Modern cars are spying on you. Here's what you can do about it • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by drnick1 » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 1:22 AM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #236

vitaflo wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Take out the cellular modem? Next one requires connectivity to drive the car and so forth. Find the cellular antenna and replace it with a dummy load. The car will think it's sending the data just fine but all it's doing is turning radio waves into heat.

And so on and so forth up until it’s just not worth the hassle as it even is today for most people. This isn’t a good problem to be solved with hacking. It’s a public policy problem.

Public policy is failing at the moment, so you have to take matters into your own hands. If enough people do this, then it will effectively become public policy. Inaction is not a solution.

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

#252

Post by wiredpancake » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 1:24 AM UTC

daft_pink wrote: post #82

The problem is that with Flock, you’re basically being tracked incessantly anyways, so who cares if the automaker also does it?

[dead]

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

#253

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 1:42 AM UTC

AlexCoventry wrote: post #233

Interestingly I can't get ChatGPT to help me find a video showing me how to disable the cellular modem on my Subaru 2024 Crosstrek. Time to do some old-fashioned research, I guess... https://chatgpt.com/share/692cde57-0930-800e-b45f-7a41ca5c8e...

Who cares about what ChatGPT can't do? It can't make me a sandwich either.

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

#254

Post by ycomb-acct » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 1:55 AM UTC

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #203

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”.

On the other hand, it is not mandatory to vote for politicians who continue to make our cities car centric. You are not doing anything wrong if you are forced into buying a car due to the circumstances of your living. But voting to continue that makes your culpable.

So your plan would be to get rid of cars? Wow it's almost like government regulation imposed to dissuade people from free travel via personal automobiles through a thorough enshitification is working in the direction of their intent.

You mean they're actually asking for 15 minute cities? Yes sir, they are. Very good.

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

#255

Post by mindslight » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 1:57 AM UTC

monerozcash wrote: post #168

mindslight wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a strictly logical assertion, I do not agree. Guessing URLs is crafting new types of interactions with a server. The built in surveillance uploader is still only accessing the server in the way it has already been explicitly authorized. Trying to tie some nebulous TOS to a situation that the manufacturer has deliberately created reeks of the same type of website-TOS shenanigans courts have (actually!) struck down.…

>(A) knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer; If your goal is to deliberately "poison" their data as suggested before, it's kind of obvious that you are knowingly causing the transmission of information in an effort to intentionally cause damage to a protected computer wit…

A computer being supplied with false data which it then stores is not damaging the computer - hence there being a provision about fraud. But for this case it's not fraud either, as the person supplying the data is not obtaining anything of value from the false data.

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

#256

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 1:57 AM UTC

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.

[deleted]

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

#257

Post by baubino » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 2:06 AM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #119

mindslight wrote: post #78

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…

As someone who grew up in the pre-power-window 1970s and 80s, they absolutely do save time. You have to remember that manual crank windows went along with a lack of air conditioning. Being able to quickly roll down the windows (especially all four at once) in a hot car mattered.

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

#258

Post by vkou » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 2:09 AM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #201

vkou wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How do I know which URLs of a website are legal to visit and which are illegal?

I can't say I've ever struggled to make this determination, but I don't make a habit of trying random ports, endpoints, car doors, or brute-force guessing URLs.

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

#259

Post by vkou » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 2:10 AM UTC

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #241

vkou wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Guessing URLs is equivalent to ordering an item not on the menu in a restaurant. The request may or may not be granted.

Closer to trying the handle on random car doors.

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

#260

Post by vkou » Mon, Dec 01, 2025, 2:13 AM UTC

wakawaka28 wrote: post #216

vkou wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wa…

> Everyone who is in the industry providing IT services is supposed to know that basic security measures are necessary.

And everyone who doesn't have wool for brains knows to not carry large rolls of cash around in a bad part of town, but we can still hold the mugger at fault.