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VW Group Collects Vehicle Movement Data

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Re: VW Group Collects Vehicle Movement Data

#41

Post by magic_smoke_ee »

oellegaard wrote: post #13

I own both Mercedes and Skoda (owned by VW) and I feel like both companies are headed in an extremely bad direction. The other day I saw that now Mercedes wants to charge me 200-300 USD/year for navigation and the ability to remotely lock your door. The fact is they let you pay $100k for a car and then they behave like Facebook and other consumer platforms where you pay with your data and can buy add-ons. You can't c…

Tesla can outright decide to total/brick your car and not sell you parts. They're worse than Apple.

While an VW-owned, separately-managed Scout appear to be making a better EV, but could still take it in the direction of the corporate drones.

Re: VW Group Collects Vehicle Movement Data

#42

Post by magic_smoke_ee »

chii wrote: post #21
oellegaard wrote: post #13

I own both Mercedes and Skoda (owned by VW) and I feel like both companies are headed in an extremely bad direction. The other day I saw that now Mercedes wants to charge me 200-300 USD/year for navigation and the ability to remotely lock your door. The fact is they let you pay $100k for a car and then they behave like Facebook and other consumer platforms where you pay with your data and can buy add-ons. You can't c…

This is what happens when you dont control the machine you purchase. Stallman have warned much of this, but it is often on deaf ears, because consumers' behaviour don't change.

People are suckers for convenience without considering the details of how something is made, supported, or serviced, or the TCO.

Re: VW Group Collects Vehicle Movement Data

#43

Post by lobsterthief »

bboygravity wrote: post #17
Rygian wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a person whose job is to prioritize. If that person, and that person's management, think that security and privacy are a priority, then things get fixed.

Where's the incentive for company leadership to spend resources on security currently? As long as there's no incentive to improve security, there will be no security. Examples of incentive: laws. Fix security or you can't sell your product, if you can't sell product you don't get a bonus or get fired. Don't gather location data if it's not critical for the functioning of the car or you can't sell your product, etc.

In my experience it’s really up to technical leadership to highlight what will happen if security flaws are ignored. If more senior leadership continues to ignore these issues, then it’s a culture issue and I wouldn’t stick around.

Surely it’s all about risk mitigation; some out-of-date NPM package with a minor flaw might cause the can to be kicked, but a major flaw with demonstrable consequences should get priority.

Re: VW Group Collects Vehicle Movement Data

#44

Post by sealeck »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #38
harha wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU is also quite involved by making sure that a car can’t simply be a car anymore but needs a lot of complex systems that may ore may not work as intended, like remote capabilities etc.

It's all part of a plan. The EU is very busy setting up the equivalent of the chinese "social credit". It started with "ESG" rating by banks (where you're already attributed an ESG rating depending on which companies you invest your money in) and now it's likely they'll be moving forward with computing your yearly carbon emission to then decide if you can go on vacation or not and how far. Don't underestimate the glo…

This seems to be more conspiracy theory than fact.

Re: VW Group Collects Vehicle Movement Data

#45

Post by iamacyborg »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #38
harha wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU is also quite involved by making sure that a car can’t simply be a car anymore but needs a lot of complex systems that may ore may not work as intended, like remote capabilities etc.

It's all part of a plan. The EU is very busy setting up the equivalent of the chinese "social credit". It started with "ESG" rating by banks (where you're already attributed an ESG rating depending on which companies you invest your money in) and now it's likely they'll be moving forward with computing your yearly carbon emission to then decide if you can go on vacation or not and how far. Don't underestimate the glo…

Citation needed

Re: VW Group Collects Vehicle Movement Data

#46

Post by reacharavindh »

oellegaard wrote: post #13

I own both Mercedes and Skoda (owned by VW) and I feel like both companies are headed in an extremely bad direction. The other day I saw that now Mercedes wants to charge me 200-300 USD/year for navigation and the ability to remotely lock your door. The fact is they let you pay $100k for a car and then they behave like Facebook and other consumer platforms where you pay with your data and can buy add-ons. You can't c…

I don’t think Mercedes is owned by VW.. may be you thought of Audi..

Re: VW Group Collects Vehicle Movement Data

#47

Post by magic_smoke_ee »

grecy wrote: post #31
pluc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what will happen with that is "performance shops" will start jailbreaking cars. You can already unlock additional power in your ECU by going stage I, II or III with custom and reputable ECU modders and the car feels completely different. It's a matter of time before ECU devs add going around subscription limitations, I think.

Performance tunes are very often illegal in the US for messing with emissions stuff. The EPA have been cracking down HARD lately. I can see a future where auto manufacturers lobby to make “unlocking” features highly illegal due to the DMCA or some other.

I was just going to say this. It has to have a CARB sticker. No CARB sticker, no pass. Passing a smog test in most US states typically uses on-board telemetry combined with a rear-wheel dyno. Most smog shops won't touch vehicles that lack OBD2 but still require smog tests every 2 years. Also, I'm unsure if smog shops still use an external NOx/CO probe like ye olde days or rely entirely on the vehicle to be non-VW "smog mode" honest.

Re: VW Group Collects Vehicle Movement Data

#48

Post by Earw0rm »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #38
harha wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU is also quite involved by making sure that a car can’t simply be a car anymore but needs a lot of complex systems that may ore may not work as intended, like remote capabilities etc.

It's all part of a plan. The EU is very busy setting up the equivalent of the chinese "social credit". It started with "ESG" rating by banks (where you're already attributed an ESG rating depending on which companies you invest your money in) and now it's likely they'll be moving forward with computing your yearly carbon emission to then decide if you can go on vacation or not and how far. Don't underestimate the glo…

I don't know about watches, jewellery or paintings, but if any one class of personal possession _should_ be subject to this kind of totalitarian control, it's cars.

They literally cause more harm to non-participating bystanders than cigarette smoking, with even less ability to opt out. (For those of you aged under 35 - non-smoking bars, restaurants and public spaces used to be a rarity in Europe).

And why? Because we somehow ended up in a situation where we use the same piece of equipment to drop our kids at school 1km away as we do for ten-hour, 1000km inter-city journeys with two weeks' worth of luggage. They're vastly OP for most of what people use them for, but it feels necessary because everyone else has one - we end up obligated to carry around big, heavy, impact-protected vehicles to protect us from all the other big, heavy impact-protected vehicles.

Re: VW Group Collects Vehicle Movement Data

#49

Post by skwee357 »

junaru wrote: post #35

Can someone point me in the right direction on how cars submit the telemetry in the first place? Clearly some cellular technology is in use but this would require an eSIM or something from your local carrier. Do modern cars have "free internet" baked into them somehow that lets them upload this data? Whats the technology/protocol called ? How does it work in foreign countries with different carriers.

I rented a car recently in Germany. Before even connecting my iPhone via Apple CarPlay, the dashboard of the car displayed a 4G sign and had its own navigation system that seemed to be live. You also pay a “cross border” fee if you intend to drive the car outside Germany to other EU countries, and most mobile operators in the EU also include some sort of roaming across the EU. So I guess that could be one explanation.

Edit: there also seems to be an “SOS” button to connect you with an operator of some kind. There is a dedicated button for that (saw it in this car, and a few other I’ve rented).

Edit 2: and this car seemed to know the speed limit. At first I was sure it’s doing some OCR, but then I realized that it gets it via the internet based on my location.

Re: VW Group Collects Vehicle Movement Data

#50

Post by Earw0rm »

Etheryte wrote: post #8

Germany makes a big ruckus about their local industry struggling to compete with Chinese manufacturers, but meanwhile the Volkswagen Group stumbles from one scandal to the next. As far as I'm concerned, if that's the way you do business, go bankrupt. I know all big manufacturers have their warts and flaws, but VW continues to be the frontrunner year after year.

As you've brought China into this, which is the greater scandal?

1) VW Group collects data on its customers.

2) Chinese-made vehicles have potential two-way telemetry and control (we don't know, it's closed-source), and we've just allowed tens of thousands of 1.5-tonne, potentially autonomous vehicles with goodness-knows-what sensor packages, plenty of demonstrated ability to kill, injure, catch fire or block critical infrastructure, and backdoors to a not-exactly-friendly foreign government, unfettered access to our streets.

I'm not saying Chinese EVs are a Trojan horse, but I can hardly think of a more effective way to do it, if they wanted to. Even assuming there's no "actor" component and they do nothing more than passive data-gathering, that's still.. huge.. right?

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