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

blog.koenvh.nl

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

#61

Post by cyberpunk »

Arainach wrote: post #22
TomK32 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though the SIM was part of the car they bought, the SIM's contract is not in their name which means using the contract would be theft.

Is there case law on this? I don't see any way in which this is legally theft by the OP (admittedly my knowledge is more US-centric than Euro-centric). If I let someone tether a device to my cell phone (or loan my phone to them), are they committing theft? The company on the contract voluntarily gave the SIM to OP.

You better believe if I buy a property in Germany which has security cameras inside the absolute first thing that’s happening is those are getting smashed to absolute bits and if anyone even tries to complain I’ll sue them.

I may even consider filing against the previous tenants for not removing them and so my being filmed destroying them was without my consent, it’s a clear crime to me to record someone on their private property without their permission ..

This is absolutely not normal anywhere.

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

#62

Post by [deleted] »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #49
afh1 wrote: post #25

The scary part is not the GPS installed by the fleet company that previously owned the car, which in all likelihood was just forgotten there, but the GPS and eSIM that comes with most (all?) new cars and that in most (all?) new cars cannot be disabled. Apart from privacy concerns of your data being used or sold by the car vendor, government outreach is also a concern. There was a bill announced in the US for all new…

What does any of that have to do with a car being electric?

[deleted]

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

#63

Post by Ccecil »

Back around 2004 a friend of mine worked at a car dealership in the Bronx that sold high end used cars. They were putting GPS trackers in all of the cars they financed so they could repossess them when the customer didn't make their payment. This was/is (from my understanding, IANAL) very illegal. They never told the customers either. The financing was ridiculous and they preyed on the people who had just enough down and didn't care what they were signing so they had a large percentage of repossessions.

Made me wonder how many other shops were doing the same thing...even 20 years ago.

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

#64

Post by sidewndr46 »

jhugo wrote: post #51
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW this was not in the US.

Regardless I would have carefully taken these down and put them in a box on the day I moved in. And then called them (or better, written to them) and given them a reasonable amount of time (maybe a couple months) to collect their property, making it clear that I would dispose of it after that time expired.

Why? After cutting the power to them I'd tell the company if they wanted them back I can take them down and ship them back at my standard rate of $500/hr

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

#67

Post by kleiba »

As long as privacy-related misconducts are considered petty offenses, these things will just continue. Governments fail to see the implications because the virtual world is too difficult for them to understand. As long as there are no laws that actually get enforced, your privacy isn't worth anything.

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

#68

Post by josephcsible »

Etheryte wrote: post #57
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does any of that have to do with a car being electric?

Electric cars are essentially black boxes. When you take it apart, you have largely no idea what any of the chips do, even if you chase down what they're connected to. Is this the infotainment system or is it the infotainment system and a data gathering system that sends all my data off seas? There's no way to know. Old cars don't have that problem. Here's an engine, here's a gearbox, add a radio if you'd like, but b…

But that's not a gas vs. electric distinction, but rather an old vs. new one. Modern ICE cars have all of those problems too.

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

#69

Post by devmor »

cyberpunk wrote: post #56
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can be difficult to grasp. I bought an aparment 3.5 years ago and it had an alarm installed. I called the security company to transfer ownership but that couldn’t be done without authorisation from the previous owner, which probably makes sense. The problem is, they were unreachable, and I was living on a house that I now owned, and which had cameras the previous owner could take pics from at any time . My patie…

Sorry. But I have to ask. What the actual fuck?! Why would you have cameras inside your house to begin with, let alone ones that upload to “the cloud” and let alone ones that upload to users you don’t control? I’m totally shocked by this.

This is a disturbingly common practice - I have seen videos on Reddit, YouTube and the like that show moments captured from cameras obviously mounted inside children’s bedrooms with a cloud service company’s logo on the feed.
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