I wonder if insurance would refuse to pay out in the event of an accident due to this modification?
They would have to prove the modification caused the accident.
Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid
281–290 of 605 posts
Re: Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid
#282About removing the modem. ....
I always though ...just need to remove the ... the antenna .. modem would always get no signal and transmissons would always fail....
Same for the GPS.
To verify- no other hiddwen transmitters could use some RF( Radio Frequency) analyzers
[RF analyzer (ie spectrum analyzer) is a tool for measuring the power, frequency, and signal strength of radio frequency signals.]
Re: Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid
#283About removing the modem. .... I always though ...just need to remove the ... the antenna .. modem would always get no signal and transmissons would always fail.... Same for the GPS. To verify- no other hiddwen transmitters could use some RF( Radio Frequency) analyzers [RF analyzer (ie spectrum analyzer) is a tool for measuring the power, frequency, and signal strength of radio frequency signals.]
[meta] this response was clearly not from an LLM. i wonder what sorts of distinctive styles could be telltales going forward.
Re: Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid
#284> Even after the modem is removed, if you connect your phone to the car via Bluetooth then the car will use your phone as an internet connection and send all the same telemetry data back to Toyota. However, if you use a wired USB connection then it does not do that (see the discussion here and elsewhere), so I exclusively use CarPlay via USB. The problem with this is that both carplay and android auto capture their o…
And once you've gotten rid of Google and Apple, your telecom company tracks you, your CC payments help track you and even cameras in public do. It's hard to not want to throw your hands in the air screaming "whatever" when almost everything you use in public is somehow used to track you either as you move around, or in the future.
RE .... company tracks you ..... [ somewhat off topis ]
Did you know ... in many countries government tracks car number plates and the data is stored for many years.
Re: Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid
#285Thanks - Seeing how easy this was, encouraged me to do the same for my Subaru. The info and parts were easy enough to find.
Interestingly, Subaru itself used to make a DCM bypass kit for its cars. When AT&T shut down its 3G network, Subaru was stuck replacing all the DCMs, because they would search and search forever for a connection to a network that no longer existed, and slowly drain the battery. But there initially wasn't enough inventory to replace them all, so they offered these bypass kits if you weren't an active Starlink (cloud svcs) subscriber.
Re: Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
You would be surprised how leaky RF can be and how hard to completely suppress. There is a reason things like anechoic chambers and test labs are very expensive.
Leaky - possibly, but we are dealing with the real world where you have plenty of background noise. The cell tower will likely fail to receive the signal.
It doesn't take much of a leak. Radiation likes to radiate.
I used to keep my work phone in a Faraday bag sometimes. (I had my reasons[1]). It usually worked. Occasionally, it didn't work and the phone would demonstrate this by doing phone-stuff like ringing even while it was snug inside of that conductive bag.
So sometimes, the radiation was radiating well-enough despite my efforts.
Not so long ago, I was chatting with someone here on HN about blocking RF at GHz frequencies using aluminum foil. I was sure that it would be trivial, and they were sure that it would be difficult. So I tested that.
I started pinging my phone on its LAN IP, and wrapped it in foil. I found that I could increase latency some and also institute some packet loss.
But I couldn't stop it altogether -- not with a sheet of aluminum foil, anyway. No matter how carefully I made the creases, pings simply kept happening. (Having satisfactorily demonstrated to myself that were right and that it would be difficult, I stopped testing at that point.)
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So here in reality, suppose the [car's] cellular connection finds that it has a connection occasionally. What's to stop it from buffering data and sending it in batches during times when it works? A few dozen lines of code that's geared to that purpose, perhaps? Or maybe a few hundred lines, instead?
Not that the difficulty matters much; the software is all closed up and inscrutable.
If the value of batching data to deal with intermittent connections is greater than the cost of producing the code to do this, then it can be assumed that such code has been or will be written.
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[1]: An abusive manager I had liked to turn on the tracking system that the phone had. I didn't mind being tracked while I was on the clock, but I placed a higher value on my privacy than on her ability to be a snoopy bitch when I was not on the clock. My Faraday bag solution was adequate for that phone, at that time, with that particular tracking system, and for my particular desires, and I had access to the system with which to validate the adequacy of this success, but it was by no means perfect.
Re: Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid
#287The reason I think this is a bad idea is that it lulls you into a false sense of security. The article makes recommendations that seem thorough and sensible - keyword "seem" - but, as mentioned elsewhere here, there are other potential hidden sources of telemetry (in CarPlay and Android Auto), and who knows what else. For this kind of thing to succeed as a general lifestyle, you would need to invest an enormous amoun…
I think you can substantially reduce the information collected about you, without an enormous amount of time. Security - and any solution - isn't about perfection; it's about improving the situation and making attacks more expensive.
Every HN thread is accompanied by comments saying it's all hopeless.
Re: Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid
#288Modern cars are horrible. I recently discovered that all new cars sold in the EU constantly beep at you for supposedly speeding, even though the system doesn’t work well, and it has to be turned off every time you start the car.
They beep when you go above the speed limit, and only for a couple seconds. If they do that 'constantly' the problem is in the driver's seat... It takes two seconds to turn off in my car (though by law it has to reset on every drive), but I never bother. In situations where it's "ok" to drive a little over the limit, it's a small price to pay and a gentle reminder.
The car probably doesn't have perfect knowledge of speed limits across Europe.
Re: Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid
#289I get this desire and commend the author, but I just want self driving cars and so I think we are just stuck with this.
Why is a self-driving car so important to you? Is it really worth giving up your privacy, and advocating that others should give up theirs, just for some shortcoming in your own capabilities?
For some, driving is an absolute chore. A mind-numbingly boring task.
Re: Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid
#290How good a position can you get from GPS today in receive only mode? You can download and store Open Street Map for individual states. Map data doesn't have to come in over the air. That's not the problem. It's enhancing GPS with cell phone tower data that's the problem. That requires a cell connection.
Resolution of less than 1 meter is normal with a decent view of the sky and a lack of interference. GPS itself is always receive-only on our end as consumers. What problem are we trying to solve here? At this point in time, guided navigation with completely offline maps and GPS has already been a no-brainer off-the-shelf thing for decades.
> GPS itself is always receive-only on our end as consumers.
AFAIK it's almost always enhanced by things cell tower data, wifi network data, and external data sources (besides the satellites). Look up GPS/GNSS enhancement and augmentation for the latter.