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Will the insanity pass, though? There's talk of putting cameras in all cars starting in 2026 to prevent... drunk driving[1]?! What's next? I can't be alone in

Will the insanity pass, though? There's talk of putting cameras in all cars starting in 2026 to prevent... drunk driving[1]?! What's next? I can't be alone in never buying a car that has this feature. [1] https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-11-09/congress-mandates-car-technology-stop-drunk-driving https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-11-09/congre...

noduerme 5y ago
I still won't even buy a car with GPS. Seems I'm in a vanishing minority. It won't pass, because people born after 1990 have spent their adult lives in a world with surveillance machines in their pockets at all times. Their cars are just big phones. By 2040 you probably won't even be allowed to drive your own vehicle.
- ranger_danger 5y ago
  Just unplug the GPS/cell antennas if you're that paranoid? Newer cars will not be made without them anyway because they are actually safety features.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    Being spied on is always a safety feature. That's why North Korea is the safest country in the world. No one ever dies there. Not a single case of covid!
    - ranger_danger 5y ago
      Believe it or not, trying to tell people they don't want someone else just a voice command or push button away in the case of an accident, is actually a hard sell. It might be seen as a privacy invasion to some (whether it's used as such in practice is another story), but to others it might actually save their life.
- hyperman1 5y ago
  To be honest, not being allowed to drive your own vehicle is probably a good thing. See e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index.... From the first few paragraphs: Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people aged 1–54 More than half of those killed are pedestrians, motorcyclists, or cyclists. Drivers risk other people's lives, hence, other people have a right to demand safety from drivers' actions. Supposing computers do get better than humans in the future, why not just stop humans from doing this dangerous activity? If someone wants to do some old school driving in 2040, go have fun on a private racetrack or whatever. You can even ignore speed limits.
  - zizee 5y ago
    It does wrestle a lot of control from the individual though. It's not hard to imagine possible abuses of power. Tracking everyone's movements is just the start. What if some government decided to deny service to someone? Or not let certain groups travel to certain places. Imagine opportunities for havoc due to hacking I'd still like driverless cars, but privacy and freedom of movement rights protections need to be thought about.
    - hyperman1 5y ago
      There are 2 separate aspects here: Driverless, and governement controlled. A driverless car might be a car like today's, except with a computer on board. Governement doesn't connect with your car at an individual level, even if they might adapt the road code a bit to make it more easy on the cars. The problems you mention are real, but a driverless car doesn't change much. Havoc due to hacking is already possible today, with OTA software updates for cars. Tracking is also possible with cell phones. Driverless car software could be like GPS updates today: Some corporation provides a yearly update and that's it.
      - noduerme 5y ago
        >> Havoc due to hacking is already possible today But it's still legal to buy and drive a car from the 80s that can't be hacked. Looking ahead, my concern is that we'll begin to see laws that restrict human controlled vehicles from autonomous lanes and eventually whole roads. This would take a lot of burden off the manufacturers. If cars can use a common protocol to communicate across brands, you don't even need traffic lights or turn signals; you don't even need to stop at intersections. Cars can just slow down or speed up by a tiny bit in coordination with other traffic. At that point it will be impossible for a human to drive at all. It's impossible to separate increasing vehicle autonomy from increased government control. Once there's an ability to make any car pull over to the side remotely, knowing who is in it and where it's going, all freedom of movement and therefore all human autonomy exists completely at the whim of government. That level of control will be abused sooner rather than later, if not in America then certainly in authoritarian states. Full self driving is an authoritarian trap.
- OnlineGladiator 5y ago
  GPS is a one-way communication. It's really no different from radio in that regard (a signal sent from far away and you have an antenna to read the signal). Unless there's also a cellular modem in your car (which pretty much every modern car has today so I'm not pretending this is unusual) it's impossible for others to monitor your location. You can simply disable the cellular modem and enjoy using GPS without anyone else knowing where you are. Also, those cellular modems in cars tend to use older technology (this is fairly standard for the auto industry in general since there is such a long regulatory approval process for anything). My 2018 model year car will no longer be able to communicate remotely in January 2022 because the cellular network is being deprecated.
  - emaginniss 5y ago
    Right, but they can access your car later and see all the places you've been.
    - ranger_danger 5y ago
      You could unplug the antenna or replace the head unit.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Seems like a futile effort to avoid cars with GPS if you carry a device around that is connected to a mobile network. Is there anyone that does not carry around a dumb phone, if not a smartphone?
      - zeckalpha 5y ago
        Yes. I know people who have dumb phones but they only put the batteries in when they need to make a call.
        eru 5y ago
        I'm not sure whether the inability to be called is a bug or a feature.
- oceanplexian 5y ago
  This brings up an interesting point which is why I recently bought a used car. The late 90s, 00s are probably the last road-legal vehicles that won’t spy on you. I wouldn’t put it past lawmakers to make phoning home mandatory like they did with backup cameras. I’m guessing this will also cause prices to skyrocket since there is a sizable minority of people like us who will refuse to buy a car that’s plugged into the Internet.
  - mark-r 5y ago
    Worse yet, they'll make you pay for a subscription to the spy service! I've had my new car for exactly a year now, and I got multiple warnings that they were going to turn off the connection that they use for roadside assistance etc. unless I ponied up $8 a month.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  I have news for you: not getting a car with navigation doesn't mean squat. Any vehicle sold with telematics available not only has GPS, but that telematics system is feeding the manufacturer data from the vehicle, including your location. This happens whether you're subscribing to the telematics service or not. It's always on. Some vehicles do it multiple times an hour or more.
yeetaccount2 5y ago
Sounds like a violation of 4a.
muffinman26 5y ago
For me it's the touchscreen tablet-like control consoles. The Tesla controls are essentially a laptop in the middle of the car. Given what we know about texting while driving, it is absolutely ludicrous to me that those things are even legal, let alone common.

noduerme 5y ago

I still won't even buy a car with GPS. Seems I'm in a vanishing minority. It won't pass, because people born after 1990 have spent their adult lives in a world with surveillance machines in their pockets at all times. Their cars are just big phones. By 2040 you probably won't even be allowed to drive your own vehicle.

ranger_danger 5y ago
Just unplug the GPS/cell antennas if you're that paranoid? Newer cars will not be made without them anyway because they are actually safety features.
- noduerme 5y ago
  Being spied on is always a safety feature. That's why North Korea is the safest country in the world. No one ever dies there. Not a single case of covid!
  - ranger_danger 5y ago
    Believe it or not, trying to tell people they don't want someone else just a voice command or push button away in the case of an accident, is actually a hard sell. It might be seen as a privacy invasion to some (whether it's used as such in practice is another story), but to others it might actually save their life.
hyperman1 5y ago
To be honest, not being allowed to drive your own vehicle is probably a good thing. See e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index.... From the first few paragraphs: Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people aged 1–54 More than half of those killed are pedestrians, motorcyclists, or cyclists. Drivers risk other people's lives, hence, other people have a right to demand safety from drivers' actions. Supposing computers do get better than humans in the future, why not just stop humans from doing this dangerous activity? If someone wants to do some old school driving in 2040, go have fun on a private racetrack or whatever. You can even ignore speed limits.
- zizee 5y ago
  It does wrestle a lot of control from the individual though. It's not hard to imagine possible abuses of power. Tracking everyone's movements is just the start. What if some government decided to deny service to someone? Or not let certain groups travel to certain places. Imagine opportunities for havoc due to hacking I'd still like driverless cars, but privacy and freedom of movement rights protections need to be thought about.
  - hyperman1 5y ago
    There are 2 separate aspects here: Driverless, and governement controlled. A driverless car might be a car like today's, except with a computer on board. Governement doesn't connect with your car at an individual level, even if they might adapt the road code a bit to make it more easy on the cars. The problems you mention are real, but a driverless car doesn't change much. Havoc due to hacking is already possible today, with OTA software updates for cars. Tracking is also possible with cell phones. Driverless car software could be like GPS updates today: Some corporation provides a yearly update and that's it.
    - noduerme 5y ago
      >> Havoc due to hacking is already possible today But it's still legal to buy and drive a car from the 80s that can't be hacked. Looking ahead, my concern is that we'll begin to see laws that restrict human controlled vehicles from autonomous lanes and eventually whole roads. This would take a lot of burden off the manufacturers. If cars can use a common protocol to communicate across brands, you don't even need traffic lights or turn signals; you don't even need to stop at intersections. Cars can just slow down or speed up by a tiny bit in coordination with other traffic. At that point it will be impossible for a human to drive at all. It's impossible to separate increasing vehicle autonomy from increased government control. Once there's an ability to make any car pull over to the side remotely, knowing who is in it and where it's going, all freedom of movement and therefore all human autonomy exists completely at the whim of government. That level of control will be abused sooner rather than later, if not in America then certainly in authoritarian states. Full self driving is an authoritarian trap.
OnlineGladiator 5y ago
GPS is a one-way communication. It's really no different from radio in that regard (a signal sent from far away and you have an antenna to read the signal). Unless there's also a cellular modem in your car (which pretty much every modern car has today so I'm not pretending this is unusual) it's impossible for others to monitor your location. You can simply disable the cellular modem and enjoy using GPS without anyone else knowing where you are. Also, those cellular modems in cars tend to use older technology (this is fairly standard for the auto industry in general since there is such a long regulatory approval process for anything). My 2018 model year car will no longer be able to communicate remotely in January 2022 because the cellular network is being deprecated.
- emaginniss 5y ago
  Right, but they can access your car later and see all the places you've been.
  - ranger_danger 5y ago
    You could unplug the antenna or replace the head unit.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Seems like a futile effort to avoid cars with GPS if you carry a device around that is connected to a mobile network. Is there anyone that does not carry around a dumb phone, if not a smartphone?
    - zeckalpha 5y ago
      Yes. I know people who have dumb phones but they only put the batteries in when they need to make a call.
      - eru 5y ago
        I'm not sure whether the inability to be called is a bug or a feature.
oceanplexian 5y ago
This brings up an interesting point which is why I recently bought a used car. The late 90s, 00s are probably the last road-legal vehicles that won’t spy on you. I wouldn’t put it past lawmakers to make phoning home mandatory like they did with backup cameras. I’m guessing this will also cause prices to skyrocket since there is a sizable minority of people like us who will refuse to buy a car that’s plugged into the Internet.
- mark-r 5y ago
  Worse yet, they'll make you pay for a subscription to the spy service! I've had my new car for exactly a year now, and I got multiple warnings that they were going to turn off the connection that they use for roadside assistance etc. unless I ponied up $8 a month.
KennyBlanken 5y ago
I have news for you: not getting a car with navigation doesn't mean squat. Any vehicle sold with telematics available not only has GPS, but that telematics system is feeding the manufacturer data from the vehicle, including your location. This happens whether you're subscribing to the telematics service or not. It's always on. Some vehicles do it multiple times an hour or more.

yeetaccount2 5y ago

Sounds like a violation of 4a.

muffinman26 5y ago

For me it's the touchscreen tablet-like control consoles. The Tesla controls are essentially a laptop in the middle of the car. Given what we know about texting while driving, it is absolutely ludicrous to me that those things are even legal, let alone common.