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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

#491

Post by tekknik »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #221
gr33nq wrote: post #15

At first glance this reminded me of some Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor models which had similar unlabeled buttons. One would disable all exterior lights, including brake lights, for going into stealth/surveillance mode. An adjacent button was used to be able to remove the key and keep the engine running, while preventing the car from being shifted out of park until the key was inserted again. I haven't seen…

I was astonished to learn that Ford no longer sells sedans (Fusions) of any kind. Neither does GM. I dislike SUVs, and it seems the only choices for American sedans are a Cadillac or a Tesla. Hondas and Toyotas are selling like hot-cakes, but when they had to compete on quality American automakers just decided to walk away from the market. So no need to worry about that feature on Fusions... they don't sell them anym…

those CAFE standards, or the “not an EV mandate” have destroyed the US car market. Trucks come standard with 4 cylinder engines now and manufacturers are reducing their offerings to meet the aggressive climate goals.

Check Chevy and Dodge too. Chevy has one sedan and Dodge is still selling 2023 model years to avoid CAFE.

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

#492

Post by _yb2s »

op00to wrote: post #306
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.

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”.

The Volvo 940 had all of those modern safety features, but was still more or less the same car as the older RWD 740.

Mercedes also had that stuff early- I had a 1987 Mercedes diesel that had front air bags, ABS, and was basically modern car reliable.

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

#493

Post by dmazin »

risenshinetech wrote: post #443

This entire article is clickbait. - Headline "My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch". No, this is not a new car. This is a used car. Finding undocumented switches in a vehicle someone else owned is very common. People modify their cars all the time. Finding an undocumented switch in a new car would be wild. - "And that’s how the search comes to an end. After a bit of perseverance I figured out what it i…

Damn, you're cranky. The original article was a good read.

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

#494

Post by immibis »

parineum wrote: post #436
callalex wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite the opposite! Since people can have faith that they are protected by GDPR, they can have machines that actually work to help them, instead of hobbling them out of fear of being exploited.

Except for those car machines

How so? A manufacturer who's found to use this information for any purpose other than calling emergency services when you crash will go bankrupt because of the GDPR. This is a strong incentive not to.

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

#495

Post by maccard »

behringer wrote: post #213
maccard wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing that is illegal in many places. Here’s a decent summary in the Uk [0] [0] https://jebaring.co.uk/involuntary-bailee-what-to-do/

It's also just not very nice. It is ok to be nice to people. Do unto others and all that. And before I get called naive, courts do look very favorably upon defendants that are nice.

I completely agree. Involuntary bailee in the UK is one of the nastier parts of the law (IMO) it penalises you for being a decent person and gives the power to the asshole. It’s ripe for abuse.

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

#496

Post by ctb_mg »

risenshinetech wrote: post #443

This entire article is clickbait. - Headline "My new car has a mysterious and undocumented switch". No, this is not a new car. This is a used car. Finding undocumented switches in a vehicle someone else owned is very common. People modify their cars all the time. Finding an undocumented switch in a new car would be wild. - "And that’s how the search comes to an end. After a bit of perseverance I figured out what it i…

I have to say I agree fully and it's kind of disappointing how much chaff makes it to the HN front page. This is ostensibly an interesting article, but at second glance doesn't really hold up to any scrutiny as anything really novel... folks buying used cars for decades have been doing detective work on 3rd party aftermarket modifications that have been left in. Instead, show me a door chime that has been converted to Toto's Africa using an arduino or custom fab board with STM chip.

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

#497

Post by ctb_mg »

realityking wrote: post #33
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

I've experience working on a team for one GPS fleet management solution. Our SIMs were usually provided in a bulk PO from a top tier wireless provider and were all locked down to a certain very small (on the order of 5mb/mo) bandwidth plan. This cuts cost and risk.

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

#498

Post by ddingus »

bluGill wrote: post #486
ddingus wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And maintaining that proper distance can be worse! I try, and often succeed and generally see risks all around. Too close, and often with few or no escape paths means maintaining best case attention and response times for the whole drive. That is tiring and usually just not enough. Too far back means people dropping into the gap non-stop! This too is tiring. I really hate how this aspect of driving.

I have learned to ignore those driving into the gap. In fact one reason for the gap is to leave room for those who need to switch lanes. in reality not many jump into the gap.

True.

I do hate it less these days. Perhaps I am headed your way on this.

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

#499

Post by Forgeties79 »

consteval wrote: post #439
dghlsakjg wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It comes down to intention. The charitable read is that they are notifying you of the possibility that the car’s data collection may unintentionally include sexual activity. E.g. your car was recorded as having a rocking motion while parked. The other read is that they are intentionally collecting sexual activity data for nefarious purposes. The first is the lawyer drafting the release being overcautious. The se…

Personally I don’t need proof. Over the past couple decades I’ve been giving companies and our government the benefit of the doubt. And I’ve been burned every time. Not only am I wrong, always, I’m extremely wrong. In fact the conspiracy theorists are often wrong too - they’re too lenient. After Snowden, we should all understand that whatever the worst case scenario is, it’s probably worse than that. If you can think…

How people can see headlines like this - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driv... - and go "well we haven't seen proof they do it so stop being so alarmist" is beyond me.

I don't trust a single one of them. It's not even just they haven't earned it, it's that we have every reason not to. The public trust in these companies should be completely and irreparably shattered at this point.

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

#500

Post by gcanyon »

jspash wrote: post #415
cyberbolt23 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

??

It's all in the delivery

This is certainly true. Typing that I heard his voice in my head, and laughed. I'm sure someone who's never heard Steven Wright has a much more limited response.
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