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> In other words, it's A-OK for your car to "automatically and without authorization, instantaneously intercept, record, download, store, and [be] capable of tr

> In other words, it's A-OK for your car to "automatically and without authorization, instantaneously intercept, record, download, store, and [be] capable of transmitting" text messages and call logs since the privacy violation is potential, but the injury not necessarily actual. So it's effectively legal to sell backdoored hardware and software to spy on people. I wonder what would happen if I sold backdoored phones to Volkswagen employees, execs, and their children. To judges and politicians and lawyers. A-OK until there was "actual injury", and even then, it is only the injury that would be wrong?

smoldesu 3y ago
> A-OK until there was "actual injury", and even then, it is only the injury that would be wrong? Hah! No, they argue that the injury is right. For example: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/sikh-nijjar-india-canada-trudeau-modi-1.6974607 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/sikh-nijjar-india-canada-tr... After the diplomat assassination kerfuffle, it appears that Canada invoked a communications backdoor for national security purposes. It's hard to feel bad for the dimwitted killers who plotted the entire thing on a smartphone, but it's also a statement about how widespread and de-facto surveillance is today. Even when backdoors surface, we shrug them off. So... yeah. Until there is actual injury, and the injury isn't someone who people don't like and also don't care about. Then it will be a problem, and God help us all then.
- supportengineer 3y ago
  Let's keep our older cars on the road as long as possible.
  - bobim 3y ago
    Let’s face it, in an energy starved world the car of the future is an e-bike. Side effect it’s free of connected BS. So far…
    - Night_Thastus 3y ago
      We will not be "energy starved" anytime soon, short of an actual apocalypse happening. What we use for energy may change, but energy won't.
      - bobim 3y ago
        We live on free energy, free as in "dig a hole and voilà": energy. No nuclear, no solar, no wind can replace the sheer amount of energy we extract out of oil and coal. I’m afraid privacy in cars is going to be the least of humanity’s problems unless we make fusion working.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > No nuclear, no solar, no wind can replace the sheer amount of energy we extract out of oil and coal What are you basing this on? You realise we have localised grids that go 100% renewable regularly, and could easily keep doing that with electrified transport?
        bobim 3y ago
        Well, global surveys show how oil, gas and coal are going. https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        Well sure, we’re consuming more fossil fuels because they’re cheaper. Nothing I’ve seen suggests we can switch primary production to clean sources. It would be more expensive. But that’s far from a hard limit. I’m genuinely curious if someone is credibly speculating we are unable, versus economically unwilling, to replace fossil fuels with clean options.
        bobim 3y ago
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
This is a decision made regarding Washington state law’s “statutory injury requirement” [1]. It says “a plaintiff must allege an injury to ‘his or her business, his or her person, or his or her reputation,’” with “a bare violation” of the privacy law being “insufficient to satisfy the statutory injury requirement.” It is particular to Washington state, not all Americans. And it may not apply to a prosecutor versus private plaintiff. [1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24133084-22-35448 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24133084-22-35448
- drewcoo 3y ago
  So post facto punishment and not consumer protection. WA has a referendum system, though, so if people in WA care about this, you can get something on a ballot and vote it into law.
- RHSeeger 3y ago
  That sounds remarkably like saying "it's ok to drive drunk, as long as you don't hurt anyone"; which, clearly, is ridiculous. If you're breaking the law, there should be consequences even if you didn't _happen_ to hurt someone this time.
  - lazide 3y ago
    Most civil law requires actual damages. It’s the same situation. If you haven’t actually been hurt yet, suing doesn’t result in anything.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      To underline why, consider the consequences of letting anyone sue anyone for potential violations. Every minor perceived violation would result in a cascade of lawsuits. You could bankrupt a competitor by baselessly speculating on their wrongdoing. Generalised lawbreaking is a public concern. It’s prosecutors’ and regulators’ jobs to protect consumers ex ante.
      - 3y ago
nonameiguess 3y ago
I'm not an attorney, but I think a lot of the Internet misunderstands the law. It is legal to do this, apparently, but that doesn't mean the court is saying it's okay or they should do this, and it certainly doesn't mean anyone would be okay with you doing it. But if you managed to, then yes, it would apparently be legal. The court can only rule on what the law actually says and it says you only have grounds to sue once you've suffered an actual injury, not because the party you're trying to sue has done someone that might harm you in the future. This is frankly a shortcoming of trying to use civil law for something like this. As far as I'm aware, this is nearly always the case that you have no grounds to sue unless you've suffered quantifiable monetary damage from someone's actions. If we just want this kind of thing to be generally illegal, then it needs to be made illegal according to criminal law or it needs to violate some law overseen by a government regulatory body with the power to levy its own fines.
- QwertyPi 3y ago
  [dead]
- SenAnder 3y ago
  > It is legal to do this, apparently I am extremely skeptical of this, no matter what this judge says. This seems to be a clear case of illegal wiretapping [1]. Having an illegal act perpetrated upon one, whether it is wiretapping or assault, seems a very clear "injury". It is baffling that there would have to be some kind of financial price attached to be recognized as harm by a court. A disgusting reduction of justice to mere finance, something I would expect from the cartoonishly greedy Ferengi of Star Trek, than a real court. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiretapping#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiretapping#United_States
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    agree and - the crux here appears to be .. when you are in a moving vehicle on public roads then you have no expectation of privacy -> slippery slope -> license plate readers run by govt 24x7; license plate readers run by parking lots or retail shopping malls; interception of cell traffic via stinger units in strategic locations; interception of the driver's cell phone communications.. etc. Gov Gavin Newsom preparing to run for President, is OK'ing these uses quickly and without public discussion
QwertyPi 3y ago
[dead]
olliej 3y ago
No, it's saying that because none of the information is transmitted there isn't a privacy violation - the law requires that a privacy violation actually occur, not that it "could". e.g. that fact that there's a local call/message log on the car, and the car also has a mechanism for transmitting some data, does not mean that there's a privacy violation given that the car does not transmit the call/message log. That's the only reason this lawsuit got thrown out. It would be like saying "my phone receives messages, and stores those, and could transmit them to apple/google, therefore I should be able to sue them for the privacy violation they could do".
- SenAnder 3y ago
  Thank you for the correction. This makes the judgement much more reasonable.
- adrianmonk 3y ago
  > the car also has a mechanism for transmitting some data As far as I can tell, the car itself doesn't have a mechanism for transmitting data. It just stores the data. Transmitting only happens if/when someone gets some Berla "vehicle forensics" hardware and physically connects it to the car. The Berla equipment would do the transmitting. From the complaint linked to by The Register[1]: > 26. Third party Berla Corporation (“Berla”), based in Annapolis, Maryland, manufactures equipment (hardware and software) capable of extracting stored text messages from infotainment systems in Honda vehicles. > 27. Berla also manufactures equipment capable of extracting stored call logs from infotainment systems in Honda vehicles. > 28. Honda infotainment systems thereby transmit stored text messages and call logs to Berla. And from Berla's web site[2]: > An acquisition may require systems to be removed from a vehicle and disassembled or be performed in place in a vehicle. In either case, acquisition hardware must be attached to the vehicle or system to acquire data. --- [1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/11/09/honda-infotainment-class-action-suit.pdf https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/11/09/honda-infotainment-class-a... [2] https://berla.co/ecosystem/ https://berla.co/ecosystem/
  - olliej 3y ago
    I thought the original lawsuit (in addition to the Berla/diagnostics tools extraction method) was also trying to claim that the system supported transmission of a data (which seems a thing in many new cars? crashes and what not?) even though it was in no one transmitting any of this information.
hoosieree 3y ago
Jeep owners will be upset if they can't take the backdoors off.
keep_reading 3y ago
I have never seen a car do this without asking you if you want to sync contacts, calendar, and messages upon connecting to Bluetooth. iPhones also let you control this per Bluetooth connection. Where is this being done without authorization?

smoldesu 3y ago

> A-OK until there was "actual injury", and even then, it is only the injury that would be wrong? Hah! No, they argue that the injury is right. For example: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/sikh-nijjar-india-canada-trudeau-modi-1.6974607 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/sikh-nijjar-india-canada-tr... After the diplomat assassination kerfuffle, it appears that Canada invoked a communications backdoor for national security purposes. It's hard to feel bad for the dimwitted killers who plotted the entire thing on a smartphone, but it's also a statement about how widespread and de-facto surveillance is today. Even when backdoors surface, we shrug them off. So... yeah. Until there is actual injury, and the injury isn't someone who people don't like and also don't care about. Then it will be a problem, and God help us all then.

supportengineer 3y ago
Let's keep our older cars on the road as long as possible.
- bobim 3y ago
  Let’s face it, in an energy starved world the car of the future is an e-bike. Side effect it’s free of connected BS. So far…
  - Night_Thastus 3y ago
    We will not be "energy starved" anytime soon, short of an actual apocalypse happening. What we use for energy may change, but energy won't.
    - bobim 3y ago
      We live on free energy, free as in "dig a hole and voilà": energy. No nuclear, no solar, no wind can replace the sheer amount of energy we extract out of oil and coal. I’m afraid privacy in cars is going to be the least of humanity’s problems unless we make fusion working.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > No nuclear, no solar, no wind can replace the sheer amount of energy we extract out of oil and coal What are you basing this on? You realise we have localised grids that go 100% renewable regularly, and could easily keep doing that with electrified transport?
        bobim 3y ago
        Well, global surveys show how oil, gas and coal are going. https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        Well sure, we’re consuming more fossil fuels because they’re cheaper. Nothing I’ve seen suggests we can switch primary production to clean sources. It would be more expensive. But that’s far from a hard limit. I’m genuinely curious if someone is credibly speculating we are unable, versus economically unwilling, to replace fossil fuels with clean options.
        bobim 3y ago

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

This is a decision made regarding Washington state law’s “statutory injury requirement” [1]. It says “a plaintiff must allege an injury to ‘his or her business, his or her person, or his or her reputation,’” with “a bare violation” of the privacy law being “insufficient to satisfy the statutory injury requirement.” It is particular to Washington state, not all Americans. And it may not apply to a prosecutor versus private plaintiff. [1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24133084-22-35448 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24133084-22-35448

drewcoo 3y ago
So post facto punishment and not consumer protection. WA has a referendum system, though, so if people in WA care about this, you can get something on a ballot and vote it into law.
RHSeeger 3y ago
That sounds remarkably like saying "it's ok to drive drunk, as long as you don't hurt anyone"; which, clearly, is ridiculous. If you're breaking the law, there should be consequences even if you didn't _happen_ to hurt someone this time.
- lazide 3y ago
  Most civil law requires actual damages. It’s the same situation. If you haven’t actually been hurt yet, suing doesn’t result in anything.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    To underline why, consider the consequences of letting anyone sue anyone for potential violations. Every minor perceived violation would result in a cascade of lawsuits. You could bankrupt a competitor by baselessly speculating on their wrongdoing. Generalised lawbreaking is a public concern. It’s prosecutors’ and regulators’ jobs to protect consumers ex ante.
    - 3y ago

nonameiguess 3y ago

I'm not an attorney, but I think a lot of the Internet misunderstands the law. It is legal to do this, apparently, but that doesn't mean the court is saying it's okay or they should do this, and it certainly doesn't mean anyone would be okay with you doing it. But if you managed to, then yes, it would apparently be legal. The court can only rule on what the law actually says and it says you only have grounds to sue once you've suffered an actual injury, not because the party you're trying to sue has done someone that might harm you in the future. This is frankly a shortcoming of trying to use civil law for something like this. As far as I'm aware, this is nearly always the case that you have no grounds to sue unless you've suffered quantifiable monetary damage from someone's actions. If we just want this kind of thing to be generally illegal, then it needs to be made illegal according to criminal law or it needs to violate some law overseen by a government regulatory body with the power to levy its own fines.

QwertyPi 3y ago
[dead]
SenAnder 3y ago
> It is legal to do this, apparently I am extremely skeptical of this, no matter what this judge says. This seems to be a clear case of illegal wiretapping [1]. Having an illegal act perpetrated upon one, whether it is wiretapping or assault, seems a very clear "injury". It is baffling that there would have to be some kind of financial price attached to be recognized as harm by a court. A disgusting reduction of justice to mere finance, something I would expect from the cartoonishly greedy Ferengi of Star Trek, than a real court. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiretapping#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiretapping#United_States
- mistrial9 3y ago
  agree and - the crux here appears to be .. when you are in a moving vehicle on public roads then you have no expectation of privacy -> slippery slope -> license plate readers run by govt 24x7; license plate readers run by parking lots or retail shopping malls; interception of cell traffic via stinger units in strategic locations; interception of the driver's cell phone communications.. etc. Gov Gavin Newsom preparing to run for President, is OK'ing these uses quickly and without public discussion

QwertyPi 3y ago

[dead]

olliej 3y ago

No, it's saying that because none of the information is transmitted there isn't a privacy violation - the law requires that a privacy violation actually occur, not that it "could". e.g. that fact that there's a local call/message log on the car, and the car also has a mechanism for transmitting some data, does not mean that there's a privacy violation given that the car does not transmit the call/message log. That's the only reason this lawsuit got thrown out. It would be like saying "my phone receives messages, and stores those, and could transmit them to apple/google, therefore I should be able to sue them for the privacy violation they could do".

SenAnder 3y ago
Thank you for the correction. This makes the judgement much more reasonable.
adrianmonk 3y ago
> the car also has a mechanism for transmitting some data As far as I can tell, the car itself doesn't have a mechanism for transmitting data. It just stores the data. Transmitting only happens if/when someone gets some Berla "vehicle forensics" hardware and physically connects it to the car. The Berla equipment would do the transmitting. From the complaint linked to by The Register[1]: > 26. Third party Berla Corporation (“Berla”), based in Annapolis, Maryland, manufactures equipment (hardware and software) capable of extracting stored text messages from infotainment systems in Honda vehicles. > 27. Berla also manufactures equipment capable of extracting stored call logs from infotainment systems in Honda vehicles. > 28. Honda infotainment systems thereby transmit stored text messages and call logs to Berla. And from Berla's web site[2]: > An acquisition may require systems to be removed from a vehicle and disassembled or be performed in place in a vehicle. In either case, acquisition hardware must be attached to the vehicle or system to acquire data. --- [1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/11/09/honda-infotainment-class-action-suit.pdf https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/11/09/honda-infotainment-class-a... [2] https://berla.co/ecosystem/ https://berla.co/ecosystem/
- olliej 3y ago
  I thought the original lawsuit (in addition to the Berla/diagnostics tools extraction method) was also trying to claim that the system supported transmission of a data (which seems a thing in many new cars? crashes and what not?) even though it was in no one transmitting any of this information.

hoosieree 3y ago

Jeep owners will be upset if they can't take the backdoors off.

keep_reading 3y ago

I have never seen a car do this without asking you if you want to sync contacts, calendar, and messages upon connecting to Bluetooth. iPhones also let you control this per Bluetooth connection. Where is this being done without authorization?