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

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221–230 of 525 posts

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

#221
post #15

At first glance this reminded me of some Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor models which had similar unlabeled buttons. One would disable all exterior lights, including brake lights, for going into stealth/surveillance mode. An adjacent button was used to be able to remove the key and keep the engine running, while preventing the car from being shifted out of park until the key was inserted again. I haven't seen…

I was astonished to learn that Ford no longer sells sedans (Fusions) of any kind. Neither does GM. I dislike SUVs, and it seems the only choices for American sedans are a Cadillac or a Tesla. Hondas and Toyotas are selling like hot-cakes, but when they had to compete on quality American automakers just decided to walk away from the market.

So no need to worry about that feature on Fusions... they don't sell them anymore. Nor Chevies, Buicks, Oldsmobile is long gone, no more Dodges or Chryslers... nothing.

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

#222
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…

> Modern cars are just smartphones on wheels at this point, and smartphones are just spying devices at this point.

Exactly. I saw a clip of an elon musk interview where he was asked if tesla would ever build a smartphone. I had to chuckle and think to myself, they already do. It just doesn't fit in your pocket, has wheels and actually tries to kill you physically.

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

#223

So this was a gps tracker that was installed by a fleet and never removed. The larger issue is that most car companies in the US are reselling your data on newish vehicles (2016+) anyway. I am still amazed that this is not a larger issue.

Why? It is quite clear that the mass populace just doesn't care. That's the bigger story. So many people are quite happy giving away data that they don't fully understand or even want to take time to try to understand as long as they get free/discounted service/fees and use the same equipment to keep up with the Jones. Another study should be why otherwise smart people cannot come to terms with this.

People care about privacy. But in our current telling its a hard problem to understand and the costs are too high. The costs are not talking to friends, or not driving a car. So as a coping mechanism people will convince themselves they dont care for privacy.

The phenomena you're describing isn't about caring.

You're describing a "trade" in the same way mobsters and conmen do.

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

#224
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that why? I get up to multiples of that on a push bike every day. The kids that rip past me do too.

It's not why. That's just a talking point that gets repeated all too much. In most places you don't need a license to operate a boat and they go as fast as you can afford. Despite what the other poster is saying, there's no law of physics that says speed can only be unlocked by licensing.

I dunno about "most places". I definitely had to get a boating license, though for some reason the law had an exception for people born before 1978. A cursory search show most states have some sort of legislation regarding it. Many other countries have different legislation based on engine horsepower and age, but it's definitely regulated to some degree most places I've seen. I don't suppose you'd be able to paddle hard enough to cause serious damage

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

#225
I love hardware mysteries.

I mostly drive old 90s enthusiast cars, and I have had my fair share of undocumented switches.

The most surprising to date was in a Nissan Silvia, from 1989. Sometimes it wouldn't crank off the key, given the solution chosen it must have been a wiring issue. Instead of fixing that wiring, the previous owner had directly wired power to the starter via a "missle switch" style switch, and instead of mounting it anywhere remotely useful, it was just spliced into the loom and sat on top of the rocker cover in the engine bay.

So if it wouldn't start, I had to leave the key at "on", hop out of the car, bump that switch and then it would start. Obviously standing in front of a manual car while starting it is the dumbest thing next to wiring your starter to a switch in the engine bay. Fortunately I never ran myself over.

Another one, I will keep short, a 97 Skyline would only light up ready to start 1/4 times. Seemingly randomly, on key bump. Turns out the flash memory for the fuel map had corrupted, and depending on the temperature and a bit of randomness from the sensors, it would only hit a corrupted cell occasionally. It got worse and worse as more of the table corrupted, until it would only start say 1/60 key bumps.

It was a dodgy power wire causing the corruption, and fixing that plus reflashing the tune fixed the issue.

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

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

So, it is a kill switch. Just not the sort of kill switch that someone (who?) sometime (when?) described, and such description is one that you've neither quoted or given.

You and afh1 seem to be reading both the article and my comment as focused on whether it's appropriate to characterize a device that prevents a car from starting as a "kill switch".

I didn't say anything at all about that term in my comment, and while the article says it's hyperbolic, arguing about that term is clearly not the focus of the article.

Just going to quote the whole opener here - it's about the claim that the law enables cops to monitor you and shut down your car, which is clearly false.

---------------

[Headline] Posts distort infrastructure law’s rule on impaired driving technology

CLAIM: President Joe Biden signed a bill that will give law enforcement access to a “kill switch” that will be attached to ALL new cars in 2026.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. While the bipartisan infrastructure bill Biden signed last year requires advanced drunk and impaired driving technology to become standard equipment in new cars, experts say that technology doesn’t amount to a “kill switch,” and nothing in the bill gives law enforcement access to those systems.

THE FACTS: In November 2021, Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, ushering into law a $1 trillion bipartisan deal to maintain and upgrade the country’s roads, bridges, ports and more.

One provision in the legislation aims to prevent drunk driving deaths by requiring all new vehicles to soon include “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” as “standard equipment.”

However, in the months since the law passed, some social media users have misrepresented the provision online, falsely claiming it will give police access to data collected by the technology or allow the government to shut down cars remotely.

“Joe Biden signed a bill that would give law enforcement access to a ‘kill switch’ that will be attached to ALL new cars in 2026,” read several posts shared widely on Twitter and Facebook.

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

#227
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t make any sense. What would the value of that stuff be if she’d just moved it out of the barn and left it to rot there?

And how is there any record of what was in the barn, or how much it was worth, or either it has been stolen or collected by the owner any time in the past 30 years. I don't want to call OP a liar, but a lot of times when I hear outrageous stories like this the details are very different than what was provided.

Among other stuff, there was a bunch of Italian modernist art from the 50s-70s. It was literally decomposing in there, and my mother sold a few pieces at auction at about the 25 year point, which was then used as a reference point for the value of the collection as a whole, and as evidence that she was acting maliciously, that she knew the value of what was in there.

The owner died in the early 90s - the folks who rocked up were the grandchildren of her ex-husband.

As for people who have said “oh she should have charged for the storage” - that would have been nice, but that wasn’t the agreement, and French law treats a verbal agreement as a contract, and also places the onus in this type of situation on the person holding the goods to make extensive efforts to contact the owner and/or their heirs.

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

#228
post #167

A lot of used cars have something like this. I'm honestly more surprised OP apparently bought the car either sight unseen or without questioning this before signing any paperwork.

I bought a used van a few years ago at a strange time: I needed a particular kind of vehicle right away, and there broadly just weren't any at a reasonable price (because chip shortage, mostly). I spent a long time (several weeks) looking, and became increasingly frustrated with what would have normally been a simple process. When one showed up at a good local dealership, I bought it. I barely looked at it first. Unu…

Sometimes it's for a sound system or some other wired feature someone installs from aftermarket stuff. When they sell the car, it's easier to remove the added system and leave the switch.

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

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No. But "new cars will have mandatory automated controls to prevent drunk driving, which may be implemented insecurely in a way that creates major vulnerabilities" (very reasonable) is not the same claim as "Joe Biden signed a bill that would give law enforcement access to a ‘kill switch’ that will be attached to ALL new cars" (blatantly false).

The fact that there are real concerns about something doesn't justify ignoring the truth value of inflammatory claims about that thing.

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

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but the point is, this technology is a blocker for people who might otherwise be interested in an electric powertrain vehicle. If you want an old car without all this crap, you can get one. But it pretty much has to be an ICE.

You can convert any ice car to an ev. I takes time but is straight forward

Time, money, and lots of knowledge and skill. Actually, lots of time and money too.

It’s really not a practical thing for at least 99% of the population. Probably more like 4 or 5 nines.

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