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It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

theregister.com

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Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#51

Post by olliej »

SenAnder wrote: post #2

> In other words, it's A-OK for your car to "automatically and without authorization , instantaneously intercept, record, download, store, and [be] capable of transmitting" text messages and call logs since the privacy violation is potential, but the injury not necessarily actual. So it's effectively legal to sell backdoored hardware and software to spy on people. I wonder what would happen if I sold backdoored phone…

No, it's saying that because none of the information is transmitted there isn't a privacy violation - the law requires that a privacy violation actually occur, not that it "could".

e.g. that fact that there's a local call/message log on the car, and the car also has a mechanism for transmitting some data, does not mean that there's a privacy violation given that the car does not transmit the call/message log. That's the only reason this lawsuit got thrown out. It would be like saying "my phone receives messages, and stores those, and could transmit them to apple/google, therefore I should be able to sue them for the privacy violation they could do".

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#52

Post by graphe »

hammock wrote: post #44
graphe wrote: post #23

My Toyota asks for permission and if I grant it then it'll "harvest" my texts and calls. How horrible and unexpected. The title and the conclusion are biased and of poor quality. It should be "car manufacturers didn't get fined for the way their old head units worked".

I was in a rental car this week and pure accidentally (1 in 1000) hit “yes sync contacts.” Didn’t know how to reverse/revoke that decision. Wish I did/could

It probably helps that this isn't exploited often. You're fine. To attack someone requires so much effort the clickbait article didn't deserve the views.

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#53

Post by bobim »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39
bobim wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live on free energy, free as in "dig a hole and voilà": energy. No nuclear, no solar, no wind can replace the sheer amount of energy we extract out of oil and coal. I’m afraid privacy in cars is going to be the least of humanity’s problems unless we make fusion working.

> No nuclear, no solar, no wind can replace the sheer amount of energy we extract out of oil and coal What are you basing this on? You realise we have localised grids that go 100% renewable regularly, and could easily keep doing that with electrified transport?

Well, global surveys show how oil, gas and coal are going.

https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#54

Post by kulahan »

drewcoo wrote: post #19
bri3d wrote: post #15

I dug into the technical details here over the last few days and as usual it's not quite as sinister as the hand wringing: * Automotive head units are just embedded computers. Most run Linux, QNX, or Windows CE, with some proprietary UI system on top. * These machines usually store data in an onboard database in flash (sometimes just SQLite). * Sometimes, phone data is captured using standard Bluetooth mechanisms (Me…

> * If you use a rental car, Factory Reset the head unit when you leave. That is ridiculously onerous! Just because geeks can share arcane knowledge about how to be safe does not mean that this isn't horribly anti-consumer.

You're right, but it's the world we live in, and we need to exist within the system. This is the best way to do it - and spread the knowledge among your social circles.

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#55

Post by mattw2121 »

bri3d wrote: post #15

I dug into the technical details here over the last few days and as usual it's not quite as sinister as the hand wringing: * Automotive head units are just embedded computers. Most run Linux, QNX, or Windows CE, with some proprietary UI system on top. * These machines usually store data in an onboard database in flash (sometimes just SQLite). * Sometimes, phone data is captured using standard Bluetooth mechanisms (Me…

Big opportunity for one of the big car rental agencies to come out looking great by advertising their "privacy focus". They could advertise to customers that they promise/certify that any personal data is wiped between rentals. Sort of like all the cleanliness guarantees that came about right after Covid hit.

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#56

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bobim wrote: post #53
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No nuclear, no solar, no wind can replace the sheer amount of energy we extract out of oil and coal What are you basing this on? You realise we have localised grids that go 100% renewable regularly, and could easily keep doing that with electrified transport?

Well, global surveys show how oil, gas and coal are going. https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption

Well sure, we’re consuming more fossil fuels because they’re cheaper. Nothing I’ve seen suggests we can switch primary production to clean sources. It would be more expensive. But that’s far from a hard limit.

I’m genuinely curious if someone is credibly speculating we are unable, versus economically unwilling, to replace fossil fuels with clean options.

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#57

Post by akira2501 »

bri3d wrote: post #15

I dug into the technical details here over the last few days and as usual it's not quite as sinister as the hand wringing: * Automotive head units are just embedded computers. Most run Linux, QNX, or Windows CE, with some proprietary UI system on top. * These machines usually store data in an onboard database in flash (sometimes just SQLite). * Sometimes, phone data is captured using standard Bluetooth mechanisms (Me…

> This data is cached on the head unit so that finding a contact to call or reading a text message doesn't require 10 minutes worth of Bluetooth nonsense.

This is such an early 2000s idea. I'd much rather my car act as a dumb display that shows a copy of my phone screen then an intelligent agent that tries to replicate functionality already extant in my phone.

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#58

Post by someotherperson »

mattw2121 wrote: post #55
bri3d wrote: post #15

I dug into the technical details here over the last few days and as usual it's not quite as sinister as the hand wringing: * Automotive head units are just embedded computers. Most run Linux, QNX, or Windows CE, with some proprietary UI system on top. * These machines usually store data in an onboard database in flash (sometimes just SQLite). * Sometimes, phone data is captured using standard Bluetooth mechanisms (Me…

Big opportunity for one of the big car rental agencies to come out looking great by advertising their "privacy focus". They could advertise to customers that they promise/certify that any personal data is wiped between rentals. Sort of like all the cleanliness guarantees that came about right after Covid hit.

They'll just monetize it behind a $19.99 fee. And then they still won't do it, leading to some data leak, for which they'll be fined $2,000,000 despite having profited about $30,000,000 from it.

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#59

Post by gav »

bri3d wrote: post #15

I dug into the technical details here over the last few days and as usual it's not quite as sinister as the hand wringing: * Automotive head units are just embedded computers. Most run Linux, QNX, or Windows CE, with some proprietary UI system on top. * These machines usually store data in an onboard database in flash (sometimes just SQLite). * Sometimes, phone data is captured using standard Bluetooth mechanisms (Me…

> * If you use a rental car, Factory Reset the head unit when you leave.

If I rent a car, I won't pair my phone at all, even going so far as to use a car charger instead of the provided USB ports.

Re: It's perfectly legal for cars to harvest your texts, call logs

#60

Post by hoosieree »

SenAnder wrote: post #2

> In other words, it's A-OK for your car to "automatically and without authorization , instantaneously intercept, record, download, store, and [be] capable of transmitting" text messages and call logs since the privacy violation is potential, but the injury not necessarily actual. So it's effectively legal to sell backdoored hardware and software to spy on people. I wonder what would happen if I sold backdoored phone…

Jeep owners will be upset if they can't take the backdoors off.
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