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I think it is unlikely from a simple reason: Today when you will buy "connected" car the manufacturer wants YOU to pay the internet bill for your car. But what

I think it is unlikely from a simple reason: Today when you will buy "connected" car the manufacturer wants YOU to pay the internet bill for your car. But what are your incentives to pay internet for the car, when you likely already have internet in your phone? Nil. It is nice mind experiment that cars could theoretically spy on everyone, but hitting some practical problems, like who is paying for traffic from a car to some datacenter which will be in high megabytes every second? Who pays for petabytes of data to store every hour? Who pays for massive server clusters to search through those data when you need them?

AlotOfReading 3y ago
Self driving cars already exist and like the article discusses, they do store massive amounts of data about what they saw. AV companies aren't paying to send (most of) that data over cellular though. It'd completely overwhelm the network. Instead, they're storing it locally and offloading when the vehicle returns to the garage. That data currently remains available internally for use in test scenario development, for legal reasons, and to be able to run post-hoc analyses to find old instances of newly discovered misbehavior, among others.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
  > they do store massive amounts of data about what they saw. For development prototypes, sure. For real production pieces it is unlikely to store that much data if any, because storage is expense and expense is lower margin and margin is thin.
  - cush 3y ago
    It depends how long the data is stored for
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    You're missing some key considerations is what I'll say. It's pretty safe to assume that the basic combo of sensor outputs+vehicle logs will be retained (subject to retention period) for the foreseeable future, both of which have potential privacy issues. All the relevant companies have lots of internal discussion about this, but very little makes it into the public sphere.
    - kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
      Continuously recording video to on board flash will eventually wear out the storage. It won't last for a 10+ year vehicle life span. Making it user serviceable will just encourage fraud.
      - AlotOfReading 3y ago
        It's publicly known that the Waymo Pacificas were using FPGAs and Xeons running Linux for their main compute, which generates most of the logs and processes the sensor data. So given that context, how likely do you think it is that they're logging it all to terabytes of onboard flash? But also, lifetime analysis is standard practice during the design phase.
    - TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
      Engineering talk. The moment when bean counters start talking, you will be glad for any storage and it is not going to be enough.
      - apocalyptic0n3 3y ago
        I worked for a while at an auto supplier (heavy vehicle like semis, buses, RVs, and military) in their test labs. The bean counting is real. I remember one test we had to do involved replacing a single bolt in a 200lb wheel assembly with one whose threads were 30% shorter and barely made it through the hole. It wasn't a clearance issue, per the PM and engineer, it was because shrinking that bolt saved half a penny per wheel end (or something small like that) and would put them under their targeted cost per unit, nevermind the hundreds of hours of testing that had to be run to validate the new assembly. PMs are given a target price and a target cost. They will do everything in their power to get under it because their job depends on it. Those drives are going to be the bare minimum necessary for storing what they need to (not what they want to) and will likely have a very short lifespan overall.
        autoexec 3y ago
        When car companies start making enough money selling the data they collect they'll add all the storage needed to keep the cash flowing. If the lifespan is short they'll just force the user to get the car serviced and make them pay to replace it at the drivers expense.
dwringer 3y ago
> Today when you will buy "connected" car the manufacturer wants YOU to pay the internet bill for your car. My Toyota has an optional subscription to allow its data connection to be used for roadside assistance services, but the connection is always there regardless (and is used by Toyota to push updates to the car's touchscreen software without me paying for any subscription).
- TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
  One thing is sending telemetry and occasional update to a car. Could be done via pre-charged SIM on X GB to hold during the cars warranty. Other thing is uploading GBs of data from sensors and cameras.
  - orthecreedence 3y ago
    This isn't an issue. At some point there will be "safe driving subsidies" paid by the government to car manufacturers who opt-in to uploading all footage into NSA-approved databases. I know what you're thinking..."oh, the old slippery slope blah blah" but PRISM is alive and well (and nobody gives a shit that it's alive and well) so things like this are entirely within the range of "could easily happen with very little effort."
masfuerte 3y ago
Your car may already be using your phone's data. If you pair your phone with your car there is a Bluetooth protocol that lets your car's cellular radio authenticate using your phone's SIM. But, yes, if they try sending absurd amounts of data people are going to notice their allowances running out.
alimov 3y ago
Maybe nobody (corporation/gov) is paying for that right now, but if all of those things become cheap enough to make sense to do (cost of transmission/ storage/processing are low enough to turn a profit or get the data you want) then someone (corporation/gov) will do it.

AlotOfReading 3y ago

Self driving cars already exist and like the article discusses, they do store massive amounts of data about what they saw. AV companies aren't paying to send (most of) that data over cellular though. It'd completely overwhelm the network. Instead, they're storing it locally and offloading when the vehicle returns to the garage. That data currently remains available internally for use in test scenario development, for legal reasons, and to be able to run post-hoc analyses to find old instances of newly discovered misbehavior, among others.

TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
> they do store massive amounts of data about what they saw. For development prototypes, sure. For real production pieces it is unlikely to store that much data if any, because storage is expense and expense is lower margin and margin is thin.
- cush 3y ago
  It depends how long the data is stored for
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  You're missing some key considerations is what I'll say. It's pretty safe to assume that the basic combo of sensor outputs+vehicle logs will be retained (subject to retention period) for the foreseeable future, both of which have potential privacy issues. All the relevant companies have lots of internal discussion about this, but very little makes it into the public sphere.
  - kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
    Continuously recording video to on board flash will eventually wear out the storage. It won't last for a 10+ year vehicle life span. Making it user serviceable will just encourage fraud.
    - AlotOfReading 3y ago
      It's publicly known that the Waymo Pacificas were using FPGAs and Xeons running Linux for their main compute, which generates most of the logs and processes the sensor data. So given that context, how likely do you think it is that they're logging it all to terabytes of onboard flash? But also, lifetime analysis is standard practice during the design phase.
  - TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
    Engineering talk. The moment when bean counters start talking, you will be glad for any storage and it is not going to be enough.
    - apocalyptic0n3 3y ago
      I worked for a while at an auto supplier (heavy vehicle like semis, buses, RVs, and military) in their test labs. The bean counting is real. I remember one test we had to do involved replacing a single bolt in a 200lb wheel assembly with one whose threads were 30% shorter and barely made it through the hole. It wasn't a clearance issue, per the PM and engineer, it was because shrinking that bolt saved half a penny per wheel end (or something small like that) and would put them under their targeted cost per unit, nevermind the hundreds of hours of testing that had to be run to validate the new assembly. PMs are given a target price and a target cost. They will do everything in their power to get under it because their job depends on it. Those drives are going to be the bare minimum necessary for storing what they need to (not what they want to) and will likely have a very short lifespan overall.
      - autoexec 3y ago
        When car companies start making enough money selling the data they collect they'll add all the storage needed to keep the cash flowing. If the lifespan is short they'll just force the user to get the car serviced and make them pay to replace it at the drivers expense.

dwringer 3y ago

> Today when you will buy "connected" car the manufacturer wants YOU to pay the internet bill for your car. My Toyota has an optional subscription to allow its data connection to be used for roadside assistance services, but the connection is always there regardless (and is used by Toyota to push updates to the car's touchscreen software without me paying for any subscription).

TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
One thing is sending telemetry and occasional update to a car. Could be done via pre-charged SIM on X GB to hold during the cars warranty. Other thing is uploading GBs of data from sensors and cameras.
- orthecreedence 3y ago
  This isn't an issue. At some point there will be "safe driving subsidies" paid by the government to car manufacturers who opt-in to uploading all footage into NSA-approved databases. I know what you're thinking..."oh, the old slippery slope blah blah" but PRISM is alive and well (and nobody gives a shit that it's alive and well) so things like this are entirely within the range of "could easily happen with very little effort."

masfuerte 3y ago

Your car may already be using your phone's data. If you pair your phone with your car there is a Bluetooth protocol that lets your car's cellular radio authenticate using your phone's SIM. But, yes, if they try sending absurd amounts of data people are going to notice their allowances running out.

alimov 3y ago

Maybe nobody (corporation/gov) is paying for that right now, but if all of those things become cheap enough to make sense to do (cost of transmission/ storage/processing are low enough to turn a profit or get the data you want) then someone (corporation/gov) will do it.