161–170 of 253 posts
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You can get a USB Condom [1] for this purpose. [1] - https://www.amazon.com/PortaPow-3rd-Gen-Data-Blocker/dp/B06X...
Buying a USB Condom for a piece of equipment you own is absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable. This is like having sex with your wife through a condom because you're worried about STDs.
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Your Versa isn't exactly dumb either. It's younger than the iPhone.
You can still buy a brand new Toyota Land Cruiser J70 in 2021. Even though it will be newer than the iPhone 12, it won't spy on you -- because it was designed in 1984. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Land_Cruiser_(J70)
I've been trying to buy a new J70, but AFAICT you can't buy a new one in the EU or US, and it's practically impossible to import one either. I'd be very happy to be corrected.
I live in Washington State, where the state legislature recently voted to ban sales of gasoline powered cars after 2030. Aside from the fact that I enjoy drives through some pretty empty parts of the country, especially in the Southwest, where range is a concern (e.g., I drove the Great Basin Highway a few years ago), what bothers me about that measure is this sort of data collection thing. I wouldn't mind a move to…
California is running an experiment that collects all of your location data while in a car to collect a gas tax. Of course once they have it they will make it available for any government agency.
Slightly off this topic. What amazes me is that our phones are surely capable of knowing when we are driving but they still allow texting. Seems like an easy win for safety yet crickets is all we get here.
How would they know we are driving and not a passenger?
You can't prevent them, but don't consent to a search just because you don't do drugs, transport drugs, transport anyone who does drugs. Carrying cash is considered a valid pretext for a search (have any coins in a change tray?), as is being too polite or not being polite enough (maybe because you're annoyed at being stopped).
Now that a search of your vehicle also includes a search of any information it's received from any connected devices as well as a history of your locations and speeds you need to make sure you preserve any and all possible avenues to challenge anything found.
"Your honor, we didn't find any drugs but during the search he consented to we found evidence that he was driving far in excess of the posted speed limits on these 20 occasions so we're charging him with 20 counts of reckless driving. He confirmed to us during the initial stop that he is the only driver of the vehicle. He was also carrying cash so we're moving to seize those funds and the vehicle."
Who, what, when, where and how fast, all neatly tied into one package.
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Unfortunately, modern regulations forbid manufacturers from easily making a "dumb car". For example, backup cameras are required in new cars. It's the same deal with avoiding wire insulation that rodents enjoy eating. Your only option is to buy a car from before 2000-ish. I'd actually like to find a DIY subculture of taking old car frames and swapping in newer features a bit at a time. People do it with electric moto…
>Unfortunately, modern regulations forbid manufacturers from easily making a "dumb car". This is not true.
- Alcohol interlock installation facilitation and attention detection
- Emergency stop signal (aka autonomous braking)
- Intelligent speed assistance (aka adaptive cruise control)
- Lane keeping assist
- Reversing camera or detection system
All these systems require the car to be aware of its surroundings, i.e. require some "intelligence" in the control systems.
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How would they know we are driving and not a passenger?
GPS, accelerometer, AI. It can't be impossible.
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California is running an experiment that collects all of your location data while in a car to collect a gas tax. Of course once they have it they will make it available for any government agency.
I really, really hate this. Why not just require an annual odometer reading and multiply by vehicle weight to determine how much should be owed to cover road and transportation infrastructure costs? Far easier than maintaining a complex system to track every drivers' location over time. Ugh.
That seems like something that one ought to be allowed to opt out of in favor of an odometer reading; I do something like 99% of my driving in my home state, and would rather just go with an annual odometer reading and maybe slightly overpay on my road taxes than have a tracking device in my car.
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How effective is this today? Don't modern phones refuse to do anything except charge over a USB connection until the user unlocks the phone and trusts the connected host?
I was going to ask this. My iPhone will charge but won't talk to my computer unless I type my PIN and confirm a trust dialog. Don't these cars work the same way? Or is this an Android/BlindlyHittingYes situation?
Educated guess is that it is generally people blindly hitting yes situation. Often people just want to quickly setting it up and ready to be used. They don't want to wait 30 sec or more to look through the dialogs. They want instant results, that what they get for blindly hitting yes. In my experience, most of my friends and family are impatient when it come to pairing the phone to the head console.
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> I don't mind ABS and other "invisible" electronics as long as they are reliable which is not a given nowadays These are pretty damned reliable, IMO, in absolute terms (before even giving credit for the fact than an automobile is pretty harsh environment for electronics with temperature and humidity swings, large voltage transients, poor grounds, mechanical shock/vibration, road salt, corrosion, etc). I've probably…
I've never had an EFI fail (knock on wood) but my main car right now has had a failed ABS for several years (too expensive to repair vs. value of the vehicle).