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This is already a thing in many cars (many cars a few years ago, but almost every car now). Both to show ads in the vehicle and to harvest your location data. A
by the_pwner224 4y ago
This is already a thing in many cars (many cars a few years ago, but almost every car now). Both to show ads in the vehicle and to harvest your location data. As well as to sell subscriptions for things like remote start from an app, wifi hotspot in the car, parental controls/monitoring, etc.
You can disassemble the interior a bit (usually not too difficult) and disconnect the antenna from the comms module. Depending on the structure of the wiring harness your car uses, it may not be possible to easily do that without also removing GPS/radio functionality. Some models are now integrating WiFi/Bluetooth into the same system.
Alternatively, depending on which manufacturer your car is from, you can "acquire" the manufacturer diagnostic/service software and disable the cellular connection.
I will give a shoutout to Honda for being pretty good about this. The Civic didn't have a cellular connection at least as of the 10th gen (up to 2021). Not sure if the new '22 Civic does. Also, their infotainment systems run Android and you can root/jailbreak it - on the Civic, Accord, HR-V, and others. Again, this may change in current model years so double check before you buy. And (excepting a few years around 2016-2018) Honda also still has physical buttons/knobs for all the important controls, instead of putting everything into a touchscreen like 90% of companies do these days.
BMW has had a cellular connection in their cars for many years, but you can disable the SIM card by programming the TCB through ISTA, even on the current G chassis cars. Not sure if that completely disables Tx. Also not sure how their just released iDrive 8 system handles it though.
Alternatively you could unplug the TCB on the BMWs. That requires dropping the headliner on recent ones (annoying but not hard), and on the really recent ones I don't think you can unplug cellular only (you'll also lose GPS & some other things, potentially including WiFi/BT/NFC, I'm not sure). And it'll show a warning on the dash all the time if you unplug it.
- PeterStuer 4y agoDo not forget to repeat your intervention after every service at an officially brand recognized service center.
- walrus01 4y agoit's all good until the local NPR station bricks your mazda's infotainment unit https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=npr+station+seattle+mazda https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=npr...
- pilsetnieks 4y agoOr a demon starts haunting your car radio: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/76hel39 https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/76hel39
- jhoechtl 4y agoThat's KISS on a HD+ radio. Seriously as a European I do not know enough about HD+ radio but DAB radio can transmit pictures which until now is mostly used to transfer album covers. In due time we will see this abused to hammer ads down our throats.
- akira2501 4y ago> In due time we will see this abused to hammer ads down our throats. When the service was first implemented, that was a possibility. Now, the most we're likely to take advantage of it is to show you a display ad that matches with the current "over the air" ad that you're hearing. Advertisers aren't interested in selling on top of someone else's advertising, and programming doesn't want their displays messed with outside of commercial breaks. Plus.. it's a pretty low value service and honestly not worth selling. Advertisers all want demographic driven sales now, so those channels aren't all that useful to us. RadioDNS opens the door somewhat to this, because it can direct your radio to start a stream instead of listening "over the air." However, there, we're happy to be able to replace the over the air ads with programmatic digital ads and that sales channel really doesn't care about "additional display opportunities" either. Be happy that radio is slow to implement standards, and usually too far behind the punch to get the expected return out of them. So.. just album art for the foreseeable future.
- hprotagonist 4y agoor until Queen starts haunting a demon’s car, then you know you’ve realbeezlebub has a devil put aside for me, for meeeeeeeeee
- egypturnash 4y agoOh wow the reason this scary face keeps on showing up sporadically is hilarious.
- donw 4y ago
- skrtskrt 4y agoIt requires the government to investigate this possibility and make an official recommendation on whether and how to implement it.
- kortilla 4y agoThat’s incredibly dumb either way. What excuse do they have for this one?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- passivate 4y agohttps://www.snopes.com/fact-check/infrastructure-bill-track-drivers/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/infrastructure-bill-track-...
- throwaway0x7E6 4y ago"it doesn't say 'kill switch'. it says 'advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology'" utterly deboonked
- passivate 4y agoI have no issues going to any lengths preventing drunk people from driving.
- throwaway0x7E6 4y agoand I have no problem with outright lynching the pedofiles. let us all wear bodycams and install CCTV in every home to protect the children
- animal531 4y agoIt's time to start developing the NoScript/UBlock of the future, which will hopefully be able to block all the ads running in cars, fridges, shops, floating drones, sidewalks etc.
- bo0tzz 4y agoI think you can buy a 5G jammer on aliexpress /s
- aformerex 4y agoAren't those just faraday cages?
- praptak 4y agoYou can't realistically put a Faraday cage around your car's spying module.
- topranks 4y ago“Jamming” normally means interfering with a radio signal by broadcasting on that same frequency at a higher power. As opposed to something passive like a faraday cage to stop signal getting in to a given area.
- adastra22 4y ago> Both to show ads in the vehicle WTF. Is this a thing? How?
- the_pwner224 4y agoMy friend's 2018 Nissan Rogue displays logos of some nearby restaurants / gas stations / stores on the navigation map. The brands that are shown change every once in a while. Some cars show nearby points of interest as a feature; this isn't that.
- NonNefarious 4y agoPeople still use integrated navigation systems?
- yurishimo 4y agoGoogle maps/Waze shows these business logos as well. In certain cases, the navigation assistant will also say the business' name when navigating. Example: Instead of "Turn left onto Broad Street", it will say, "Turn left after the Wendy's". It's pretty subtle right now, but I have no doubts that it will get more nefarious in the future.
- adgjlsfhk1 4y agoI don't think that's an ad. I think Google just knows that a giant restaurant sign is a lot easier to see than a tiny street sign
- antsar 4y agoYou really think no money changes hands to power this feature? The last ~decade of tech teaches one to assume otherwise…
- gruez 4y agoTrue, but instructions based on intersection features are better than both. Apple maps does this with instructions like "go past this light then at the next one turn right"
- lwhi 4y agoCould custom Faraday cages be integrated?
- the_pwner224 4y agoAfaik, on pretty much every modern car the single main antenna unit (usually the shark fin on the roof) handles cellular and GPS (Rx only) and radio (AM/FM, and often also weather/traffic, Rx only). So you'll lose the other things if you put it in a Faraday cage. A cage is a bad way to do it anyway. It's easier to disconnect the cable between the antenna & the telematics module (which has the SIM and control electronics in it). Or disconnect the power to the telematics module. Etc. Depending on the wiring harness style and design of the car's electronics, that may also let you disconnect just the cellular antenna while leaving the GPS/radio antennas connected. In the future we might see those components getting integrated together... But you can always physically destroy/remove the antenna.
- jhoechtl 4y ago> But you can always physically destroy/remove the antenna Unless the device itself becomes the antenna or is reacting passively as is the case in RFID.
- the_pwner224 4y agoThat's already happening :) If you have an automatic toll transponder (ez-pasz, etc.), those things are read very frequently even when you're not going through a toll meter. There's info on this online. TPMS sensors also transmit a serial number. I wouldn't put it past the NSA to have sensors embedded in certain roads to track that. And of course, dragnet automatic license plate scanning / tracking is already ubiquitous and there's really not anything you can do about it. Use a bicycle instead, I guess...
- GekkePrutser 4y agoMy Irish one wasn't. It beeps when it's being read and it was only read at toll ports.
- arpinum 4y agoThere are legal requirements for enhanced emergency calling in European cars. Cars must have the ability to alert emergency responders with location data. Don’t expect to be able to disable internet in cars going forward.
- jhoechtl 4y agoThe Chinese government at least is not in disguise about their surveillance plans whereas we see it sneaked in into more and more appliances of daily use. I hate this coming Orwellian future.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoEh? The EU directives are all above board and documented, so I'm not sure what you're referring to. That said, they do need to be monitored at all time; abusing that location data for different usage is only one piece of legislation away. Which is why it's probably best to not gather this information in the first place. To invoke Godwin's Law, iirc you are no longer required to fill in your religion anywhere, because the nazi's used records like that to track down Jewish people and others they were after. This is why these privacy laws are so important, and why the right to be forgotten should be sacred; you should be able to disappear if the governments turn against you.
- jhoechtl 4y agoYou read or interpret this wrong. The EU government might be acting in good intention and I acknowledge that. Yet consumer electronics has the means to collect data for profiling like crazy. EU government data privacy acts are weak measures compared to liberal company laws with their seats outside the EU jurisdiction. Freemium will nudge far to many people to give away their data. An GDPR relevancy outside the EU is just a paper promise.
- Gare 4y agoHow would you sell a fridge or a car in the EU if you're not compliant?
- klabb3 4y ago> Both to show ads in the vehicle and to harvest your location data. The discourse 5-10 years ago was that this was the price you pay for free (as in beer) consumer services. In reality, no such principles exist, and everything is instead a numbers game. Do enough people complain? Does it factor into their purchase decisions? Unfortunately, average people seem to not value their attention, even as everyone else is fighting tooth and nail for a share of it.
- dwighttk 4y ago>it may not be possible to easily do that without also removing GPS/radio functionality. Some models are now integrating WiFi/Bluetooth into the same system. I don’t really need any of those with my phone in the car.
- mastax 4y agoHonda is one of the most conservative car companies. Among other things they took way longer to start introducing turbochargers into their mainstream lineup. It has its benefits.
- seanw444 4y agoI never fully understood why my dad only really bought Honda vehicles as a kid. Nowadays I do. Less cruft, more robustness. They just keep on running. My dad's '91 Accord has 320,000+ miles on it now, and it's still trucking along.
- BrandoElFollito 4y agoYou cannot have ads in cars in France (and generally - Europe). That must be an insane experience.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago> And it'll show a warning on the dash That means it will fail the bi-annual mandatory check.
- judge2020 4y ago> and to harvest your location data. Can't find the reference but don't they use this for generating precise topological data?
- codedokode 4y agoYou should not use somebody else's car to gather topological data without permission.