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

blog.koenvh.nl

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

#31

Post by cosmotic »

Xenoamorphous wrote: post #24
TomK32 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though the SIM was part of the car they bought, the SIM's contract is not in their name which means using the contract would be theft.

This can be difficult to grasp. I bought an aparment 3.5 years ago and it had an alarm installed. I called the security company to transfer ownership but that couldn’t be done without authorisation from the previous owner, which probably makes sense. The problem is, they were unreachable, and I was living on a house that I now owned, and which had cameras the previous owner could take pics from at any time . My patie…

I think the sheriff's practice of putting stuff in the street during an eviction would be a possible course of action there.

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

#32

Post by pixl97 »

afh1 wrote: 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…

The longevity of our car not only on how good you drive, but how bad others drive.

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

#33

Post by realityking »

hoistbypetard wrote: post #10

> “can I get free data from the SIM card embedded in the device that I now technically own?” That seems like the next-most-interesting question now that you've determined what the device is. Possibly followed closely by "can I use that free-to-me data in a fun way that might teach the people who installed the SIM to deactivate their devices when they sell them?" i.e. Could you send and receive enough on the connectio…

It’s surprisingly common for SIMs in IoT devices to not be locked down. If the data usage spikes enough above the noise it’ll probably be detected & deactivated.

Here’s an example from a few years ago: https://scootertalk.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1370

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

#35

Post by dclowd9901 »

afh1 wrote: 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…

I'm with you here. I have an 89 BMW (which is old enough to have an actual servo motor attached to the intake manifold for cruise control) and an 83 Land Cruiser (whose most advanced feature is that it controls its emissions using vacuum controlled pneumatic circuitry).

I'm very glad I've put in the time to learn how to work on cars because I have zero interest in the tech direction of modern vehicles.

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

#36

Post by superb_dev »

Xenoamorphous wrote: post #24
TomK32 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though the SIM was part of the car they bought, the SIM's contract is not in their name which means using the contract would be theft.

This can be difficult to grasp. I bought an aparment 3.5 years ago and it had an alarm installed. I called the security company to transfer ownership but that couldn’t be done without authorisation from the previous owner, which probably makes sense. The problem is, they were unreachable, and I was living on a house that I now owned, and which had cameras the previous owner could take pics from at any time . My patie…

Do you still have the cameras or did you remove them?

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

#37

Post by jeroenhd »

K0balt wrote: post #3

While you do own the hardware, you probably don’t own the data, licenses, and software in the SIM so you might not be entitled to the data it transmits once it hits the carriers network.

Legally speaking the data was recorded without consent so if the company receiving this data tries to claim ownership, they'll need to delete it anyway.

However, because the author lives in a country covered by the GDPR, they have a right to receive, correct, and adjust the personal information collected on them. No need to capture the data transmitted by the system, the company is legally obligated to hand over every bit of personal information they have on the author, including any pseudomised information, in a format that's machine readable.

In theory you'd be liable for racking up a bill if you use their SIM card, but I doubt it still works.

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

#38

Post by bean-weevil »

Xenoamorphous wrote: post #24
TomK32 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though the SIM was part of the car they bought, the SIM's contract is not in their name which means using the contract would be theft.

This can be difficult to grasp. I bought an aparment 3.5 years ago and it had an alarm installed. I called the security company to transfer ownership but that couldn’t be done without authorisation from the previous owner, which probably makes sense. The problem is, they were unreachable, and I was living on a house that I now owned, and which had cameras the previous owner could take pics from at any time . My patie…

They own the cameras. You can still take them down and give them back if requested.

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

#39

Post by Xenoamorphous »

hedora wrote: post #30
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can be difficult to grasp. I bought an aparment 3.5 years ago and it had an alarm installed. I called the security company to transfer ownership but that couldn’t be done without authorisation from the previous owner, which probably makes sense. The problem is, they were unreachable, and I was living on a house that I now owned, and which had cameras the previous owner could take pics from at any time . My patie…

At that point, you could point out that you have no contract with them, and that they’ve abandoned their property on your place. The last time I checked, US property rights made it clear that you cannot just store stuff on other people’s land without permission, and then complain when they throw it away. They could try to argue that whatever contract the previous owner signed still applies, but for that to be the cas…

FWIW this was not in the US.

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

#40

Post by Xenoamorphous »

superb_dev wrote: post #36
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can be difficult to grasp. I bought an aparment 3.5 years ago and it had an alarm installed. I called the security company to transfer ownership but that couldn’t be done without authorisation from the previous owner, which probably makes sense. The problem is, they were unreachable, and I was living on a house that I now owned, and which had cameras the previous owner could take pics from at any time . My patie…

Do you still have the cameras or did you remove them?

They were able to contact the previous owner in a matter of days and now the contract is with me, not him.
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