (eg: Jeep). Software updates are rare, with manufacturers often trying to charge exorbitant amounts for basic updates. Data breaches of…

So I don't work in automotive domain, but I work in Controls Engineering. Basically everything you just said relates to my work as well, and based on tidbits of anecdotal info I've picked up through various technical forums it sounds like automotive & controls are quite similar in that regard. The dirty truth is often times these domains were designed and chiefly operated by non-software people. Not to say a mechanic…

ICYMI, this piece is a really good conversation starter about software safety that was sadly mostly ignored on HN recently.

- https://noidea.dog/#/fires/

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35885982

Re: Toyota: Car location data and videos of 2M customers exposed for ten years

#153
post #75
post #62

Owners may want to disable this in hardware rather than relying on a sketchy opt-out mechanism. The relevant part is the "data communications module". It has an LTE modem and a backup battery, so it's able to transmit even if the car battery is disconnected. It requires a little bit of dashboard disassembly to access. You can either remove it or disconnect the LTE and GPS antennas. Toyota has technical documents avai…

"tracker detection and removal" would be a great service for a local service garage to offer.

In many cases this isn’t viable. On my car for for instance - a 2016 Subaru - removing the telematics module also disables all front speakers because the audio signal is routed through it.

Re: Toyota: Car location data and videos of 2M customers exposed for ten years

#154
post #62

Owners may want to disable this in hardware rather than relying on a sketchy opt-out mechanism. The relevant part is the "data communications module". It has an LTE modem and a backup battery, so it's able to transmit even if the car battery is disconnected. It requires a little bit of dashboard disassembly to access. You can either remove it or disconnect the LTE and GPS antennas. Toyota has technical documents avai…

do you know if there are easy equivalents for other car brands? when I bought my new car in 2019 I also wanted to disable any built in GPS/Data connection but it was hard to find any instruction if nobody else had done it or documented it yet. subaru if you happen to know!

edit: hah, should have just googled it first. looks like people are trying it out more now

https://www.ascentforums.com/threads/disabling-the-starlink-...

Re: Toyota: Car location data and videos of 2M customers exposed for ten years

#155

"It is important to note that the exposed details do not constitute personally identifiable information, so it wouldn't be possible to use this data leak to track individuals unless the attacker knew the VIN (vehicle identification number) of their target's car." Am I dumb or are they? If you know someones home address, then all you need is a geo lookup, and a filter which selects for cars parked near that address at…

> Am I dumb or are they

I don't think you're wrong. I wonder what incentive bleepingcomputer has to make it seem not so bad.

Re: Toyota: Car location data and videos of 2M customers exposed for ten years

#156
The thing that’s infuriating me is that some random sweaty dude might have access to imagery taken by my car and I cannot.

I would love to be able to download the whole shebang of telemetry so I could reassess the quality of my driving, but no, no can do, secrets much.

I need to have a whole dashcam of my own to film my trips, run the cables for it myself, while Toyota is just hoarding this data for itself and some random dude on the internets can just view it.

Won’t nobody think of GDPR these days?

Re: Toyota: Car location data and videos of 2M customers exposed for ten years

#157
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will this happen if we don't accept it?

What does this mean? How do you "not accept this"? Are you jumping up and down now interior pictures are leaked from your Toyota? Do you not pay for recurring fees of licenses? Do you send an angry phone call in the general direction of Toyota HQ?

I drive a 30+ year old car. It can easily last another 10 years.

0 tracking by the manufacturer. No subscription services needed. No annoying beeping when you forget to put on your seatbelt for 10 seconds. No touchscreen, all physical buttons. No Android/Apple spyware. No cameras. No ads on any display. No car-key that can run out of battery.

It's nice.

Re: Toyota: Car location data and videos of 2M customers exposed for ten years

#158
post #92
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"tracker detection and removal" would be a great service for a local service garage to offer.

Vinyl wrap with Faraday cage on the inside layer? A modern "cone of silence"

Hah, tinfoil wrapped car, for the tinfoil-hat crowds...

Re: Toyota: Car location data and videos of 2M customers exposed for ten years

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interior images, exterior images, facial geometry, voice recordings, This is an absolutely unbelievable level of privacy intrusion IMO. I 100% support very heavily fining this sort of behavior, otherwise it will continue to proliferate.

Where would the support for fines come from? When government understands these issues at all, they only want more control and restriction. The only thing I can imagine legislators getting upset about is they the car manufacturers are not sharing all the info with government by default. Next steps will be mandating tracking, not fining for it.

> When government understands these issues at all, they only want more control and restriction

So what solution do you have that doesn’t involve regulation?

Re: Toyota: Car location data and videos of 2M customers exposed for ten years

#160
post #115
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a little hyperbolic, but the Japanese are way behind. There was a decent analysis (as always) in the Economist recently. https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/04/16/how-japan-is-losin...

No one needs to bother with that race. It is just a ploy by China to gain marketshare in the car industry. It won't work because it ultimately creates a massive new resource dependency. One that just happens to shift everyone's supply chain to China or Chinese controlled companies. I believe Western companies will eventually walk away from pursuing battery cars, at least in the sense of them being the only solution.…

What are these obvious problems?
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