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

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

#321

Post by 0x3444ac53 »

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 have a '98 Honda with 324K miles on it. I'm awful at maintenance but I've had it for ten years and it refuses to die.

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

#322

Post by Gh0stRAT »

ddingus wrote: post #254
dclowd9901 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right there myself. One conversion I want to attempt, but am unfortunately unlikely to, is an electric rear wheel drive. Front wheel can remain gas with transmission. Add more generating current capacity, and have that dumped into the rear drive system batteries. With my current car, the V6 gets very good economy at speed, and poor economy in town or in traffic. An assist from the rear can tackle the poor economy cas…

This is exactly how Toyota's AWD works in the Sienna these days.

It gets 35mpg city and highway, 1mpg less than the front wheel drive Sienna (which, to be fair, is also a hybrid)

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

#324

Post by dghlsakjg »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #318
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year Mozilla did a study on the privacy of modern cars. Every car they tested showed terrible privacy problems. Privacy Nightmare on Wheels: Every Car Brand Reviewed by Mozilla https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37443644 ( edit I see I'm not the first to link this in this thread)

Whenever I talk about this issue with friends and family I bring up how that report revealed Nissan was gathering info on sexual activity in their cars and can sell it to third parties. That usually gets people to start listening.

Was Nissan actually collecting this data? All I can find is that the privacy policy retained the right to it (some lawyer probably though about what happens if they accidentally record you getting frisky, and put it in there preemptively), but no evidence if it actually happened.

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

#325

Post by _heimdall »

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…

This is a huge reason why I won't buy more modern vehicles.

Safety features and fuel economy are night and day when comparing a 5 year old car and a 30 year old one, but between the privacy issues and inability to diagnose or fix a new car I just can't do it.

I bought an 80s model truck that sat in a garage for over a decade and has 50k original miles on it. I'm still chasing down a couple gremlins in the system, but its nice to be able to work on it myself. Bonus that it may not be driving perfectly right now but its happy keep on chugging, even if a sensor is bad or I get an occasional code for running lean.

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

#326

Post by _heimdall »

Loughla wrote: post #320
op00to wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love older cars and drove an early 80s Volvo until 2010 or so, but I also love side impact airbags, antilock brakes, and a car that mostly just “works”.

When I was younger I loved having an 84 Chevy Scottsdale. It was a cool looking truck and was easy to work on. I used to love getting under the hood to chase down problems and find solutions. Now my knees hurt when it's cold outside, so crawling around on the ground to fix the fucking u-joint AGAIN isn't that fun, and I also like knowing that my children might survive if we get in a crash; something that's genuinely…

I was really hoping to see am EV startup go after the niche of barebones vehicles. I would absolutely have an EV if it was a safe chassis with good range, a powerful enough motor, and none of the infotainment bells and whistles.

I want to be able to diagnose my car if it has issues, but I don't want a system complex enough that it requires over the air updates.

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

#327

Post by PopePompus »

stavros wrote: post #299
Etheryte wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars are essentially black boxes. When you take it apart, you have largely no idea what any of the chips do, even if you chase down what they're connected to. Is this the infotainment system or is it the infotainment system and a data gathering system that sends all my data off seas? There's no way to know. Old cars don't have that problem. Here's an engine, here's a gearbox, add a radio if you'd like, but b…

Cut the antenna on the modem?

I think the antenna(s) is in the little shark's fin on the car's roof. Could a Faraday cage be made to cover that?

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

#328

Post by tempest_ »

whs wrote: post #238
tempest_ wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sentry and dashcam data is only stored locally. That must be new https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sens...

In that link "The company requires car owners to grant permission on the cars’ touchscreens before Tesla collects their vehicles’ data"

What format does that take? Is it the "Click Ok to agree to everything so you can use the app" type crap?

I am reticent to give Tesla the benefit of the doubt.

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

#329

Post by stavros »

PopePompus wrote: post #327
stavros wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cut the antenna on the modem?

I think the antenna(s) is in the little shark's fin on the car's roof. Could a Faraday cage be made to cover that?

I'm fairly sure that yes, though you could also cut the cable. Access might be tricky.

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

#330

Post by _huayra_ »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #164
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…

Last year Mozilla did a study on the privacy of modern cars. Every car they tested showed terrible privacy problems. Privacy Nightmare on Wheels: Every Car Brand Reviewed by Mozilla https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37443644 ( edit I see I'm not the first to link this in this thread)

FYI for anyone who owns a Subaru: you can opt out of 3rd-party data sharing here

https://www.subaru.com/support/consumer-privacy.html

If you don't live in one of the states mentioned in the first paragraph, expect this to take a very long time. For me it took 6 months.

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