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Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

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Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#211

Post by ericmay »

drnick1 wrote: post #167
ericmay wrote: post #147

Nothing you can realistically do about it. In America car ownership for most people is mandatory. It’s unfortunate we don’t have alternatives if you disagree with car manufacturers extra “features”.

The alternative is to be aware of this abuse and unplug the cellular modem. It requires more or less effort depending on the car, but it can and should be done.

It’s not a good alternative though because it puts you into a losing competition with the manufacturers. Take out the cellular modem? Next one requires connectivity to drive the car and so forth.

You could “ban” it, but the amount of effort required to raise public awareness for that and actually have our dickhead representatives due things like that is basically the same amount of effort, perhaps more, as building better cities and transportation modes.

We build and subsidize highways, we could do the same with other methods of transportation and have competition instead of big gubmint cars.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#212

Post by Am4TIfIsER0ppos »

jwr wrote: post #107

Amazingly but perhaps not surprisingly, cars in the EU do similar amounts of spying on you, but the EU is silent. Car manufacturers pretty much run the EU.

Because the government wants the tracking. They want your car broadcasting its position.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#213

Post by drnick1 »

ericmay wrote: post #211
drnick1 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is to be aware of this abuse and unplug the cellular modem. It requires more or less effort depending on the car, but it can and should be done.

It’s not a good alternative though because it puts you into a losing competition with the manufacturers. Take out the cellular modem? Next one requires connectivity to drive the car and so forth. You could “ban” it, but the amount of effort required to raise public awareness for that and actually have our dickhead representatives due things like that is basically the same amount of effort, perhaps more, as building b…

In many parts of the US, individual vehicles are the only viable mode of transportation. In fact, even in the NYC metro area, a car is pretty much indispensable, unless maybe you live in Manhattan and only rely on home delivery for groceries and the like. If you ever want to do anything outside of the city, you need a car.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#214

Post by Retric »

drnick1 wrote: post #181
Retric wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over half of New York City households are car-free. That jumps to 3/4 in Manhattan. Millions of American households don’t have a car, but you rarely hear about it as a viable option.

I would argue that even in NYC, having a car is necessary if you ever want to leave NYC (and you will want to).

It’s not useful if you generally fly most places you travel to. An of course if you’re going months-years without using a car then renting becomes relatively more convenient.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#215

Post by cwmoore »

sda2 wrote: post #36
galleywest200 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ignore your car's complaints and error messages. Did you know Orange dash error lights are non critical? "Tire pressure low" is one you should probably check out on a regular basis.

it may be better to code out TPMS anyways. I had a BMW that wouldn't allow you to enter Sport/Sport+ when TPMS light was on, what a drag.

Does TPMS have any connection to BMW traction control?

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#216

Post by wakawaka28 »

vkou wrote: post #178
emidln wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can be prosecuted for guessing urls you can be prosecuted for sending garbage data in a way you know will be uploaded to a remote system.

You think criminalizing guessing URLs is unreasonable. What about guessing passwords? Should someone be prosecuted for just trying to bruteforce them until one works?

Passwords are different from URLs because URLs are basically public, whereas passwords aren't supposed to be. Furthermore, this is not 1995. Everyone who is in the industry providing IT services is supposed to know that basic security measures are necessary. The physical analogy would be, walking through an unlocked and unmarked door that faces the street in a busy city, versus picking a lock on that door and then walking through it.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#217

Post by AngryData »

mindslight wrote: post #77
emidln wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this data is made "anonymous" and sold to insurance companies and misc data brokers. If it's linked to my insurance company, I don't want to jack my rates. Further, I've thus far avoided a CFAA conviction and I'd like to keep it that way.

It would be an extremely totalitarian dynamic to be persecuted with the CFAA for modifying a device you own based on part of it having been (nonconsensually!) programmed by a third party to upload data to their own server. You own the device, so anything you do within that device is authorized. And the code that uploads the data is authorized to do so because it was put there by the same company that owns [controls]…

If you were to purposefully try to poison/damage their dataset and admitted as such you probably wouldn't win without spending an unreasonable amount of money on lawyer fees. Without admitting anything though and claiming ignorance it would probably be pretty easy to get dismissed, provided you are able to spend atleast some money on a lawyer.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#218

Post by AngryData »

SoftTalker wrote: post #64
pixl97 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean if you consider that death rate per mile driven 'mostly fine'

Check your tire pressures when you get gas, along with your oil and other fluid levels. Eyeball the tires every time you get in the car. These habits are not hard to develop and they will work even when the sensors malfunction (which is not infrequently). All that these sensor-based systems do is train you to be an inattentive car owner.

All these low profile tires do make it a lot harder to eyeball your tires to an acceptable level and tell if they are low. But low profile tires are just in general kind of crappy already.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#219

Post by AngryData »

encom wrote: post #68
chasing0entropy wrote: post #17

Remove the antennas. Do not give in to the mirage of convenience. Use a stand alone generic GPS. Vehicle GPS devices are anti privacy for so many reasons. Listen to stored music from an SD card if terrestrial radio (NO SATELLITE). Did you know almost ALL late model cars can play a TURN YOUR PHONE OFF. Your phone does more than track you - the Bluetooth and wifi beacon scanners are always running. When you come across…

>Do not give in to the mirage of convenience. I sympathise. However, being able to start de-icing my car while still in bed at 5:30 on a January morning is a powerful feature. And I'm the kind of person who wraps his tin foil hat no less than 10 layers thick. Ideally this shouldn't involve the internet, because the car is in wifi range, but what can I do about it?

You could probably get a 3rd party remote starter, however that is going to certainly cost you extra and probably won't be as simple as old school remote starters.

Re: Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it

#220

Post by culi »

emidln wrote: post #20

My 2025 Mazda Miata has a CAN connected Telematics Control Unit that sends a bunch of data to Mazda on ignition off. Among this data is acceleration and velocity data along with coordinates sampled for where you were. It is also used as a gateway for the Mazda app to start your car, query your vehicle's tire pressure, etc. It is claimed that you can opt out of this by calling Mazda and being persistent. The CAN traff…

For anyone else confused, Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs). Automotive context
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