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What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

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Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#211

Post by p1necone »

_ea1k wrote: post #195
josephcsible wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not a gas vs. electric distinction, but rather an old vs. new one. Modern ICE cars have all of those problems too.

Yeah, its the same stuff that I've been told for decades now. TBH, it is probably less true with a lot of EVs than it was with the gas cars. ECUs are pretty strict and sometimes hard to hack. Meanwhile, third party motor controllers for Tesla motors exist, and the batteries aren't exactly magic. There's really nothing about electric drivetrains that makes anything vastly more locked down.

Yeah if the world went in the direction that prepper types seem to get wet dreams about petrol ICE cars would only be usable for a year or so - petrol has a shelf life, and you ain't running your own refinery.

A lot of diesels can run off of any vaguely fuel-like liquid you decide to put in them, so I'm sure sufficiently knowledgable people would keep those running, machining parts for them etc.

But electric vehicles are by far simpler than both of those, and generating electricity is easier than producing fuel you can shove in a diesel engine.

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#212

Post by pdonis »

rcpt wrote: post #188
skinkestek wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most things that transfer power from individuals to future governments is a clear no from me. I am happy with our current government. But reading history I have realized that the scariest thing that is is powerful governments. Honor and trust work extremely well: anyone of us can create enormous caos if we want to but most of us don't so it doesn't happen.

I don't like that my kids can no longer cross the street we live on because people have stopped obeying traffic lights and cops no longer enforce the law. The honor system isn't working and people are dying because of it. Now what are your specific fears about speed limiters on cars?

> I don't like that my kids can no longer cross the street we live on because people have stopped obeying traffic lights and cops no longer enforce the law.

The best solution to living in a place with bad people in it, if you can't get them to leave, is to move. There are plenty of places to live where people do obey traffic laws and cops do enforce the law.

What I don't like is people trying to punish me, a law-abiding responsible adult, for the misdeeds of others who are not.

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#213

Post by behringer »

maccard wrote: post #148
JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> given them a reasonable amount of time (maybe a couple months) to collect their property Why waste your own time with this? If it's your house, you own everything inside. I would put all the cameras in the trash and forget about it.

Doing that is illegal in many places. Here’s a decent summary in the Uk [0] [0] https://jebaring.co.uk/involuntary-bailee-what-to-do/

It's also just not very nice. It is ok to be nice to people. Do unto others and all that.

And before I get called naive, courts do look very favorably upon defendants that are nice.

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#214

Post by pdonis »

rcpt wrote: post #189
justinclift wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pity about the downsides of the technologies you mention though. :(

What downside? You're not supposed to run red lights or exceed the speed limit. This should be enforced electronically. The machines are unbiased and more accurate than cops. Cheaper too.

> You're not supposed to run red lights

Even if it's an empty intersection and I can clearly see that there is no traffic coming, and the stupid light is staying red for way too long simply because the local government can't be bothered to put in a smarter one?

> or exceed the speed limit.

Even if it's an empty limited access highway and the speed limit is set too low because whatever government runs the road can't be bothered to update it to reflect the current circumstances?

Sure, if a cop catches me (or a monitoring camera does) doing these things, I get a ticket and have to pay a fine. But that just reinforces the point that traffic laws are way more about revenue for municipalities than they are about actual safety. If they were about actual safety, then I wouldn't get a ticket for violating the letter of a traffic law when there was negligible risk of actual harm.

You seem to believe that just because some people put a law in place, it must be the best possible tradeoff among various competing factors. All human history shows that such a belief is false.

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#215

Post by behringer »

cyberpunk wrote: post #58
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, first of all I’m hardly a handyman, I wouldn’t have known where to start. Second, I was dealing with moving to a new place, which can be very stressful (to add to that, my girlfriend was 6 months pregnant and my dad had passed away unexpectedly less than 2 months earlier). And third, I wanted the alarm, just with me in the contract and with the access to the cameras, not the previous owner. I simply cov…

I can’t believe this is true. How can you have so little care over the privacy of your family? They have microphones too.

tape on the microphone holes render them inoperable

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#216

Post by card_zero »

rcpt wrote: post #188
skinkestek wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most things that transfer power from individuals to future governments is a clear no from me. I am happy with our current government. But reading history I have realized that the scariest thing that is is powerful governments. Honor and trust work extremely well: anyone of us can create enormous caos if we want to but most of us don't so it doesn't happen.

I don't like that my kids can no longer cross the street we live on because people have stopped obeying traffic lights and cops no longer enforce the law. The honor system isn't working and people are dying because of it. Now what are your specific fears about speed limiters on cars?

How about non-specific fears about limiter devices generally, such as chains.

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#217

Post by nereye »

BurningFrog wrote: post #207
_ea1k wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government overreach is the big thing that I'm worried about. All of the overreactions to adas is really heavily driving it. At some point, they will have to realize that the same attention systems used for adas could be used all of the time. Given that there are hundreds of deaths each year due to inattention, it'd be almost irresponsible not to look into it. But a lot of people won't like where that leads.

What is "adas"?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_driver-assistance_s...

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#218

Post by throw16180339 »

cipheredStones wrote: post #186
afh1 wrote: post #25

The scary part is not the GPS installed by the fleet company that previously owned the car, which in all likelihood was just forgotten there, but the GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars and that in most (all?) new cars cannot be disabled. Apart from privacy concerns of your data being used or sold by the car vendor, government outreach is also a concern. There was a bill announced in the US for all new…

> Media rushed to say it's not really a kill switch, just "sensors or cameras to monitor the driver’s behaviors, head or eye movements" and "block the driver from operating the vehicle". So... a kill switch. You're selectively quoting in a way that misrepresents the article. The post the article quotes: > “Joe Biden signed a bill that would give law enforcement access to a ‘kill switch’ that will be attached to ALL n…

> The car has an automatic system which can prevent the driver from operating it, but no one outside the car can trigger that system, which is clearly what the "kill switch" posts were claiming.

That assumes that the feature is implemented securely, which is hardly guaranteed. Would you bet a large sum that it wasn't exploitable? I wouldn't.

Re: What does this button do? – My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch

#220

Post by throwaway290 »

jaredhallen wrote: post #210
brailsafe wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A car realistically just sits around doing nothing 80% of the time A bit besides the point, but isn't it wild how inherently wasteful personal cars are? Every time the thought crosses my mind to get another one, if I don't stop at the cost, I stop at the fact that I'll have this giant chunk of metal sitting idle on the street or somewhere else nearly all the time. It'd be useful in an extreme minority of cases (for…

Sounds like maybe you don't need a car. That's good for you, and I truly mean that. But that doesn't mean it's the case for everyone. It's a big, diverse world out there.

Um the fact that some people in some (less developed?) places need cars is not an argument against cars being wasteful...
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