
China is spying on all cars using Chinese 5G Modems - hemantv
https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2018/07/07/xis-world-order-july-2024
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saurik
This article was written in 2024, and should probably get a "(2024)" tag
attached to the title.

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_mnr
thanks for this, and thanks for everything.

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berbec
Is it /the/ saurik?!

My thanks for Cydia too.

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ThePhysicist
This kind of data collection is not limited to China (or the future they
imagine in the article), as in Germany many car manufacturers do this kind of
data collection since at least 2016, often without people really realizing the
scope of it. Here's a good article about this (from Switzerland actually but
also applicable to other countries in the EU and probably beyond):

* [https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/wie-uns-autobauer-ausspaehen](https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/wie-uns-autobauer-ausspaehen) (in German)

For example, Mercedes Benz forced people to accept this kind of data
collection when signing the buying contract (no consent -> no car), though I
think they might no longer be able to do this now due to restrictions imposed
by the GDPR, which forbids making an entire contract dependent on the consent
to a data collection measure that is not strictly required for the purposes of
the contract.

The data does (to my knowledge) not get centralized yet, but a conglomerate of
car companies is working on a platform that will make the data accessible to
third parties (supposedly with user consent), so that e.g. gas station
operators can offer tailored discounts to people based on their route.

In general there's nothing fundamentally wrong with collecting this data, as a
German I was very surprised to learn about this though as normally people are
pretty privacy-aware here, and having all your movement data (and more)
continuously streamed to your car manufacturer didn't seem like something that
most people would take lightly. Seems I was wrong about this though as of
today no one really seems to mind.

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elefanten
It may be gauche to say it bluntly, but I would consider it a huge difference
if German companies held my data vs Chinese ones. China needs to reckon with
it's deeply immoral political structures before I will ever feel safe as a
consumer if their products.

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ThePhysicist
Sure it's probably better if your data is held by a democratically elected
government or a company that's under strict privacy jurisdiction, I would
often prefer though if the data wouldn't exist to begin with (or at least
would be properly anonymized). Let's face it, such detailed data sets can be
very dangerous to a person and his/her freedoms if used by the wrong people,
so they should not be created for purely economic reasons.

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Leary
This article is a fictional account of what the Economist imagines China's
future will look like.

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simonbh
OK, good to know that I am still sane. I started reading the article, and was
very confused. I think I need more coffee.

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mtgx
This is the danger of China dominating electric vehicles in the future, which
is to say China will dominate _most_ of the car industry in the future,
because EVs are the future of all cars.

Obviously, this isn't just about the spying and China "invading your privacy".
If they have access to the car data, they probably have remote access to other
components in the cars, too. Baidu's open source Apollo program is another
trojan hourse that the China government would like the western markets to
adopt.

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rapnie
IMHO the danger is not just limited to China, but _anyone_ putting these kinds
of invasive technologies into cars, without the car owner having any control
over it.

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paradite
HN headlines like this is why China discourages April fools day.

People who don't have time to read the article will have the idea of "China is
spying on all cars using Chinese 5G Modems" in their mind and it's hard to
correct wrong beliefs.

You can't expect the whole population to have time to read the content and be
informed and careful enough to distinguish fiction and facts, especially if it
comes from a reputable source like Economist.

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qd6pwu4
this article has overestimated china's tech level, naive.

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394549
> this article has overestimated china's tech level, naive.

It's not bad to overestimate your adversary's tech level. The US developed the
far-superior F-15 because it overestimated the capabilities and role of the
Mig-25.

In this case, the overestimation could spur policy and technology decisions to
increase security.

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hemantv
Why is this flagged?

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buchanae
Which cars use Chinese 5G modems?

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Raglov
Care to read the article?

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buchanae
That's not nice, nor helpful. I did read the article, a couple times actually.

Care to paste the line which give a list of specific cars?

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Raglov
The article states: _The earliest commercial casualties of Mr Fu’s
whistleblowing were carmakers in America, Europe and Japan, whose share prices
plunged_.

But your question makes absolutely no sense to begin with in the context of
the article: it is about hypothetical scenario in 2024. That's why I naturally
doubted that you read or, considering your statement, understood the article
premise.

