19 ms·

GM’s data mining is just the beginning of the in-car advertising blitz

164 points by uptown 8y ago

philsnow 8y ago
> car companies that wanted to offer cool new options to consumers, like enhanced navigation or remote access It was big news when those "car hackers" found a way to control car systems over 3g. They want to increase that surface area? Their lack of paranoia is insane to me.
- colemannugent 8y ago
  They want to increase the "feature" surface area as that increases sales. Eventually this will become a big enough problem that cars will come with a security rating just like the safety ratings they come with today. Most people will be happy with their 4/5 security stars, but as everyone in the infosec industry knows you can never be truly secure, only secure enough relative to your threat model.
  - philsnow 8y ago
    > They want to increase the "feature" surface area as that increases sales. That's GM in a nutshell, in my experience. I've rented 10 or so over the years (because for some reason that's what car rental places I've been to overwhelmingly have) and their cars tick lots of feature boxes but I would probably never buy one.
- 37 8y ago
  Thank you. This stuff is unbelievable. Why do our cars actually need to be connected to the internet at all? Do our televisions really need cameras? Are we really in that small of a minority that sees harm in these things? I am entirely dumbfounded and afraid by modern society.
  - _khau 8y ago
    It's all for telemetry/data collection to fuel advertising.
- snarfy 8y ago
  Features before security. It's the exact same problem with all technology. Security doesn't sell. People don't care about security until it affects them. Follow the market, right off a cliff. It will come full circle. The possibility is there but widespread abuse hasn't happened yet. When it does, security will be the #1 selling point.
14 8y ago
I also just saw a commercial for a Lincoln...something about the "connected" car of the future. All I can say is that is about 5 years when I am in the market for a new car, I will specifically be looking for a non connected car.
- ilikecakeandpie 8y ago
  I hope you'll be able to find one. Finding a decent TV that isn't "smart" is pretty difficult.
  - wegotscrewed 8y ago
    Without an internet connection they are all dumb
    - lawnchair_larry 8y ago
      Cars have cellular modems now. Including Lincolns.
  - gnopgnip 8y ago
    You can even get a Tesla without remote connectivity
    - eiaoa 8y ago
      > You can even get a Tesla without remote connectivity Does it lack the hardware for the connection or did Tesla just disable the features that use it in those cars? A car only lacks remote connectivity if it lacks the required hardware.
    - eiaoa 8y ago
      > You can even get a Tesla without remote connectivity Does it lack the hardware for the connection or did Tesla just disable the features that use it in those cars? A car only lacks remote connectivity if it lacks the required hardware, like a cellular modem.
    - 8y ago
nathan_long 8y ago
Every time I see ads in a new place, I think of this quote. > Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?" > Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.
- roymurdock 8y ago
  Great quote One day we'll engineer a way for humans to survive without sleep in order to boost productivity, unless the dream ad lobby is strong enough to kill the anti-sleeper bills and R&D
  - mooman219 8y ago
    Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
    - Ibethewalrus 8y ago
      Absolutely P. K. Dick
  - no1youknowz 8y ago
    I think it'll be more of an inception type affair. Where the individual can go into their own world. With time dilation to engage in whatever they wanted. Imagine spending 5 years working on a startup, where in reality 8 hours passed by. Even better, if you had something like neural lace, where you could have a simulated reality and interact with other dreamers and even save your progress to the real world. This would change everything.
    - roymurdock 8y ago
      Sounds absolutely awful, but I bet you could pitch this Magic-leap "big vision" "10-20 years out" style and get SoftBank to throw a few hundred $M your way
    - 8y ago
autokad 8y ago
most of the article wasn't about what the click bait tittle made you think. they are collecting aggregate data to help radio companies fine tune what songs to play.
- warkdarrior 8y ago
  This is only for now. Once they have the data, they can explore other options. Ads on the heads-up display? Ads on your dashboard? Ads on your map display? Audio ads injected into the audio stream from your phone?
  - technofiend 8y ago
    I can forsee terrible dark pattern abuse by wrapping a shinkwrap license around the app that disables ads by making you promise the company can collect the data anyway. TheLadders.com forces you to login to their site to disable spam e-mails from them. When you click "unsubscribe" it drops you back into their "so what kind of jobs do you want" loop rather than saying "sorry to see you go." So there is at least one example in the wild of trying to collect more data about you when you may be (as I am) trying to sever my relationship with a site rather than deepen it.
  - rajacombinator 8y ago
    You can skip this ad and start your car in 5 ... 4 ...
post_break 8y ago
My GM truck has onstar data. I can remote start it with an app. Through Amazon I can have packages delivered to my truck when parked at work, they unlock it, put my package inside the truck, and lock it. I wish it had an API so I could write a script to start the truck without using their terrible app. That being said I won't be surprised if Amazon or GM uses this data and sells it.
- BoorishBears 8y ago
  I was able to reverse engineer the Android app and pull out the API key, the api itself is documented if you make an account on the developer site, but you can't get an API key without a business agreement It took talking to a head of development at OnStar over LinkedIn to even get a response explaining how to get an API key so I wouldn't bother there, getting the API key from the app is pretty straight forward (just don't share what you're doing with it I guess) It's also cool to note you can write apps for your headunit, just HTML+Js+CSS
  - post_break 8y ago
    Did you do anything cool with the API key?
    - BoorishBears 8y ago
      Wrote a script to start preconditioning when I left my apartment for the garage in the morning (for my Volt)
- RandallBrown 8y ago
  Wow, I've never heard of amazon packages being delivered to your truck. That's really cool! I'd be a little worried about someone breaking into the truck, but in lots of places I'm sure it's perfectly safe.
  - post_break 8y ago
    Yeah I've got tinted windows and privacy screens on the rear windows. They'd have to either see the box get delivered or go around looking inside the truck with a flash light in the day time to see it. Helps that my parking lot at work is right out front of the building. I wouldn't do it if it was in a sketchy location.
weinzierl 8y ago
In self driving cars (up to level 3) it will be a traffic violation to use any devices other than the onboard entertainment system. The reason is that the car needs a reliable way to tell the driver to take over. If the only entertainment is through the onboard system the car can reliably get the drivers attention when necessary. Coincidentally this is also the perfect way to cut out any other advertising channels and have complete control of the users attention. I don't know if this will happen, but I'd bet that there are people in any major car company and beyond who are thinking how they can bring this scenario into reality.
- pdkl95 8y ago
  Max Headroom, Episode ABC.1.6, "Blanks": [TV shuts off, surprising everyone] Janie Crane: "An off switch!" Metrocop: "She'll get years for that. Off switches are illegal!" edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9AZZVnNw60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9AZZVnNw60 It's disturbing how many Max Headroom episodes are now literally true. "Blank is beautiful!"
  - ken 8y ago
    Much earlier than that, of course, the idea was already in Orwell's 1984: As O'Brien passed the telescreen a thought seemed to strike him. He stopped, turned aside and pressed a switch on the wall. There was a sharp snap. The voice had stopped. Julia uttered a tiny sound, a sort of squeak of surprise. Even in the midst of his panic, Winston was too much taken aback to be able to hold his tongue. 'You can turn it off!' he said. 'Yes,' said O'Brien, 'we can turn it off. We have that privilege.'
  - weinzierl 8y ago
    When I wrote my comment I remembered that episode too. I even did a quick search for the exact quote, but couldn't find it quickly and gave up. Funny thing that it induced the same remembrance in you. Thanks for digging up the quote.
neuralRiot 8y ago
>That could prove useful to the terrestrial radio industry, which continues to lose territory and ad dollars to digital streaming services like YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music. You know what would be benefical to the radio industry? To stop playing the top 4 songs (of any genre) over and over and use some real music innovation and variety.
- compcoffee 8y ago
  >stop playing the top 4 songs (of any genre) over and over and use some real music innovation and variety. If this model could make money, they'd be doing it. Terrestrial radio economics are such that when you tune-in (which far fewer people do nowadays) you want to hear "that new song you like".
  - bradknowles 8y ago
    That's what she said.
  - mtberatwork 8y ago
    That's only an American phenomenon due to severe market consolidation. The model works when there's competition. In Europe, even the for-profit radio stations are far more diverse and play a wide variety of songs and genres. Plus the public radio stations blow anything stateside out of the water. They bring lots of innovation/musical diversity and aren't afraid to push boundaries, unlike the pure news/talk/tepidness that defines most NPR stations.
  - tomjen3 8y ago
    I tune in - to whatever I was listening to on my phone the last time. I do that using my big noise canceling phones and it works great. My question therefore is: what could radio offer me, at all?
nkrisc 8y ago
Reading the article I see all the ways data on my listening habits is valuable to GM and the radio industry and advertisers. How is the consumer rewarded for helping these industries make more money? Why would I ever want to help them? So I can get more targeted ads? There is nothing good about this for driver. I don't want any part in this. I couldn't give a rat's ass what happens to the terrestrial radio industry or its advertisers.
- Zelphyr 8y ago
  The radio industry is going to be a shell of itself (if it isn't already) in the coming years as driverless capabilities reach the point at which people no longer need to watch the road. Then they'll be on their phones and tablets while the car takes them to their destination.
  - nkrisc 8y ago
    Which makes sense why this would be appealing to them. Totally reasonable. I imagine the TV industry is going through a similar crisis as competitive forms of media are not only playing their game, but able to access richer data about viewers. We've heard previously about "smart" TVs that spy on your viewing habits. However, like many things, it ain't my problem. That is, until they make it my problem by surveilling me for their sole benefit.
    - masonic 8y ago
      I was a Nielsen viewer years ago (private TV viewing monitor for advertiser demographics). They paid you to participate and covered all diagnoses and repair. Now, your TV provider, Netflix, etc. sell your data in far more detail without most people even realizing it.
    - cosmie 8y ago
      The TV industry has pretty rich data about you as well. If you have cable and use a cable box, there's a considerable chance that not only are your viewing habits being data mined, advertisers are able to dynamically target specific commercials at you. The term is "addressable TV" if you want to look into it more. And your cable provider has likely pulled your credit report as part of signing up (to avoid requiring a deposit), as well as confirmed your identity, physical address, and phone ynumber. All very valuable information and making it much easier to stitch your data into third party data sources if they want. And if they're also your internet provider, theoretically have some potentially lucrative access to your overall interests, usage patterns, devices in your household, etc. All of which could be leveraged at just the metadata level to derive secondary information such as your daily routines, household size, major life events, whether you have an affinity for Apple vs Android, whether you're an "early adopter" of tech, etc. Cable providers can be just as if not more capable of creating and monetizing incredibly rich data about viewers as their non-cable counterparts. If they're in the mood to risk any PR fallout from it.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
If this becomes endemic across all the manufacturers I'll be ripping out the GPS aerial or fuse as necessary and they'll data mine a null database. I'll find a way to fit a DIN stereo. No I don't buy cars new enough for this to cause warranty issues. If it starts becoming impossible to do, a classic car is going to be anything before 2005 or so, and I'll take one of those. :) I don't even listen to commercial radio in the car, or anywhere, because the ads annoy too much, and there's plenty of BBC stations. TL;DR over my dead body.
- d1zzy 8y ago
  Cars have been sending data back to manufacturers (which include location, odometer, etc) for a while now and there's almost no way to disable it nicely (destroying the radios voids warranty): http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160809-your-car-is-not-your-friend http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160809-your-car-is-not-your...
  - ddingus 8y ago
    Ok, so it is void. Easy peasy. I realize, not so easy. But there will be people who do make it easy. Until then, I pretty much am not in the market for new cars.
  - ummonk 8y ago
    If I remember correctly, something like this likely won't void the warranty, except maybe the warranty for electronics in the car. There are pretty strong laws in the US regarding car warranties.
- HugoDaniel 8y ago
  Just look at your phone.
- user111233 8y ago
  And then the car disables itself because the security chip detected an unauthorized modification.
tsomctl 8y ago
Thank god you can just buy a modern Chevy engine and transmission, and bolt it into whatever you want. https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/category/ENG.html https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/category/ENG.html
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- userbinator 8y ago
  Most of those are the classic American V8s, but there's also a turbocharged 2L 4-cylinder there, which ironically costs more than twice the cheapest V8s but produces more power: https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/parts/19328837.html https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/parts/19328837.html
  - tk75x 8y ago
    Cheapest V8: https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/parts/88869602.html https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/parts/88869602.html develops both more torque and more horsepower than that 4 cylinder.
elihu 8y ago
This is one of the reasons why I don't want a car with a wireless network interface. (The other reasons are related to safety and security, and not wanting anyone to have the capability of remotely disabling my car.)
phakding 8y ago
The car is last place I want targeted advertisements and distractions. I live and breathe tech, but I drive a manual car with no GPS, no Bluetooth and no remote connectivity. I turn on local NPR or connect phone using aux cable to listen to podcasts. I never found any use of tech in my car.
- ddingus 8y ago
  I do much the same. And, I more or less, just do not want any newer cars. Too busy.
- bradknowles 8y ago
  I don't turn on the radio or any audio system. I do have the navigation system on, but that's it.
- ip26 8y ago
  Simple bluetooth is nice. Skip & rewind without picking up the phone, no need to get it out of your jacket or backpack pocket either.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  I don't mind tech. Tech is good when it's a tool helping you. Which the things from this article aren't. Increasingly, I realize we let companies put things in products that actively hurt us. This is an absurd situation, and yet it persists.
kjksf 8y ago
I think people writing those articles apply shallow pattern matching and don't understand economics of ads. Have you ever wondered why not every possible business goes for the easy, incremental revenue of advertising? Why doesn't Netflix just show some pre-roll video add? It's easy money. When you buy expensive shoes, why don't they pitch you also buying an expensive jacket in nearby store and get an ad commission? The reason is that ad income is extremely low, ads are not exactly welcomed and degrade user experience. Netflix makes $120/yr from you. They could make maybe $10/yr more if they were aggressive with ads. But if you cancel Netflix because you're sick of ads, then one year of you not paying for Netflix costs them more than 10 years of ad revenue. That why ads thrive in a very specific environment: the cost of ad impression must be extremely low and there is no better way of getting money from the user. Robo taxis, the supposed future ad hell, are the opposite. They'll make lots of money per user ($100+/month) and the cost of ad impression is very high. If any robo taxi provider will be stupid enough to annoy passenger with ads then they'll loose big time to another provider who isn't.
- notjustanymike 8y ago
  > If any robo taxi provider will be stupid enough to annoy passenger with ads then they'll loose big time to another provider who isn't. You just described my experience with NY Taxi Cabs vs. Lyft
- cortesoft 8y ago
  I don't know. I pay $200 a season for NBA League pass, so I can watch my favorite out of market team. My normal watch process is to watch the game after the family goes to bed, and fast forward through a good chunk of the filler (commercial breaks, halftime, free throws, etc) When watching on my computer, they insert un-skippable ad breaks during stoppages, even when watching a replay. That means if I am too slow to skip the timeout break, or happen to slide the slider to a section of the game that is an ad break, I get stuck watching 2 minutes of commercials. Since I am constantly fast forwarding during the game, I end up spending more of my time watching ads than the game. It is awful. If I can't figure out a workaround, this is probably my last year subscribing. My only current solution is to record the game on my DVR (using the same league pass subscription), because then I can fast forward. However, not all the games on TV are HD.... it is pretty awful overall.
tzs 8y ago
Has any car company yet tried using the car to take you to ads? For instance, suppose they know that you like BBQ, and they have a new BBQ restaurant advertising client having a grand opening. They know from the data from the in-car navigation service that you have probably not been to a BBQ restaurant recently so might be particularly receptive to trying the new place. They could have the navigation system choose a route that takes you past that new restaurant. Heck, combine this with in-car advertising. Have the entertainment system play an ad for the restaurant right as you drive by it. When we have hands-free attention-free self-driving cars, this could be taken farther, and the whole route could be optimized around driving you by advertising businesses.
- mattkevan 8y ago
  The future of self driving cars makes me think of city tours I’ve taken while abroad. For example while in Delhi I hired a car and driver for a day to take me round all the sights. These sights also happened to include shops run by either family members of the driver, or ones he’d arranged a kickback with. Imagine entire journeys optimised like the confectionery rack by the checkout in a supermarket or the floor plan of IKEA. Individually tailored to match your shopping interests. The new bidding war won’t be for the top spot on the google homepage but for companies to take you past their premises. For example it’s late, Google knows you like a beer in the evening but don’t have any in the house, so the grocery store willing to pay the most gets you going past. Maybe with a voucher delivered to the in-cab screen.
grownseed 8y ago
My partner and I are the proud owners of a Toyota Corolla CE 2003. We often joke about how it has to be the most nondescript car ever made. It has no extra features (with the exception of the CD/radio stereo perhaps), it just drives, really well, it's very efficient, nobody would ever think to steal or break into it as long as there's pretty much any other car in sight, it requires very little maintenance, and when it does we can go pretty much anywhere and it's very cheap. There'll come a day when we have to replace it, and I'm dreading having to pay more for something that most likely won't be as reliable, but will attempt to squeeze yet more "value" out of me. The corporatization of everyday goods and services at the expense of consumers absolutely sickens me. I can't go to the movies without having to watch 15 minutes of ads, even though I already paid for my seat (and tickets are more expensive than ever). I fear giving my email/phone number/etc. to anybody because I have no idea how they'll be used. I have to regularly remind my ISP/phone provider to stop trying to push more crap and use me as some sort of advertizing platform for my friends. And so on. People complain about Facebook, Google, etc. all the time for their underhanded tactics, but at the very least I haven't already paid for the product before being amalgamated into it... For all the people on HN who work for these companies and help them implement these things, I do have to ask, how do you sleep at night?
- DanFeldman 8y ago
  I've got a Toyota Camry 2006. It's such a functional car. mid-early 2000s was such a beautiful time for car user interfaces. No crazy screens, no touch UI to control radio volume with millions of menus, no painfully slow third party navigation systems that became deprecated by the time cell phones came out. The only modification it has is a bluetooth receiver instead of the CD part of the radio. It's so wonderfully low-tech that the key fob doesn't even work anymore, only manual keys for me. I bought it when I could have purchased a new vehicle for a similar price using a GM employee discount. Never regretted the decision, and now seeing all this coming out, I feel even better about my camry. I'll drive it until it dies and then hopefully never own another vehicle.
- stareatgoats 8y ago
  I've come to the conclusion that ads will, if not countered, invade every space that has any potential of human attention. It's not hard to see the trajectory for one who's been around since the 1950's. This is probably going to demand a new type of GMO human, one that can concentrate on main content while at the same time processing ad content. Or, we can stand up as the humans we are and demand that ads be banned from being shoved down our throats at every juncture. In lieu of legislation (don't have much hope there): some sort of manifesto that specifies how ads be displayed (i.e. exclusively behind a 'show ads'-button), coupled with shaming of the corporations that violate such an advertising 'code of conduct'. It should really be tried.
Waterluvian 8y ago
I feel a very palpable rage when I envision a future where I buy a car and a few years later ads start popping up on its display. They're going to make the overly expensive entertainment and GPS packages standard features and then fill them with ads. I just want a slot for a phone. Let me manage the car and the computer as separate pieces. Please for the love of God please.
- liftbigweights 8y ago
  > I feel a very palpable rage when I envision a future where I buy a car and a few years later ads start popping up on its display. How fun would it be if you had to watch a 30 second commercial before the car starts? Or even to open the car door. Something like that would drive me insane.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
    I will die with my fucking Toyota Corolla 2005 when it is pried from my fucking hands.
    - liftbigweights 8y ago
      What if traffic lights turn into ad platforms? And everyone waiting has to watch the ad before the light turns green and everyone can move?
      - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
        True story, I actually worked on a proof of concept for something like this for a mapping application (think Waze-like). It would detect if you were stopped at a light and switch to an ad.
  - Waterluvian 8y ago
    If anything could make me go on a D-FENS rampage, that would be it. Also someone needs to make a VR game jam "future simulator" that realizes all these terrible possibilities.
toss1 8y ago
This may have just decided it for me. I drive a 16yo car w/a 5-speed H-pattern manual which still runs great (100mph is just seconds away anytime, 7500Lb towing capacity), and am considering whether to go forward or retro, or just fully refurbish this SAV. I love driving, have held racing licenses & won races & championships, but also look forward to self-driving cars with the current state of traffic. In a traffic jam today, I thought it'd be really nice to have Tesla's automatic lane-keeping & follow tech. Yet this kind of intrusive tracking and trying to force yet more targeted advertising at us is just sickening. There's nothing new with the kind of specs that I have in my garage right now, and the only downside is requiring 91octane petrol and getting only 21-25mpg. It is clear that we cannot trust the major manufacturers to not engage in this tracking&targeting nonsense. Tesla does track very extensively, but I don't think they're interested in advertising to us or selling our data -- but how long will that last? On the one hand, I really want self-driving cars with the current congested traffic that is no fun. But on the other hand, I feel like I might be one of the last holdout curmudgeons with a standard shift and round steering wheel as human driving becomes illegal. Thoughts?
jordache 8y ago
mckinsey is pure bs.. 600GB worth of data per day.. yeah all of them actionable data for ad and targeting? bs.
jancsika 8y ago
What about sitting your own baseband station atop the vehicle's cell device? Is there a power at which you can broadcast such that nothing outside the car can detect it but the vehicle's cell device still registers it as the closest "tower" and therefore connects to it? Then you could build your own little in-vehicle pihole and man-in-the-middle your way to an ad-free commute.
newnewpdro 8y ago
They're just aspiring towards turning all cars into the abomination that is the back seat of a modern yellow cab.
rootusrootus 8y ago
If GM doesn't make this data collection very explicitly opt-in (and backs it up with some kind of audit guarantee) then my '18 Camaro will be my first and last GM vehicle. Same with ads -- show me one, just one, and you lose me for good. Other than that, I don't see why people are in here bragging about their awesome 15-20 year old cars. My brand new car has a manual transmission, a knob for the volume control, no built-in navigation, etc. The only real difference between this car and the one I owned in 2004 is that this is better in all ways. All.
- setr 8y ago
  >Other than that, I don't see why people are in here bragging about their awesome 15-20 year old cars Presumably because all those things you mentioned are difficult to find in new cars? I don’t think anyone is really of the opinion that newer cars have been degrading in mechanical quality; rather they’ve become much more unpleasant to use and own. Where you could trivially open up the car, theres specialized parts with manufacturer-specific tooling required (Even my car’s tire rim has a fucking key). Where the dashboard was mostly simple and operatable without looking, now you cant use any of it while in motion. And of course it’ll be slow, unreliable and somehow decide you need voice assistance and want to make a call. And my own pet peeve: the incessant fucking beeping. Everything fucking beeps at you. I drove a prius recently: it beeps if you’re parked near the curb, beeps because you’re in reverse, beeps because of your seatbelt, beeps with the gps; stop by the gas station for a cacaphony: beeping and tvs and music just quiet enough that you can’t really make it out but youre aware its there. Expect the 2020 prius to beep while accelerating Oh, and of course, now you can enjoy ads too, which’ll probably beep for your attention as well. Obviously you can rip these things out, and obviously you can find cars without these things (especially if you’re paying the premium to customize), but these UX “improvements” are the norm, and you can reliably run from all of this horrible hell by turning back to 1996. And if that car runs well, it’s probably much more pleasant to use than the same model in 2018. Mechanically worse, but far fewer “features” that enter the human areas.
  - hvidgaard 8y ago
    > Even my car’s tire rim has a fucking key That is because some people think it's okay to take the wheels of the car when you park it.
nichos 8y ago
If anyone is interested, it's pretty easy to disconnect OnStar all together. Of course, this also disables emergency services: https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/how-to-disable-onstar-by-elan-mcafee https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/how-to-disable-onstar-b...
nimbius 8y ago
Speaking as a full-time automotive mechanic, this has been a regular fact of life for longer than most customers know. most parts search systems and recall bulletin systems do backflips to get you to report your customers. Popups requesting the make/model of the vehicle eventually expanded to just asking for a partial vin, then full vin. Now its not uncommon for Ford/GM parts search systems or recall databases to ask for the subscriber code for the vehicles OnStar system. Enter that code and it triggers a server somewhere at GM to pull vehicle data for the car. Ive called up a warranty claim or parts hotline to find the person on the other end asked for my customer by name. Pretty invasive for a wheel bearing. The good news is, you can permanently disable OnStar and remote data collection fairly simply: 1. Theres usually an onstar control box near the radio inside the dash (not hard to get to.) this is NOT your ECM...look for a box with MAC address data on it. 2. Disconnect the box and open it. triple check to make sure its NOT the ECM. youll find a daughter board with a GPS antenna, and a cellular antenna. 3. Theres a male/male header bridge between the master board and that daughter board. pull that bridge, or remove the daughter board, and youve disabled onstar. Caveats: -Most vehicles dont check for the modem. youll not get a service code on the dash. -This should not affect bluetooth pairing. - Onstar calls, both automated and regular, will fail with "call completed." -Be perfectly certain you want to disable onstar because the box comes with crash detection software that tries to dial onstar and report your crash.
- franciscrick1 8y ago
  Excellent. Now when I crash in a ditch on the side of the road and my phone flies out the window, I'll hang upside down with a concussion and internal bleeding until the morning when someone finds my dead body.
  - packetized 8y ago
    This is a profoundly unhelpful comment.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
anonu 8y ago
If you have an Android phone much of this data is also being captured there in parallel.
- justtopost 8y ago
  Do non-android phones somehow use a shadow form of communicating with towers? Apple, etc, are 100% as vunerable as well.
beefsack 8y ago
Calling this "data mining" is adding a neutral spin to a horrifying practice. "Harvesting personal information" is more accurate. One annoying aspect of companies doing this is the term they steal becomes encumbered with the negative connotations of the practices behind it. The same thing happened with "metadata".
- sorokod 8y ago
  "harvesting" is also neutral or somewhat positive, the correct word is "stealing"
ISL 8y ago
The right to repair is the antidote. Don't like the device software/firmware? Repair it.
- petepete 8y ago
  "yeah I'll be a bit late into work today, I was flashing a custom ROM onto my car and I've bricked it."
tspike 8y ago
I just picked up a 6-speed manual 2015 Tacoma. It's the last of the 2nd generation that's been in production since the early 2000s, and it's wonderfully low-tech. It'll be one of the final vehicles ever produced with the 90s-era focus on utility and driving experience. Combined with Toyota's inertia for producing quality vehicles and 11 years of safety refinement, it'll be the vehicle I drive for as long as it's possible and then hopefully be my last.
wnevets 8y ago
if people would just stop opening spam mail, clicking ads and other non sense this garbage would just go away.
torgian 8y ago
Ugh. If I ever get a car again, it will most definitely not be a new one.
franciscrick1 8y ago
When did the Luddites come out of the woodwork?
- sctb 8y ago
  Could you please try to say something more informative? We're not here to play name games. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - franciscrick1 8y ago
    I'm disappointed in the hypocrisy of HN users when it comes to privacy and money. When it comes to selling a company, and caring about user privacy, everyone on HN might as well be Zuckerberg. As soon as someone suggests doing something that violates their privacy even slightly, HN's number one priority is privacy.
  - franciscrick1 8y ago
    Scott, did you flag my other reply to this comment?
    - sctb 8y ago
      Nope.

164 points by uptown 8y ago

> car companies that wanted to offer cool new options to consumers, like enhanced navigation or remote access It was big news when those "car hackers" found a way to control car systems over 3g. They want to increase that surface area? Their lack of paranoia is insane to me.

colemannugent 8y ago
They want to increase the "feature" surface area as that increases sales. Eventually this will become a big enough problem that cars will come with a security rating just like the safety ratings they come with today. Most people will be happy with their 4/5 security stars, but as everyone in the infosec industry knows you can never be truly secure, only secure enough relative to your threat model.
- philsnow 8y ago
  > They want to increase the "feature" surface area as that increases sales. That's GM in a nutshell, in my experience. I've rented 10 or so over the years (because for some reason that's what car rental places I've been to overwhelmingly have) and their cars tick lots of feature boxes but I would probably never buy one.
37 8y ago
Thank you. This stuff is unbelievable. Why do our cars actually need to be connected to the internet at all? Do our televisions really need cameras? Are we really in that small of a minority that sees harm in these things? I am entirely dumbfounded and afraid by modern society.
- _khau 8y ago
  It's all for telemetry/data collection to fuel advertising.
snarfy 8y ago
Features before security. It's the exact same problem with all technology. Security doesn't sell. People don't care about security until it affects them. Follow the market, right off a cliff. It will come full circle. The possibility is there but widespread abuse hasn't happened yet. When it does, security will be the #1 selling point.

14 8y ago

I also just saw a commercial for a Lincoln...something about the "connected" car of the future. All I can say is that is about 5 years when I am in the market for a new car, I will specifically be looking for a non connected car.

ilikecakeandpie 8y ago
I hope you'll be able to find one. Finding a decent TV that isn't "smart" is pretty difficult.
- wegotscrewed 8y ago
  Without an internet connection they are all dumb
  - lawnchair_larry 8y ago
    Cars have cellular modems now. Including Lincolns.
- gnopgnip 8y ago
  You can even get a Tesla without remote connectivity
  - eiaoa 8y ago
    > You can even get a Tesla without remote connectivity Does it lack the hardware for the connection or did Tesla just disable the features that use it in those cars? A car only lacks remote connectivity if it lacks the required hardware.
  - eiaoa 8y ago
    > You can even get a Tesla without remote connectivity Does it lack the hardware for the connection or did Tesla just disable the features that use it in those cars? A car only lacks remote connectivity if it lacks the required hardware, like a cellular modem.
  - 8y ago

nathan_long 8y ago

Every time I see ads in a new place, I think of this quote. > Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?" > Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.

roymurdock 8y ago
Great quote One day we'll engineer a way for humans to survive without sleep in order to boost productivity, unless the dream ad lobby is strong enough to kill the anti-sleeper bills and R&D
- mooman219 8y ago
  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  - Ibethewalrus 8y ago
    Absolutely P. K. Dick
- no1youknowz 8y ago
  I think it'll be more of an inception type affair. Where the individual can go into their own world. With time dilation to engage in whatever they wanted. Imagine spending 5 years working on a startup, where in reality 8 hours passed by. Even better, if you had something like neural lace, where you could have a simulated reality and interact with other dreamers and even save your progress to the real world. This would change everything.
  - roymurdock 8y ago
    Sounds absolutely awful, but I bet you could pitch this Magic-leap "big vision" "10-20 years out" style and get SoftBank to throw a few hundred $M your way
  - 8y ago

autokad 8y ago

most of the article wasn't about what the click bait tittle made you think. they are collecting aggregate data to help radio companies fine tune what songs to play.

warkdarrior 8y ago
This is only for now. Once they have the data, they can explore other options. Ads on the heads-up display? Ads on your dashboard? Ads on your map display? Audio ads injected into the audio stream from your phone?
- technofiend 8y ago
  I can forsee terrible dark pattern abuse by wrapping a shinkwrap license around the app that disables ads by making you promise the company can collect the data anyway. TheLadders.com forces you to login to their site to disable spam e-mails from them. When you click "unsubscribe" it drops you back into their "so what kind of jobs do you want" loop rather than saying "sorry to see you go." So there is at least one example in the wild of trying to collect more data about you when you may be (as I am) trying to sever my relationship with a site rather than deepen it.
- rajacombinator 8y ago
  You can skip this ad and start your car in 5 ... 4 ...

post_break 8y ago

My GM truck has onstar data. I can remote start it with an app. Through Amazon I can have packages delivered to my truck when parked at work, they unlock it, put my package inside the truck, and lock it. I wish it had an API so I could write a script to start the truck without using their terrible app. That being said I won't be surprised if Amazon or GM uses this data and sells it.

BoorishBears 8y ago
I was able to reverse engineer the Android app and pull out the API key, the api itself is documented if you make an account on the developer site, but you can't get an API key without a business agreement It took talking to a head of development at OnStar over LinkedIn to even get a response explaining how to get an API key so I wouldn't bother there, getting the API key from the app is pretty straight forward (just don't share what you're doing with it I guess) It's also cool to note you can write apps for your headunit, just HTML+Js+CSS
- post_break 8y ago
  Did you do anything cool with the API key?
  - BoorishBears 8y ago
    Wrote a script to start preconditioning when I left my apartment for the garage in the morning (for my Volt)
RandallBrown 8y ago
Wow, I've never heard of amazon packages being delivered to your truck. That's really cool! I'd be a little worried about someone breaking into the truck, but in lots of places I'm sure it's perfectly safe.
- post_break 8y ago
  Yeah I've got tinted windows and privacy screens on the rear windows. They'd have to either see the box get delivered or go around looking inside the truck with a flash light in the day time to see it. Helps that my parking lot at work is right out front of the building. I wouldn't do it if it was in a sketchy location.

weinzierl 8y ago

In self driving cars (up to level 3) it will be a traffic violation to use any devices other than the onboard entertainment system. The reason is that the car needs a reliable way to tell the driver to take over. If the only entertainment is through the onboard system the car can reliably get the drivers attention when necessary. Coincidentally this is also the perfect way to cut out any other advertising channels and have complete control of the users attention. I don't know if this will happen, but I'd bet that there are people in any major car company and beyond who are thinking how they can bring this scenario into reality.

pdkl95 8y ago
Max Headroom, Episode ABC.1.6, "Blanks": [TV shuts off, surprising everyone] Janie Crane: "An off switch!" Metrocop: "She'll get years for that. Off switches are illegal!" edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9AZZVnNw60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9AZZVnNw60 It's disturbing how many Max Headroom episodes are now literally true. "Blank is beautiful!"
- ken 8y ago
  Much earlier than that, of course, the idea was already in Orwell's 1984: As O'Brien passed the telescreen a thought seemed to strike him. He stopped, turned aside and pressed a switch on the wall. There was a sharp snap. The voice had stopped. Julia uttered a tiny sound, a sort of squeak of surprise. Even in the midst of his panic, Winston was too much taken aback to be able to hold his tongue. 'You can turn it off!' he said. 'Yes,' said O'Brien, 'we can turn it off. We have that privilege.'
- weinzierl 8y ago
  When I wrote my comment I remembered that episode too. I even did a quick search for the exact quote, but couldn't find it quickly and gave up. Funny thing that it induced the same remembrance in you. Thanks for digging up the quote.

neuralRiot 8y ago

>That could prove useful to the terrestrial radio industry, which continues to lose territory and ad dollars to digital streaming services like YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music. You know what would be benefical to the radio industry? To stop playing the top 4 songs (of any genre) over and over and use some real music innovation and variety.

compcoffee 8y ago
>stop playing the top 4 songs (of any genre) over and over and use some real music innovation and variety. If this model could make money, they'd be doing it. Terrestrial radio economics are such that when you tune-in (which far fewer people do nowadays) you want to hear "that new song you like".
- bradknowles 8y ago
  That's what she said.
- mtberatwork 8y ago
  That's only an American phenomenon due to severe market consolidation. The model works when there's competition. In Europe, even the for-profit radio stations are far more diverse and play a wide variety of songs and genres. Plus the public radio stations blow anything stateside out of the water. They bring lots of innovation/musical diversity and aren't afraid to push boundaries, unlike the pure news/talk/tepidness that defines most NPR stations.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  I tune in - to whatever I was listening to on my phone the last time. I do that using my big noise canceling phones and it works great. My question therefore is: what could radio offer me, at all?

nkrisc 8y ago

Reading the article I see all the ways data on my listening habits is valuable to GM and the radio industry and advertisers. How is the consumer rewarded for helping these industries make more money? Why would I ever want to help them? So I can get more targeted ads? There is nothing good about this for driver. I don't want any part in this. I couldn't give a rat's ass what happens to the terrestrial radio industry or its advertisers.

Zelphyr 8y ago
The radio industry is going to be a shell of itself (if it isn't already) in the coming years as driverless capabilities reach the point at which people no longer need to watch the road. Then they'll be on their phones and tablets while the car takes them to their destination.
- nkrisc 8y ago
  Which makes sense why this would be appealing to them. Totally reasonable. I imagine the TV industry is going through a similar crisis as competitive forms of media are not only playing their game, but able to access richer data about viewers. We've heard previously about "smart" TVs that spy on your viewing habits. However, like many things, it ain't my problem. That is, until they make it my problem by surveilling me for their sole benefit.
  - masonic 8y ago
    I was a Nielsen viewer years ago (private TV viewing monitor for advertiser demographics). They paid you to participate and covered all diagnoses and repair. Now, your TV provider, Netflix, etc. sell your data in far more detail without most people even realizing it.
  - cosmie 8y ago
    The TV industry has pretty rich data about you as well. If you have cable and use a cable box, there's a considerable chance that not only are your viewing habits being data mined, advertisers are able to dynamically target specific commercials at you. The term is "addressable TV" if you want to look into it more. And your cable provider has likely pulled your credit report as part of signing up (to avoid requiring a deposit), as well as confirmed your identity, physical address, and phone ynumber. All very valuable information and making it much easier to stitch your data into third party data sources if they want. And if they're also your internet provider, theoretically have some potentially lucrative access to your overall interests, usage patterns, devices in your household, etc. All of which could be leveraged at just the metadata level to derive secondary information such as your daily routines, household size, major life events, whether you have an affinity for Apple vs Android, whether you're an "early adopter" of tech, etc. Cable providers can be just as if not more capable of creating and monetizing incredibly rich data about viewers as their non-cable counterparts. If they're in the mood to risk any PR fallout from it.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

If this becomes endemic across all the manufacturers I'll be ripping out the GPS aerial or fuse as necessary and they'll data mine a null database. I'll find a way to fit a DIN stereo. No I don't buy cars new enough for this to cause warranty issues. If it starts becoming impossible to do, a classic car is going to be anything before 2005 or so, and I'll take one of those. :) I don't even listen to commercial radio in the car, or anywhere, because the ads annoy too much, and there's plenty of BBC stations. TL;DR over my dead body.

d1zzy 8y ago
Cars have been sending data back to manufacturers (which include location, odometer, etc) for a while now and there's almost no way to disable it nicely (destroying the radios voids warranty): http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160809-your-car-is-not-your-friend http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160809-your-car-is-not-your...
- ddingus 8y ago
  Ok, so it is void. Easy peasy. I realize, not so easy. But there will be people who do make it easy. Until then, I pretty much am not in the market for new cars.
- ummonk 8y ago
  If I remember correctly, something like this likely won't void the warranty, except maybe the warranty for electronics in the car. There are pretty strong laws in the US regarding car warranties.
HugoDaniel 8y ago
Just look at your phone.
user111233 8y ago
And then the car disables itself because the security chip detected an unauthorized modification.

tsomctl 8y ago

Thank god you can just buy a modern Chevy engine and transmission, and bolt it into whatever you want. https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/category/ENG.html https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/category/ENG.html

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
userbinator 8y ago
Most of those are the classic American V8s, but there's also a turbocharged 2L 4-cylinder there, which ironically costs more than twice the cheapest V8s but produces more power: https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/parts/19328837.html https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/parts/19328837.html
- tk75x 8y ago
  Cheapest V8: https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/parts/88869602.html https://www.gmperformancemotor.com/parts/88869602.html develops both more torque and more horsepower than that 4 cylinder.

elihu 8y ago

This is one of the reasons why I don't want a car with a wireless network interface. (The other reasons are related to safety and security, and not wanting anyone to have the capability of remotely disabling my car.)

phakding 8y ago

The car is last place I want targeted advertisements and distractions. I live and breathe tech, but I drive a manual car with no GPS, no Bluetooth and no remote connectivity. I turn on local NPR or connect phone using aux cable to listen to podcasts. I never found any use of tech in my car.

ddingus 8y ago
I do much the same. And, I more or less, just do not want any newer cars. Too busy.
bradknowles 8y ago
I don't turn on the radio or any audio system. I do have the navigation system on, but that's it.
ip26 8y ago
Simple bluetooth is nice. Skip & rewind without picking up the phone, no need to get it out of your jacket or backpack pocket either.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
I don't mind tech. Tech is good when it's a tool helping you. Which the things from this article aren't. Increasingly, I realize we let companies put things in products that actively hurt us. This is an absurd situation, and yet it persists.

kjksf 8y ago

I think people writing those articles apply shallow pattern matching and don't understand economics of ads. Have you ever wondered why not every possible business goes for the easy, incremental revenue of advertising? Why doesn't Netflix just show some pre-roll video add? It's easy money. When you buy expensive shoes, why don't they pitch you also buying an expensive jacket in nearby store and get an ad commission? The reason is that ad income is extremely low, ads are not exactly welcomed and degrade user experience. Netflix makes $120/yr from you. They could make maybe $10/yr more if they were aggressive with ads. But if you cancel Netflix because you're sick of ads, then one year of you not paying for Netflix costs them more than 10 years of ad revenue. That why ads thrive in a very specific environment: the cost of ad impression must be extremely low and there is no better way of getting money from the user. Robo taxis, the supposed future ad hell, are the opposite. They'll make lots of money per user ($100+/month) and the cost of ad impression is very high. If any robo taxi provider will be stupid enough to annoy passenger with ads then they'll loose big time to another provider who isn't.

notjustanymike 8y ago
> If any robo taxi provider will be stupid enough to annoy passenger with ads then they'll loose big time to another provider who isn't. You just described my experience with NY Taxi Cabs vs. Lyft
cortesoft 8y ago
I don't know. I pay $200 a season for NBA League pass, so I can watch my favorite out of market team. My normal watch process is to watch the game after the family goes to bed, and fast forward through a good chunk of the filler (commercial breaks, halftime, free throws, etc) When watching on my computer, they insert un-skippable ad breaks during stoppages, even when watching a replay. That means if I am too slow to skip the timeout break, or happen to slide the slider to a section of the game that is an ad break, I get stuck watching 2 minutes of commercials. Since I am constantly fast forwarding during the game, I end up spending more of my time watching ads than the game. It is awful. If I can't figure out a workaround, this is probably my last year subscribing. My only current solution is to record the game on my DVR (using the same league pass subscription), because then I can fast forward. However, not all the games on TV are HD.... it is pretty awful overall.

tzs 8y ago

Has any car company yet tried using the car to take you to ads? For instance, suppose they know that you like BBQ, and they have a new BBQ restaurant advertising client having a grand opening. They know from the data from the in-car navigation service that you have probably not been to a BBQ restaurant recently so might be particularly receptive to trying the new place. They could have the navigation system choose a route that takes you past that new restaurant. Heck, combine this with in-car advertising. Have the entertainment system play an ad for the restaurant right as you drive by it. When we have hands-free attention-free self-driving cars, this could be taken farther, and the whole route could be optimized around driving you by advertising businesses.

mattkevan 8y ago
The future of self driving cars makes me think of city tours I’ve taken while abroad. For example while in Delhi I hired a car and driver for a day to take me round all the sights. These sights also happened to include shops run by either family members of the driver, or ones he’d arranged a kickback with. Imagine entire journeys optimised like the confectionery rack by the checkout in a supermarket or the floor plan of IKEA. Individually tailored to match your shopping interests. The new bidding war won’t be for the top spot on the google homepage but for companies to take you past their premises. For example it’s late, Google knows you like a beer in the evening but don’t have any in the house, so the grocery store willing to pay the most gets you going past. Maybe with a voucher delivered to the in-cab screen.

grownseed 8y ago

My partner and I are the proud owners of a Toyota Corolla CE 2003. We often joke about how it has to be the most nondescript car ever made. It has no extra features (with the exception of the CD/radio stereo perhaps), it just drives, really well, it's very efficient, nobody would ever think to steal or break into it as long as there's pretty much any other car in sight, it requires very little maintenance, and when it does we can go pretty much anywhere and it's very cheap. There'll come a day when we have to replace it, and I'm dreading having to pay more for something that most likely won't be as reliable, but will attempt to squeeze yet more "value" out of me. The corporatization of everyday goods and services at the expense of consumers absolutely sickens me. I can't go to the movies without having to watch 15 minutes of ads, even though I already paid for my seat (and tickets are more expensive than ever). I fear giving my email/phone number/etc. to anybody because I have no idea how they'll be used. I have to regularly remind my ISP/phone provider to stop trying to push more crap and use me as some sort of advertizing platform for my friends. And so on. People complain about Facebook, Google, etc. all the time for their underhanded tactics, but at the very least I haven't already paid for the product before being amalgamated into it... For all the people on HN who work for these companies and help them implement these things, I do have to ask, how do you sleep at night?

DanFeldman 8y ago
I've got a Toyota Camry 2006. It's such a functional car. mid-early 2000s was such a beautiful time for car user interfaces. No crazy screens, no touch UI to control radio volume with millions of menus, no painfully slow third party navigation systems that became deprecated by the time cell phones came out. The only modification it has is a bluetooth receiver instead of the CD part of the radio. It's so wonderfully low-tech that the key fob doesn't even work anymore, only manual keys for me. I bought it when I could have purchased a new vehicle for a similar price using a GM employee discount. Never regretted the decision, and now seeing all this coming out, I feel even better about my camry. I'll drive it until it dies and then hopefully never own another vehicle.
stareatgoats 8y ago
I've come to the conclusion that ads will, if not countered, invade every space that has any potential of human attention. It's not hard to see the trajectory for one who's been around since the 1950's. This is probably going to demand a new type of GMO human, one that can concentrate on main content while at the same time processing ad content. Or, we can stand up as the humans we are and demand that ads be banned from being shoved down our throats at every juncture. In lieu of legislation (don't have much hope there): some sort of manifesto that specifies how ads be displayed (i.e. exclusively behind a 'show ads'-button), coupled with shaming of the corporations that violate such an advertising 'code of conduct'. It should really be tried.

Waterluvian 8y ago

I feel a very palpable rage when I envision a future where I buy a car and a few years later ads start popping up on its display. They're going to make the overly expensive entertainment and GPS packages standard features and then fill them with ads. I just want a slot for a phone. Let me manage the car and the computer as separate pieces. Please for the love of God please.

liftbigweights 8y ago
> I feel a very palpable rage when I envision a future where I buy a car and a few years later ads start popping up on its display. How fun would it be if you had to watch a 30 second commercial before the car starts? Or even to open the car door. Something like that would drive me insane.
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
  I will die with my fucking Toyota Corolla 2005 when it is pried from my fucking hands.
  - liftbigweights 8y ago
    What if traffic lights turn into ad platforms? And everyone waiting has to watch the ad before the light turns green and everyone can move?
    - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
      True story, I actually worked on a proof of concept for something like this for a mapping application (think Waze-like). It would detect if you were stopped at a light and switch to an ad.
- Waterluvian 8y ago
  If anything could make me go on a D-FENS rampage, that would be it. Also someone needs to make a VR game jam "future simulator" that realizes all these terrible possibilities.

toss1 8y ago

This may have just decided it for me. I drive a 16yo car w/a 5-speed H-pattern manual which still runs great (100mph is just seconds away anytime, 7500Lb towing capacity), and am considering whether to go forward or retro, or just fully refurbish this SAV. I love driving, have held racing licenses & won races & championships, but also look forward to self-driving cars with the current state of traffic. In a traffic jam today, I thought it'd be really nice to have Tesla's automatic lane-keeping & follow tech. Yet this kind of intrusive tracking and trying to force yet more targeted advertising at us is just sickening. There's nothing new with the kind of specs that I have in my garage right now, and the only downside is requiring 91octane petrol and getting only 21-25mpg. It is clear that we cannot trust the major manufacturers to not engage in this tracking&targeting nonsense. Tesla does track very extensively, but I don't think they're interested in advertising to us or selling our data -- but how long will that last? On the one hand, I really want self-driving cars with the current congested traffic that is no fun. But on the other hand, I feel like I might be one of the last holdout curmudgeons with a standard shift and round steering wheel as human driving becomes illegal. Thoughts?

jordache 8y ago

mckinsey is pure bs.. 600GB worth of data per day.. yeah all of them actionable data for ad and targeting? bs.

jancsika 8y ago

What about sitting your own baseband station atop the vehicle's cell device? Is there a power at which you can broadcast such that nothing outside the car can detect it but the vehicle's cell device still registers it as the closest "tower" and therefore connects to it? Then you could build your own little in-vehicle pihole and man-in-the-middle your way to an ad-free commute.

newnewpdro 8y ago

They're just aspiring towards turning all cars into the abomination that is the back seat of a modern yellow cab.

rootusrootus 8y ago

If GM doesn't make this data collection very explicitly opt-in (and backs it up with some kind of audit guarantee) then my '18 Camaro will be my first and last GM vehicle. Same with ads -- show me one, just one, and you lose me for good. Other than that, I don't see why people are in here bragging about their awesome 15-20 year old cars. My brand new car has a manual transmission, a knob for the volume control, no built-in navigation, etc. The only real difference between this car and the one I owned in 2004 is that this is better in all ways. All.

setr 8y ago
>Other than that, I don't see why people are in here bragging about their awesome 15-20 year old cars Presumably because all those things you mentioned are difficult to find in new cars? I don’t think anyone is really of the opinion that newer cars have been degrading in mechanical quality; rather they’ve become much more unpleasant to use and own. Where you could trivially open up the car, theres specialized parts with manufacturer-specific tooling required (Even my car’s tire rim has a fucking key). Where the dashboard was mostly simple and operatable without looking, now you cant use any of it while in motion. And of course it’ll be slow, unreliable and somehow decide you need voice assistance and want to make a call. And my own pet peeve: the incessant fucking beeping. Everything fucking beeps at you. I drove a prius recently: it beeps if you’re parked near the curb, beeps because you’re in reverse, beeps because of your seatbelt, beeps with the gps; stop by the gas station for a cacaphony: beeping and tvs and music just quiet enough that you can’t really make it out but youre aware its there. Expect the 2020 prius to beep while accelerating Oh, and of course, now you can enjoy ads too, which’ll probably beep for your attention as well. Obviously you can rip these things out, and obviously you can find cars without these things (especially if you’re paying the premium to customize), but these UX “improvements” are the norm, and you can reliably run from all of this horrible hell by turning back to 1996. And if that car runs well, it’s probably much more pleasant to use than the same model in 2018. Mechanically worse, but far fewer “features” that enter the human areas.
- hvidgaard 8y ago
  > Even my car’s tire rim has a fucking key That is because some people think it's okay to take the wheels of the car when you park it.

nichos 8y ago

If anyone is interested, it's pretty easy to disconnect OnStar all together. Of course, this also disables emergency services: https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/how-to-disable-onstar-by-elan-mcafee https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/how-to-disable-onstar-b...

nimbius 8y ago

Speaking as a full-time automotive mechanic, this has been a regular fact of life for longer than most customers know. most parts search systems and recall bulletin systems do backflips to get you to report your customers. Popups requesting the make/model of the vehicle eventually expanded to just asking for a partial vin, then full vin. Now its not uncommon for Ford/GM parts search systems or recall databases to ask for the subscriber code for the vehicles OnStar system. Enter that code and it triggers a server somewhere at GM to pull vehicle data for the car. Ive called up a warranty claim or parts hotline to find the person on the other end asked for my customer by name. Pretty invasive for a wheel bearing. The good news is, you can permanently disable OnStar and remote data collection fairly simply: 1. Theres usually an onstar control box near the radio inside the dash (not hard to get to.) this is NOT your ECM...look for a box with MAC address data on it. 2. Disconnect the box and open it. triple check to make sure its NOT the ECM. youll find a daughter board with a GPS antenna, and a cellular antenna. 3. Theres a male/male header bridge between the master board and that daughter board. pull that bridge, or remove the daughter board, and youve disabled onstar. Caveats: -Most vehicles dont check for the modem. youll not get a service code on the dash. -This should not affect bluetooth pairing. - Onstar calls, both automated and regular, will fail with "call completed." -Be perfectly certain you want to disable onstar because the box comes with crash detection software that tries to dial onstar and report your crash.

franciscrick1 8y ago
Excellent. Now when I crash in a ditch on the side of the road and my phone flies out the window, I'll hang upside down with a concussion and internal bleeding until the morning when someone finds my dead body.
- packetized 8y ago
  This is a profoundly unhelpful comment.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

anonu 8y ago

If you have an Android phone much of this data is also being captured there in parallel.

justtopost 8y ago
Do non-android phones somehow use a shadow form of communicating with towers? Apple, etc, are 100% as vunerable as well.

beefsack 8y ago

Calling this "data mining" is adding a neutral spin to a horrifying practice. "Harvesting personal information" is more accurate. One annoying aspect of companies doing this is the term they steal becomes encumbered with the negative connotations of the practices behind it. The same thing happened with "metadata".

sorokod 8y ago
"harvesting" is also neutral or somewhat positive, the correct word is "stealing"

ISL 8y ago

The right to repair is the antidote. Don't like the device software/firmware? Repair it.

petepete 8y ago
"yeah I'll be a bit late into work today, I was flashing a custom ROM onto my car and I've bricked it."

tspike 8y ago

I just picked up a 6-speed manual 2015 Tacoma. It's the last of the 2nd generation that's been in production since the early 2000s, and it's wonderfully low-tech. It'll be one of the final vehicles ever produced with the 90s-era focus on utility and driving experience. Combined with Toyota's inertia for producing quality vehicles and 11 years of safety refinement, it'll be the vehicle I drive for as long as it's possible and then hopefully be my last.

wnevets 8y ago

if people would just stop opening spam mail, clicking ads and other non sense this garbage would just go away.

torgian 8y ago

Ugh. If I ever get a car again, it will most definitely not be a new one.

franciscrick1 8y ago

When did the Luddites come out of the woodwork?

sctb 8y ago
Could you please try to say something more informative? We're not here to play name games. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- franciscrick1 8y ago
  I'm disappointed in the hypocrisy of HN users when it comes to privacy and money. When it comes to selling a company, and caring about user privacy, everyone on HN might as well be Zuckerberg. As soon as someone suggests doing something that violates their privacy even slightly, HN's number one priority is privacy.
- franciscrick1 8y ago
  Scott, did you flag my other reply to this comment?
  - sctb 8y ago
    Nope.