
The Car of the Future Will Sell Your Data - adventured
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-20/the-car-of-the-future-will-sell-your-data
======
userbinator
The car of the future will sell your data and also be vulnerable to hackers,
and extremely difficult or even impossible to repair.

I know a few others in the tech industry who also spend their spare time
collecting and restoring _old_ cars, as in made more than 50 years ago. Parts
and documentation are surprisingly available, and there's an extensive
aftermarket thanks to a general lack of DRM-ish things --- these were made
even before microcontrollers, so they're as "unconnected" as possible, and
anything that goes wrong tends to be a relatively simple fix. Manufacturers
were more concerned with actually making good products than locking out
competitors or planning obolescence. The lack of annoyances such as needing to
wait for the radio to "boot up"[1] or controls hidden behind layers of menus
is also a plus.

They may not be as safe, fuel-efficient, nor environmentally friendly as
today's cars, but there's a certain amazingly pleasant and comforting feeling
of _freedom_ in driving one. It's hard to describe.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15934023](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15934023)

~~~
rixrax
> The car of the future will sell your data and also be vulnerable to hackers

I see few things happening. There will be a time when modern connected car I
own no longer receives software updates while it otherwise would remain a
great daily driver. Each passing day it becomes more vulnerable to being
hacked to perform variety of things. What is the level of risk that I am
willing to accept before having to get rid of the otherwise good car since I
no longer feel safe operating it? Eventually there will be an event where this
risk gets realized. This will further hasten the move towards
policies/legislation where private automotive ownership is no longer allowed
and everything moves towards subscription based auto ownership. This will take
longer in the US due to cultural reasons, whereas Asia and Europe will
hesitate much less to implement this.

At which point I suspect also the data collected by subscribed automotive
belongs to the vendor 'renting' it out.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I think the trend will go even further where private autos are replaced with a
fleet of automated taxis. Especially in dense cities, this would allow for
more utilization and require less need for parking.

It really isn’t a new thing in countries where (non-automated) taxis are super
common and private car ownership is much rarer (e.g. much of Asia and some of
Europe).

------
Slansitartop
At some point I think we'll need strong regulation to stop advertising getting
weaseled into every product and service. There doesn't even seem to be much of
any exchange here (e.g. free stuff for ads), just a one-sided grab for
profits. "Discounts and rewards" are often just advertising by another name.

I'm really glad that I was careful not to buy a "connected car." I was mostly
concerned with security (e.g. ransomware), but this is another problem to add
to the list. As far as I can tell, the connectivity offers little to no actual
benefit to owners.

~~~
bentruyman
Couldn't you just, you know, not purchase those products or services?

~~~
michrassena
Not buying these products is a false affordance. Your friends have them, your
spouse carries one every time you go out together, your children clamor for
them at Christmas. If I have to keep my lawn well maintained or face a fine,
there's no good reason that people should be exempt from laws that regulate
behavior that has a greater impact to society than tall weeds.

~~~
anfilt
Sounds like your part of HOA that's your first mistake. Although some cities
are picky as can be.

Although, I hate ads and, they are just low information propaganda. Honestly,
I wish they would go the way of the dodo.

~~~
michrassena
Yeah, it's a city ordinance.

------
iamcasen
As a computer scientist, and all around maker/hacker, I find shit like this
despicable. I'd love to be able to get a Tesla, download the data to my own
lap top, and play around with their API's and what not, but it's not an
option. Tesla owns all the data, and they can do whatever they want with it.
No thanks.

All modern cars are all proprietary, and their hardware/software is mostly
garbage that can't be tinkered with, fixed, or modified.

If that's the only option in the future, I'll take my welder, and my old cars
and head for the hills to try and finish off the rest of my days in relative
peace -- free of intrusive spying and advertising.

~~~
greglindahl
Tesla has an API that you can use to download quite a bit of data in real-
time. You can't get past data with it.

Also, you can write Javascript apps that run in the web browser.

I did a bunch of hackathon projects using that data when the Model S first
came out, now there's an ecosystem of apps and stuff available for the cars.

I won't fault your opinion for Tesla having more access to your data than you
might like, but your opinion about what you can download seems a little
incomplete.

~~~
drharby
Im certain hes implying they have stored history of vehicular data

~~~
greglindahl
He did, and they do. I don't like that Tesla knows as much about my habits as
Apple does. That wasn't my point, however.

------
acd
There needs to be regulations in place so that we do not build another free
market tech Stasi. Stasi was the secret policy in east germany that spyed on
every move of its citizens. In other words that we do not have devices that
spy on us all the time and that data is sold for profit.

Examples Geo location based ads where you have been driving. Real estate ads
where you have been driving. Increased health insure if you eat junk food.
Marketing from online brands when you stop by your local store. Automatic
speed tickets if you exceed the speed limit Higher auto insurance if you
speed. More expensive car insurance if you drive reckless or honk too often.
Gym card ads if you do not exercise or eat a lot of junk food

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi)

~~~
expertentipp
I wonder to what extend the typically German forms of tormenting an individual
like copyright trolling or _Rundfunkbeitrag_ letters have their inspiration in
_Zersetzung_ practices.

~~~
germanier
Probably not at all. It's absolutely easy to not be subject to that: Pay all
your dues as required by law and don't distribute copyrighted content you have
no license to.

~~~
expertentipp
or otherwise you wouldn't want your life to become accidentally inconvenient
and your opinion dented, would you?

------
expertentipp
Ads in the car dashboard?! Let the meteor hit the earth already and put an end
to our civilization.

~~~
xs
But what if it's a few thousand $ cheaper? Like the $50 Kindle Fire tablet.

~~~
frfl
What if that kindle was $25, but every time you wanted to use it, you had to
watch a 30s ad and then while reading give up 20% of the screen for a banner
ad? Still wanna buy/use that kindle?

I think what GP is trying to say, from my perspective, is where does it stop?
All this effort just to get the end user to consume more and more. The
brainpower that's being wasted on delivering ads! Could that not be used to
solve actual -- real -- problems instead? Why is delivering ads such a big
problem that we're spending so many resources and so much effort on it?

You pay $50 for that kindle and save some money, but don't fool yourself into
thinking it's not costing you -- really use as a civilization -- a lot more.

~~~
tylerhou
> Why is delivering ads such a big problem that we're spending so many
> resources and so much effort on it?

Showing ads isn't really that difficult of a problem, especially on tablets
which have built in video players.

> You pay $50 for that kindle and save some money, but don't fool yourself
> into thinking it's not costing you -- really use as a civilization -- a lot
> more.

Isn't it bit presumptuous/egotistic to assume that you're a more accurate
judge when it comes to the value of not seeing ads for a given consumer than
them themselves?

------
elihu
I worry that soon many cars will share ads and/or sell your location
information with basically no way to opt out. If automakers are determined to
make you run their adware, they can just program their cars not to start
unless you have the latest software. They even have a couple legitimate
excuses to do this: maybe the latest software fixes some remote exploitable
security hole that makes the car unsafe to use, or maybe always-on tracking is
an anti-theft feature.

If software updates are an all-or-nothing affair, then they can bundle
whatever they want and force you to use it if you want a working car. If it's
too obnoxious you could sell it, but the resale value might not be very good
and we'd end up with a lot of people driving adware-infested automobiles
because they can't afford anything better. I hope we have some sensible
consumer protection laws to prevent this kind of thing coming to pass.

This issue reminds me of a Vernor Vinge science fiction novel that describes
battles between space-faring civilizations. If one side happened to capture a
ship that belonged to the other side, they really couldn't do anything with it
except melt it down for scrap metal because they couldn't trust all the
embedded computers not to do anything nefarious.

------
codebeaker
I'm presently replacing my car (Europe) with a new Opel, I'm somewhat
disgusted at how the manufacturer is pushing their OnStar service as a
wonderful thing. It's GPS and full-time connected LTE with a suite of sensors
in the car, and this is for a commodity €25k vehicle. It's a big-brother
network, it defaults to "on" and whilst there is a "disable onstar" software
button it cannot be defaulted to "off".

Customer benefits are touted as being "crash assistance if you need it", "easy
access to a customer service agent (phone) who knows your position and can
program your navigation" and "always-on unlimited LTE hotspot".

My wife is excited about it because always on-lte means wireless entertainment
for the kids, a "safety" net incase we have a crash (but we drive nearly
exclusively inner city miles, and within that group, nearly exclusively the
same 5 mile stretch of main-roads). I'm flabbergasted by people's convenience
over security mindset, or maybe it's the pseudo physical security offered by
such overwatch programmes vs. the digital privacy security.

------
ocdtrekkie
I am so interested in the modern car for it's sensor suite... but so
uninterested for it's cloud features. My hope is, when I next buy a car, that
I can still disable the manufacturer's network connection, even if I have to
go under the hood or behind the dashboard to do it.

~~~
gruez
>the manufacturer's network connection

is that actually a thing for cars without a subscription? i'd imagine they
forgo the monthly cost of a data connection (that they're not getting paid
for), and download any data off the car when you take it in for servicing
instead.

~~~
__blockcipher__
Let's take Tesla as an example. Not representative, but still.

They are constantly connected and log __everything__. They own the data, and
they will happily use it against you if it serves them (ie, you die in an
"autopilot"-related car crash, they pull your location data and show that you
were leaving from a bar at 2:00 AM). Since it's not encrypted to a device key
that only you own, like how iOS devices work, Tesla is also forced to hand
over your data to federal authorities as soon as they get subpoenaed.

It scares me a lot, frankly. I don't have enough money to buy a Tesla either
way, but I don't think I could pull the trigger knowing what their data policy
is like.

Of course, with the way automated license plate readers are going, you'll
probably be location tracked even with a "dumb" car, but at least the data
would be more fragmented.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Yeah, paying six figures to buy a car that's been built to rat me out if it
serves the corporate interest is not what I'd call a good investment. They've
also threatened to sue someone for interfacing with the software of their own
car, vindictively banned a journalist from buying their cars due to a negative
blog post, and the only place you can even see a Tesla repair manual is in a
state that legally requires it... and Tesla charges $30 an hour for the
privilege.

They hinge heavily on how evil laws are requiring third party dealerships,
while being a case-in-point example of why third party dealerships protect
consumers from an overbearing mothership.

------
jacquesm
Mine won't, I guarantee it. As long as it is just technology it should not be
too hard to strike back. It will get more complex when it is both tech and
legal, such as 'you shall never touch the radio module of your car for safety
reasons' because the data harvester/ad injector uses the same platform as the
collision detector and OTA update.

There ought to be a mandatory disclosure of any phone home or online activity
engaged in by your car.

------
oldcynic
> "Telenav Inc., a company developing in-car advertising software, is betting
> you won’t mind much"

That's not a bet I'd put £5 on.

Will they be giving dealers a "magic remote" to make sure no ads pop up during
a test drive?

------
olympus
My car of the future will have a very complicated hosts file. The manufacturer
had better not try to break the self-driving features if I block the ads. If
they do I volunteer to be the pedestrian that gets hit by a car with ad-block
so I can sue them for the stupid decision.

~~~
expertentipp
Considering how difficult it is already to use hosts file (e.g. on iPhone) I
wouldn't count on this brilliant and lightweight universal blocker to have a
use with cars.

------
gesman
Google's Waze does exactly that. Ads at a stoplight.

Get ready to pay the premium for no-ads. However likely very hefty!

~~~
lotu
That is the question people should be asking if you don't like the question
"how much extra would you pay not to see ads in you car?" we can do the
equivalent "how much of a discount would trade to see ads in your car?"

~~~
gesman
The problem with cars is that you cannot avoid them, like you can avoid
browsing ad-infested website or turning off add-annoying TV channel.

Everyone will know that and hence car manufacturers and car dealers seriously
subsidied by an ad publishers will charge hefty price tag for anyone trying to
escape ad prison system.

~~~
ascagnel_
> The problem with cars is that you cannot avoid them, like you can avoid
> browsing ad-infested website or turning off add-annoying TV channel.

The web and TV are open enough that you can work around those negative
experiences (with ad-blockers on the web or a DVR to skip the ads on TV).

I don't see car manufacturers that engage with this scheme allowing third-
party software or hardware that would block the ads. If anything, you'll only
see an extra fee to drop the ad.

------
rmason
So the banner ad will now follow you from your website and phone onto your
car's navigation screen - sigh.

~~~
dhimes
I can't wait for the car to drive you to the store posting the ad, whether you
want to go or not. Spend a mandatory 60 seconds in the parking lot.

Somehow we have to stop the madness. If only we had the guts.

~~~
taneq
Ah, the future... Where all cars are Indian taxis which take you round the
back streets to their brother's carpet shop.

------
devhead
just a scam to collect data and turn the consumer into a never ending product
and revenue source for the manufacturers. What's worse is this will have a
higher usage on low to medium earners who will opt in and save some money.

------
maxxxxx
It will probably also have planned obsolescence.

~~~
Namrog84
I highly suspect that the car of the further future won't be owned by
individuals and we will start seeing the opposite of planned obsolescence.

~~~
ralusek
Unplanned evolution?

------
xj9
> the car of the future

i'm building my own. i already ride an ebike everywhere and i'm working on
some modifications to extend my range to what i used to be able to reach in my
ICE vehicle.

i have been ebiking for a while to force myself into a healthier lifestyle.
more recently, i was inspired by sun trip[0][1] to explore the concept of a
light electric vehicle (lev) powered by a combination of solar and human
power. since its diy, you can bet that any "connected" parts of the machine
will be running libre software and the most open hardware i can get my hands
on.

why depend on car companies when i can bypass them and buy parts wholesale?
electric drive trains aren't very complex[2], especially the sort that you
would put on an ebike. like, a basic understanding of electronics and the
ability to follow some instructions is all you need.

[0]: [https://www.thesuntrip.com/](https://www.thesuntrip.com/)

[1]:
[https://viewer.heropunch.io/%25RE0KrWXuFmUSXFhaHNWfT8HNSBuut...](https://viewer.heropunch.io/%25RE0KrWXuFmUSXFhaHNWfT8HNSBuutvW%2FWdUO7ZzWOII%3D.sha256)

[2]:
[https://bafangusadirect.com/products](https://bafangusadirect.com/products)

------
lotsofpulp
Is this data that valuable? You already have more granular info from
everyone's phones.

~~~
whakopto
Yes but that data is mostly owned by a few giant tech companies. This gives
the automotive manufacturers a chance to get into the personal information
brokering business. They have different priorities to Google and may be
willing to sell data for uses Google won't.

------
tw1010
It would be interesting if beyond the free access to services we get from
companies selling our data, we also actually got payed. Maybe that could act
as a bootstrapped first approximation of basic income. Get money by doing
nothing, just selling your data and activities to ad machines or as machine
learning training data. Just go out and exist in the world, act naturally, and
if you're ok with your data being recorded and fed into a model, you'll be
able to pay rent this month.

------
8bitsrule
For decades, IMO, the companies have tried their best to make it as hard (and
expensive) as possible for people who can fix their own. Making this another
gambit in the chess game.

------
jadedhacker
We are so carpet bombed with ads that in some sense the demand for peace and
contemplation is a synthetic need generated by not only the content of ads,
but by their very presence. Ad free consumer gadgets provide a new way to
price differentiate between the wealthy and the poor. The advertisers, and
through them, the owners of corporations and the owners of the society, win no
matter how you slice it.

~~~
mirimir
I rarely see ads. But then, no TV or smartphone for me.

And I'll be keeping my '92 Civic hatchback.

------
ensiferum
Sigh, why can't we have technology to already embed a microchip in the brain
that would modulate the electrical impulses in the visual cortex to display
ads in your visual system directly.

Oh and you absolutely need to accompany that with a rectum insertable GPS
tracker that will become standard goverment issue and mandatory same way was
biometric passports.

------
rypskar
Good we have EU and GDPR, IMO the largest difference between USA and EU when
it comes to data protection is that in EU MY data is mine, it don't belong to
the company who store and they cannot sell it to any 3rd party without me
first accepting it

~~~
nugi
They seem to suck at enforcing that. Does tesla not track EU cars? I bet they
do.

------
nitwit005
Showing ads, even when you seem to be at a stop, would be far too much of a
liability issue. People would get distracted at a stop sign, or when waiting
to make a turn. You'd end up paying for half the world's fender benders.

------
sudhirj
Im'a let you finish, but every device and capable to communicating with any
other device in the present and the future will sell your data.

------
bb88
Yet again, another site with autoplay video.

------
tomc1985
The data orgy is everywhere :(

------
omarforgotpwd
The car of the future won't be your car, so it won't be your data.

------
adultSwim
The <blank> of the Present already sells your data

------
abzolv
"Officer, I was distracted by a Durex ad."

~~~
gesman
...or:

"I was in rush to take advantage of a valuable offer I just saw at the last
stoplight" ...

------
jlebrech
that's what something like oculus go will be for, your (the) car is doing the
driving so just watch a movie.

------
Pica_soO
The car of the future will run on steam.

This means it is a hardware and a software-platform where besides basic tasks
like driving - everything can be bought by third party vendours, who pay a fee
to the supplier of the software-platform.

S/He whoever overcomes his embedded plattform - fire and forget idea of
software in this area first, shall inherit it all.

Let the challenge begin.

PS: Seriously- take John Deere- they basically have people begging and
hacking, to work for them for free- and decide - no we sell parts and
packages.

------
Feniks
In America sure, lost cause. I expect this wouldn't fly in EU unless you give
your consent. And why would you?

~~~
nugi
The 'consent' will be rolled in to the purchase contract. Dont want us to have
your data? No car for you.

