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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

#221
post #59
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The CAN traffic is unencrypted. It was pretty easy to MITM this module with a cheap arm Linux board And you didn't poison their databases and statistics with fake data?? OMG, I'm thinking of buying one of these cars just for this opportunity! (No, I'm not.)

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.

Then do the opposite. Poisoned data that can improve your insurance rates

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

#222

Cars, your TV, your phone, everything is fucking spying on you. At this moment I am more interested in how I generate a tsunami of more data about me to the powers that be to drown them in a deluge of irrelevant bits.

For most people, it's all irrelevant.

I'm surprised how many people think that keeping a low profile will matter in a society that attacks people for things you could discover from vehicle position data. In that society, you'll get attacked if someone wants to do it and they'll manufacture the pretext.

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

#223
The CCC had a nice talk last year about the data VW collects and what can be learned from it (all the data was unencrypted accessible): https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-wir-wissen-wo-dein-auto-steht-vo...

(unfortunately it's in German - but there is an english live translation available)

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

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throughout my entire life, I don't know if I have ever seen anyone measuring their tire pressure or checking their oil at a gas station. Visually assessing tires can be quite misleading as well - my TPMS indicator was just on, visually it looked like one tire (its pressure was fine), and the tire that was 10psi low looked normal. Falling back to an attitude of not needing automation and instrumentation is a cope , an…

>Falling back to an attitude of not needing automation and instrumentation is a cope, and often a poor cope at that. A lot of modern automation is not really automation. A washing machine is automation: it takes a task which would have wasted hours of your day and reduces it down to a few minutes. A lot of modern "automation" doesn't save you any actual time time, but just saves you from being attentive: - Checking y…

It takes real time to get out a pressure gauge and check the pressure on each wheel, no? Furthermore, attention itself is a limited resource.

For example, power windows were always handy when getting on/off the highway and coming up to a toll booth where I'd have to give/take a ticket. It's much easier to hold a button (or even have a latching button) while spending my attention on actually driving.

I have one car with TPMS that's entirely done through the ABS controller measuring the relative diameters of the wheels. That's not a privacy or cost problem. Furthermore the privacy problem where wireless TPMS sensors are interrogatable is better framed as a security vulnerability in their design, rather than something intrinsic.

Weight is a red herring as I'd guess the fuel savings from having properly inflated tires outweighs the fuel spent on the extra mass.

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

#225
post #32

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…

>TURN YOUR PHONE OFF. Your phone does more than track you - the Bluetooth and wifi beacon scanners are always running. When you come across another person, most phones track the intersection of your beacon with theirs making a new data point that compromises both individuals privacy. Now consider sitting at a stoplight; you and and the 10 phones around you have now correlated the time and position you were sitting th…

> All phones nowadays have bluetooth/wifi mac address randomization

Source?

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

#226
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are suggesting all over these threads what we can do about it, but we (as a population) aren't. When my 2009 car dies, I'm going to deliberately NOT buy a new trackingmobile, and try to find another 2009 car to keep running. Yea, that means I occasionally need to take 30 seconds to scrape ice off the windshield. Big deal.

Why 2009? I've been driving the same 2003 Audi TT all my life, never failed me.

[dead]

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

#227
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…

I see absolutely no reason not to completely unplug the cellular modem. The only thing that would stop me is an annoying error message or warning light in the gauge cluster. My car does not display any of these, but unplugging the modem results in losing the right speaker and microphone, unless a bypass harness is used.

The modem is usually in the sharkfin with the XM radio chipset and GPS. If you can unplug it at the sharkfin that's usually the best course of action. Some cars may bark at you, but mine just says it can't detect GPS if I attempt to use it (which I never use anyway).

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

#228
post #101

I have an electric car and if I want to remotely turn on charging, it won’t allow me unless the full data sharing option is enabled. Full data as in your driving data like a black box logger. I then have to go in the car, enable it, then I can remotely turn on charging. I have to remember to opt-out again later. Ironic I know because I can turn on charging from within the cabin without having to enable any of the dat…

So you're telling me that simply walking out to the car and hitting a button inside the car is just too much of an "inconvenient experience"?

You know we used to have to drive the car... sometimes many miles... to a station, get out, and fill it up with a liquid fuel that costs many times more, and then drive home...

Seriously now- The perceived 'inconvenience' you have is the reason that so many of these connected features are being pushed and then the because the ability is there the business types can't resist the data gathering that became possible because of all the antennas, etc.

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

#229
post #91

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…

> Remove the antennas. Do not give in to the mirage of convenience. ERROR: unable to start engine.

In case of Subaru its "we are sorry your battery died trying to aggressively reconnect to the mothership, no we wont be paying for the replacement"

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

#230

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…

Ok stop with the panicking. What's wrong with GPS in vehicles? If it's not connected to the internet, there is no issue. What's wrong with playing music from the phone on Bluetooth or Aux? Did you also know you can ride a horse instead of a car? Bluetooth and WiFi isn't running if you turned them off. Bluetooth also isn't really used for tracking unless someone is looking for you or you're part of some service like A…

>What's wrong with GPS in vehicles? If it's not connected to the internet, there is no issue.

The GPS module is usually on the same board as the cellular module. Disconnecting the board (usually in the shark fin) disconnects the GPS module too.

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