alt Hacker NewsYour car is selling your data
Comments
How can this be stopped, from a technical perspective? Can I wrap the comms in a Faraday cage?
Obviously it would be better to have this action be illegal. But with legal privacy protections eroding in the US and other countries, it seems prudent to have a better understanding of the systems involved in the immoral surveillance.
That‘ll happen when you don‘t have meaningful data protection laws.
In my GM car I have the wonderful opportunity to pull the OnStar fuse and disable all cellular connectivity. However, I am concerned the telematics information are stored in long term storage and if I have to reconnect the fuse, all my driving will be batch uploaded. I hope not!! And the GPS still works. Maybe I can find some dummy loads as well or the antennae.
It's still better than other modern cars though? I think.
Terms of use to even read the article:
> third-party partners process information about you and how you use our services, including clicks and screen recordings, using first and third-party cookies, pixels, and similar technologies
Apparently Rivians can be prevented from doing this:
Can I disable all data collection from my vehicle?
I notice that not one comment here, nor the article, notes that this doesn't happen with a Tesla.
Smart Car is the new Smart TV.
I drive a restored 2002 Citroen C5.
How is this not stealing?
I'm going to pirate shit until this is fixed.
BREAKING: The water found in the ocean
Contrary to the HN bias, but a way to avoid this if you want to get a new car full of tech gadgets is to get one that runs on Android Automotive. The privacy policy is a normal tech company privacy policy. Other cars come with privacy notices that just say they can give your data to anybody.
Another reason to use a car from 90's or 2000's.. Also they wont burn oil like a modern car + more durable and repairable metal parts.
https://youtu.be/Ft12aZffCEg?si=qP1J5k6RXAxmZChf
I posted a flavor of this comment on an article a few months ago, but it's relevant here:
I have a seven year old Volkswagen, not financed. I'm security conscious and made sure to disable all the data collection I could find in the companion app before removing my account, turn off remote access services, dig through the infotainment to turn off what I could, etc.
Last year I requested a Carfax on it, and one of the fields in the request was current mileage. I entered an estimate like 75000 miles. On form submission, that field failed validation with red subtext along the lines of 'this is less than the last reported mileage of 75345, reported <5 or so days prior>'. Checking my odometer and looking at my past few days' trips, that was indeed accurate.
The car hadn't been to a shop or out of my possession in weeks, so I can only assume the telemetry was still dialing home and selling to third parties despite my best efforts to disable it.