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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

#321

Post by u8080 »

worldsavior wrote: post #33
chasing0entropy wrote: post #17

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…

>Bluetooth and WiFi isn't running if you turned them off.

BT and WiFi are running when turned off, at least on Android without extra opting out.

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

#322

Post by ponector »

toast0 wrote: post #285
ponector wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many modern cars have no way to manually check oil or any fluid levels. Only way is to check the reading from the sensor via main screen.

Plenty of cars don't have a transmission dipstick. But do cars really not have oil dipsticks anymore? Other than EVs ;p Sealed radiators? No way to look for winshield washer fluid? No translucent reservoir of brake fluid?

Right! There is only a cap to refill. Computer will tell you when you are low on windshield fluid. Or low on oil etc

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

#323

Post by Retric »

tavavex wrote: post #308
Retric wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over half of New York City households are car-free. That jumps to 3/4 in Manhattan. Millions of American households don’t have a car, but you rarely hear about it as a viable option.

NYC is the absolute best case in the US, if you're talking about the ability to exist without a car. It's not that no one talks about those millions of households, it's that they are all concentrated on a few standout islands (literally!) in a sea of the nearly identical car-only supermajority of cities. It's the exception to all exceptions.

Most people live on a few islands of density in a sea of nearly empty land in the US.

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

#324

Post by micromacrofoot »

tavavex wrote: post #298
micromacrofoot wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they use the data mostly to charge you more, you can't really get the price all that lower I've had a clean driving record for 30 years and I'm still paying the junk rates most other people get

So, it's like credit scores, basically? Advertise a happy, meritocratic future for consumers, where the "better"/more responsible ones will reap massive rewards at the expense of the "worse" consumers, and then keep adjusting the brackets until the system is only used punitively - you don't really get anything from a high score nowadays, your only goal is clearing a certain low bar to avoid negative consequences.

Yeah exactly... it's stick or no stick, the carrot is the razor thin margin only used to keep you away from the competitors.

At this point car insurance has gotten so bad that it's becoming normal that you can save hundreds of dollars by switching providers every 6 months. These companies are probably making millions on people who are just too exhausted to switch constantly.

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

#325

Post by owenversteeg »

chasing0entropy wrote: post #17

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…

I like the rest of the comment, but...

>Did you know Orange dash error lights are non critical?

That's not even remotely true for most cars. One of the most critical alarms you can get in a car is a flashing check engine light, which are usually orange.

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

#326

Post by caconym_ »

stavros wrote: post #306
caconym_ wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think potentially self-incriminating self-surveillance is "crazy" when you also think lying to the cops and other involved parties about what happened is bad? If you believe it's important to tell the truth in these situations, you should have no problem providing your own recordings of a collision, regardless of who is at fault. Or is your point just about the cost of the dashcam being "crazy"? In that ca…

I think they're saying "I don't want to self-incriminate so I don't want to put myself in a situation where I have to lie". I'm not sure it's entirely consistent, but I also don't think it's entirely inconsistent.

If you believe you are at fault in a collision where police, insurance, etc. are involved, they are going to ask for your statement, and at that point you will be forced to choose between lying or admitting fault. If you're glad that no dashcam footage exists, presumably you are going to lie about what happened! I don't see why this is any different than popping the SD card out of your dashcam and lying about that too—you're still lying, and for the same reason: to evade responsibility for a collision you caused.

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

#327

Post by ericmay »

ycomb-acct wrote: post #254
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well it's not free, we pay a lot of money to subsidize the highways and roads. If you like your highways and roads and want that freedom, what's better than having fewer cars on the road? That's one of the things that diverting some public funds from highways to other transportation options helps achieve. For those who could get to work or perhaps get to the grocery store by walking, biking, hopping on a bus, or taking a tram/street car that's cars off the road to make your life better.

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

#328

Post by ericmay »

drnick1 wrote: post #251
ericmay wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I personally am, but there's only so much I can do. I am involved in our regional planning commission for transportation, and routinely write letters and call my representatives. I may donate some money to some of our local transportation organizations, but I'm not sure that's a good use of money yet so I haven't.

I agree with you in general though that public policy is failing. Specifically it's failing here where we continue to engage in and direct poor public policy positions because the government is very entrenched and addicted to spending taxpayer dollars. Asking the public to continue to play a catch up game of voiding their car warranty instead of actually solving the problem via policy is, in my view, simply not going to work.

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

#329

Post by mindslight »

monerozcash wrote: post #263
mindslight wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>the term “damage” means any impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information; Deliberately inserting bad data to mess with their analytics does in fact fit that definition.

You are construing "integrity" to mean lining up with their overarching desires for the whole setup of interconnected systems regardless of who owns each one. By that measure, stopping the collection of data is impairing its availability on their system.

I would read that definition as applying only to their computer system - the one you aren't authorized to access. This means the integrity of data on their system has not been affected, even if the source of that data isn't what they'd hoped.

As I said, the law contemplates a different call out for fraud. This would not be needed if data integrity was meant to be construed the way you're claiming.

(For reference I do realize the law is quite unjust and I'll say we'd be better off if the entire law were straight up scrapped along with the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions)

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

#330

Post by quasse »

nimbius wrote: post #111

as a professional diesel mechanic for a small chain of midwest shops, this "telematics" feature is on long-haul trucks as well as tractors (john deer is notorious for using it to send mail marketing about services.) generally its not hard to disable. - identify the telematics module in your car - pull the fuse (not always an option, sometimes this disables bluetooth) - alternatively: identify the 1-2 SMC connectors o…

The Toyota community has been far down that road with the DCM module in the new gen cars and found that the car still managed to get updates out to Toyota even with 50 ohm terminating resistors in the antenna connectors: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/simpler-solution-for-dis... (see the posts by user "Disgruntled Scientist").

Unfortunately simply cutting power to the telematics module also disables the in-car microphone for handfree calling. Fully disabling telematics involves making a bypass harness that re-routes the microphone and speaker signals past the disabled DCM module.

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