There is a growing number of cases where the salesperson will activate OnStar (or a non-GM equivalent) without asking or telling the buyer about it. As far as I know, there is no (legal) way to deactivate OnStar or similar GPS trackers built into cars. Of course if you're driving in a city the proliferation of ALPRs is so pervasive that your movements are being tracked in real-time even if you're driving a 1958 Ford F-series truck.
It's not illegal, it's just that it doesn't allow it in the UI. Who do you call to have that service disabled? No one knows. The best you can do is talk to someone and have the auto renewal turned off. That doesn't turn off the existing service until the renewal period hits though.
On my truck there is, but disabling the module also disables the whole infotainment. You could probably just go aftermarket but seems like a lot of work.
There still has to be an antenna somewhere in a location where it can avoid all the EM interference. It seems like disconnecting that would be sufficient.
Is the GPS two way or one way? I had the impression that the GPS signals went from satellite to earth, but the receivers did not send a signal to the GPS satellite.
I thought onstar connected the cellular network.
If I have the wrong information and somebody has more specifics about this, I would really like to know.
From reading the wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnStar
Looks like the cellular network is used. Is the cellular antenna and the GPS antenna the same or are there two physical antenna? If so, then I assume one can just disconnect it.
Since according to the article it says 4g. Normally cellular providers discontinue old network, 2G and 3G network have been taken down in recent years. Does anybody know when 4g network will be removed/disabled?
I did find:
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c8-general-discussion/4...https://www.silveradosierra.com/threads/disable-on-star.7196...
If the 4g network is taken down at some point, then whatever functionality that uses it will be disabled as well. So, one would think that perhaps that part of the system should be able to be replaced. If so, can't one just remove that part of the system? It is probably hard to remove, because if it is easy, then theft system is not as good.
One more thought, in California one can request a copy of one's data and also request that it be deleted. Has anybody in CA requested a copy of all the data that has been collected? How much data per month or day does it collected? Has anybody requested that their data be deleted? Would this make it difficult the manufacturer to train the driving assistance AI if enough people requested that their data be deleted?
But for most cars today, removing the antenna would require removing the dash and radio, possibly voiding the warranty or a lease agreement if you have one.
Interesting comment about AI training data... surely that would violate GDPR.
You own the hardware. But in the modern world we do not own the software that allows us to make use of the hardware. If deactivating OnStar requires a modification to the car's software, I can definitely see how it could effectively be illegal to deactivate. In the world of modern tech, the concept of ownership is practically dead.
But I don't know if a modification to the software is actually necessary or if that's what OP was getting at. Just speculating.
No need to mess with the software to deactivate these things. Just yank a fuse, disconnect the antenna, or -- worst case -- physically break the support circuitry.
the issue is that eventually they'll just make the car not start without it. it's like your inkjet printer refusing to print black and white because it's run out of yellow.
Eventually isn't now, though. We'll have to cross that bridge when it happens.
Personally, the inclusion of surveillance as a standard feature in cars means that I won't buy cars made so recently. It's easier to do that than to worry about disabling stuff. If that becomes impossible for some reason, I suppose that my driving days are over.
Gotta be pretty low odds that an OnStar module breaks while someone is in a remote location, leaving them stranded - then they make it back, diagnose the issue, take the manufacturer to court, the court finds the manufacturer guilty, and the punishment is substantial enough to outweigh the benefit of requiring the module in the first place.
Even if you could hold the manufacturers liable, I'm guessing most of them would still take that risk.
for just $100 per month, you can have a dedicated server connection over starlink to fetch an authorisation token start your car anywhere supported. terms and conditions apply.
Sure. As long as the software continues to work despite whatever you broke or disabled. It all depends on how forgiving the software is and how integrated the hardware is.
If manufacturers really want to collect this data, they currently have the power to stop you.
It looks like OnStar and other systems are on a dedicated fuse. Pulling that fuse would disable remote access to data. This would not disable onboard logging. Real location privacy on a journey would also require stashing your phone and toll box in a shielded bag and avoiding license plate readers.
The interstate also has “traffic counters” which pick up unique bluetooth IDs that are broadcast from each car’s center console infotainment system.
There’s a shocking number of ways to track a person in their vehicle before we even get down to the license plate. If most people here on HN don’t know about them, the general public is obviously completely unaware.
It's been since 3G that I delved into baseband specs in any depth, but I would not trust a powered up phone not to be commanded to connect to a network.
Couldn’t this easily be proven by monitoring transmission power from the device? There are all sorts of people who go on vacation and use the switch to avoid roaming charges. It would be plainly obvious to those people that their supposedly offline phone went online when they look at their bill. Or is there some secret apn bypass?
I ask this all the time but have yet to find anyone that has actually measured it. According to Snowden, basebands are still powered and operational even when the main application OS (android/ios/etc.) are shut down. And a non-removable battery sure doesn't help that. Plus, he also says that the baseband often has its own separate connections to the GPS, microphone and camera and can operate them without the application OS involved.
If the baseband is still powered, I can only assume it is simply sending (or responding to) periodic commands that do not require network authorization, which could possibly still let the network know where you are even without involving any roaming charges.
Depending on how careful you are and what equipment you've got on hand, you might be able to detect that going on, but I think "easily" is a stretch.
If there is a secret involved in this it would be undocumented commands sent by the network to phones that then interpret them as commands to connect to the network, plus baseband processors the periodically look for such commands. They don't radiate, so very little power is used, but they should be entirely dormant.
Modern cars have their own internal GPS and cellular links. Even if they don't have mapping, it's probably still there, always on for tracking and compass bearing.
GPS is even used for automatic HVAC controls in some vehicles.
A light sensor is used determine the amount of sunlight streaming and heating the interior.
GPS data is used to help calculate the angle of the sun, and determine which areas are likely to be heated the most, and thus needs more cooling.
A compass can be used to make it work even when the car is stationary (when GPS heading is unavailable).
A singular interior temperature sensor can be used for feedback, injecting some truth to balance things out.
It may seem far fetched or even fanciful -- functionality that only exists on very expensive or exclusive brands, or very new vehicles.
But as long as the GPS receiver and nav system exist on a network, and multi-zone HVAC is a thing in a given chassis, then the rest is mostly just software that is free (for the manufacturer) to copy and use.
Thus, Honda has been doing this stuff for at least twenty years now on fairly pedestrian vehicles.
The Honda factory service manual for my 2007 Odyssey touches on these operations, including diagnosing issues. It does not have an ISBN number that I can find.
These systems (multi-zone HVAC, navigation) seem to have been introduced in MY 2004, remaining mostly unchanged until MY 2008 when (at least) the navigation was facelifted and the rear HVAC zone became more autonomous.
Anyway, within volume 2 of that manual is this passage:
i-Dual Zone and i-Tri Zone Climate Control system (With navigation system)
The "i-Dual zone" climate control system automatically controls the temperature and the vent mode of the air direction
to the driver's and passenger's side, depending on the angle of the sun, and the direction of the vehicle. It calculates
information such as date, time, longitude, and latitude from the navigation system, as well as the radiant strength of the
sun from the sunlight sensor, to determine the appropriate mode position and temperature to be directed to each side.
The "i-Tri zone" climate control system is an addition of the automatic controls with the temperature and the vent mode
of the air direction to the rear section to the "i-Dual zone" climate control system.
...and if I'd read something like that in 2004 (or in 2007), I simply wouldn't have believed it. Even now in 2024 it seems either a bit far-fetched or blatantly obvious, with very little middle-ground -- especially for a vehicle that can't even turn its own headlights on and off or adjust dash lighting intensity based on apparent daylight conditions (as Chevy and BMW were variously doing over a decade prior).
(Other parts of the Honda manual describe the in-car temperature sensor.)
On late model Toyotas, pulling the fuse for the DCM (Data Communication Module - component that sends nonconsensual telemetry back to Toyota) also disables the car's bluetooth microphone and front right speaker.
There is a procedure to disable the DCM and restore at least the speaker, but it involves partial disassembly of the dashboard.
There is a procedure at the link below for doing just that. You disconnect leads for the cellular main, cellular sub, and GPS antennas from the DCM, and replace them with 50 ohm terminators. This avoids error codes and check engine light, and instead leaves the transponder in a perpetual "out of range" state.
Why am I special? Any mod anyone would want to make to a car has a YouTube video associated with it. And for real, to borrow your number, that is true 99.99999% of the time.
This is exactly why I bought a car that has a fuse for the Data Communication Module (DCM) that I have pulled, and I will never buy another car unless I can physically disconnect anything in it that sends radio transmissions.
In my case I can’t drive my car then because the RF also handles the location beacon which is required for the class 3 alarm system which is needed for the insurance. Without insurance you can’t drive. So there are many situations where unfortunately this is not an option.
Indeed. However, in NL, there are very few insurers that insure cars above a certain value without these class 3 systems. The threshold value differs slightly but for the larger family cars (especially better equipped ones) they almost all meet the requirements for higher class security. Luckily none of the "driving style" measurements though.
One could do really cheap insurance if you monitor and record the customer 24/7 with real time adjustments! The strangest things would end up costing money. Cheap cloths would suggest the wrong kind of social life, expensive would invite robbery. A profile for each song you play and one for those you've listened to. etc
Your location isn't that big a deal. They can easily get that from License Plate Readers.
What will be interesting, is if they ever use the data to give you tickets. I know that there was a discussion of a plan to use the New Jersey Turnpike tollbooths/EZ-Pass to judge speed between two points, and mail you a ticket. I don't think it ever made it out of the starting gate.
From what I understand, LPRs are very precise; especially the car-mounted ones that I see around here.
The biggest issue with LPRs, is the private corporations that run the infrastructure, sell the data to non-law enforcement people.
Basically, license plates were designed to give authorities the ability to match the car with an owner, and are designed to be public, but the matching data is supposed to be behind a lock. LPRs simply supercharge the collection of the data, but they have contracted out the matching, and those contractors seem to be using what is supposedly a “locked” ability, to make money.
Precise but not accurate. I've gotten multiple tickets for running tolls from San Francisco that show commercial work vans or trucks (one of which didn't even have a license plate on it), despite having a compact car several states over that's never even entered that dystopian city/state.
The big databases are unlikely to retain pictures that may be used to prove innocence -- so coupled with the legal principle that computers are presumed to be operating correctly these are nothing more than automatic probable cause machines with no upside.
A LPR will tell you when a car was at a specific spot, but it won't tell you where a car is at all times. The difference may be inconsequential in dense urban areas, but it's not where I live.
Another thing that people usually forget is that a phone or a car are not a person. “Your” car being at some place doesn’t mean “you” being there. Same as a owning the murder weapon doesn’t make you directly guilty of the crime only a suspect.
well sure, the data is very precise. It's augmented with GPS.
I can also go get an inkjet printer to produce paper that has your tag number on it, slap it over my license plate and get all the ALPR systems to immediately flag my vehicle as your location.
Probably a crime, but also going to quickly poison the entire dataset
With MA ez-pass, the enabling legislation specifically forbade the use of it for speed patrolling. (This may have been limited to i-90 which was the only thing that used it at the time.)
Wnen they implemented seat-belt laws, they (in at least some places) said that it would not be used as the primary reason to pull you over, it would be a secondary infraction. That changed. They can tell you whatever you need to hear to get you to vote for it, then change the law later.
Those aren't equivalencies. This method can be done at scale, zero cost, reliably and indiscriminately.
Tracking plates is a lot more work.
The problem with police is their power asymmetry and potential for abuse. Tools like this increase that. Additionally, they aren't just random people from the public, they're the people that desired to do policing for motivations which may or may not be healthy.
Location metadata can and will be used for Kafkaesque tracking of people for economic and surveillance purposes, guilt by proximity including charging people with crimes, putting people on various kinds of watchlists, and pre-crime harassment.
I remember hearing that as a kid growing up in the 90s that it purportedly existed.
IIRC the closest thing you get to that on the EZPass system is speeding through a toll plaza when they were still a thing flying through the low speed readers.
I don't think this sort of casual lawbreaking is good for society. The law should either be changed or always enforced, rather than creating issues with (especially racially) selective enforcement and normalizing this 10-over behavior for city streets where it can easily be life-and-death for folks outside of cars.
Maybe in an ideal world but in my area the city can barely keep up with things like basic infrastructure maintenance and trash. Don't think there is a lot of room for things like foresight.
Also have a little issue with things like speeding laws and the police not even following them. I was almost hit by a cop blowing a stop sign literally yesterday.
Just use our new app that doesn't eat and bleed GPS data and start saving today! Use it, or feel our wrath of e-mail guilt. You haven't activated it yet. Hello?
To take the counterpoint to most comments on this topic:
It used to be impractical to track cars to fine granularity. Now that it is practical: maybe we want that?
Cars are multi-ton, incredibly-expensive pieces of hardware that operate on shared roadways. There are about 42,000 deaths related to operating them each year. Increased tracking would simplify the challenges of
* Finding stolen vehicles
* Discovering the truth in accidents
* Identifying unsafe drivers and removing them from the road
* Identifying unsafe areas of the roadway and improving them
Perhaps there is previously-inaccessible net societal good in not treating cars as a private space when they're operating on public roads that we should be tapping? There's already precedent for it; the legal reason the cops need a much lower standard to search your car than search your house is, practically, it's much easier to commit a crime and then exit the jurisdiction because the vehicle is mobile.
So perhaps we should extrapolate that reasoning. Perhaps rights to privacy should be curtailed in the operation of large vehicles on public roadways. Maybe the status quo is bad, actually.
That’s a nice utopia but any uncontrolled power is ripe fo abuse, should cops be allowed to kick your door and search your home at any time because they think you’re a criminal? The previous is possible but not when a cop thinks it but a judge. Personally i’d live in a slightly insecure society rather than in a slightly more opressive.
> That’s a nice utopia but any uncontrolled power is ripe for abuse
Agreed. In the current status quo, it is abused by car owners who get away with literal murder.
> should cops be allowed to kick your door and search your home at any time because they think you’re a criminal?
No, but my home is my private space; I'm not driving my home down a shared road. Compare and contrast the relatively lax requirements to get a driver's license with the incredibly stringent rules around getting a pilot's license; the government has existing broad authority to regulate access to public thoroughfares and the use of heavy machinery when such use could jeopardize the health and safety of others.
> Compare and contrast the relatively lax requirements to get a driver's license with the incredibly stringent rules around getting a pilot's license
And what is your argument? We should let the surveilance replace the driver exam? As in "you didn't speed this month, we'll let you keep your license" ?
Let the surveillance augment the driver's test. Because Lord knows we aren't spending more money on the test or retesting, but the surveillance is cheap.
> You didn't speed this month we'll let you keep your license
Honestly, why not? Professional drivers are monitored; let's extend that to every vehicle on the road.
Because it won't apply to every vehicle on the road! There will be exceptions, and then even more exceptions, and then you will wonder why the inequality on the roads... Some people are more equal than others.
In my country, if there's someone speeding, then I can safely follow him/her a couple hundred meters behind with the same speed. If there's police on the road, he/she will get stopped and get a ticket (or not, if he's "more equal") and I have the time to slow down. We're equal.
If the car gives my location and speed, only those people will be able to break the law and I won't. More inequality than now.
... oh, are you assuming their car will be allowed on the road without the tools to properly track it? I was assuming that as those tools become cheap they become mandatory to operate on public roads (i.e. toll roads or passive highway traffic monitors can serve as checkpoints: scan car transponders and license plates, match them up, identify vehicles on the road without transponders, flag them for intercept by police. Or, easier: transponder functionality is an inspection requirement and if your transponder is out, you don't pass inspection and you can't legally operate on public roads).
Cars are sufficiently dangerous to justify government interfence, but lets not go overboard - no need for realtime surveillance across a network: a local black box is sufficient, with adequate protocol and logs of each lawful access, maybe with the key on a government server so that no one with just local access can read the data without a record of that act... Essentially what paper disc recorders have done for truckers since ages, but with a few more parameters.
The concern is that if the government is tracking where you go while you're inside the car, they also have a pretty good idea of your actual destination, which could be a problem in e.g. states with laws against abortions even in other states or if, say, a school teacher was tracked to a known gay nightclub in Florida.
We could also just be less dependent on cars, but that's more difficult than mass surveillance. Also has the side effect of enabling dissidence rather than chilling it.
This same sequence of thought can be applied to a wide variety of things. In particular, "think of the children" is always effective.
So as an absurd example: perhaps there is a net societal good in not treating a house with children in it as a private space? Most children are abused by their parents or other close relatives - shouldn't we want to protect children from their abusers?
I retired from Chrysler corporation at 2018 as a 40-year technician working on cars I've learned one thing for sure you cannot get rid of all the antennas that's in that car for example the 2018 Chrysler 300 has five antennas in the interior and a central antenna control module that you press the button on to start the car which means if you deactivate all of the antennas you've deactivated the actual starting of the vehicle
Shitty situations should be remedied. This is most definitely a shitty situation. To effect change we need to keep the pressure up and keep calling out shitty behavior. That is indeed redundant and tiring but it must be done.
That's not really true in the general case though. Your landlord could willingly give the police the information needed to cut a spare key to your apartment but that wouldn't make it legal for the police to search your shit without a warrant. And they're not supposed to be able to get your phone records by simply sweet talking the phone company, nor read your mail by finding a cooperative postmaster. This kind of shit is supposed to require a warrant.
> tiring
Drink a coffee or something, the articles will continue until there is either reform or a suspension of the first ammendment.
I see this in TV shows all the time and have wondered how real it is. It would be great if there were better privacy legislation regarding car-based data (regarding gathering of data, opting out, or notification of policies), but it's no surprise the government isn't pursuing this legislation since it would affect their intelligence-gathering capabilities.
I somehow imagine any automation in a bentley or rolls being made of finely machined brass cogs and clocksprings. Maybe a sextant for location services.
Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't even thought about telemetry until I saw this article. I thought the plate number would be enough, especially since it's a plate licensed to a business (dealer plate.) Also since it's a Bentley - not a common car.
If someone steals my car, I hope it's never recovered so I can get the insurance payout. Who knows how the thief drove it (e.g. put it in neutral and floored it for 10 minutes) and what unseen damage lurks.
If someone with a penchant for committing grand theft were left unsupervised in my car for any amount of time, I too would vastly prefer for it to be totaled at that point.
Fortunately my car has a manual transmission, so chances are any idiot kid who tries to hop in my car and steal it will give up a few seconds after they realize that they have no idea how to operate it.
For many people, even though insurance is just supposed to "make you whole" they end up with a better result after a payout, even with a $500 deductible or whatever.
The deductible for a comprehensive claim is usually a lot lower, mine is only 100 USD while my collision deductible is 1k USD. Of course if you live somewhere with lots of crime this isn’t the case.
Still if it's like my car,took 3 months to pay out. Meanwhile you're SOL renting or busing, then you get the honor of repaying tax, title, and registration to the tune of like 10%. Getting your car totaled really sucks .
I hid 4 AirTags and 2 Tile Pros in my vehicle. GFL finding them.
The difference is that here, the police refuse to help if it's not a life-threatening emergency. I had the position of some AirPod Pros with an AirTag attached, and I watched it commute to a house. The police here refused to do anything about it.
Another time, they refused to do anything about a stream of idiot tourists driving the wrong way on a one-way street right in front of them who couldn't get to anywhere, causing gridlock.
If you ever want your stolen property back here, you must get a weapon and collect it yourself.
Bullshit (what the cops told you, to be clear, not what you're saying. I'm sure they did tell you they don't have a way to track it).
The cops could absolutely track it. License plate readers are built into most cop cars and parking enforcement vehicles, they could call the carmaker, they could view cctv from the area, whatever. If it was something they actually cared about - like one of their cars, or a cop killer, or their promotion was riding on it - they'd track it down. It's just not worth the time for them to do it, probably because there's too many car thefts and not enough time given to them to look into them.
> The cops could absolutely track it. License plate readers are built into most cop cars and parking enforcement vehicles, they could call the carmaker, they could view cctv from the area, whatever.
Maybe where you live that's true. Try going somewhere in upstate NY, or deep in West Virginia. The tracking technology is unevenly distributed.
And because there's too much friction to do so, since much of the data they'd need to sift to execute on your described scenario would involve multiple distinct warrants for multiple distinct data sources.
... now, if the data were, say, aggregated somewhere with low friction to police access...
They did that with palestinians and there were family casualties besides the intended target. Bombing a car with a smaller bomb would cause less unintendend casualties and be more "acceptable" by the public and press. No more dead children pictures.
I think the keyword here is easier. Probably far more scalable too. A car only moves when someone is driving it. Correlate this with phone location, if you have it, and you can be pretty certain you got your victim.
In yesterday’s cars, the brakes were already piloted via electronics. It was already possible for the infotainment system to saturate the CAN bus which drives the brakes.
If they any country’s secret service hasn’t used it to kill a political opponent in a “sad car crash”, then they’re stupid.
Yet another reason why I'm not a fan of modern cars. The trend is going against the consumer. I recently had to spend $1200 to replace a headlight because my car was designed so that it's impossible to perform such a simple repair without dropping the front end, using custom equipment. Any attempt to go through a third party or do it yourself will cause significant damage to the front end that will cost more to repair.
The amount of spying and protectionism built into these cars makes me uncomfortable with owning one. While there are manufacturers like Aptera who are claiming to want to buck this trend by offering mail-order replacement parts, I'm convinced that I should just weld together my own rolling chassis and build a modern electric horseless carriage. It's insurance and safety concerns that give me pause. People in my state drive like maniacs on the best of days. A home built car, regardless of how much over-engineering I put into it, will likely be less safe in a collision than a modern car.
We're entering the age where having private, personal space is becoming almost impossible. If you have a conversation around your phone, you best believe that government actors can tap that mic. If you have a conversation at home, either your "smart" TV, fridge, or Google Home / Alexa is listening. Now, cars are just becoming tablets on wheels.
In my Tesla, I am quite literally, being watched every time I drive. There is a tiny camera behind the rearview mirror. I have to assume that my vehicle will collect data that could be used against me in court. It's a weird shift, going from a completely analog & disconnected vehicle now to an internet-connected tracking device. You truly think about every move -- e.g. "Gee, I hope my insurance company doesn't misinterpret this 'hard braking event' as me being an irresponsible driver."
Tesla does not divulge your location to law enforcement without a warrant, and stands out amongst other automakers who simply hand it over. They also were one of few automakers who wasn't selling your data to LexisNexis Risk Solutions for insurance pricing.
(own Teslas, have submitted comments to Senator Wyden and the FTC on the topic, responsible for data security and privacy at a fintech, thoughts and opinions are my own)
On the other hand, Tesla has some notably, egregious incidents, including the reportedly-regular sharing of videos on internal messaging until at least 2022.
I'm not going to boil the ocean in a single thread, but recognize that there is nuance, lots of work ahead, and that consumer rights must be robust with punitive costs for willful negligence. There will always be control failures. If you're fine losing the functionality, pull the RF on your Tesla until laws catch up. I have managed the risk within my threat model, and accept the remaining risk. If all else fails, I will complain loudly to regulators and my representatives when needed to seek recourse, while also continuing to apply pressure as a citizen activist to keep moving towards better statute and regulatory rules around consumer data, data privacy, and so forth.
> They also were one of few automakers who wasn't selling your data to LexisNexis Risk Solutions for insurance pricing.
I don't understand how this practice is legal. There really should be a way to request that my driving data is deleted, or at least opt-out from having it sold.
I've also been trying to get LexisNexis to share a copy of my consumer file with me - which they refuse to do because of "identity verification" purposes, even though they don't ask any questions on the form to establish identity. I feel like they're intentionally making it hard for individuals to see what data they have on them.
I've encountered the same difficulty trying to get my data from LexisNexis Risk Solutions, and I too suspect this is intentional. Though my recollection is the form allowed me to enter some identity verification info like ssn or dob, but whatever I entered wasn't sufficient for them.
You have that right if you are a EU citizen - under GDPR you can serve a subject data request (to first learn what they have on you) and then a deletion request ("right to be forgotten").
my bike manufacturer does not divulge my location either, but in a much easier to trust way and without a possibility for circumvention.
Cars knowing their own location can be really useful, but why does the manufacturer need to know about it? and to begin with, why are they allowed to know about it?
I can only speak to Tesla; they can display the location of my vehicles in the mobile app, I can log my vehicle location constantly with a third party app (Teslascope, Tessie, etc), and other similar location based functionality. I want this functionality, I am willing to opt in to it, but I still expect robust controls (both internal and external) around the data they store and process. I understand some people may wish to opt out; they should be provided the option to do so, along with an acknowledged loss in capabilities that rely on those location services. Protect the consumer's choice and their data.
Similar to Apple's Find My, to know where the asset and family members (with their consent) are, where they're headed, or their ETA to me. Vehicle speed and location logging has gotten me out of more than one traffic violation.
> I have to assume that my vehicle will collect data that could be used against me in court.
They always have, for a long time. Exploring event data recorders is an interesting art to get into and put together how crashes play out, sensor-by-sensor.
To play along at home: https://crashdatagroup.com/ -- amusingly, one of the referrals mentioned on the page was essentially "Someone hit my parked car and then claimed I was driving it at the time" -- the EDR sounds like it saved them from a fraudulent claim.
My stepdaughter was involved in a he-said, she-said collision in a lighted intersection. "I believe I had the green light", "no, I believe I had".
So me, thinking, talking to insurer, "While not definitive, if the EDR shows that she was a complete stop for 30s before moving, that might show she was stopped at a red, and then went when it turned green".
Insurer: unless we're looking at six digits in a claim, we're not pulling EDR data.
They did treat it as a not-at-fault collision, because fault could not be determined, but still.
Tesla will make you fight them to get access to your own EDR data. But will hold press conferences where they'll tell the world all about your EDR data if they think it will move the spotlight away from AP/FSD (fatal accident a few years ago where they were suspected to be involved. Tesla holds a press conference, "Akshually, the vehicle had told the driver to be more attentive". And it had. But Tesla didn't mention that it had only done that once. And that that one time was EIGHTEEN MINUTES prior to the collision. They just wanted to make it sound like an irresponsible driver.)
It's also a gamble. Money and labor to retrieve the data, possibly out of a seriously damaged vehicle (making it difficult to get to it). And then if you're in a situation where EDR is your best source of verifiability (no eyewitnesses, etc.) you're also gambling that the story coming from your customer was accurate and doesn't increase the liability that you've helpfully provided evidence of.
The scale at which data collection now happens is unprecedented. The fact that data collection and sharing is now a continuous process is unprecedented.
claiming that this has always been the case is disingenuous.
It's not almost impossible. You're choosing to buy a Tesla and connect your "smart" appliances to the internet. You have other options.
The only person to blame is yourself.
I'm not saying companies should be allowed to do this, we really need a comprehensive privacy bill of rights, but you don't have to buy this crap that tracks you.
What I hope for is what amazon has done with the mic controls on a few devices (fire tv cube, echo, others?) where a teardown has proven that the hardware button to disable the mic physically disables the mic from possibly working while the light is on, and additionally makes it impossible for the software to enable it (until power cycle, where they have the firmware re-set it during boot and can verify it by seeing the light on again)
Making this kind of circuit mandatory and hopefully a default that you have to switch on is the solution to keep both groups happy.
I can dig up the article that shows the schematic if anyone needs evidence
One option that’s not great, is to follow the Amish —though the feds like irritating them from time to time. Maybe another is Indian lands, but who knows, they will likely find ways around that too.
The natives using their sovereignty to sell us our freedom back from a tyrannical government. You might be on to something, if they could sell colocated rack space on the reservation that was somehow immune to government snooping.
That's a good point, though keep in mind in some countries older cars are taxed heavily and some jurisdictions are considering phasing out older cars (not allowed to repair major components). Probably won't be the case in the US, but who knows...
> Gee, I hope my insurance company doesn't misinterpret this 'hard braking event' as me being an irresponsible driver.
Oh man, I had one of those boxes insurance companies send out to record you so you can qualify for lower rates for a couple weeks (my wife signed us up for it) and I felt like I was driving so much more dangerously with it on. But all my graphs would have been reeeeeal smooth.
> You truly think about every move -- e.g. "Gee, I hope my insurance company doesn't misinterpret this 'hard braking event' as me being an irresponsible driver."
This reminds me of the "Thought Police" from 1984.
Because in the novel "1984", the slogan "Big Brother is watching you." literally contradicts that statement of yours.
Wikipedia writes:
> The ubiquitous slogan "Big Brother is watching you" serves as a constant reminder that Party members are not entitled to privacy. They are subject to constant surveillance to ensure their ideological purity. This is primarily through omnipresent telescreens that provide two-way video communication and constantly blare propaganda.
> The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.
Yes. That was my point. But then recording got cheap enough to record everything, and now AI is getting good enough to analyze all the data. Orwell didn't see that coming.
"Police will be able to remote stop/control your car without a warrant"
I can see that coming, thanks starlink /s
Speaking of remote control, this opens up ton of possibilities, specially for farmers, it already exist and i feel like we are not talking about it enough
Enough of these new javascript projects, let's promote more HW projects
