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U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

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331–340 of 381 posts

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your understanding about how this works is incorrect, I think that's the problem. If a product being sold is primarily being used for a purpose which violates the law and does not otherwise have fair usage the government can and has pursued and won legal cases resulting in the product being banned. That is no different here. The reason for interviewing consumers is to help determine what the product is being used for…

> If the vast majority of the time the roll of duct tape was used in the commission of a crime, it absolutely could and likely would be banned. Which continues to be an absurd premise. So if the original use case for duct tape was kidnappings then it should be forever banned because a sample taken at that time had that statistical distribution, and thereafter no other uses can be adopted because it's banned? It seems…

> It seems a lot more reasonable to prosecute kidnappers rather than the makers of generic tools.

As someone who is pro 2nd-Amendment (but not pro-gun) I of course appreciate this argument.

There are certainly gray areas. The most immediate example that comes to mind are bongs or other items used for smoking pot (maybe other things? I'm not too sure). Ultimately it comes down to what the government and regulators think, what they can argue in court, and so forth. And if the people don't like it, they can take democratic political action.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#332
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a world of difference between keeping working and working safely. I don't know about technical and emmission inspections in the US but in our country they also check stuff like properly aligned headlights so you don't blind other cars, the brakes, geometry etc., and I'm pretty sure without those check the cars would drive on the roads and cause safety issues. > For emissions, again who cares. Well for exampl…

The safety part was exactly my point about the statistics. I've never come across anything to indicate that a noticable number of injuries or deaths are in any way related to equipment failure. The typical contenders are things like intoxication, drowsiness, distraction, and blatant recklessness or even anger. Headlights is the only thing I'll agree with you on as being terrible in the US (at least all the parts I've…

> It's purely a matter of enforcement though.

I would argue it's more effective to enforce stuff like this with mandatory periodical inspections than to leave it to random police checks. There are several reasons for that - the police are already doing lot of things, so they might not care; 'normalisation of deviation' etc.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#333
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t known if its the heat or lack of greenery but everything I hear about riding bikes or motocycles in Texas just makes it sounds like there is some deep latent aggression there. I have bicycled in a bunch of states including the Southeast and never encountered anything like the stories people tell about Texas.

Open up any kind of cycling content on social media and you see droves of comment literally calling for killing cyclists. Turns out some people are just ontologically evil.

I think social media just gives people a palce to express their most unrestrained nasty opinions.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utah used to require safety inspections every year, but they eliminated them; there were no noticeable side effects [1]. "Safety Inspections" were generally just a grift for third-party repairshops to collect free money and I couldn't be happier that they are no longer a thing. Be aware that "safety" and "emissions" are different. Emissions testing is still required biannually for newish vehicles and yearly for older…

"Free Money" from what? If they don't need repairing, they can't get it? We have yearly inspections in the UK (twice yearly for any "public" carrying, like a taxi). If your vehicle is in working order you only pay the £39 fee

Do you mean that 39 pounds are not money or that checking the ECU status requires 39 pounds in resources so the shop breaks even on that?

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#335

There are HN commenters ("developers") that want readers to believe that telemetry should be on by default. Maybe some readers, e.g., other "developers", think, "Yeah, that sounds reasonable" so long as the telemetry collecter is a random "developer" and not the government. But they probably fail to consider that this collected data is just a subpoena away from going to the government Corporate mobile operating syste…

Now on HN front page:

https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2026/05/01/where-to-buy-...

It appears there could be demand for alternatives, even if viable alternatives do not yet exist

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Texas, and I get coal rolled multiple times a year while I'm riding my bike. One asshat actually hit my shoulder with his extended mirror. After that, I started using my GoPro as a dashcam since I wasn't able to get the asshat's license plate number.

Ok I’m not from the US. Why do people do this?

It makes small people feel powerful.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#337
post #93

This "car-tinkering app" is used as a glorified GameShark for deleting factory emissions controls, I don't feel sorry for anyone who uses this to roll coal or whatever. Instead of investigating everyone on the list of users of this app, should the government instead ban diesel engines knowing their emissions controls software will be defeated? Should environmental regulations be relaxed? What is really the solution h…

Periodic vehicle inspection for emissions and safety compliance. Many jurisdictions already have this for gas engine emissions, a handful of states already have safety inspections. Done right, it can be low burden and low cost, and basically put an end to Def deletion. Done poorly it's grift to the shops that do the inspections, and an economically external annoyance to vehicle owners, and unnecessarily limits the ab…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Done right, it can be low burden and low cost The rules mostly penalise the poor (and often unfairly). You are severely underestimating how hard "done right" is. I'm from New Zealand and the yearly car checkup is burdensome. About $75 and an hour wasted minimum to get car checked. However the workshop profits come from fixing faults so their economic incentive is to find faults. It costs you way more time if someth…

From memory (I haven't lived in NZ for a while now), the WoF check could be done at VTNZ stations, which explicitly did not do repairs to avoid this conflict of interest. Alas, it looks like VTNZ was privatised and the exact outcome you would expect happened.

You imply that privatisation is the cause.

But really I think the government incentives are the root cause.

Fortunately I can still find workshops that care about doing a good job (more than they care about ripping off customers). But I feel bad for anyone who can't pick good services: which takes skill and costs time.

I never used VTNZ because I found them to be overly picky when I tried them. I thought VTNZ followed the rules too strictly and you didn't get any fair relaxation. I didn't know the history you have mentioned.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm realizing a lot of folks in this thread do not understand diesel emissions systems at all and why you might want to delete one.

Site full of hackers who would fight to the death over open source and their ability to run their computers the way they want to, but when it’s about car enthusiasts instead of computer enthusiasts, suddenly nobody cares.

What a ridiculous false equivalence. Even libertarians(!) can object to other people blowing smoke in their face.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#340
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing it myself would mean doing the research myself. How would I do that? ChatGPT can do it faster at scale. Then the summaries are short enough that cutting any particular part wouldn't make sense. I could re-word it, I guess. Why don't you write all your assembly code yourself? Why do you use a compiler? Why do you generate images, when you can draw them yourself? You're supposed to add value. I don't think prep…

How can you be certain that the ChatGPT "research" you cite is a faithful representation of facts? How do you know that OpenAI/Anthropic/Google haven't introduced RLHF to subtly steer model output on specific topics to align with their political/economic interests? I'm seeing increasing numbers of people credulously citing ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini output as ground-truth fact. Many more are increasingly lulled into a fal…

It’s just a compiled list of well-known initiatives with named sources and actors. Seriously… lists like that are perfect for LLMs to compile.
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