Mozilla calls cars from 25 automakers 'data privacy nightmares on wheels' Privacy-invading data harvesting by smartphones, wearable devices, smart doorbells, and reproductive health apps are well known, but the Mozilla Foundation has found the worst threat to your privacy may be parked in your driveway. The foundation, the Firefox browser maker’s netizen-rights org, assessed the privacy policies and …
They need it all, in addition to your payments and maintenance costs of course. Have they promised not to make your life hell if you think of changing brands? Do they have to inform you that you can opt out of some of their data mining? Have they even promised not to DOX, or SWAT you if you object? Waiting for bicycle manufacturers to follow suit...
The one thing that I would have expected this data gathering to be used for - providing telematics and sensor data to insurance companies for accident investigation - is not even mentioned here. Why the hell do they need to log or store anything else? I'm pretty sure (within the EU at least) this will be given short shrift and outlawed quite quickly.
GDPR, that toothless, clawless bear I keep hearing references to.
Not sure which is better: A ghost law that purports to protect consumer privacy, but is unenforced (and likely unenforceable), or the Wild West approach of the States, where there isn't even the pretense of consumer privacy protection.
Well, except for the oh-so-earnest protestation that, "We take your privacy seriously", usually bleated out when some fatass corporation is caught with their hand in the privacy cookie jar...
I'm sure you'll shake your head at my innocence, but I thought 2.8 billion Euros of fines were issued in 2022. Are they not being paid, or is that just not a relevant amount of money?
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2023/01/meta-paid-over-80-per-cent-of-eus-2022-gdpr-fines/
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/22/facebook-fined-mishandling-user-information-ireland-eu-meta
Yes, and TL;DR, but how much are these fines different from the standard "cost of doing business"? From what I have read (mostly here on El Reg) for a given company, the fines are indistinguishable from CoDB.
"No officer's bonus or shareholder's dividend were harmed in the paying of this fine."
I have seen a number of reports of big fines on data harvesters not being paid, even after the final final final appeals process has run its course a decade later and nailed them to the floor for good.
I suppose that pursuit for non-payment of a fine takes another decade, by which time the individual perpetrators will be twenty years down the line and flaunting themselves somewhere the aggrieved nation doesn't have an agreement with.
One day, somebody is going to lose patience with the toothlessness of national laws in a global village...
"I'm sure you'll shake your head at my innocence, but I thought 2.8 billion Euros of fines were issued in 2022."
Fines will be demanded, but they get put on hold while the appeals are in process. For a case in 2022, expect the appeal to happen sometime in 2026.
Your initial statement is based on incorrect information, and your second remark is inappropriate. Furthermore, comparing unrelated subjects is not constructive.
Why GDPR Works:
Enhanced Data Protection: GDPR has significantly improved data protection for individuals in the EU. It ensures that personal data is handled with the highest standards of security and privacy.
Increased Transparency: Companies must be transparent about collecting, using, and storing personal data. This fosters trust between businesses and their customers.
Strict Penalties: GDPR enforces strict penalties for non-compliance, which motivates companies to adhere to data protection regulations.
Global Influence: Despite being an EU regulation, GDPR has influenced data protection laws worldwide, setting a global benchmark for privacy standards.
Why Privacy Laws Are Essential:
Protecting Personal Rights: Privacy laws safeguard individuals' rights to control their personal information, preventing misuse and unauthorized access.
Building Trust: When consumers know their data is protected by law, they are more likely to trust and engage with businesses.
Preventing Abuse: Without privacy laws, there would be little to no accountability for companies mishandling personal data, leading to potential abuse and exploitation.
Without GDPR, perpetrators would not feel obliged to mention the abusive amount of data they collect, and the subject wouldn't even be on the table. Nothing is perfect, but something is always one more than nothing.
Interestingly, and this needs verification, but car manufacturers did get some exceptions for their own data collection via embedded SIMs. They don't need to tell you about these and you can't opt out. But they should, in theory, provide all the necessary data they need. They certainly don't seem to be doing much to improve the navigation systems if SWMBO's 2021 Skoda Fabia is anything to go by…
Like with EV mandates, VIOLATING PRIVACY with new vehicles can only lead to ONE THING:
Just like in Cuba, car owners will JUST FIX UP THE OLD ONES!!! To *HELL* with "buying new" when the OLD one is PERFECTLY FIXABLE.
Ever look at RESALE VALUE of an EV? HA HA HA HA (that replacement battery costs more than the car is worth). Those EVs will be like OLD CELL PHONES at some point.
And even if it DOES run on gasoline or diesel, do people REALLY want to give up personal privacy JUST TO GO TO WORK EVERY DAY?
Meanwhile a 20 or 30 or even 40 year old car or truck will KEEP ITS VALUE, especially with new seats and drive train,. This is a good opportunity for mechanics, welders, and people good at fixin' up the car interior. And don't forget paint.
This is how the automobile market dies... or GETS DELIBERATELY KILLED!!!
semi-related - I keep getting old XBox 360's (and fixing what I can) to play those older games I like to play that I spent REAL MONEY on. I refuse to get an XBox One though a new Playstation might be in order at some point. The point is, Micros~1's trend towards "requiring online presence" and "cloudiness" and BLATANT SNOOPING tells me I need to unplug from the 'net. SIMILARLY, *NEW* *CARS*.. I shall keep my old one as long as I can and buy used when I must. CARBON BURNERS ONLY!
That pretty much sums it up.
this is a flawed argument, unfortunately. Car owners in Cuba (and in other countries, usually of the Soviet bloc in the past) fixed their cars because they couldn't afford a replacement, not because the car manufacturer (or the state) spied on them. In fact, the real reason was not that they couldn't afford to buy a replacement (though they generally couldn't), but because they were not able to buy (in real world 'acquire') spare parts, because these were extremely hard to get. So you had to make do.
"do people REALLY want to give up personal privacy JUST TO GO TO WORK EVERY DAY?"
You and I may not want to, but the generations growing up today with smartphones, bluetooth and WiFi always on, apps tracking their every move, smart watches, fitness bands measuring all their vital statistics to send back to base, sharing their running/jogging/cycling habits to the world, running browsers with only the default inbuilt protections, no ad/script blocking etc. Why? Because the DON'T CARE enough to even think about it. If you bother to try to explain it to them, they go all glassy eyed. And as others have already mentioned, in 20-30 years time, where are you gonna get fuel for all those lovingly maintained ICE cars? A very few might be able to produce their own, but good luck with that if you live in a city.
It doesn't even matter whether EVs are the future or not. Having your car "connected" is all you will be able to buy, the choice will only be who you choose to buy from, choose the least worst option. If not for you, your kids and grand kids.
Mercifully, we're all techies here...some of us might be talented enough to disable onboard "phone home" devices.
"But they might make it so the car doesn't work if it can't phone home".
It's a couple of motors, batteries, pedals and steering wheel...I'm sure engineering your way out can't be that hard especially if all you want to do is drive it.
I've seen Total Recall and I made some notes. The way that Arnie overrides the Johnny Cab is that he rips that stupid robot out the front and simply uses the joystick, I don't own a Tesla, nor have I been in one, but I'd imagine it's the same, how else can it drive itself if there isn't a robot in the front?
Total Recall is also the precise reason I always wrap a wet towel around everything that could track me. 20 years ago, they called me insane...seems I was right all along!
Nah that's old school. When you turn 18, your cock will be available to activate as DLC via the chip they install in it when you were born. Shagging will be a micro transaction. People will argue that it's no worse than drinking too much on a date...because if you drink too much, you'll have nothing left in your wallet to activate your dick which is basically the same as drinking too much and not being able to get it up.
I'm glad I have a dumb car, and I won't be updating it to anything smart.
Given the track records on security alone, I just don't see these companies providing monthly security updates in 10, 15 or 20 years. I'll continue to treat cars like every other appliance I buy, I'll buy a dumb version and add cheap, replaceable smarts, where they make sense.
A major US car manufacturer observed that it had turned from a car maker to a finance company with a sideline in cars...
At what point will people realise that there is absolutely no benefit to them of allowing anyone to collect data about them? Browsers, other applications, cars? Heating systems, doorbells, indoor cameras, audio terminals? Are we as a species completely afflicted with wilful blindness.
Let's hear it people: a suitable response to this sort of thing is 'it's none of your fucking business'. Full stop.
Well yes, but... I can have instant gratification (now!) with no information other than my credit card number and my name and address. The first of which is required only for seconds, until the purchase transaction completes, and the second only until the gratificate(?) appears on my doormat.
Nothing else is ever required, and both of those can - and should - be deleted as soon as possible.
Even better, I can walk to one those olde worlde 'shop' things, select a gratification, and hand over some of those nice bits of plastic paper bearing a picture of the queen.
Listen, retailers - because I purchase an item from you does not imply that we have some sort of relationship.
Using credit card --> anonymity fail. (usually-) Not the credit card company fails, but the company you buy from. Your every behaviour is recorded and analysed for a "virtual you". Stop being naive.
If you want instant gratification by buying stuff, then you must go to a physical shop, pay cash, not have it correlated with withdrawals and prevent from being recorded in and out of the shop.
(online) Retailers do not care about your interpretation of "relation". You are a target to extract money from. If that means using strong X-rays to get to the last nickel,... well, they'll use gamma rays just to be sure to get the last bit of information too.
You're fiercely agreeing with me, B0llchit... my point is that the credit card data should under no circumstances be retained for longer than is required for the transaction takes, and should be used for no other purpose - even internally. If I want to buy something from again, amazingly I can stuff in that (or its replacement) a second time. The same applies for name and address. Using a credit/debit card should be no less anonymous than using cash (to the retailer. The card issuer will know, by definition, but equally, they should be prohibited from passing on that data).
When I am Emperor of the Universe[tm] it will be terminally illegal to maintain any data of this nature. This is entirely because retailers do not care about my definition of 'relationdhip'. It's like the bullshit of 'registering your product' to maintain a guarantee. In countries with sensible consumer protection rules, this is unnecessary... Neither the retailer nor the manufacturer *need* to know who I am or where I am or how I paid, and even if the product fails they need only the fact that I have the product, that I bought it on (see receipt) and that it's broken within the statutory time limits. Doesn't matter whether it's a ball point pen or a battleship.
The sooner investors realise that personal data is actually worthless, the sooner we can get back to having shit that doesn't track us. A database full of PII is a cheap way for an investor to claim some sort of value for the money he/she has put in to enable them to sell it to another investor, who will grow that database and somehow increase the value of the investment and so on.
Collecting data has absolutely nothing to do with knowing more about you, it's about investors creating perceived value out of nothing to add value to something that has no actual value.
We live in a time where innovating and creating products is functionally dead, because it's way easier to make money circle-trading worthless databases with no actual use. Making high quality products and pushing technical boundaries requires huge amounts of time, money and research...producing an app with a simple "useful" feature that collects your data costs fucking peanuts.
Buy a list of people in the demographic you want to target, build a shitty app, email that list to market the app, give each sign up an incentive to invite a friend...double your database...sell the business. Wash, rinse, repeat until you have millions of users...then float it. Flog half the business to a bunch of Saudi investors who act as a "board", install a disposable chairman and put a revolving door on the CEO office...dump your shares and fuck off. That is how business works. They don't give a shit who you are, how often you fuck, how long your dick is etc etc...all these database fields are just a way to make the database somehow more interesting to investors, because the database is more unique...but not necessarily more useful...but it can be filtered and broken down to start the process again by skipping step 1.
Everyone here that has ever been involved in a startup in the last 5 years knows this...doesn't matter how passionate you are about building the product for them, or your ideas for making it a quality app...they want it out the door in six weeks as close to working as possible so they can launch and get those sweet, sweet sign ups.
At least half the startups that I've walked away from had an end game goal that involved funneling users to some sort of line of credit, a subscription they don't need, a fucking DEFI platform, NFTs etc etc.
Once again, they don't care about the data itself. The data exists for the sake of it existing. Investing in data backed companies is like buying a house...while there is still potential to extend, there is potential value for the future that allows you to beat the market. Once it's been extended as far as it can go, it loses it's potential and it is what it is...it's just a big house that will accrue or lose value in line with the market. You can no longer squeeze any additional value out of it and beat the market...in fact with no potential left, it might become less attractive and lose you money / make you the final bag holder.
I think I'm with you on this: How many people are actually looking at any of this data that they have collected?
Targeted advertising is already confused by having a mixture of adults and teenagers on the same NAT address, so in our house any adverts that do slip past the pi-hole are not well targeted to whoever receives them.
This heap of data is mostly worthless bollocks - certainly the management of most companies is not intelligent enough to do anything productive with it. The biggest worry is that some AI in the future will be let loose on it and actually start making headway with it all. I guess that's when SkyNet happens...
THe simple answer too all this is to address the start or core of the problem.
Third advertising should be banned.
What ad systems on thew eb do is no different to stalking and surveillance in the real world. The leadership of these comapnies who love to pay themselves for stewardship of these companies shoudl be charged with so many counts of the above laws that they would rot in a small cell for thousands of years.
my point is that the credit card data should under no circumstances be retained for longer than is required for the transaction takes, and should be used for no other purpose - even internally. If I want to buy something from again, amazingly I can stuff in that (or its replacement) a second time. The same applies for name and address. Using a credit/debit card should be no less anonymous than using cash (to the retailer. The card issuer will know, by definition, but equally, they should be prohibited from passing on that data).
Speaking as someone in retail I would hope at the very least they’re complying with PCI DSS standards:
https://listings.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/PCI_DSS-QRG-v3_2_1.pdf
In countries with sensible consumer protection rules, [...]
I think those countries include Shangri-la, Atlantis (OK, that's a continent...but I'm sure there are countries within it somewhere), and of course, Absurdistan.
"my point is that the credit card data should under no circumstances be retained for longer than is required for the transaction takes, and should be used for no other purpose - even internally."
Why shouldn't they hold that data for as long as they like? There's no downside and even if they do get fined every 10 years or so for sloppy security, they've made stacks of money in the mean time. I advocate for fines that could sink a business for poor data security and criminal charges for the C-Level execs. The possibility of jail time should focus their attention very nicely. yeah, yeah, people not responsible will lose their jobs, but most companies worth something will get bought up or taken over by some other company. I place I worked for years ago went BK and their operations are in the same place doing pretty much the same thing now with adult supervision and a new name on the door.
If you put a note-sized chunk of aluminum foil in your wallet, it will probably disrupt any attempts at snooping your data via RFID tech with a scanner, attempting to read your cards without your knowledge (including driver's licenses with chips in them). It was known long ago that such a scanner in proximity to you COULD read the chips that make "Tap" work at the point of sale. Credit card companies do not want this well known. But the simple hack of a mini-Faraday-cage (aluminum foil) can "foil" the attempt.
This was brought to my attention YEARS ago in a post made by one of the Myth Busters (Adam Savage I think), who said that they WANTED to include this on the show (being able to scan people walking around in public) but were PREVENTED from doing so by management under influence of banks, etc..
"This was brought to my attention YEARS ago in a post made by one of the Myth Busters (Adam Savage I think), who said that they WANTED to include this on the show"
There have been other shows that have demonstrated this. Red Team Alliance holds courses on the subject though they are looking at access control systems rather than credit cards. You also have to be vetted before you can take the classes and they are expensive.
Agreed on the use of cash and coin - anonymity if no 'store card' is involved.
Unfortunately there are too many attempts being made to go to "digital currency".
I often prefer paper or plastic+paper with numbers, letters, and pictures of past/present leaders, monarchs, etc. on them. And if this gets out of hand it may be the ONLY alternative to being snooped on.
/me thinks of ways to turn a car into a Faraday cage, disconnect antennas, etc.
"I found this store card lying on the ground on a path along a river, picked it up, and kept it."
I have several acquired that way. I also work in real estate and have found a few in vacant homes. Estate sales can have stuff like that lying in a drawer. I have some friends that don't care and I'll use their telephone number to get the discounts.
""Just buy with Doge. Guaranteed anonymous, untraceable and you get a huge discount!"
Signed,
Elon M."
Yeah, welllllll. That's led to the largest liability case in history at $257bn... With a "B". One of these days Elon is going to be held liable/guilty and that will be that.
"I love people recommending "use only cash" but wonder how many have ever made a significant purchase - try buying a newish car with a bundle of cash."
I don't worry about those purchases or things such as utility payments. Those all have paper trails. What you don't want is tracking of your day to day purchases. How much alcohol do you buy? How often do you eat out and where. It's already been demonstrated how accurate companies can be about your life given those little purchases.
"I love people recommending "use only cash" but wonder how many have ever made a significant purchase - try buying a newish car with a bundle of cash. "
There's no point to buying something like a car with cash or crypto. There's a huge paper trail when you buy one that the form of payment isn't going to disguise. If you want to hide the purchase, you may want to form a limited liability company whose sole purpose is to own things on your behalf. There are lots of pros and cons to that so you need a really good reason for doing it.
"I often prefer paper or plastic+paper with numbers, letters, and pictures of past/present leaders, monarchs, etc. on them. And if this gets out of hand it may be the ONLY alternative to being snooped on."
For transactions that have a prominent paper trail already such as utility/tax payments, I'll use my debit card. All of the information is for sale anyway. I use cash for as much else as possible especially when traveling so I'm not recorded making these trips by the banks. I still have the debit card with me just in case, but cash is safer. I can split up the cash and stash it in different places to minimize risk. A debit card can't do that. If a petrol station's reader is down, I can still fill up and buy snacks. A $20 bill can often be traded for far more in parts/service since anybody with 1/4 of a brain realizes that it's tax free and off the books. Small traders will sometimes wheel and deal if you will be paying with cash. Whatever you buy will get written off as 'shrinkage'. I always tip in cash. I've worked tipped jobs before and know.
I like the idea of laminating the copper/muMetal card I have in my wallet. I should have thought of that. If you are going to use Aluminum foil, I suggest "sandwiching" your cards between two pieces. You can get muMetal on eBay, Digikey, etc which is often used in electronics to shield sensitive amplifier blocks/oscillators and thin Copper tape can be applied to that (higher conductivity than Al). I had some old radio gear that I salvaged mine from.
"Well yes, but... I can have instant gratification (now!) with no information other than my credit card number and my name and address. "
And phone number, don't forget the phone number. They can't ask for your tax ID number, but they can ask for your phone number so it's just as good as a bar code stamped on your forehead.
It is very rapidly becoming the case that the companies are getting larger than the governments that make the legislation.
It is one of the areas where the EU actually have had some clout in the past, as it effectively multiplies the amount of leverage they have over companies by the number of members.
But the problem there is that lobbying, lucrative industrial developments, and 'gifts' that are close to flat out bribes risk the decisions of the individual member states to change the way they input into the legislative process.
"It is very rapidly becoming the case that the companies are getting larger than the governments that make the legislation."
What's surprising in countries such as the US that have anti-trust regulations is the government isn't more concerned when they have the tools to make sure companies don't become too big to control. The story of the Meganationals in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy is a good take on the excesses that could happen with those super large companies taking over small countries as a "flag of convenience". To some extent, there is some similar concepts in the "Backyard Starship" series. Betting on greed and avarice will always lead to more wins than losses.
You're joking, right?
TPTB like nothing more than tracking you 24/7 and record everything. Not because they consider you a problem, but it may be necessary in the future to persuade you to behave in some specific way.
So all a company has to do in order to be allowed to continue to track you is to provide (silently) said data when asked (no warrant required, mind you). And, if you think the usual suspects (MS, Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.) don't do that already, I have a bridge to sell.
OK, I'm going to put my tinfoil hat and crawl again under my rock.
"So all a company has to do in order to be allowed to continue to track you is to provide (silently) said data when asked (no warrant required, mind you). "
A warrant is only required if they want to compel the release of said information. In most things a company can hand over the information without a warrant just for the asking. Certain classes of information such as medical records will require a more formal process.
instant gratification is the engine that successfully (in certain ways) drives the whole capitalism and, essentially, the world. I have zero faith that any political leaders will EVER start 'regulatory action' to stop it. For starters, because there's no practical, or even mildly practical-looking alternative system that we could / would WANT TO switch to. As to the theory v. practie, well, ask Lenin...
In some regards Nissan's collection is innocuous...
Yes, you read that correctly. According to Mozilla's privacy researchers, Nissan says it can infer how smart you are, then sell that assessment to third parties.
I can make that inference from the fact they own a Nissan
"As noted elsewhere, I'm working on borking that."
I've noted that a few times as well in a more generic way. All of the data piracy there is built into modern cars means there is a business opportunity for the technically savvy to sell defeats. There is a certain amount of risk as reverse engineering the systems can be a felony in some countries such as the US. Charge appropriately for that risk and don't advertise in the open. There are plenty of VIPS that do not want their travel patterns documented and sold and can afford to pay someone to make that tracking go away.
"At what point will people realise that there is absolutely no benefit to them of allowing anyone to collect data about them?"
Oh, but there is. Take that no-longer-cars-but-finance shit, with cars relegated to the sideline. Google and Meta are both now finance companies built on data harvesting and reselling, with their web toys relegated to the role of combine harvester. We are surprised that cars are not going the same way?
The home assistant fiasco demonstrates that the combine harvester must actually have some perceived "added value" to the sheep's lifestyle.
The real weak point in the cycle is how much all that targeting actually benefits the advertiser: if cost/benefit >1 then exit
Personally I'm looking forward to the day I can choose between eVehicles based on how much they pay me to use it.
Altogether now,
"I got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key. Come on now let's get together in perfect harmony...." -- The Wurzels, mid '70s, (parody of a certain pop hit)
Well, there's this, for example. There are many more.
Voice assistants were The Next Big Thing somewhere between cryptocurrency and LLMs. They didn't tank quite as hard as some of the Next Big Things (hello, Google Glass!), but they underperformed dramatically and lost favor with the add-on developers.
"At what point will people realise that there is absolutely no benefit to them of allowing anyone to collect data about them? Browsers, other applications, cars? Heating systems, doorbells, indoor cameras, audio terminals? Are we as a species completely afflicted with wilful blindness."
If by people you mean those that will blindly pair their phones with a hired car.... never.
"A major US car manufacturer observed that it had turned from a car maker to a finance company with a sideline in cars.."
The car manufacturer is a parts company that sells the cars so there's a demand for parts. The dealers use the cars as a way to get money from the financing. Some makers have a financing arm that will write loans for top tier borrowers and leave the others to the banks/lending firms.
A lot of industries can be looked at in different ways. Magazines were just a vehicle to selling advertising. To get eyeballs on the pages, they needed a compelling theme. The business is not about getting content to the readers. Amusement parks exist to sell people parking, expensive but poorly made meals and merch. The wiser ones will also own a stake in local hotels or collect "resort fees" that get added on to your room charge (or both). Many years ago I was at Disneyland with a girlfriend and she got soaked on Splash Mountain. No problem, I'll buy her a sweatshirt at one of the numerous kiosks. The sticker shock convinced us it was time to go and instead spend the exorbitant amount that jumper would have cost on a meal/wine upgrade. I haven't been to a Disney park since and likely won't unless it's for work. I'd not be surprised if crimewear (hoodie) at the parks ran close to $100 these days.
The latest VW-group cars now store driver profiles online, so that just having the car detect which key was used to open it, and so set the seats, mirrors etc. for either my wife or I, requires a connection. So does getting satnav map updates. Selecting the max privacy option disables all such "convenience" features.
Even without the slow and buggy implementation, I'd already decided that my next car will not be from VW group.
Well the article makes me regard my 25 year old Mini Cooper S and my older Vauxhall Corsa as even more useful than they are.
The Mini has an ECU which I suppose could be used for snooping on my driving habits but as far as I know nothing else. As for the Corsa, who knows, I don't delve under the bonnet of my cars and the Corsa was very much second-hand when I got it.
It may be either paranoia or the effects of old age but I have always steered clear of "connected" devices but reading the surveys that keep coming out I'm glad that I don't have such things tracking what I do, say or if the article is true think.
If car companies can input into 'low emmission' legislation decisions, they will be able to influence making it illegal, or at least prohibitively expensive to drive older, non-connected vehicles in major towns and cities under the pretence of climate change actions.
See the controversy about the ULEZ scheme in London being widened.
I am still expecting some country or other to mandate internet connectivity for more than automatic accident notification for all new cars, and once that happens, it will be a slippery slope to no cars on the road without being connected.
I liked to think of my state of mind to be questioning and balanced, but increasingly, I feel like a conspiracy theorist, just because of the way that life imitates art.
Er, what? Why would anyone need to do this when licence-plates and the database behind them already exists. This is how C-charging and ULEZ fines are implemented right now (or Italian ZTLs for that matter): a camera reads your plate, the backend looks up registration number in a database, and If you're exempt, happy days; if you're not, you'll be told.
And the “controversy” about the ULEZ scheme in London is a confection of the right-wing press in the UK, desperately looking for some culture-war distraction to stop their readers noticing that the current UK government has done an absolutely shit job of running the country over the last decade. ULEZ expansion is a rare example (in UK politics) of a government studying evidence and using it to guide policy, rather than just being swayed by whoever is shouting the loudest (or, in the case of the Tories, paying the rent for the villa).
"I am still expecting some country or other to mandate internet connectivity for more than automatic accident notification for all new cars, and once that happens, it will be a slippery slope to no cars on the road without being connected."
Lots of opportunity being generated. People with the most to lose will be the ones with money they can spend on having somebody remove those features from their car or install a switch to select when it's on or off.
" it will be a slippery slope to no cars on the road without being connected."
And, those interconnects won't be for the benefit of the driver. For a long time lawmakers have been looking for a way to implant a "kill device" in cars so the police can remotely disable a car. If they are in a chase, they can disengage the transmission while leaving the engine running so there's still power steering and assisted brakes. It would also mean that when you are pulled over on a traffic stop, the police can disable the car so it can't be driven away until they are done with you. Spun correctly, those features sound great but the other side is once deployed, lots of others will figure out how to do it and there won't be a way to retrofit millions of cars with updated Kill switches that are harder to exploit. Those updates are, of course, something that can be addressed at a later date, think of the children today.
"The Mini has an ECU which I suppose could be used for snooping on my driving habits but as far as I know nothing else. "
ECU is a general term (Electronic Control Unit) that can mean anything. There's a control unit for electric windows, locks and seats (Body Control Module or BCM), another for the engine, timing, etc and another for an automatic transmission. The only point you have to worry is if the car talks wirelessly with the outside world. If a technician has to plug in something to read information, the value of that information is very limited. The companies interested in harvesting PII want it just picked out of the field or it too stale to eat.
AKA blackmail. Give us your life and the life of your firstborn and we may continue to supply you with updates.
Oh, and don't you dare piss of the Dear Leader or he may brick your car without warning.
Sorry, that is not what I want at all. A car is for getting me and my passengers/load from A to B. What I do with my life outside driving your box on wheels is none of your damm business.
What I do with my life outside driving your box on wheels is none of your damm business.
Ohhh, but inside the box...
We need to know your blood type and medical condition so we can notify the ambulace if anything happens while you drive.
We need to know your next of kin to be notified in case you have some serious accident while driving.
We need to know how much money do you have so we can select the best care (you can afford) in case something....
See? It's all for your convenience.
"See? It's all for your convenience."
And that convenience is the worm that covers up the hook. It all sounds great. Who wouldn't want the hospital to know right away what your blood type is in case you've been seriously injured in an accident? Notifying family or an SO is also a good thing. The examples of spy devices being installed into people's lives are all over. Personally, my phone has emergency contacts that can be reached without needing to unlock it although I don't have a passcode as I don't use the phone for anything more than a phone. I have emergency information on a card in my wallet which is something first responders and hospital people will look for. The maker of my car really doesn't need to know any of that, nor Google nor some social media company.
... which gives him plenty of time with that blowtorch and lump-hammer.
That “basic tools” thing isn’t unique to Land Rovers: Toyota J40s can also be maintained with basic tools, but the difference is that most people who owned J40s never had occasion to discover this fact.
Modern cars collect information on..
When the car is locked/unlocked
When the doors open/closed
How many people are sitting in the car
What speed you are doing
How much pressure you place on the accelerator/brake
Where the car is
What you are interacting with in the car
Faults etc.
Share location of vehicle to other vehicles (mentioned by BMW/Audi & Volvo privacy policies)
Ask you to create profiles in the car (for YOUR convenience) so different drivers can have different radio preferences etc. when the real reason is sonthey can differentiate between different driver's data & driving style.
The information collected could be kept in the car on, say, 5 minute rolling collector for crash investigation etc.
Tesla's quoted.reasoning is laughable, if drivers need to be informed about issues or potentiap failures then there is this new fangled device, right in the driver's field of vision callled a "dashboard". What they could do is translate the fault codes and show the faults, in written English(or what ever local language) so the driver is fully informed.
Car manufacturers, like any other do NOT require data from their vehicles. The person buying the vehicle owns it, not the car company. It is high time manufacturers, potentially via law, were made to respect that. I buy a car to own, I do not pay hand over fist to be a tester for the vehicle.
There is a "dashboard", it is the large oversized (unnecessarily so) "tablet" that changes at Tesla's whim at update time. The point STILL STANDS as the fault could be displayed there along with any legally required warnings.
It may not be a traditional dashboard but it still is a dashboard of sorts, by just copying the position of a 1950s mini by placing it in the middle of the dahboard between the driver and passenger. Just it is digital, not analogue and can do more than show speed.
I didn’t downvote you because Tesla’s manufacturing quality is so shit that there is a remote possibility that the dashboard in your has subsequently become detached and lost, but no, you’re not talking about a dashboard: the dashboard is the horizontal surface running from one side of the cabin to the other that faces the driver. You mean the “instrument binnacle”, which is a housing, mounted on the dashboard, in which displays of important information for the car’s driver are presented. Tesla is too cheap to put a second screen on the dashboard (or, more expensively, to have to design two dashboard mouldings: one for LHD, one for RHD), hence that stupid tablet.
The name, if anyone cares, is carried over from the dash-board of a horse coach - this is the plank of wood that was mounted in front of the driver, and its purpose was to prevent pebbles and other road dirt hitting the driver. (the meaning of “dash” here is “to break or smash”; the same one as in the phrase “to dash one’s hopes”).
at least in the Model 3 and Y don't exist. Almost everything HAS to be done using the screen to the left (or right for those who drive on the wrong side of the road) of the driver.
That means in most cases, taking you eyes off the road ahead often for extended periods while you navigate to different menus. Don't say 'use voice commands'. They don't work at least in the Model Y I drove a few months ago beyond a small subset of operations.
You don't really own modern cars. Yes, you might have paid a load of £££/$$$ for it and have not only the receipts but the V5/title but if the maker can brick your car at will then... who really owns it? They do.
Who owns any product these days? Your TV, headphones, fridge freezers, witeless speaker systems, personal computers, smartphones all changeable by manufacturer to a layout or UI that if it originally you wouldn't have bought it. Data collected, unreasonably so, and sent off to manufacturer. Yet for some strange reason they get very upset when someone gets hold of their data!
"Who owns any product these days?"
* TV deliberately "not smart" and not connected to intarwebs (cable box notwithstanding)
* Blu Ray NOT connected to intarwebs either
* Computers built by me running FBSD and Linux except that one that has windows 7 on it (reconditioned Lenovo, from which i do NOT web surf)
* Car is 20 years old. I keep fixing stuff when it breaks.
* Fridge, clothes washer, GAS clothes dryer, microwave oven are well over 20 years old (old school stuff) and still work.
This old stuff still works just fine. "Upgrades" are *HIGHLY OVERRATED*
Your TV, headphones, fridge freezers, witeless speaker systems, personal computers, smartphones...
Er, not my TV, headphones, refrigerator, computers, or smartphone. I don't own any witeless speakers, or even witeful ones, so that's not a concern.
It is still possible to do without "connected" crap. Yes, in many cases it requires more work, but in others it's quite simple. We just bought an LG range for Mountain Fastness 2.0, and simply declined to connect it to the network. Nothing of value was lost. The new dishwasher and refrigerator don't even have connectivity as an option, and they're reasonably high-end models. With TVs, true, it's getting harder; when the current one dies, finding a suitable replacement may take some research. (Fortunately neither of us care about picture resolution or sound quality, nor do we need a large TV.)
"With TVs, true, it's getting harder; when the current one dies, finding a suitable replacement may take some research."
I'll make the suggestion of not seeking a replacement. I have a really good TV that will last for a couple of more decades if I keep it. It's in the garage and hasn't been plugged in for years. I'm just too lazy to give it away if anybody wants an old fashioned CRT set.
You don't really own modern cars. Yes, you might have paid a load of £££/$$$ for it and have not only the receipts but the V5/title but if the maker can brick your car at will then... who really owns it? They do.
The UK V5 document never did indicate ownership. It only records who the registered keeper is ie;who will be assumed to be responsible for any offenses committed with/by the vehicle.
BMW found that one out the hard way.
To save on production line costs, they started out with a similar philosophy to that of Lexus: fit all luxury items like heated seats etc where the actual luxury isn't very expensive but which it would be difficult to retrofit. Lexus vehicles thus all have heated seats since it is a lot easier for the manufacturer just to say to a supplier "Give me X many front seats to usual spec" than to have several different specs.
BMW however thought they could play things a little differently: make drivers pay monthly rents to "unlock" features in cars.
To say the customers were displeased was an understatement; retro-fit activation kits became rife and the bad publicity hit the maker very hard indeed.
""Give me X many front seats to usual spec" than to have several different specs."
It's not that hard to have several different specs and sequence them into the assembly line where needed. BMW does this with the Mini plant in the UK. Every car coming down the line is different than the one before or after to some degree. All of the parts are sequenced at each station so they go on the correct vehicle per the order tag which is usually for a specific customer.
There's a point where economy of scale has diminishing returns. If a supplier is providing 10,000 left front seats, the cost isn't that much different than 20,000 seats. (just throwing numbers around). The cost could drop at 50,000 seats because at that point it makes sense for the supplier to invest in some more automation, but that might be for the gross assembly and whether a heating element is fitted or not isn't a big deal. If Lexus finds that the heated seat is $5 more in volume, they may decide that it's a great selling point and just make it standard, but if it's $20, they might decide to have it as an option due to component cost, but simplifying the assembly line won't be a factor. To install them and unlock the feature later just begs for a kit to be available on Alibaba that hooks into the wiring harness to control the heating outside of the car's controls.
A recent meme posted by a Facebook "friend" basically wants people to fear EVs (among other things) since they can be "shut off" by others which is an element of control over your behavior.
The engineer in me knew that any vehicle with enough brains to connect to a phone and/or online services -- regardless of powertrain -- is probably taking data and may be receiving over-the-air software updates; the former (data) leads to control and the latter IS control over the vehicle already purchased.
I figured just about every automaker does it and concluded that only new laws would end it, but the conservatives -- especially the kind who show a clear anti-EV bias -- wouldn't like to hear about new "regulations" on the auto (or any) industry. So I shook my head and moved on without commenting.
And then this article arrives two days later, proving my very point.
(The first meme item was "smart meters". First, smart meters are still meters, not shutoff devices -- if the electric utility wanted to shut me off, they could dispatch a worker at any time, period. Second, everyone has been complaining that the local electric grid's reliability has been poor, and these meters are part of a larger plan to be able to track the distribution system -- seems like a fine engineering solution, since this utility IS supposed to control their own system and "you can't control what you don't measure". However (thirdly), the "smarts" in the meters have now allowed for "time of day" rate changing, raising rates during peak hours when demand is highest, but that's just market economics, right? Something US conservatives should be supporting, not against. Maybe the problem is lack of choice -- no alternatives due to this forced monopoly, but influencing the utility would take *gasp* more laws/regulations. I wonder what's wrong with conservative voters that make them believe these bull$hit memes so easily without being able to think critically.)
I think it was Ford who recently filed a patent for a self-repossessing car and smart electricity meters DO have a contactor in them. If there is no requirement for remote disconnection why add in an extra component that can potentially fail?
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/smart-meter-pilot-load-limiting-solution-reduce-need-load-achakzai/
"The smart meter will disconnect the main electricity supply if the requested in-house load reduction is not adhered to."
"In the UK they need a court order to come in and disconnect a meter."
They have to file in court if you don't pay your bill? If that's the case, they'll just charge everybody more and more to cover those losses. OTOH, if they can severe service it means they can limit their losses and lower rates for everybody else. It doesn't bother me since I'm not going to not pay my bill. Many times it has the added benefit of the power company being able to discontinue service right away so an estate agent can run the HVAC 24/7 until somebody comes out after you have requested it shut off and if you move someplace new, they can turn the power on as soon as they have all of your information and rolled you in ink so they can take an imprint of every wrinkle you have, everywhere you have them.
And the monkeys are too stupid to turn it off. I feel like I'm living in a nightmare. You guys realize APPLE has heard and watched a large part of the world have sex already? I feel most empathy for the young, who have been forced onto the web at an early age, having their every thought data based. GET YOUR KIDS OFF THE DAMN INTERNET people. People who post their kids on the internet should be forced to let their kids post their every move on the web. It's flipping weird, and scary. Humanity's "death by computer" is right around the corner.
"People who post their kids on the internet should be forced to let their kids post their every move on the web. It's flipping weird, and scary. Humanity's "death by computer" is right around the corner."
I was talking with a client and he did a photo search for his two boys (teenagers) and got a very accurate gallery all the way back to before they could walk. Aren't you so glad you and people you know have tagged you in all of the photos they've posted of you?
As it so happens I have actually investigated Audi a couple of years ago when they started with the dashboard that was clearly a Google product, so I wanted to know how they managed that and if it involved shipping information to the US based data monster, and, if not, how they prevented that.
It was not easy, but when I got to the right person and got to chat with him at their HQ I was given answers that were substantially better than what I had expected, and those answers came from one level below the Board.
If I find time later this week I'll try to get Audi to respond to this article - not sure my contact is still there. Their answers were good, but it is not up to me to make them public as I didn't ask permission for that at the time. I work with a lot of confidential information and proper process matters (it's one of the reasons I like El Reg's journalists as they stick to their promises). If Audi's approach hasn't changed from when I visited them I think it deserves to be told because I agree that privacy matters - there's already enough data leaking via ANPR et al and I don't think we should add to it without a bloody good reason. Their approach was good enough then to be used as an example of how it can be done right.
However, as a counterpoint I can also tell you that from personal experience Mercedes appears to be a complete mess. If you ever make the mistake of registering a car VIM to use their app I found it impossible to get them to delete my information when the car changed ownership, and I still get junkmail, years later. I'm apparently getting a Volvo soon as we switch to full EVs (against my liking - I do too long distances so I would have preferred a hybrid), so I'm curious to see how that will go.
Not the 72-plate (< 1 year old) A6 I had as a hire car last week - all HVAC controls were on a touchscreen low down on the centre console.
The car had several annoying features, one of which was that since I wasn’t the owner I couldn’t set myself up as anything other than guest and it reminded me about this fact every single time I started the engine, requiring interaction with 2 separate screenfuls of text each time.
Eventually after getting Hammond's car going the three of them went to a forensics lab to see who's car was the most contaminated, to the amusement of the three the man incharge was called John Manlove and when he arrived to give the three of them the results Jeremy asked if they could just call him John cause they were getting the giggles from his surname.
The results of Jeremy's car are read first and the first thing that had been spotted in the car were crisp fragments, there had also been leaves found in the car & some flakes of skin which Jeremy claims were off him. These results showed that presently Jeremy's car was the least contaminated.
The results of James's car were read next and like Jeremy's car had skin fragments in it but some included yellowish skin with blood staining on it (a scab or scabs had been picked in his car). Nasal mucus (bogies) had also been found in the floor of his car and lastly the steering wheel was found to be covered in saliva.
Hammond's car was first found to have had black sports tape with blood staining (Jeremy noted that someone had been bound in the car with James adding that they had then been murdered). Like James's car Richard's also had saliva staining on the steering wheel, but things were now about to get even worse for Hammond. Hairs had also been found in the car but these turned out to be pubic hairs & then they had also discovered feces (excrement) in the car, this result hugely amusing both Clarkson and May.
Having heard the results of what had been found in their cars both Hammond and May took protective measures by wearing gloves and a mask, Hammond however wore a full biohazzard suit.
Icon closest thing to bio-hazard.
Yes, I recall that episode, not the most comforting for people buying second hand cars.
That said, if you're looking for biological issues closer to home, have a look at house mites. To summarise, you have a choice between a protective cover (which is in my opinion quite uncomfortable) or replacing your mattress at most every 3 years as it gains weight..
The mattress-gaining-significant-weight myth was made up from whole cloth by a mattress marketer. It has no basis in reality.
And biological "contamination" is everywhere. It's not like new cars are sterilized before you take possession, and even if they were, they wouldn't remain clean for long.
While sensible hygiene is certainly a major health factor, worrying about this sort of thing is just dangerism.
"Having heard the results of what had been found in their cars both Hammond and May took protective measures by wearing gloves and a mask, Hammond however wore a full biohazzard suit."
Was one of the cars a Subaru?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXYKVfoJ2Gs
I know this is directed at our US-based brethren, but what about us in the democratic people's republic of EU stand, with our warm fuzzy blanket of privacy and data protection?
If I go out tomorrow and pick up a Nissan Leaf, due to an increase in expendable money, and a decrease in expendable common sense, will my sheet rumbling, or lack thereof, be a data point to be bought and sold before too long, I wonder?
Interesting that Mozilla is calling out auto companies. Why would a browser company be investigating the data collection of automobiles?
At least for their products, Mozilla has tried to be transparent. https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2014/11/11/mozillas-data-privacy-principles-revisited/
My French Thing[tm] vehicle occasionally starts beeping at me and instructing me in large red letters to stop the engine... when the engine is already stopped. I have not yet found out why.
Curiously, my thirty year old Italian Thing suffers only from proper faults: most recently a leak in a fuel pump and a sad contactor in a starter motor. Oddly enough, any connectivity in that vehicle is amazingly well hidden...
"coworkers has a relatively new bimmer and on 3 occasions the entire dash has gone black and rebooted itself while driving. "
You could argue a speeding ticket with that, though jusdging from a lot of BMW drivers, the speedo like the the indicator (Turn signal) is unused by the driver...........
Yes. It could get you prosecuted for driving a vehicle not in a fit condition in the UK. Just as a broken brake light could, even though you won't have known about it and there is another light anyway. A decent cop would just give you a warning and instruct you to get it fixed. But....
Yes, I had this, many years ago. A cop with a trainee or probationer or something in tow. Stopped me and gave me a ticket for a dodgy brake light. No suggestion of anything wrong with my driving otherwise. I'm pretty sure it was a training exercise for the new copper. But that's the law.
> Stopped me and gave me a ticket for a dodgy brake light.
Driving old cars with long hair in the 1970s, I got stopped a LOT for "brake light". A couple times the brake lights worked fine. Once I verified this on the spot but the officer suggested I had a loose connection. (I was a professional wire-man but that didn't seem a wise thing to say.)
All of these were warnings, not summonses. Clearly I was being checked for having drugs or for being Black.
Got a new Accord (yawn) and all this BS stopped.
"Caltrider said the Privacy Not Included team contacted Nissan and all of the other brands listed in the research: that's Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Acura, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Fiat, Jeep, Chrysler, BMW, Subaru, Dacia, Hyundai, Dodge, Lexus, Chevrolet, Tesla, Ford, Honda, Kia, Audi, Volkswagen, Toyota and Renault."
... and people say they won't buy Chinese brands because they are afraid the Chinese government is collecting data on them, as indead it probably is. But I bet they are not selling it on.to companies I actully do business with.
It is about time someone kicked up a fuss about this - why are carmakers exempt from following the rules that even crooks like Google and Facebook etc are "supposed" to follow?
Electric cars, bikes and scooters are by far the worst.
No-one in the real world has even heard of Mozilla it needs some big names to kick up a fuss.
This post has been deleted by its author
It ain't just car makers.
Our Samsung TV (now not used anywhere with an internet connection) has a hard to find "privacy" section buried in the settings Within that are *pages * of permissions granted by default to hundreds of data collectors. Each one has to be set to "off" individually- some have two or three buttons to do it. There is no "all off" button. There is an "all on" button though, deliberately placed right next to a button you do have to press, where it would be easy to click by accident. Just in case you did persevere and start to turn the switches off all the pages of them....One moment of lost concentration, or a fat thumb incident and whoosh, all the permissions are back on again.Bastards!
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@John Brown (no body)
Plenty near me that are nearly more pothole than road, and many stretches where they are positioned no matter how you aim your car you will hit a pothole (certainly the case with the small car I drive): Lots of very slow driving in those areas as a consequence to avoid nasty damage to the car that would need garage to fix.
Create as much bogus names, plays on words, bizarre descriptions and truly fsck them!
PS> Edited to add given so many people stupidly don't delete their Bluetooth from a hire car's link, you could always seriously be a fly in someone manufacturers web
Being born during the Kennedy administration, I'm one of those Americans who is dismayed at the current state of privacy, not just here, but around the world. 4th Ammendment, indeed!
We Yanks are to blame, though; this inter-tubes thing, combined with rampant capitalism, shows clear path as to how things have gotten the way they now are.
That being said, am pretty sure my '01 Tacoma pickup truck is not sharing anything with its parent. Not sure about the '15 Prius, though.
BMW's response sounded the best, but am wondering which - if any manufacturer - actually respects my privacy and collects zero data (guessing the number is zero).
In other words, when it comes time for another car, to whom should I look as the "least evil" choice?
I tend to drive vehicles as long as possible, aided by an excellent mechanic. But when our last car died, I bought a used... Nissan Leaf.
It's actually pretty good, as a car. If you could disable all the "helpful extras" and have it be a battery connected to motors connected to wheels, sort of like a yestercentury car except using electricity instead of hydrocarbons, it'd be Just Fine.
I'd really like to just wrap some tinfoil around whatever transmitter/receiver our surveillance state overlords have implemented. (Or snip a wire or two, or whatever else would do the job.) I'm a software guy, though. Any commentards have thoughts about how you'd fix this monstrosity?
"But when our last car died, I bought a used... Nissan Leaf."
You many not have to worry if it's really old. Some cars used 3G cell service to connect and that's pretty much gone in the first world so there's nothing the car might connect to in that case. Since it's a Nissan and not a Tesla, you may be able to get service manuals for the car. You could take those docs to somebody that faffs about with hardware and have them take a look. An antenna needs to be mounted someplace where it can "see" out so it's not as likely to buried deep in the car if it has one. There would be some mention of it and how it needs to be put back where it was if something around it is serviced. Scour YouTube as well. You may find some info if you wade through all of the sales carp that will show up in any search.
> You many not have to worry if it's really old
Yup, I read about some folks with the 3G versions complaining that they couldn't connect to their car. (There actually _are_ some uses for being able to do so : set the car to start heating/cooling a bit before you get into it, for example, while it's still charging. Not enough to make me willing to accept the surveillance.) Anyway... my vehicle is fairly new.
The thought did occur to me that the antenna ought to be accessible. Apparently, these cars have a TCU (telemetry control unit); some comments suggest I may be able to justt pull out a fuse, which is well within my limited vehicle repair skills. As you note, further research is required... I'm finding depressingly little on "how to shut off telemetry" and too much of "how do I get the telemetry to work". But the latter is giving me ideas on the former.
Thank you. Your reply (and a few others on Stack Exchange) suggest that at the very least, I need not fear borking the car. (I was reasonably sure that removing the fuse or wrapping the antenna in tinfoil would be safe. After all, Nissan has to assume that you'll sometimes lose the cell signal. But it's good to see that others have done this successfully.)
None of my fleet is of tender enough years to have any form of manufacturer's spyware present. I guess my ageing fleet will continue to age and mellow gracefully, wheezing along until the dino juice finally reaches its price Zenith. Hopefully my own demise shall proceed that momentous day.
I did wonder why EVERY time I start the motor I'm asked to accepts T&Cs. It must be over 5k times now.
I've detached all 6 buzzers and all the stereo speakers. Why? Because the damn car doesn't stop BEEPING! Seriously, I was so sick of this piece of crap I ripped the thing apart (it's giant Lego) and kept finding these buzzers / beepers. Its like a rat infestation. Did you know: Door open. NSS.
The most annoying BEEPING prevention involved ripping out the dashboard main board. There's a tiny buzzer soldered on the main board. You need to wedge a square inch of blue-tack to mute that and a final stab with a screwdriver. Takes out the indicators noise though, but seriously - tranquillity at last. Careful when putting it back together as it's intuitive to plug the cruise control into the dash. Apart from that, if you're any good as HTML1.0 or pouring bleach down the loo, then you can easily reassemble a Pissan.
As I couldn't see out the window at night due to all the screens and fancy LED internal lights I've covered up all the screens, with a cool flap over the rear cam. A great talking point.
There's no chance of connecting a mobile to their shite software.
What does the user expect to see on the screen when you turn up the heating? Nothing? A map? A radio station? A warning. Yes. The temperature - nah ...
Can you turn the screen off? No, just a black screen that continues to report nonsense.
All sensors are now taped up to stop the pile of crap slamming on the breaks on motorway junctions or alerting me about something humans senses have built in. BUT - despite this the car does still slam on the break! Can only be the wing mirror cameras (the only 2 useful cameras).
>> Anyone know where the 4g sim is to wrap in foil?? <<
Seriously. WTF! Ask Pissan for a DFD of their software - or open just a can of spaghetti - which is obviously more logical.
20 goto 10
Dark patterns, tracking - seriously, that's nothing in the grand scheme of things. These cars are outright dangerous.
"'I call this out in the Subaru review, but it's not limited to Subaru: it's the idea that anybody that is a user of the services of a connected car, anybody that's in a car that uses services is considered a user, and any user is considered to have consented to the privacy policy,' Caltrider said."
Hear that? We're not "drivers." We're definitely not (God forbid) "owners." We're "users."
So glad I drive an older car built before all this was possible. Unfortunately, one day I will have to "upgrade" because I lack the mechanical skill to restore an old car. Hopefully, I'll still be able to at least get an ICE at that point.
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