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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

#61

Post by OneLeggedCat »

bri3d wrote: post #41
zeteo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful with that or it might just eat up your battery trying to contact cellular towers at maximum power with a short retry interval.

The module should go to sleep, and the battery management should also load-shed it if it detects the battery draining. I suspect this is probably not implemented correctly on some cars (because what is), but it's definitely something that's tested for regularly (since cars can be expected to be taken camping, off the grid, or even just purchased by owners who live outside of cellular coverage).

> The module should go to sleep

lol tell Subaru owners about this. There are tons of them complaining of batteries going dead the last few years, just from sitting a few days in the driveway, while the always-on cellular is at edge of range, hunting. Subaru's solution to this has been to in some cases pay for a bigger battery for those customers.

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

#62

Post by rsync »

gav wrote: post #59
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.

Agreed, although I use a “usb condom” for convenience…

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

#63

Post by InCityDreams »

graphe wrote: post #52
hammock wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How often isn't it exploited often?

Additionally: if you were a person travelling for an abortion, not in your car because your state is all fucked up(!), can the cops request copies of texts you've received/ sent?

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

#64

Post by SenAnder »

olliej wrote: post #51
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…

Thank you for the correction. This makes the judgement much more reasonable.

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

#65

Post by InCityDreams »

almatabata wrote: post #20

> store each intercepted, recorded, and downloaded copy of text messages in non-temporary computer memory in such a manner that the vehicle owner cannot access it or delete it, You might think why care if its your own car. But if you rent cars this can become an issue where if poorly implemented the next driver could access the information. It is such an easy feature to implement and suppliers in Europe already do th…

What are the flaws in GDPR?

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

#66

Post by SoftTalker »

nonameiguess wrote: post #12
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…

I'm not an attorney, but I think a lot of the Internet misunderstands the law. It is legal to do this, apparently, but that doesn't mean the court is saying it's okay or they should do this, and it certainly doesn't mean anyone would be okay with you doing it. But if you managed to, then yes, it would apparently be legal. The court can only rule on what the law actually says and it says you only have grounds to sue o…

Yes, civil law is not about deciding legality. It's about deciding liability. And to do that, there has to be a harm demonstrated. The plaintiff could not do this, so the case was thrown out.

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

#67

Post by bonton89 »

zeteo wrote: post #32
Caboose8685 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could potentially Faraday cage it if you can find the exact spot it's at.

Careful with that or it might just eat up your battery trying to contact cellular towers at maximum power with a short retry interval.

Maybe an other way around solution? Is is possible to build some kind of dummy cell tower that supersedes real ones?

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

#68

Post by thedaly »

akira2501 wrote: post #57
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.

Yes, Carplay is the correct way to implement this.

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

#69

Post by dylan604 »

gav wrote: post #59
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.

most car USB ports are slow charging. my little power port convert provides fast charging. so not only do i get the extra speed, but the assurance that the USB isn't nefarious. which admittedly is probably a bit paranoid, but what if i'm not?!

i didn't even like having my phone data sunk to a my own personal car. it just made no logical sense on why that would be useful, so being me, i just assumed it was for nefarious purposes. people no longer get the benefit of the doubt of being lazy/incompetent. i immediately jump to the situation essentially being an attack vector.

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

#70

Post by dylan604 »

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.

It should be policy for the rental company to do this. On more than one occasion, I have received a car with a previous renter's personal data still in the system.
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