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Toyota: Car location data and videos of 2M customers exposed for ten years

zyang 3y ago
Japanese auto completely missed the memo on software. Many of them won't make the ev transition. It's hard to imagine what Japanese economy is going to be like once their auto industry is gutted.
- livinglist 3y ago
  > Many of them won't make the ev transition. What exactly makes u come to this conclusion?
  - simonh 3y ago
    I think that's a little hyperbolic, but the Japanese are way behind. There was a decent analysis (as always) in the Economist recently. https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/04/16/how-japan-is-losing-the-global-electric-vehicle-race https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/04/16/how-japan-is-losin...
    - _hypx 3y ago
      No one needs to bother with that race. It is just a ploy by China to gain marketshare in the car industry. It won't work because it ultimately creates a massive new resource dependency. One that just happens to shift everyone's supply chain to China or Chinese controlled companies. I believe Western companies will eventually walk away from pursuing battery cars, at least in the sense of them being the only solution. it just has too many obvious problem.
      - feanaro 3y ago
        What are these obvious problems?
        _hypx 3y ago
        Expensive, limited range, slow recharge times, huge dependency on a battery supply chain, etc. Right now, people are obsessed about them but I think this is just temporary phenomenon. Once people realize that there are cheaper forms of green transportation that avoid those above issues, the obsession with battery EVs will end.
        digging 3y ago
        Battery EVs probably won't go away, there would be too much backlash against politicians saying "Actually, let's not bother," even if/when the US finally understands and embraces sane intra- and inter-urban transportation modes.
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    Toyota in particular has wasted a ridiculous amount of time and money on consumer-level hydrogen tech. As a result competitors that focused on battery EVs over the last few years have a decent head start.
    - _hypx 3y ago
      The other companies are wasting their time. Battery EVs are a dead end and they will all have to move to hydrogen tech eventually. It is the other companies that are way behind.
      - CamperBob2 3y ago
        In EE terms, betting against batteries is like betting against CMOS. Progress will go where the industry's money goes, not where any one company's money goes. If I could say just one thing to Toyota's management, it would be, "Stop trying to make hydrogen happen. It's not going to happen. There are just too many technical and economic drawbacks." But any of their engineers could tell them the same thing, so what'd be the point?
        _hypx 3y ago
        The most prominent alternative (fuel cell EV) are also EVs. There are no fundamental downsides in comparison either. To continue your EE analogy, you're betting against another kind of CMOS which also happens to be made of far cheaper materials. Like your CMOS is made of germanium but the competition is made of silicon.
- badpun 3y ago
  > Many of them won't make the ev transition. It's still not clear when (and if) the ev transition will happen. There are many unknowns.
  - numpad0 3y ago
    I feel like it’s an architectural change, similar to how smartphone transition wasn’t just about touchscreens. Many flip phones in Japan gained touchscreen after iPhone like wings on a dragon, and died anyway.
  - _hypx 3y ago
    If you mean battery EVs, it very likely won't happen. I would even go as far as saying it cannot happen. They are highly resource dependent and too expensive to make. Hydrogen EVs make significantly more sense once you realize renewable energy is going to be nearly free and "efficiency" is most a distraction.
- skrtskrt 3y ago
  Toyota's hybrid tech is and has been the best and most reliable for a very long time. I think it's a shame that the EV regulations and incentives (at least in America) are not as friendly for traditional hybrids and plug-in hybrids. They have basically zero downsides compared to full ICE or full EV, and would still make a massive dent in emissions. PHEVs in particular - most people are going under 100 miles a day, so there would be 0 emissions.
  - recursive 3y ago
    > They have basically zero downsides They need oil changes. Some don't mind, but I do. It's a downside.
    - galangalalgol 3y ago
      They often have no spare tire to fit the battery. Quite a few don't have battery thermal management, so the packs will degrade much more quickly. It seems like they have all the downsides.
      - recursive 3y ago
        New Toyota Corollas don't have spare tires. They're not an outlier. Are there available (new) EVs other than the Nissan Leaf that doesn't have active thermal management? EVs do have downsides, but so do ICE and hybrid.
      - ezfe 3y ago
        My Hybrid Corolla didn't come with a spare tire but it has space to install one (and I did). The battery is under the rear seating.
      - mardifoufs 3y ago
        No battery thermal management?? I thought no one did that after the disaster that was the original Nissan leaf's battery
    - wolrah 3y ago
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  I worked for Toyota Infotechnology Center in Sunnyvale in 2016/2017 on a robotics research project involving their HSR robot running ROS. The robot had odometry from the wheels, though it was a bit noisy due to the construction of the omnidirectional mechanism. They decided to ignore wheel odometry and use only an odometry module based on the planar lidar, essentially visual odometry. This worked fine in most circumstances, but basically completely failed in hallways as they lacked distinctive features. This interfered with my work which involved the robot navigating around the office. I had worked on this problem before, and ROS has an excellent sensor fusion library for dealing with multiple noisy sensor readings. You just need to combine wheel odometry and laser odometry with a kalmann filter, and the sensor fusion library makes this relatively easy. However even though I worked at a Toyota office with full time Toyota employees, and the code was pretty much off the shelf ROS code, and the robots were produced in very low volumes and only in use at Toyota, they wouldn't give me the source code. I think maybe they wouldn't even give me root access. Still, I was able to control the names of ROS topics using the ROS launch files (it has been a while since I worked with ROS and I forget some of the terms). I remapped the lidar odometry topic to an intermediary topic name instead of /odom, then directed the intermediary topic in to the sensor fusion module along with the wheel odometry, then mapped the sensor fusion output to /odom. The system got odometry information but now it did not come from the lidar odometry but from the sensor fusion module, so it was happy. The fix worked great. It had normal behavior when lidar was good, and had reliable odometry in long hallways. I was finally able to implement my office navigation code. I did my best to communicate these changes back to Toyota. They had not been very helpful when I was asking for help solving the issue, but I had hoped that since I had it working they would appreciate this. I asked where I could file a git issue or otherwise push the code to some private git repo. They were not using git. Ultimately I was instructed to email the raw code files I had used along with instructions for how to integrate it. I found this quite surprising. I have no idea if they ever implemented the changes I suggested, but I kind of doubt it. From what I have heard of japanese software practices, they basically do not accept code suggestions from the bottom up. I know of some people who worked for Toyota Research Institute who said they were trying to get the Toyota folks to integrate silicon valley coding rigor in to their systems. Maybe they had success, I don't know. But certainly 6 years ago things were a total mess.
- inconceivable 3y ago
  japan is a US protectorate. when china starts marketing their EV's abroad the US will just sanction them. don't worry, japan is safe.
  - nebula8804 3y ago
    If the US blocks China, the Chinese government will just kick all the Americans out of the Chinese market and nationalize their Chinese plants. I'm sure the big three won't be happy about that. Since corporations run the US, they will give the US Govt its barking orders and the Chinese cars will be let into the US.
- simonh 3y ago
  Japan generally. They tried to pull a great leap forward move with AI a few decades ago, but just ended up wasting billions on dead end approaches right on the cusp of the AI winter. My personal opinion is that really top notch breakthrough software engineering and computer science is susceptible to an exponential cascade butterfly effect. Yes you need big teams to deliver huge projects. Operating systems, compilers, languages, etc all take huge investment to build out. The thing is though the initial conditions have a massive downstream effect. The core contributions by genius 10x computer scientists and software engineers set the pace for everyone else. Unix, C, Linux, Git, LLVM, Perl, Python, who knows what else. It's the individuals or small dedicated teams doing it the 'wrong' way, or going for a weird untested approach that starts a small speck that snowballs into huge multi-billion industries. The culture and economic conditions in the US are perfect for this to work. Japan, and for different reasons and certainly not the the same scale Europe, not so much.
- bastardoperator 3y ago
  Where are all these American companies getting their batteries from? Mostly Japan... Rivian, Tesla, Lucid, Gravity, Ford, GMC.
  - zyang 3y ago
    Do you have any sources for that claim. Because the big 3 are CATL, LG, BYD. Panasonic is the only notable Japanese supplier but it's trending down fast.
  - bdamm 3y ago
    Mostly China. But the Korean and American contributions are also very significant. Cell source is not a geopolitical monopoly at all.
- stjohnswarts 3y ago
  I would never bet against the Japanese or Korean auto makers lol
meghan_rain 3y ago
Why does Toyota even have this data?
- ribosometronome 3y ago
  Some vehicular services require location data. >This incident exposed the information of customers who used the company's T-Connect G-Link, G-Link Lite, or G-BOOK services between January 2, 2012, and April 17, 2023. >T-Connect is Toyota's in-car smart service for voice assistance, customer service support, car status and management, and on-road emergency help.
  - leblancfg 3y ago
    s/have/keep/g
- thewataccount 3y ago
  Checkout their privacy policy, it includes biometrics and facial scans, and microphone data. It's absolutely wild. https://www.toyota.com/support/privacy-notice/ https://www.toyota.com/support/privacy-notice/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230512181415/https://www.toyota.com/support/privacy-notice/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230512181415/https://www.toyot...
  - smcin 3y ago
    Look at the really opaque language in the table under 12. DISCLOSURES FOR INDIVIDUALS IN THE UNITED STATES: Summary of Prior 12-Month Personal Information Handling Practices For example, under the category: Sensitive personal information or data, such as precise geolocation data, biometric information for the purpose of uniquely identifying an individual, account login information, driver's license, and financial information. ... > Purpose of Processing: For location tracking, to identify you, and to provide services to you. > Other: We may have used and disclosed your Personal Information for other reasons described in the How We Use the Information We Collect and How We Disclose Information sections. ...and the section 'Sensitive Personal Information' for their explanation of limits on what they do with it. ...and: Your Privacy Rights: 4. Right to Know and Access... You may have the right to request that we provide you with the Personal Information we have collected about you, including the categories of Personal Information; the categories of sources from which the Personal Information is collected; the business or commercial purpose for collecting, selling, or sharing Personal Information; the categories of third parties to whom we disclose Personal Information; and the specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected about you.
greenie_beans 3y ago
good lord. i'm so glad my toyota doesn't have any of those features. shout out to the lean method.
- ycombinete 3y ago
  What is the lean method in this case?
  - greenie_beans 3y ago
    toyota invented the lean method
  - tremon 3y ago
    https://global.toyota/en/company/vision-and-philosophy/production-system/ https://global.toyota/en/company/vision-and-philosophy/produ... > The Toyota Production System (TPS) [..] is based on the philosophy of the complete elimination of all waste in pursuit of the most efficient methods [it] has evolved through many years of trial and error to improve efficiency based on the Just-in-Time concept developed by Kiichiro Toyoda, the founder (and second president) of Toyota Motor Corporation.
  - gpcz 3y ago
    I'd assume the Toyota Production System and their method of lean manufacturing.
- sumtechguy 3y ago
  If it is anything after about 2012 it probably does. Also if this hack is out of the software I think it is, I am not surprised. Some of the main devs were more worried about what a function was named than how to make it work correctly and securely.
  - matheweis 3y ago
    Depends on where the data comes from. A bunch of Toyotas have a telemetry module (basically an LTE modem tied into the can bus and the head unit), but the introduction date varies. Tacomas for example didn’t have it until 2020. I’m not sure though if this data is/was getting pushed through that or something else.
Reptur 3y ago
I hope jailbreaking and disabling this data collection becomes the norm in the future. It is obvious companies do not prioritize the security protecting our data.
- Shocka1 3y ago
  As someone who worked for one of the big Japanese auto manufacturers less than five years ago in Infotainment, in the exact domain of what this thread is talking about, I agree wholeheartedly. You all may or may not be surprised about the philosophy behind this. Your data is looked at as their data... In the company I worked for, this was all driven by a small sect of executives in Los Angeles. This is one of the biggest reasons I left, as I couldn't agree on an ethical level with the decisions around customer privacy.
- asynchronous 3y ago
  Luckily we are already seeing a market with jailbreaking Tesla firmware to have more control over this sort of thing.
- smolder 3y ago
  It's a matter of time before that is legislated away as an option. Drunk driver detection and remote disable for law enforcement and other rights-trampling "safety" features will be always-on, probably by law. If it's not those, always-on comms will be mandated to help go to a self-driving fleet. One way or another, they'll force us to have spyware cars.
  - chasd00 3y ago
    yeah i've always thought self driving and autonomous car fleets would be a godsend to governments. One order and you can immobilize a street, neighborhood, city or whatever. I bet it's hard to escape oppression on foot.
    - maxden 3y ago
      Imagine it has the same functionality as Bait car.. and not allow the occupants to exit the car either.
malikNF 3y ago
I hope regulators fine the hell out of these companies. Enough to make them think twice about offering these upload everything to the cloud services no one really asks for.
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  It's a simple equation: Revenue = (value of data per person) x (number of customers) - (probably of data loss) x (probability of fine) x (cost of fine). If that number is greater than zero, they'll do it, if it's less than zero, they won't.
  - oharapj 3y ago
    I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise
  - oh_sigh 3y ago
    A simple equation but no one actually operates that way. Except for maybe auto manufacturers from late-90s books-turned-movies starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Most variables are impossible to accurately predict. e.g. "Cost/probability of fine" -> how do you model the cost of brand tarnishment?
    - tremon 3y ago
      how do you model the cost of brand tarnishment You don't, therefore its cost is mostly absent from budget calculations. And if that doesn't work, you can always rename the company.
  - iambateman 3y ago
    This is how engineers think executive decisions are made and it is just not accurate. The CEO of Toyota plays golf with the uncle of the head of the “we track you forever” group. They both feel like the nephew has a big future and there is a ton of money to be made over the next 5 years before the CEO plans to retire. Plus, according to their marketing team, Volkswagen is worse. Much worse. There is way less science and way more emotion at play.
thewataccount 3y ago
Their privacy policy is wild and every customer is opted into the connect services by default. Interior images, exterior images, facial geometry, voice recordings, location/driving data, "multimedia screen data", https://www.toyota.com/privacyvts/ https://www.toyota.com/privacyvts/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230512182022/https://www.toyota.com/privacyvts/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230512182022/https://www.toyot...
- short_sells_poo 3y ago
  > Interior images, exterior images, facial geometry, voice recordings, This is an absolutely unbelievable level of privacy intrusion IMO. I 100% support very heavily fining this sort of behavior, otherwise it will continue to proliferate.
  - Cardinal7167 3y ago
    It will never get fined because it’s how the people who legislate fines are making (and keeping) their money and control.
    - mulmen 3y ago
      That's not how democracy works. Apathy is toxic. Please stop hurting us.
      - LamaOfRuin 3y ago
        Cynicism is not apathy. If they were apathetic, they would have no reason to comment.
      - int_19h 3y ago
        The way "representative democracy" (in quotes because both words are a lie) works at scale of any large country is as follows: you elect people based on simplistic promises that they make, and if they win and you're lucky, they kinda sorta do something that's vaguely like half of what they promised. Your only recourse is waiting for N years to vote for someone else who will almost certainly do the same thing. Not only is this all by design, but in many countries, the "free mandate" - i.e. the notion that the politician can say A before the election and then do ~A after - is even legally codified. In theory, this is supposed to allow the elected representatives to apply their own judgment based on nuances of the moment instead of pandering to the mob. In practice, it means that your representative is free to pander to people other than those they "represent" while still claiming a public mandate based on the votes received.
jdiez17 3y ago
Very timely as just today we had multiple threads where commenters were decrying the EU for creating laws like the GDPR to protect people from negative consequences just like in this case, arguing that it slows innovation or some such.
Dowwie 3y ago
That's not all that Toyota should be held responsible for. Corporate issues service bulletins about parts under warranty and their certified service centers ignore the warranties, charging customers full price for replacement. I caught a local service center doing just that in January of this year.
- nerpderp82 3y ago
  File a complaint with your state Attorney General if you are in the US.
jordans1337 3y ago
Wow, bring on the lawsuits! Important to bring this to light to protect ourselves. Will be more informed on my next car purchase coming up this year.
- jandrese 3y ago
  I'm curious which company you think isn't doing this? A modern car is just as much of a spyware platform as a modern cellphone.
- activiation 3y ago
  From 2014: "Ford Exec: 'We Know Everyone Who Breaks The Law' Thanks To Our GPS In Your Car" https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1
throwaway019254 3y ago
Where can I download these data? I would like to know what was exposed for my car.
- 93po 3y ago
  I'm also interested in this data
jerry1979 3y ago
Does anyone have a guide to modding vehicles to prevent them from collecting data? I would be willing to snip the microphone in the cab and remove the gps receiver if I knew where it was.
- Throw3849949 3y ago
  GSM and GPS jammer is the only reliable way.
  - vb6sp6 3y ago
    [dead]
  - jeffbee 3y ago
    Isn't unplugging the antenna lead significantly easier?
- panax 3y ago
  It is highly dependent on make/model but most of the time the data is transmitted through the telematic control unit (TCU) which often has a cellular modem that can connect to cellular networks and you might be able to remove or disable/cut power to the TCU. There can also be other devices similar to a black box in the vehicle which record data and store it in case of a crash for forensic purposes. I would leave these alone as long as they don't have network connectivity.
swalling 3y ago
Toyota owners: you can opt out of this data collection in their app or by calling them. https://support.toyota.com/s/article/Can-I-optout-of-Toyot-10235?language=en_US https://support.toyota.com/s/article/Can-I-optout-of-Toyot-1... Unfortunately as far as I can tell it only actually stops after the "remote connect" trial period ends one year after you buy a new vehicle that opts you in automatically. There are probably ways to physically disable the data collection modules for this, if you're comfortable tearing apart your car's dash. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2020-data-transmittal.638339/page-3#post-25072507 https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2020-data-transmittal.63...
dapearce 3y ago
> It is important to note that the exposed details do not constitute personally identifiable information, so it wouldn't be possible to use this data leak to track individuals The data included timestamped GPS data, which has been demonstrated to be easy to de-anonymize.
- chubot 3y ago
  But the VIN number was available, as it says right below that I mean does anyone think there HASN'T been a leak of VIN numbers and owners that would be trivial to join with this? It's also kind of staggering how long this was a problem Toyota Motor Corporation disclosed a data breach on its cloud environment that exposed the car-location information of 2,150,000 customers for ten years, between November 6, 2013, and April 17, 2023.
  - rat9988 3y ago
    I don't think it's any indicative of how long this problem has been here? Unless I misunderstood, because after re-reading I guess I see how you did read it.
    - chubot 3y ago
      It could be read the other way, but the title and first sentence seems to imply that there was a bug for 10 years Not that 10 years of data was exposed for a short period
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    In my state, anyway, vehicle registrations are public information. If you have a VIN or license plate #, you can get the identity and address of the person the car is registered to, and if you know the name and address of a person, you can get the VINs/plate #s of the vehicles registered to them.
- SR2Z 3y ago
  Yeah, companies seem to think that "personally identifiable information" is basically just your name. That's clearly wrong because GPS data and VIN make it extremely straightforward to figure out who a car owner is. As far as I'm concerned, this is PII. That statement is a bald-faced lie and a state AG should bring charges over this - it's extraordinarily irresponsible for Toyota to collect this data and then leak it for TEN YEARS.
nico 3y ago
God damn it Toyota, I love Toyota Still going to keep my cars As long as they don’t start trying to charge me for the seat warmer
- Joe_Boogz 3y ago
  I mean... they've already started charging a subscription fee for using your KEY FOB auto start after their trial period ends. Enough to make me not buy a new Toyota ever again.
beefee 3y ago
Owners may want to disable this in hardware rather than relying on a sketchy opt-out mechanism. The relevant part is the "data communications module". It has an LTE modem and a backup battery, so it's able to transmit even if the car battery is disconnected. It requires a little bit of dashboard disassembly to access. You can either remove it or disconnect the LTE and GPS antennas. Toyota has technical documents available for $25 at https://techinfo.toyota.com https://techinfo.toyota.com. It would be great if there was some website that collected all the detailed instructions for removing the spy devices from different car models.
- chasd00 3y ago
  "tracker detection and removal" would be a great service for a local service garage to offer.
  - bdamm 3y ago
    Vinyl wrap with Faraday cage on the inside layer? A modern "cone of silence"
    - netsharc 3y ago
      Hah, tinfoil wrapped car, for the tinfoil-hat crowds...
  - Mobius01 3y ago
    In many cases this isn’t viable. On my car for for instance - a 2016 Subaru - removing the telematics module also disables all front speakers because the audio signal is routed through it.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      Sounds like a relatively easy problem to solve. Install your own sound system.
    - windowsrookie 3y ago
brk 3y ago
It is clear that automakers are utterly failing at technology. In-vehicle control systems are typically garbage. Several hacks have been shown where vehicle data is exposed over cellular links, in some cases with remote attackers being able to actually control elements of the vehicle (eg: Jeep). Software updates are rare, with manufacturers often trying to charge exorbitant amounts for basic updates. Data breaches of various customer data, credentials, PII, etc. are repeated. IMO we are at the point where in-vehice technology is a thing that is never going away. Auto manufacturers need to become bona-fide software developers and take development, QA, cyber security, etc. far more serious than they have so far.
- TheCapn 3y ago
  So I don't work in automotive domain, but I work in Controls Engineering. Basically everything you just said relates to my work as well, and based on tidbits of anecdotal info I've picked up through various technical forums it sounds like automotive & controls are quite similar in that regard. The dirty truth is often times these domains were designed and chiefly operated by non-software people. Not to say a mechanical engineer or electrical engineer can't program, it's just that their focus is on their work, and the software is but a tool to accomplish those means. So the world of software has leapfrogged over PLC and automotive design and gone to run laps around it several times since the 90s. It's only in say the last 5 years or so that I've seen a cultural shift in controls towards embracing the modern realities of software, networking, security, version control, databases, etc.etc.etc. I'm not going to go too much further into this, but this is why Software Engineering as a regulated profession is going to be a necessity as much as civil engineering or electrical engineering has been. The digital world is just too vast and complex now with so many pitfalls for those who only ride the edges can handle. And people's lives are starting to matter. It is no longer safe to treat security as secondary with an "oopsy" anymore. We don't tolerate bridge collapse or electrical design that can destroy livelihoods, why do we still tolerate hacks governing data and safety of public?
  - macintux 3y ago
    ICYMI, this piece is a really good conversation starter about software safety that was sadly mostly ignored on HN recently. - https://noidea.dog/#/fires/ https://noidea.dog/#/fires/ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35885982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35885982
1bent 3y ago
Can you buy a new car without a data plan anymore?
- jabroni_salad 3y ago
  At this point I'd like reviewers to start disclosing how difficult it is to remove the LTE antennae and whether or not the car degrades itself when you do.
- ProllyInfamous 3y ago
  Yes, but you cannot finance it (i.e. you have to own it outright before you can disable the transmitter). So: CASH purchases, only. In the EU: cannot disable (legally)
bit_logic 3y ago
Does the California CCPA apply here? I've only seen it discussed for websites, but does it work for any company doing business in CA? Wondering if California residents could send a delete request to Toyota (and other companies like Samsung for data gathered by smart tvs). If a lot of people start regularly sending CCPA delete requests to these companies maybe they will stop gathering this data.
eulers_secret 3y ago
There's some really active community discussions around disabling the Data Collection Module, discussing everything from simply pulling the DCM fuse to disabling only the antenna. If you pull the DCM fuse, you'll loose the microphone and potentially one of the right-hand speakers - these can be fixed by jumping the wires in/out of the DCM. What's concerning to me are reports of the car still uploading all the collected data if you attach a cell phone to the radio's bluetooth. Apparently the car just relays all the info. I kinda want to snoop that data and see what it is, at least collect the encrypted packets... but my car is from 2007 and has no connected features, so...
- tric 3y ago
  > What's concerning to me are reports of the car still uploading all the collected data if you attach a cell phone to the radio's bluetooth This must be if you have the car manufacturer's app installed. I can't think of any other way for it to phone home from DCM via buetooth if the cellular module is disabled.
- stjohnswarts 3y ago
  Doesn't doing things like this void your car's warranty (at least to those units that are hooked to said wires you're cutting/bypassing?) I'm sure the fuse removeal is fine though. You should put up a dislaimer for unknowing people that this will make their warranty reimbursement tough or impossible. If it's out of warranty of course it doesn't matter.
supernova87a 3y ago
Car companies seem to just not be very good at things other than bending steel, marketing that bent steel on TV, pushing costs and risks into suppliers (and forgetting about it), and running the insurance companies that their corporate entities have become. I'm sure their internal incentive structure also does not reward people to join/stay at the company who would focus on the problems that this story points out.
at-fates-hands 3y ago
I have a 2014 model but the exposed data was between November 14, 2016, and April 4, 2023. I wonder how long they hold onto the data before erasing it or if they hold onto to it indefinitely. I don't remember seeing specifics in the EULA about the length of time they hold your data - only that they can and will sell it to 3rd parties.
jaredhallen 3y ago
Driving old junk wins again.
r3trohack3r 3y ago
> It is important to note that the exposed details do not constitute personally identifiable information, so it wouldn't be possible to use this data leak to track individuals unless the attacker knew the VIN (vehicle identification number) of their target's car. Or their home address? Location data is absolutely PII and easily deanonymized. Am I missing something?
progrus 3y ago
This is weirdly good news for current owners, in the same way that 9/11 was weirdly good news for surviving a flight.
mrobins 3y ago
Fact of the matter: at this point if you’re buying anything with telemetry or cloud services, the only safe assumption is that your data may become public at some point in the future, with or without your knowledge.
StillBored 3y ago
"It is important to note that the exposed details do not constitute personally identifiable information, so it wouldn't be possible to use this data leak to track individuals unless the attacker knew the VIN (vehicle identification number) of their target's car." Am I dumb or are they? If you know someones home address, then all you need is a geo lookup, and a filter which selects for cars parked near that address at 3AM over some time period. Which then gives you the VIN and the entire location history, right? Sure you might get more than one car if the someone lives in a city and uses street parking but its still going to reduce down to just a handful of cars which can then be cross referenced against place of work, relatives, etc. And of course home address lookup can be made with any number of public databases with little more than a name and maybe some additional filtering (age, city, phone number, etc).
- asdfman123 3y ago
  > Am I dumb or are they I don't think you're wrong. I wonder what incentive bleepingcomputer has to make it seem not so bad.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    Avoiding getting rekt for defamation or a potentially libellous article.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  > its still going to reduce down to just a handful of cars which can then be cross referenced against place of work, relatives, etc. You are correct, but I can't imagine why anybody would go to that much trouble for a speculative answer. Your idea requires quite a bit of intelligence collection as well (relatives' addresses, addresses of known hangouts, etc. that you have to vet for accuracy). If you have a confirmed home or work address, just go to their home or work and take a picture of the target VIN through the windshield.
  - detrites 3y ago
    The scammer in the third world country folks may be at threat of this breach being exploited by does not have that ability. But they do have the internet, and further no meatspace means scams can be automated/scaled. Honestly, this seems very bad.
jasmer 3y ago
There needs to be massive lawsuits over this stuff to the point where companies should consider it a serious liability to hold customer data for anything other than material purpose.
WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
The thing that’s infuriating me is that some random sweaty dude might have access to imagery taken by my car and I cannot. I would love to be able to download the whole shebang of telemetry so I could reassess the quality of my driving, but no, no can do, secrets much. I need to have a whole dashcam of my own to film my trips, run the cables for it myself, while Toyota is just hoarding this data for itself and some random dude on the internets can just view it. Won’t nobody think of GDPR these days?
devy 3y ago
This sounds like there should be a massive class action lawsuit against Toyota.
tric 3y ago
I was looking into getting a new toyota, but was hesitant because of this tracking "feature." I searched online for how to disable it, and found this question: https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/qa/how-to-permanently-disable-the-data-communications-dcm-on-a-2021-toyota-highlander/ https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/qa/how-to-permanently-dis... These responses are typical: "But you're still going to be traceable by your phone." "...everyone, EVERYONE, on the planet has their information out there. There is no such thing as "off the grid." " "your phone has sent more than enough info about you to every advertiser on Earth mord than the DCM will ever do." Many people just don't care....
AHOHA 3y ago
Reason why I still have and use a “dumb” car, no screens, no software, nothing except what CANbus logs, which is still a lot but nothing clouds based or breached unless you physically access the car.
- userbinator 3y ago
  Mine doesn't even have a CANbus ;-) Note that if your car is new enough to have CANbus, it surely has software too.
discerning_ 3y ago
It would be nice to know if this was a misconfigured AWS S3 bucket. My money would be on that. Companies are still learning this lesson, slowly and at all of our expense.
AlbertCory 3y ago
It's bad enough if you know you're being tracked for some kind of "customer service." But I've asked people who work with automotive computers whether any cars just automatically track you and store the information in some on-vehicle storage. No one seems to know, but they all think if any did, it would be manufacturer- and model-specific.
Night_Thastus 3y ago
And this is why I'm going to disconnect the DCM in my new car. :/
- ProllyInfamous 3y ago
  I believe Toyota began installing DCM radios since model year 2016 — so 2015 (and older) vehicles come tracker free. I am one of those loons who doesn't carry a cell phone, so this is important to me =D
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
smeej 3y ago
My current "solution" to this is driving a 16yo car, before all this stuff became ubiquitous and impossible to opt out of, but obviously it gets harder every year to find cars from that era that still run reliably. What other options are there? I would SO willingly pay thousands of dollars specifically to have these features disabled on a new car, but it seems like they're actually designed for that to be impossible. What options are there for acquiring and driving a car with no internet or satellite connections? (I'm not trying to stop some other-purpose satellite from being able to see my car if it wanted. I'm trying to prevent a car company--which is NOT a security company--from having a record of everywhere my car has been at every moment of every day where someone can steal it.)
- michaelrpeskin 3y ago
  That’s my solution too. I love my old cars. I did get a newish (2012) Jeep to build onto an off road rig. It happens to be the one that you can hack by knowing the VIN which is displayed in the windshield. You can connect to the CAN over the air and unlock and start it with a program widely available on the internet. Luckily, because it’s a Jeep the antenna mount rusted and the antenna fell off. I can’t start it over the air since it no longer talks to the network. I guess that’s a long way of saying that if we ever have to get new cars, all we need to do is find the wireless antenna and disconnect it.
SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
Automotive EE here. You know what wasn’t a problem before some idiots decided to hook cars to the internet? None of this. Unbelievably stupid choices top to bottom.
kornhole 3y ago
This is going to be really interesting when(not if) someone gets Apple or Google's phone tracking history of all their device holders.
- shortcake27 3y ago
  For Apple, Significant Locations are end-to-end encrypted, and Find My locations are only sent when requested and deleted after 24 hours. Please don’t say “they’re tracking your location anyway” unless you have evidence. This is Hacker News not Conspiracy News.
  - kornhole 3y ago
    What evidence do we have that these locations are deleted after 24 hours and not backed up or shared elsewhere?
    - shortcake27 3y ago
      Because that’s what Apple says and Apple generally doesn’t lie about their products. If you don’t believe them then the onus is on you to prove it, not for someone else to disprove it.
      - kornhole 3y ago
        We do have clear evidence that Apple devices track our location, and we do not have ability to turn it off. We do not have evidence that logs are not kept or shared nor of the E2EE of those recordings. This is not conspiracy theory. We are asked to be credulous of how the largest market cap corporation in the world handles this valuable and sensitive data. The onus is on them to prove what they say, and if they cannot, I do not buy it.
  - alwayslikethis 3y ago
    You can't really claim something is end to end encrypted if you don't have access to the client source code to verify that this is the case. There is no good reason to trust any company for sticking to their words, especially under pressure from the government.
pokstad 3y ago
I am so angry that Toyota required me to sign up for their connected services to use remote start. What a joke. The leadership at the company responsible for this should resign.
FredPret 3y ago
Dear lord. The fact they even had this much data means I'll never even think about buying a Toyota in future no matter how many grovelling apologies they issue now. I used to have a Ford. Their app was generally good but I think all you need is the VIN to add a new car. Now you have the ability to track that car, lock the doors, remote start it, and so on. All second-hand car buyers should get their car's app and activate their car on it to lock out all other sessions - hopefully.
- poly_morphis 3y ago
  I have an Audi from ~2017. Then, a few years ago, the 3G network was shut down in the US. Can't use the app to unlock the doors or check the car status. I think I prefer it like that. Interestingly, on the center console screen, it shows an LTE connection - must be for something else? Then why isn't the unlock/lock function over LTE? Who knows.
UberFly 3y ago
Just once I'd like to see a company like this sued out of existence. It's not just that they are incompetent with customer data, it's that they essentially forced everyone to give them this info in the first place by default. What if you're an expatriate Chinese dissident? Maybe your ability to hide just got harder.
davidMC1982 3y ago
I think there are two key aspects to data breaches; privacy and fraud. The solution for the latter is simple; the liability is on the organisation that uses that identity data rather than the one that stores it. If the bank lends money to a criminal using my data, that's on them. I see no reason why any of the random bits of data that identify me should be of any use to someone else claiming they are me. These things shouldn't be considered secrets as they're always shared with at least one other party. Just this would reduce the value of obtaining such data. The privacy aspect is harder to deal with, but it's not obviously clear that a majority of people care. GDPR helps focus minds in large corporations s and maybe that's enough.
qwertox 3y ago
I bought a new car in 2018 and it was purposefully one which has no connectivity built into it, for exactly this reason. Also, why should Toyota store location data in the first place?
nologic01 3y ago
Every major privacy disaster that does not lead to dramatic repercusions convinces CEO's (and the shareholders that pay their salaries and bonuses) that the "move fast and break things" strategy is the winning strategy. The result is that that we are no more than five years away (at most) from the surveilance economy getting a terminal stranglehold on society. You will not be able to buy a car that is not always dialing home, the same way you already cannot buy a mobile that is not always dialing home. In any case you will not be buying a car. You'll be buying a subscription to a car, renewable annualy under certain (small-print) terms of service. Cars will not work without some insurance conglomerate receiving all information it wants and trading your behavioral data in opaque insurance markets. Cars could stop working at any point. A digital roadblock is much cheaper and more comprehensive that a physical roadblock. Taking public transport was never private (its in the name after all) but this mobility mode too is getting deeply integrated in the surveillance economy: you will only be able to pay for a trip using identifying mobile devices. The argument is that people "don't care" about the direction things are taking. This is the most evil argument ever advanced.
- nerdchum 3y ago
  All of this is being done in some level of secrecy so they're conflating not caring with not knowing or even worse people know something is going on but not the full details.
  - nologic01 3y ago
    Society only works because there is massive amount of trust. It is mostly implicit trust, people don't sign fully-informed contracts left and right. People operate under the assumption that (during peacetime) they can go about their lives without worrying about a specific other subgroup organizing to systematically and explicitly work against their interests. I.e. they don't feel under attack and so they don't behave as such.
rasz 3y ago
The only way to prevent this in the future is to dig thru the leak, it will leak sooner or later, and scrub for every Toyota/Lexus driving: politician, judge, higher up executive branch and military personnel, Toyota employee plus their closest families and plaster this data all over the net. Bonus points for additional analytical work finding treasure like mysterious regular trips to a motel just outside of town etc. Privacy doesnt exist .. until its Politicians privacy on the line https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/14/politics/house-vote-supreme-court-justice-security/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/14/politics/house-vote-supre...
blendo 3y ago
By default, our Mazda CX-30’s “Telematics Control Unit” transmits vehicle history up to MazdaUSA every time you turn the engine off. However, you can disable this by following a procedure explained in the owner’s manual (basically, you call Mazda and give them your VIN.) I’ve also seen similar “opt-out” procedures listed in a Toyota GR86 owner’s manual. I’d prefer to just pull the car’s SIM card to be absolutely sure :-)

Japanese auto completely missed the memo on software. Many of them won't make the ev transition. It's hard to imagine what Japanese economy is going to be like once their auto industry is gutted.

livinglist 3y ago
> Many of them won't make the ev transition. What exactly makes u come to this conclusion?
- simonh 3y ago
  I think that's a little hyperbolic, but the Japanese are way behind. There was a decent analysis (as always) in the Economist recently. https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/04/16/how-japan-is-losing-the-global-electric-vehicle-race https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/04/16/how-japan-is-losin...
  - _hypx 3y ago
    No one needs to bother with that race. It is just a ploy by China to gain marketshare in the car industry. It won't work because it ultimately creates a massive new resource dependency. One that just happens to shift everyone's supply chain to China or Chinese controlled companies. I believe Western companies will eventually walk away from pursuing battery cars, at least in the sense of them being the only solution. it just has too many obvious problem.
    - feanaro 3y ago
      What are these obvious problems?
      - _hypx 3y ago
        Expensive, limited range, slow recharge times, huge dependency on a battery supply chain, etc. Right now, people are obsessed about them but I think this is just temporary phenomenon. Once people realize that there are cheaper forms of green transportation that avoid those above issues, the obsession with battery EVs will end.
        digging 3y ago
        Battery EVs probably won't go away, there would be too much backlash against politicians saying "Actually, let's not bother," even if/when the US finally understands and embraces sane intra- and inter-urban transportation modes.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  Toyota in particular has wasted a ridiculous amount of time and money on consumer-level hydrogen tech. As a result competitors that focused on battery EVs over the last few years have a decent head start.
  - _hypx 3y ago
    The other companies are wasting their time. Battery EVs are a dead end and they will all have to move to hydrogen tech eventually. It is the other companies that are way behind.
    - CamperBob2 3y ago
      In EE terms, betting against batteries is like betting against CMOS. Progress will go where the industry's money goes, not where any one company's money goes. If I could say just one thing to Toyota's management, it would be, "Stop trying to make hydrogen happen. It's not going to happen. There are just too many technical and economic drawbacks." But any of their engineers could tell them the same thing, so what'd be the point?
      - _hypx 3y ago
        The most prominent alternative (fuel cell EV) are also EVs. There are no fundamental downsides in comparison either. To continue your EE analogy, you're betting against another kind of CMOS which also happens to be made of far cheaper materials. Like your CMOS is made of germanium but the competition is made of silicon.
badpun 3y ago
> Many of them won't make the ev transition. It's still not clear when (and if) the ev transition will happen. There are many unknowns.
- numpad0 3y ago
  I feel like it’s an architectural change, similar to how smartphone transition wasn’t just about touchscreens. Many flip phones in Japan gained touchscreen after iPhone like wings on a dragon, and died anyway.
- _hypx 3y ago
  If you mean battery EVs, it very likely won't happen. I would even go as far as saying it cannot happen. They are highly resource dependent and too expensive to make. Hydrogen EVs make significantly more sense once you realize renewable energy is going to be nearly free and "efficiency" is most a distraction.
skrtskrt 3y ago
Toyota's hybrid tech is and has been the best and most reliable for a very long time. I think it's a shame that the EV regulations and incentives (at least in America) are not as friendly for traditional hybrids and plug-in hybrids. They have basically zero downsides compared to full ICE or full EV, and would still make a massive dent in emissions. PHEVs in particular - most people are going under 100 miles a day, so there would be 0 emissions.
- recursive 3y ago
  > They have basically zero downsides They need oil changes. Some don't mind, but I do. It's a downside.
  - galangalalgol 3y ago
    They often have no spare tire to fit the battery. Quite a few don't have battery thermal management, so the packs will degrade much more quickly. It seems like they have all the downsides.
    - recursive 3y ago
      New Toyota Corollas don't have spare tires. They're not an outlier. Are there available (new) EVs other than the Nissan Leaf that doesn't have active thermal management? EVs do have downsides, but so do ICE and hybrid.
    - ezfe 3y ago
      My Hybrid Corolla didn't come with a spare tire but it has space to install one (and I did). The battery is under the rear seating.
    - mardifoufs 3y ago
      No battery thermal management?? I thought no one did that after the disaster that was the original Nissan leaf's battery
  - wolrah 3y ago
TaylorAlexander 3y ago
I worked for Toyota Infotechnology Center in Sunnyvale in 2016/2017 on a robotics research project involving their HSR robot running ROS. The robot had odometry from the wheels, though it was a bit noisy due to the construction of the omnidirectional mechanism. They decided to ignore wheel odometry and use only an odometry module based on the planar lidar, essentially visual odometry. This worked fine in most circumstances, but basically completely failed in hallways as they lacked distinctive features. This interfered with my work which involved the robot navigating around the office. I had worked on this problem before, and ROS has an excellent sensor fusion library for dealing with multiple noisy sensor readings. You just need to combine wheel odometry and laser odometry with a kalmann filter, and the sensor fusion library makes this relatively easy. However even though I worked at a Toyota office with full time Toyota employees, and the code was pretty much off the shelf ROS code, and the robots were produced in very low volumes and only in use at Toyota, they wouldn't give me the source code. I think maybe they wouldn't even give me root access. Still, I was able to control the names of ROS topics using the ROS launch files (it has been a while since I worked with ROS and I forget some of the terms). I remapped the lidar odometry topic to an intermediary topic name instead of /odom, then directed the intermediary topic in to the sensor fusion module along with the wheel odometry, then mapped the sensor fusion output to /odom. The system got odometry information but now it did not come from the lidar odometry but from the sensor fusion module, so it was happy. The fix worked great. It had normal behavior when lidar was good, and had reliable odometry in long hallways. I was finally able to implement my office navigation code. I did my best to communicate these changes back to Toyota. They had not been very helpful when I was asking for help solving the issue, but I had hoped that since I had it working they would appreciate this. I asked where I could file a git issue or otherwise push the code to some private git repo. They were not using git. Ultimately I was instructed to email the raw code files I had used along with instructions for how to integrate it. I found this quite surprising. I have no idea if they ever implemented the changes I suggested, but I kind of doubt it. From what I have heard of japanese software practices, they basically do not accept code suggestions from the bottom up. I know of some people who worked for Toyota Research Institute who said they were trying to get the Toyota folks to integrate silicon valley coding rigor in to their systems. Maybe they had success, I don't know. But certainly 6 years ago things were a total mess.
inconceivable 3y ago
japan is a US protectorate. when china starts marketing their EV's abroad the US will just sanction them. don't worry, japan is safe.
- nebula8804 3y ago
  If the US blocks China, the Chinese government will just kick all the Americans out of the Chinese market and nationalize their Chinese plants. I'm sure the big three won't be happy about that. Since corporations run the US, they will give the US Govt its barking orders and the Chinese cars will be let into the US.
simonh 3y ago
Japan generally. They tried to pull a great leap forward move with AI a few decades ago, but just ended up wasting billions on dead end approaches right on the cusp of the AI winter. My personal opinion is that really top notch breakthrough software engineering and computer science is susceptible to an exponential cascade butterfly effect. Yes you need big teams to deliver huge projects. Operating systems, compilers, languages, etc all take huge investment to build out. The thing is though the initial conditions have a massive downstream effect. The core contributions by genius 10x computer scientists and software engineers set the pace for everyone else. Unix, C, Linux, Git, LLVM, Perl, Python, who knows what else. It's the individuals or small dedicated teams doing it the 'wrong' way, or going for a weird untested approach that starts a small speck that snowballs into huge multi-billion industries. The culture and economic conditions in the US are perfect for this to work. Japan, and for different reasons and certainly not the the same scale Europe, not so much.
bastardoperator 3y ago
Where are all these American companies getting their batteries from? Mostly Japan... Rivian, Tesla, Lucid, Gravity, Ford, GMC.
- zyang 3y ago
  Do you have any sources for that claim. Because the big 3 are CATL, LG, BYD. Panasonic is the only notable Japanese supplier but it's trending down fast.
- bdamm 3y ago
  Mostly China. But the Korean and American contributions are also very significant. Cell source is not a geopolitical monopoly at all.
stjohnswarts 3y ago
I would never bet against the Japanese or Korean auto makers lol

meghan_rain 3y ago

Why does Toyota even have this data?

ribosometronome 3y ago
Some vehicular services require location data. >This incident exposed the information of customers who used the company's T-Connect G-Link, G-Link Lite, or G-BOOK services between January 2, 2012, and April 17, 2023. >T-Connect is Toyota's in-car smart service for voice assistance, customer service support, car status and management, and on-road emergency help.
- leblancfg 3y ago
  s/have/keep/g
thewataccount 3y ago
Checkout their privacy policy, it includes biometrics and facial scans, and microphone data. It's absolutely wild. https://www.toyota.com/support/privacy-notice/ https://www.toyota.com/support/privacy-notice/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230512181415/https://www.toyota.com/support/privacy-notice/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230512181415/https://www.toyot...
- smcin 3y ago
  Look at the really opaque language in the table under 12. DISCLOSURES FOR INDIVIDUALS IN THE UNITED STATES: Summary of Prior 12-Month Personal Information Handling Practices For example, under the category: Sensitive personal information or data, such as precise geolocation data, biometric information for the purpose of uniquely identifying an individual, account login information, driver's license, and financial information. ... > Purpose of Processing: For location tracking, to identify you, and to provide services to you. > Other: We may have used and disclosed your Personal Information for other reasons described in the How We Use the Information We Collect and How We Disclose Information sections. ...and the section 'Sensitive Personal Information' for their explanation of limits on what they do with it. ...and: Your Privacy Rights: 4. Right to Know and Access... You may have the right to request that we provide you with the Personal Information we have collected about you, including the categories of Personal Information; the categories of sources from which the Personal Information is collected; the business or commercial purpose for collecting, selling, or sharing Personal Information; the categories of third parties to whom we disclose Personal Information; and the specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected about you.

greenie_beans 3y ago

good lord. i'm so glad my toyota doesn't have any of those features. shout out to the lean method.

ycombinete 3y ago
What is the lean method in this case?
- greenie_beans 3y ago
  toyota invented the lean method
- tremon 3y ago
  https://global.toyota/en/company/vision-and-philosophy/production-system/ https://global.toyota/en/company/vision-and-philosophy/produ... > The Toyota Production System (TPS) [..] is based on the philosophy of the complete elimination of all waste in pursuit of the most efficient methods [it] has evolved through many years of trial and error to improve efficiency based on the Just-in-Time concept developed by Kiichiro Toyoda, the founder (and second president) of Toyota Motor Corporation.
- gpcz 3y ago
  I'd assume the Toyota Production System and their method of lean manufacturing.
sumtechguy 3y ago
If it is anything after about 2012 it probably does. Also if this hack is out of the software I think it is, I am not surprised. Some of the main devs were more worried about what a function was named than how to make it work correctly and securely.
- matheweis 3y ago
  Depends on where the data comes from. A bunch of Toyotas have a telemetry module (basically an LTE modem tied into the can bus and the head unit), but the introduction date varies. Tacomas for example didn’t have it until 2020. I’m not sure though if this data is/was getting pushed through that or something else.

Reptur 3y ago

I hope jailbreaking and disabling this data collection becomes the norm in the future. It is obvious companies do not prioritize the security protecting our data.

Shocka1 3y ago
As someone who worked for one of the big Japanese auto manufacturers less than five years ago in Infotainment, in the exact domain of what this thread is talking about, I agree wholeheartedly. You all may or may not be surprised about the philosophy behind this. Your data is looked at as their data... In the company I worked for, this was all driven by a small sect of executives in Los Angeles. This is one of the biggest reasons I left, as I couldn't agree on an ethical level with the decisions around customer privacy.
asynchronous 3y ago
Luckily we are already seeing a market with jailbreaking Tesla firmware to have more control over this sort of thing.
smolder 3y ago
It's a matter of time before that is legislated away as an option. Drunk driver detection and remote disable for law enforcement and other rights-trampling "safety" features will be always-on, probably by law. If it's not those, always-on comms will be mandated to help go to a self-driving fleet. One way or another, they'll force us to have spyware cars.
- chasd00 3y ago
  yeah i've always thought self driving and autonomous car fleets would be a godsend to governments. One order and you can immobilize a street, neighborhood, city or whatever. I bet it's hard to escape oppression on foot.
  - maxden 3y ago
    Imagine it has the same functionality as Bait car.. and not allow the occupants to exit the car either.

malikNF 3y ago

I hope regulators fine the hell out of these companies. Enough to make them think twice about offering these upload everything to the cloud services no one really asks for.

LeifCarrotson 3y ago
It's a simple equation: Revenue = (value of data per person) x (number of customers) - (probably of data loss) x (probability of fine) x (cost of fine). If that number is greater than zero, they'll do it, if it's less than zero, they won't.
- oharapj 3y ago
  I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise
- oh_sigh 3y ago
  A simple equation but no one actually operates that way. Except for maybe auto manufacturers from late-90s books-turned-movies starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Most variables are impossible to accurately predict. e.g. "Cost/probability of fine" -> how do you model the cost of brand tarnishment?
  - tremon 3y ago
    how do you model the cost of brand tarnishment You don't, therefore its cost is mostly absent from budget calculations. And if that doesn't work, you can always rename the company.
- iambateman 3y ago
  This is how engineers think executive decisions are made and it is just not accurate. The CEO of Toyota plays golf with the uncle of the head of the “we track you forever” group. They both feel like the nephew has a big future and there is a ton of money to be made over the next 5 years before the CEO plans to retire. Plus, according to their marketing team, Volkswagen is worse. Much worse. There is way less science and way more emotion at play.

thewataccount 3y ago

Their privacy policy is wild and every customer is opted into the connect services by default. Interior images, exterior images, facial geometry, voice recordings, location/driving data, "multimedia screen data", https://www.toyota.com/privacyvts/ https://www.toyota.com/privacyvts/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230512182022/https://www.toyota.com/privacyvts/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230512182022/https://www.toyot...

short_sells_poo 3y ago
> Interior images, exterior images, facial geometry, voice recordings, This is an absolutely unbelievable level of privacy intrusion IMO. I 100% support very heavily fining this sort of behavior, otherwise it will continue to proliferate.
- Cardinal7167 3y ago
  It will never get fined because it’s how the people who legislate fines are making (and keeping) their money and control.
  - mulmen 3y ago
    That's not how democracy works. Apathy is toxic. Please stop hurting us.
    - LamaOfRuin 3y ago
      Cynicism is not apathy. If they were apathetic, they would have no reason to comment.
    - int_19h 3y ago
      The way "representative democracy" (in quotes because both words are a lie) works at scale of any large country is as follows: you elect people based on simplistic promises that they make, and if they win and you're lucky, they kinda sorta do something that's vaguely like half of what they promised. Your only recourse is waiting for N years to vote for someone else who will almost certainly do the same thing. Not only is this all by design, but in many countries, the "free mandate" - i.e. the notion that the politician can say A before the election and then do ~A after - is even legally codified. In theory, this is supposed to allow the elected representatives to apply their own judgment based on nuances of the moment instead of pandering to the mob. In practice, it means that your representative is free to pander to people other than those they "represent" while still claiming a public mandate based on the votes received.

jdiez17 3y ago

Very timely as just today we had multiple threads where commenters were decrying the EU for creating laws like the GDPR to protect people from negative consequences just like in this case, arguing that it slows innovation or some such.

Dowwie 3y ago

That's not all that Toyota should be held responsible for. Corporate issues service bulletins about parts under warranty and their certified service centers ignore the warranties, charging customers full price for replacement. I caught a local service center doing just that in January of this year.

nerpderp82 3y ago
File a complaint with your state Attorney General if you are in the US.

jordans1337 3y ago

Wow, bring on the lawsuits! Important to bring this to light to protect ourselves. Will be more informed on my next car purchase coming up this year.

jandrese 3y ago
I'm curious which company you think isn't doing this? A modern car is just as much of a spyware platform as a modern cellphone.
activiation 3y ago
From 2014: "Ford Exec: 'We Know Everyone Who Breaks The Law' Thanks To Our GPS In Your Car" https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1

throwaway019254 3y ago

Where can I download these data? I would like to know what was exposed for my car.

93po 3y ago
I'm also interested in this data

jerry1979 3y ago

Does anyone have a guide to modding vehicles to prevent them from collecting data? I would be willing to snip the microphone in the cab and remove the gps receiver if I knew where it was.

Throw3849949 3y ago
GSM and GPS jammer is the only reliable way.
- vb6sp6 3y ago
  [dead]
- jeffbee 3y ago
  Isn't unplugging the antenna lead significantly easier?
panax 3y ago
It is highly dependent on make/model but most of the time the data is transmitted through the telematic control unit (TCU) which often has a cellular modem that can connect to cellular networks and you might be able to remove or disable/cut power to the TCU. There can also be other devices similar to a black box in the vehicle which record data and store it in case of a crash for forensic purposes. I would leave these alone as long as they don't have network connectivity.

swalling 3y ago

Toyota owners: you can opt out of this data collection in their app or by calling them. https://support.toyota.com/s/article/Can-I-optout-of-Toyot-10235?language=en_US https://support.toyota.com/s/article/Can-I-optout-of-Toyot-1... Unfortunately as far as I can tell it only actually stops after the "remote connect" trial period ends one year after you buy a new vehicle that opts you in automatically. There are probably ways to physically disable the data collection modules for this, if you're comfortable tearing apart your car's dash. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2020-data-transmittal.638339/page-3#post-25072507 https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2020-data-transmittal.63...

dapearce 3y ago

> It is important to note that the exposed details do not constitute personally identifiable information, so it wouldn't be possible to use this data leak to track individuals The data included timestamped GPS data, which has been demonstrated to be easy to de-anonymize.

chubot 3y ago
But the VIN number was available, as it says right below that I mean does anyone think there HASN'T been a leak of VIN numbers and owners that would be trivial to join with this? It's also kind of staggering how long this was a problem Toyota Motor Corporation disclosed a data breach on its cloud environment that exposed the car-location information of 2,150,000 customers for ten years, between November 6, 2013, and April 17, 2023.
- rat9988 3y ago
  I don't think it's any indicative of how long this problem has been here? Unless I misunderstood, because after re-reading I guess I see how you did read it.
  - chubot 3y ago
    It could be read the other way, but the title and first sentence seems to imply that there was a bug for 10 years Not that 10 years of data was exposed for a short period
- JohnFen 3y ago
  In my state, anyway, vehicle registrations are public information. If you have a VIN or license plate #, you can get the identity and address of the person the car is registered to, and if you know the name and address of a person, you can get the VINs/plate #s of the vehicles registered to them.
SR2Z 3y ago
Yeah, companies seem to think that "personally identifiable information" is basically just your name. That's clearly wrong because GPS data and VIN make it extremely straightforward to figure out who a car owner is. As far as I'm concerned, this is PII. That statement is a bald-faced lie and a state AG should bring charges over this - it's extraordinarily irresponsible for Toyota to collect this data and then leak it for TEN YEARS.

nico 3y ago

God damn it Toyota, I love Toyota Still going to keep my cars As long as they don’t start trying to charge me for the seat warmer

Joe_Boogz 3y ago
I mean... they've already started charging a subscription fee for using your KEY FOB auto start after their trial period ends. Enough to make me not buy a new Toyota ever again.

beefee 3y ago

Owners may want to disable this in hardware rather than relying on a sketchy opt-out mechanism. The relevant part is the "data communications module". It has an LTE modem and a backup battery, so it's able to transmit even if the car battery is disconnected. It requires a little bit of dashboard disassembly to access. You can either remove it or disconnect the LTE and GPS antennas. Toyota has technical documents available for $25 at https://techinfo.toyota.com https://techinfo.toyota.com. It would be great if there was some website that collected all the detailed instructions for removing the spy devices from different car models.

chasd00 3y ago
"tracker detection and removal" would be a great service for a local service garage to offer.
- bdamm 3y ago
  Vinyl wrap with Faraday cage on the inside layer? A modern "cone of silence"
  - netsharc 3y ago
    Hah, tinfoil wrapped car, for the tinfoil-hat crowds...
- Mobius01 3y ago
  In many cases this isn’t viable. On my car for for instance - a 2016 Subaru - removing the telematics module also disables all front speakers because the audio signal is routed through it.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Sounds like a relatively easy problem to solve. Install your own sound system.
  - windowsrookie 3y ago

brk 3y ago

It is clear that automakers are utterly failing at technology. In-vehicle control systems are typically garbage. Several hacks have been shown where vehicle data is exposed over cellular links, in some cases with remote attackers being able to actually control elements of the vehicle (eg: Jeep). Software updates are rare, with manufacturers often trying to charge exorbitant amounts for basic updates. Data breaches of various customer data, credentials, PII, etc. are repeated. IMO we are at the point where in-vehice technology is a thing that is never going away. Auto manufacturers need to become bona-fide software developers and take development, QA, cyber security, etc. far more serious than they have so far.

TheCapn 3y ago
So I don't work in automotive domain, but I work in Controls Engineering. Basically everything you just said relates to my work as well, and based on tidbits of anecdotal info I've picked up through various technical forums it sounds like automotive & controls are quite similar in that regard. The dirty truth is often times these domains were designed and chiefly operated by non-software people. Not to say a mechanical engineer or electrical engineer can't program, it's just that their focus is on their work, and the software is but a tool to accomplish those means. So the world of software has leapfrogged over PLC and automotive design and gone to run laps around it several times since the 90s. It's only in say the last 5 years or so that I've seen a cultural shift in controls towards embracing the modern realities of software, networking, security, version control, databases, etc.etc.etc. I'm not going to go too much further into this, but this is why Software Engineering as a regulated profession is going to be a necessity as much as civil engineering or electrical engineering has been. The digital world is just too vast and complex now with so many pitfalls for those who only ride the edges can handle. And people's lives are starting to matter. It is no longer safe to treat security as secondary with an "oopsy" anymore. We don't tolerate bridge collapse or electrical design that can destroy livelihoods, why do we still tolerate hacks governing data and safety of public?
- macintux 3y ago
  ICYMI, this piece is a really good conversation starter about software safety that was sadly mostly ignored on HN recently. - https://noidea.dog/#/fires/ https://noidea.dog/#/fires/ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35885982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35885982

1bent 3y ago

Can you buy a new car without a data plan anymore?

jabroni_salad 3y ago
At this point I'd like reviewers to start disclosing how difficult it is to remove the LTE antennae and whether or not the car degrades itself when you do.
ProllyInfamous 3y ago
Yes, but you cannot finance it (i.e. you have to own it outright before you can disable the transmitter). So: CASH purchases, only. In the EU: cannot disable (legally)

bit_logic 3y ago

Does the California CCPA apply here? I've only seen it discussed for websites, but does it work for any company doing business in CA? Wondering if California residents could send a delete request to Toyota (and other companies like Samsung for data gathered by smart tvs). If a lot of people start regularly sending CCPA delete requests to these companies maybe they will stop gathering this data.

eulers_secret 3y ago

There's some really active community discussions around disabling the Data Collection Module, discussing everything from simply pulling the DCM fuse to disabling only the antenna. If you pull the DCM fuse, you'll loose the microphone and potentially one of the right-hand speakers - these can be fixed by jumping the wires in/out of the DCM. What's concerning to me are reports of the car still uploading all the collected data if you attach a cell phone to the radio's bluetooth. Apparently the car just relays all the info. I kinda want to snoop that data and see what it is, at least collect the encrypted packets... but my car is from 2007 and has no connected features, so...

tric 3y ago
> What's concerning to me are reports of the car still uploading all the collected data if you attach a cell phone to the radio's bluetooth This must be if you have the car manufacturer's app installed. I can't think of any other way for it to phone home from DCM via buetooth if the cellular module is disabled.
stjohnswarts 3y ago
Doesn't doing things like this void your car's warranty (at least to those units that are hooked to said wires you're cutting/bypassing?) I'm sure the fuse removeal is fine though. You should put up a dislaimer for unknowing people that this will make their warranty reimbursement tough or impossible. If it's out of warranty of course it doesn't matter.

supernova87a 3y ago

Car companies seem to just not be very good at things other than bending steel, marketing that bent steel on TV, pushing costs and risks into suppliers (and forgetting about it), and running the insurance companies that their corporate entities have become. I'm sure their internal incentive structure also does not reward people to join/stay at the company who would focus on the problems that this story points out.

at-fates-hands 3y ago

I have a 2014 model but the exposed data was between November 14, 2016, and April 4, 2023. I wonder how long they hold onto the data before erasing it or if they hold onto to it indefinitely. I don't remember seeing specifics in the EULA about the length of time they hold your data - only that they can and will sell it to 3rd parties.

jaredhallen 3y ago

Driving old junk wins again.

r3trohack3r 3y ago

> It is important to note that the exposed details do not constitute personally identifiable information, so it wouldn't be possible to use this data leak to track individuals unless the attacker knew the VIN (vehicle identification number) of their target's car. Or their home address? Location data is absolutely PII and easily deanonymized. Am I missing something?

progrus 3y ago

This is weirdly good news for current owners, in the same way that 9/11 was weirdly good news for surviving a flight.

mrobins 3y ago

Fact of the matter: at this point if you’re buying anything with telemetry or cloud services, the only safe assumption is that your data may become public at some point in the future, with or without your knowledge.

StillBored 3y ago

"It is important to note that the exposed details do not constitute personally identifiable information, so it wouldn't be possible to use this data leak to track individuals unless the attacker knew the VIN (vehicle identification number) of their target's car." Am I dumb or are they? If you know someones home address, then all you need is a geo lookup, and a filter which selects for cars parked near that address at 3AM over some time period. Which then gives you the VIN and the entire location history, right? Sure you might get more than one car if the someone lives in a city and uses street parking but its still going to reduce down to just a handful of cars which can then be cross referenced against place of work, relatives, etc. And of course home address lookup can be made with any number of public databases with little more than a name and maybe some additional filtering (age, city, phone number, etc).

asdfman123 3y ago
> Am I dumb or are they I don't think you're wrong. I wonder what incentive bleepingcomputer has to make it seem not so bad.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  Avoiding getting rekt for defamation or a potentially libellous article.
jstarfish 3y ago
> its still going to reduce down to just a handful of cars which can then be cross referenced against place of work, relatives, etc. You are correct, but I can't imagine why anybody would go to that much trouble for a speculative answer. Your idea requires quite a bit of intelligence collection as well (relatives' addresses, addresses of known hangouts, etc. that you have to vet for accuracy). If you have a confirmed home or work address, just go to their home or work and take a picture of the target VIN through the windshield.
- detrites 3y ago
  The scammer in the third world country folks may be at threat of this breach being exploited by does not have that ability. But they do have the internet, and further no meatspace means scams can be automated/scaled. Honestly, this seems very bad.

jasmer 3y ago

There needs to be massive lawsuits over this stuff to the point where companies should consider it a serious liability to hold customer data for anything other than material purpose.

WesolyKubeczek 3y ago

The thing that’s infuriating me is that some random sweaty dude might have access to imagery taken by my car and I cannot. I would love to be able to download the whole shebang of telemetry so I could reassess the quality of my driving, but no, no can do, secrets much. I need to have a whole dashcam of my own to film my trips, run the cables for it myself, while Toyota is just hoarding this data for itself and some random dude on the internets can just view it. Won’t nobody think of GDPR these days?

devy 3y ago

This sounds like there should be a massive class action lawsuit against Toyota.

tric 3y ago

I was looking into getting a new toyota, but was hesitant because of this tracking "feature." I searched online for how to disable it, and found this question: https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/qa/how-to-permanently-disable-the-data-communications-dcm-on-a-2021-toyota-highlander/ https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/qa/how-to-permanently-dis... These responses are typical: "But you're still going to be traceable by your phone." "...everyone, EVERYONE, on the planet has their information out there. There is no such thing as "off the grid." " "your phone has sent more than enough info about you to every advertiser on Earth mord than the DCM will ever do." Many people just don't care....

AHOHA 3y ago

Reason why I still have and use a “dumb” car, no screens, no software, nothing except what CANbus logs, which is still a lot but nothing clouds based or breached unless you physically access the car.

userbinator 3y ago
Mine doesn't even have a CANbus ;-) Note that if your car is new enough to have CANbus, it surely has software too.

discerning_ 3y ago

It would be nice to know if this was a misconfigured AWS S3 bucket. My money would be on that. Companies are still learning this lesson, slowly and at all of our expense.

AlbertCory 3y ago

It's bad enough if you know you're being tracked for some kind of "customer service." But I've asked people who work with automotive computers whether any cars just automatically track you and store the information in some on-vehicle storage. No one seems to know, but they all think if any did, it would be manufacturer- and model-specific.

Night_Thastus 3y ago

And this is why I'm going to disconnect the DCM in my new car. :/

ProllyInfamous 3y ago
I believe Toyota began installing DCM radios since model year 2016 — so 2015 (and older) vehicles come tracker free. I am one of those loons who doesn't carry a cell phone, so this is important to me =D

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

smeej 3y ago

My current "solution" to this is driving a 16yo car, before all this stuff became ubiquitous and impossible to opt out of, but obviously it gets harder every year to find cars from that era that still run reliably. What other options are there? I would SO willingly pay thousands of dollars specifically to have these features disabled on a new car, but it seems like they're actually designed for that to be impossible. What options are there for acquiring and driving a car with no internet or satellite connections? (I'm not trying to stop some other-purpose satellite from being able to see my car if it wanted. I'm trying to prevent a car company--which is NOT a security company--from having a record of everywhere my car has been at every moment of every day where someone can steal it.)

michaelrpeskin 3y ago
That’s my solution too. I love my old cars. I did get a newish (2012) Jeep to build onto an off road rig. It happens to be the one that you can hack by knowing the VIN which is displayed in the windshield. You can connect to the CAN over the air and unlock and start it with a program widely available on the internet. Luckily, because it’s a Jeep the antenna mount rusted and the antenna fell off. I can’t start it over the air since it no longer talks to the network. I guess that’s a long way of saying that if we ever have to get new cars, all we need to do is find the wireless antenna and disconnect it.

SV_BubbleTime 3y ago

Automotive EE here. You know what wasn’t a problem before some idiots decided to hook cars to the internet? None of this. Unbelievably stupid choices top to bottom.

kornhole 3y ago

This is going to be really interesting when(not if) someone gets Apple or Google's phone tracking history of all their device holders.

shortcake27 3y ago
For Apple, Significant Locations are end-to-end encrypted, and Find My locations are only sent when requested and deleted after 24 hours. Please don’t say “they’re tracking your location anyway” unless you have evidence. This is Hacker News not Conspiracy News.
- kornhole 3y ago
  What evidence do we have that these locations are deleted after 24 hours and not backed up or shared elsewhere?
  - shortcake27 3y ago
    Because that’s what Apple says and Apple generally doesn’t lie about their products. If you don’t believe them then the onus is on you to prove it, not for someone else to disprove it.
    - kornhole 3y ago
      We do have clear evidence that Apple devices track our location, and we do not have ability to turn it off. We do not have evidence that logs are not kept or shared nor of the E2EE of those recordings. This is not conspiracy theory. We are asked to be credulous of how the largest market cap corporation in the world handles this valuable and sensitive data. The onus is on them to prove what they say, and if they cannot, I do not buy it.
- alwayslikethis 3y ago
  You can't really claim something is end to end encrypted if you don't have access to the client source code to verify that this is the case. There is no good reason to trust any company for sticking to their words, especially under pressure from the government.

pokstad 3y ago

I am so angry that Toyota required me to sign up for their connected services to use remote start. What a joke. The leadership at the company responsible for this should resign.

FredPret 3y ago

Dear lord. The fact they even had this much data means I'll never even think about buying a Toyota in future no matter how many grovelling apologies they issue now. I used to have a Ford. Their app was generally good but I think all you need is the VIN to add a new car. Now you have the ability to track that car, lock the doors, remote start it, and so on. All second-hand car buyers should get their car's app and activate their car on it to lock out all other sessions - hopefully.

poly_morphis 3y ago
I have an Audi from ~2017. Then, a few years ago, the 3G network was shut down in the US. Can't use the app to unlock the doors or check the car status. I think I prefer it like that. Interestingly, on the center console screen, it shows an LTE connection - must be for something else? Then why isn't the unlock/lock function over LTE? Who knows.

UberFly 3y ago

Just once I'd like to see a company like this sued out of existence. It's not just that they are incompetent with customer data, it's that they essentially forced everyone to give them this info in the first place by default. What if you're an expatriate Chinese dissident? Maybe your ability to hide just got harder.

davidMC1982 3y ago

I think there are two key aspects to data breaches; privacy and fraud. The solution for the latter is simple; the liability is on the organisation that uses that identity data rather than the one that stores it. If the bank lends money to a criminal using my data, that's on them. I see no reason why any of the random bits of data that identify me should be of any use to someone else claiming they are me. These things shouldn't be considered secrets as they're always shared with at least one other party. Just this would reduce the value of obtaining such data. The privacy aspect is harder to deal with, but it's not obviously clear that a majority of people care. GDPR helps focus minds in large corporations s and maybe that's enough.

qwertox 3y ago

I bought a new car in 2018 and it was purposefully one which has no connectivity built into it, for exactly this reason. Also, why should Toyota store location data in the first place?

nologic01 3y ago

Every major privacy disaster that does not lead to dramatic repercusions convinces CEO's (and the shareholders that pay their salaries and bonuses) that the "move fast and break things" strategy is the winning strategy. The result is that that we are no more than five years away (at most) from the surveilance economy getting a terminal stranglehold on society. You will not be able to buy a car that is not always dialing home, the same way you already cannot buy a mobile that is not always dialing home. In any case you will not be buying a car. You'll be buying a subscription to a car, renewable annualy under certain (small-print) terms of service. Cars will not work without some insurance conglomerate receiving all information it wants and trading your behavioral data in opaque insurance markets. Cars could stop working at any point. A digital roadblock is much cheaper and more comprehensive that a physical roadblock. Taking public transport was never private (its in the name after all) but this mobility mode too is getting deeply integrated in the surveillance economy: you will only be able to pay for a trip using identifying mobile devices. The argument is that people "don't care" about the direction things are taking. This is the most evil argument ever advanced.

nerdchum 3y ago
All of this is being done in some level of secrecy so they're conflating not caring with not knowing or even worse people know something is going on but not the full details.
- nologic01 3y ago
  Society only works because there is massive amount of trust. It is mostly implicit trust, people don't sign fully-informed contracts left and right. People operate under the assumption that (during peacetime) they can go about their lives without worrying about a specific other subgroup organizing to systematically and explicitly work against their interests. I.e. they don't feel under attack and so they don't behave as such.

rasz 3y ago

The only way to prevent this in the future is to dig thru the leak, it will leak sooner or later, and scrub for every Toyota/Lexus driving: politician, judge, higher up executive branch and military personnel, Toyota employee plus their closest families and plaster this data all over the net. Bonus points for additional analytical work finding treasure like mysterious regular trips to a motel just outside of town etc. Privacy doesnt exist .. until its Politicians privacy on the line https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/14/politics/house-vote-supreme-court-justice-security/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/14/politics/house-vote-supre...

blendo 3y ago

By default, our Mazda CX-30’s “Telematics Control Unit” transmits vehicle history up to MazdaUSA every time you turn the engine off. However, you can disable this by following a procedure explained in the owner’s manual (basically, you call Mazda and give them your VIN.) I’ve also seen similar “opt-out” procedures listed in a Toyota GR86 owner’s manual. I’d prefer to just pull the car’s SIM card to be absolutely sure :-)