
Totaled Teslas contain unencrypted and personally revealing data about owners - United857
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html
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alasdair_
I bought my tesla used, directly from Tesla (for the warranty etc.) The
previous owner's address and other sensitive information was still listed on
the "My Tesla" pages at tesla.com when I logged in to my own account.

Comically, on the car itself, the previous navigation searches were not
cleared and included a nearby strip club that my wife found before I did.

On my wife's X (also bought from tesla.com second-hand), she was sent a whole
bunch of financial information about the previous owner, both through text
messages and on the online portal.

They really don't do an especially good job of securing customer information.

~~~
cptskippy
Regarding the car itself, shouldn't some responsibility lie with the previous
owner? The first thing I do before selling a phone or laptop is wipe or
factory reset it.

We rented a car last week that had 11 paired Bluetooth devices and like 1400
entries in the phone book. I was kind of jealous because my Leaf only allows 3
devices. I wiped it all out before returning the car.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
> shouldn't some responsibility lie with the previous owner?

If the secondhand purchase was a general person-to-person sale, sure.

If buying secondhand from a dealer, or the _manufacturer_ , I'd be expecting
some sort of refurbishment. At the minimum a proper detailed cleaned, full
service, and software factory reset plus latest software upgrades at the
relevant price-point.

~~~
dustindiamond
Other car manufacturers call it ‘certified pre-owned’, or CPO.

~~~
chiph
The thoroughness of a CPO inspection/refurbishment can vary from "We did all
200 items the manufacturer specifies" to "We washed it".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f037K2Fr2FU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f037K2Fr2FU)

~~~
dustindiamond
Have anything I can read instead of sitting through 12 minutes of a talking
head?

If it is a true certified, the checklist (standarized by the manufacturer)
will have to be signed off by a factory-certified technician, so there is a
paper-trail.

~~~
ams6110
and we all know that a car dealer would _never_ do something like sign off the
checklist without actually having done the work. /s

------
daferna
According to the same guy Tesla uploads WiFi passwords in plaintext to their
servers and this database has been leaked already:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/b7383h/cnbc_te...](https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/b7383h/cnbc_tesla_cars_keep_more_data_than_you_think/ejptmh3/?context=3)

------
caboteria
Funny coincidence - I went to see a talk by Rich Benoit (of Rich Rebuilds
fame) just the other day. Rich used this security loophole to find the key for
one of the donor cars that he used to build his franken-tesla. After he
swapped the electronics from a crashed car into a water-damaged car he was
able to power it up enough to get the navigation to work but couldn't drive it
without a key. The previous owner's house was still listed as "Home" in the
nav system so he was able to get in touch with him and get the key.

------
zaroth
> _You can opt out of all data collection. But then you lose [over-the-air
> software updates] and a bunch of other functionality. So, understandably,
> nobody does that, and I also begrudgingly accepted it._

Here is the relevant passage from Tesla’s owner’s manual;

“Our collection of Tesla vehicle data. If you no longer wish us to collect
Telematics Log Data or any other data from your Tesla vehicle, please contact
us as indicated in the "How to Contact Us" section below. Please note that, if
you opt out from the collection of Telematics Log Data or any other data from
your Tesla vehicle, we will not be able to notify you of issues applicable to
your vehicle in real time, and this may result in your vehicle suffering from
reduced functionality, serious damage, or inoperability, and it may also
disable many features of your vehicle including periodic software and firmware
updates, remote services, and interactivity with mobile applications and in-
car features such as location search, Internet radio, voice commands, and web
browser functionality.”

Also worth nothing that agreeing to the telematics / monitoring is part of the
purchase agreement.

~~~
bo1024
Wow, this sounds especially egregious.

1\. The language is not far from "this car might kill you if you don't let us
collect data."

2\. I can't see a technical reason that opting out of telemetry means opting
out of software updates --- it just seems like a cynical disincentive.

(I was already very critical of Tesla for Stallman-esque reasons, but this
particularly stands out.)

~~~
zaroth
“Telemetry” in this case is the entire uplink functionality. You are severing
the entire connection with the mothership, so of course you lose all the cloud
functionality that goes with it.

I actually really like that they offer the option to run the car totally dark.
Of course you don’t get your GPS maps, or streaming radio, or software updates
in that case.

I would assume software updates could still be installed by a service tech
using a direct connection if the remote uplink is severed. Obviously automatic
updates are a non-starter for a system which you are not connected to.

Keep in mind this opt-out is separate from the auto-pilot opt-in which lets
your share short video clips and associated sensor data with Tesla to help
them improve their lane tracking and feature detection algorithms.

~~~
bo1024
Thanks for the clarification. I think the wording can be much more clear and
neutral.

As a sidenote, I guess it's just a sad reality that 'automatic updates' are
phrased as necessary for safety on a car... this implies Tesla originally
shipped a broken / dangerous system (or at least a high enough chance of that
to include this language).

~~~
zaroth
I mean this is what happens when lawyers write your terms. An update could
increase safety, therefore a delayed update could result in death.

For example Model 3 got an update which reduced its stopping distance under
heavy braking. If you don’t get this update in real-time and instead don’t see
it until your next service interval, that’s a time period where your car was
actually less safe than other Model 3s in the road.

Other than tire rotation, the maintenance schedule for the Model 3 is check
brake fluid every 2 years and replace as needed, and once every 4 years or 50K
miles to change the battery coolant.

You could easily go 4 years without bringing the car in to Tesla for service.

~~~
userbinator
An update could also _decrease_ safety.

There's been ample discussion about their "autopilot" whose behaviour changed
significantly enough between updates, and in a bad way, that owners noticed.

------
gregoriol
This is really problematic with totaled/stolen cars, but really not specific
to Tesla as other brand cars have a significant amount of information in there
too.

When you sell a device, any kind of device (car but also computer, hard drive,
TV, ... event flat!), you reset it or remove all your stuff. That's your
responsibility.

But when the car (or device) is not going out of your hands while you manage
it, it's a totally different question and not a simple one.

Of course on computers/phones/hard drives we have encryption now, maybe it's
time for cars to have that too? linked to the finger of the driver? maybe time
for something like Touch/FaceID?

Otherwise it'll be fun to wander in a scrapyard in the next few years with a
computer and see what you can gather... won't be for spare-parts anymore :-/

~~~
ec109685
Exactly this. All the security features apple and google have put in to their
devices need to be done by car manufacturers.

------
alphabettsy
Every modern used car on every lot in the country still has the previous
owners phone book transferred via Bluetooth along with their navigation
destinations and probably garage programmed too. This isn’t new or unique to
Tesla.

~~~
threeseed
But this is unique to Tesla:

"video, location and navigational data showing exactly what happened leading
up to a crash"

~~~
alphabettsy
Most modern vehicles have event data recorders built-in. The video is somewhat
new, but other new vehicles have built-in dash cams as well including GM
vehicles like the Corvette which has had it since 2014.

So also not unique to Tesla.

------
siruncledrew
It seems like cars should have some sort of “remote wipe” feature that is
automatically triggered by the owner or insurance after a vehicle is totalled
and sold/scrapped.

It’s an interesting thought to get a junk car a rich person owned for cheap
and then trace the location data back to their house and other places they
frequently visit. It could be useful for espionage, extortion, theft, etc.

~~~
digitalixus
Or car markers could just stop being stubborn and greedy with their
proprietary trash and just support Car Play/Android Auto. That way the car
acts as a dumb terminal for displaying stuff from the phone and nothing is
actually stored in the car.

But no, gotta charge hundreds for in-car map updates (that only get updated as
often as you purchase them) and radio/traffic subscription that mobile apps
charge a fraction of and always up-to-date for as long as you keep the apps
updated.

~~~
ndnxhs
You just listed 2 more bits of proprietary crap though.

~~~
hanniabu
They're more slave than masters though, pretty much relayers in a sense.
They're also more standard. For some reason standardization is always
underappreciated

------
sschueller
According to some insiders Tesla is also able to ssh into every car on the
network. I wonder how well those keys are managed and if any are shared.

------
gumby
The way the article frames it, Tesla is vary careful about data it can
monetize while is careless with PII.

~~~
misterdoubt
Is there an alternative frame consistent with this pattern?

~~~
gumby
There is: the author of the article could be cherry picking the data.

TTT the article is pretty convincing to me and its conclusion doesn't surprise
me. But I thought rather than be immediately downvoted for criticizing T I
could pose a more open-ended statement and see if anyone had a counterexample.
Doesn't look like there is one.

------
interfixus
Can someone knowledgeable explain to me: How offline can you run a Tesla? Is
there an off button? Can you disconnect the networking entirely? Can you
download updates externally, review them, and somehow manually feed them to
the car? Does the owner have access - read and write - to logs and video and
whatever else gets stored onboard?

For that matter, what is the situation with other newer cars, electrical or of
the exploding chemicals persuasion?

~~~
jaimex2
Completely if you want to.

You can disable the mobile data and disconnect it from wifi.

If you want the updates you MUST be connected somehow.

You can get a copy of the videos via USB.

~~~
interfixus
Thanks.

[And may I say: This is the strangest thingI have ever had downvoted. A simple
question. At times I simply do not grasp the HN dynamics].

------
ryanlol
Why is the headline about totaled Teslas and not cars in general? Nothing
about this is unique to Tesla.

~~~
netsharc
The recorded video seems unique to Tesla, or do you know another car that does
this?

~~~
ryanlol
I guess, but I worry more about the car sucking out data from my phone than I
worry about it potentially recording a video of me driving. It really feels
like a minor detail compared to everything else.

------
jaimex2
Oh no. Someone might get my music playlist and navigation history along with
dash cam footage.

This is deeply personal to me. I would die if the next owner finds out I like
Roxette, drive to places and take two attempts to parallel park.

What 2019 car should I buy to avoid this?

~~~
mtmail
Another commenter on this thread said "the previous navigation searches were
not cleared and included a nearby strip club that my wife found before I did."
In one previous comment you say you're an [Tesla] insider. I'd rather see data
encryption being used, even for music titles and dash cam footage, then
dismissed as non-issue (at every car company).

------
ourmandave
It's like an old iPhone with a 4000 lb curb weight.

------
stesch
A Tesla car is a data center on wheels.

------
yardstick
GDPR anyone? I wonder if Telsa’s European operations address any of this or
(more likely) they are in the same privacy violating boat.

~~~
raverbashing
Good question, but theoretically the user is in possession of that data (while
the car is with them). Allow for the user to be able to extract the data might
be mandated by it though.

~~~
mattmanser
Extract doesn't mean wipe, it means transferrable.

~~~
raverbashing
Yes, hence the obstacles and limited data export by Tesla tools might be in
violation of it.

