10 ms·

I dug into the technical details here over the last few days and as usual it's not quite as sinister as the hand wringing: * Automotive head units are just emb

by bri3d 3y ago

I dug into the technical details here over the last few days and as usual it's not quite as sinister as the hand wringing: * Automotive head units are just embedded computers. Most run Linux, QNX, or Windows CE, with some proprietary UI system on top. * These machines usually store data in an onboard database in flash (sometimes just SQLite). * Sometimes, phone data is captured using standard Bluetooth mechanisms (Message Access Protocol MAP and Phone Book Access Protocol PBAP) which require authorization on the phone side. Some vendors implement an additional "are you sure you want to share your information" check on the head unit side, and others don't. * This data is cached on the head unit so that finding a contact to call or reading a text message doesn't require 10 minutes worth of Bluetooth nonsense. * Some vendors inadequately purge this cached data when a Bluetooth pairing is removed from the head unit. * Berla sell data extraction exploits to law enforcement, just like other forensics vendors do for mobile phones. Sometimes this can extract latent data and sometimes active data. My advice: * Never authorize a head unit to download your contacts or SMS. * If you use a rental car, Factory Reset the head unit when you leave. That's decent protection for most people. I didn't find any evidence pointing to a central server upload, a conspiracy to build an LE database, etc. It's just typical crappy hardware manufacturer-made software leaving data around that shouldn't be left around, creating an opening for forensic vendor exploits to slurp the data.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Caboose8685 3y ago
I think an argument should be made against normalizing this, which could then lead to OEMs building in internet assisted data export functionality in new cars and people won't know until a lawsuit (likely) starts years after the fact and the harm is done.
- zlg_codes 3y ago
  This is why I've taken a more and more grim look at technology and software, in particular. Stallman was right, about nearly everything concerning power, companies and governments using it, and the role the citizen is viewed to have in such a limited capitalist view. Without government mandates to open the source of every chip and firmware, none of the modern hardware we use is trustable.
drewcoo 3y ago
> * If you use a rental car, Factory Reset the head unit when you leave. That is ridiculously onerous! Just because geeks can share arcane knowledge about how to be safe does not mean that this isn't horribly anti-consumer.
- Caboose8685 3y ago
  I wholly agree with your sentiment, but as someone who cares to actually take action for my privacy this kind of onerousness is par for the course, unfortunately.
- kulahan 3y ago
  You're right, but it's the world we live in, and we need to exist within the system. This is the best way to do it - and spread the knowledge among your social circles.
- dylan604 3y ago
  It should be policy for the rental company to do this. On more than one occasion, I have received a car with a previous renter's personal data still in the system.
  - simbolit 3y ago
    When I am out of town, I sometimes print at copy shops. You'd be amazed what kind of PDFs are left open in Acrobat, just because people are too lazy to close the application. I have seen contracts, bank account statements, residency permits, letters of incorporation, private messages logs, .... All without doing any digging, I just get assigned a computer for printing, turn on the screen, and it's there.
    - hilbert42 3y ago
      "You'd be amazed what kind of PDFs are left open in Acrobat," Observation tells us it's a lost cause to teach people about privacy/security of this type and have the large majority of people observe prudent ways of preventing their data from leaking. We've known about this since before the internet when people would chuck old documents in the garbage under the assumption no one would ever bother to go through their trash digging for information. But, we've learned from police, private investigators and espionage accounts that huge amounts of data can be extracted from trash simply because people aren't careful. We also know there's always been a small percentage of people who have been careful, they're the ones who never throw out old accounts, letters, envelopes or even notes with phone numbers on them into the trash but they're so small in numbers that those who are scrounging for information know that the majority of their pickings will be successful. The only effective way around this is to build systems that automatically obfuscate data from anyone but their owner. As we know, this is easier said than done.
JohnFen 3y ago
My personal solution: I won't own a car that has this sort of capability in the first place, and when I rent a car, I will never allow it and my phone to talk to each other for any reason.
- greentea23 3y ago
  Is that possible anymore? I think all new cars are always online and always collecting data now, and you void your warranty (very different cost/benefit calculus than voiding a phone warranty) if you tamper with the antennas to keep it offline. Very sad state of affairs.
  - everdrive 3y ago
    Some modern cars do not have telematics systems. As far as I know, base model Nissans often don't. In other cases, some telematics systems can be easily disabled. (in the Ford Maverick, it's got a single dedicate fuse, and doesn't complain when you pull the fuse.)
  - lrvick 3y ago
    Exactly why I only buy used cars that predate all this insanity. If we can keep cars from the 40s running, keeping cars from the early 00s running is no big deal. Honestly older fully mechanical/analog cars with manual transmissions are often cheaper and easier to maintain than modern ones with high complexity and DRM on every part. Sadly my desire for privacy will likely prevent me from ever buying electric unless I build my own car, which I might.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > Sadly my desire for privacy will likely prevent me from ever buying electric Me too. I'm not that sad about it, though. Saving an older car from being scrapped also brings environmental benefits.
  - uranium 3y ago
    We were considering a Hyundai Kona after seeing someone online just yank the modem without an issue. The first dealer I worked with said he could have their service department do it, but then couldn't get the model I wanted. The second had the model, but then said even disconnecting the cell modem would void my warranty, so they wouldn't do it without a letter from Hyundai corporate allowing it. So now I own a brand-new Chevy Bolt. You just yank a single fuse and that takes out OnStar and nothing else.
mattw2121 3y ago
Big opportunity for one of the big car rental agencies to come out looking great by advertising their "privacy focus". They could advertise to customers that they promise/certify that any personal data is wiped between rentals. Sort of like all the cleanliness guarantees that came about right after Covid hit.
- someotherperson 3y ago
  They'll just monetize it behind a $19.99 fee. And then they still won't do it, leading to some data leak, for which they'll be fined $2,000,000 despite having profited about $30,000,000 from it.
  - progman32 3y ago
    ...and then lock the admin UI behind a password so you can't do it yourself :)
- DANmode 3y ago
  Apple Car will be marketed out of both sides of their mouth, just like oh-so-private iOS devices are marketed today.
  - simbolit 3y ago
    Why is everyone so sure Apple Car will be a thing?
    - lrvick 3y ago
      Because Apple likes money, and cars have high profit margins.
      - simbolit 3y ago
        That is a good reason, but in and of itself, not a sufficient reason. Chocolate has fantastic profit margins. No Apple chocolate. ... mhhhmm, apple chocolate, that sounds yummy. A bit closer to home, fabbing microchips has great profit margins. Apple pays good money to TSMC. Just because it's good money isn't enough reason, I am sorry.
akira2501 3y ago
> This data is cached on the head unit so that finding a contact to call or reading a text message doesn't require 10 minutes worth of Bluetooth nonsense. This is such an early 2000s idea. I'd much rather my car act as a dumb display that shows a copy of my phone screen then an intelligent agent that tries to replicate functionality already extant in my phone.
- thedaly 3y ago
  Yes, Carplay is the correct way to implement this.
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
  EXACTLY. This "infotainment" BS harks back to vastly overpriced stock car radios of years gone by. All we need is a place in the dashboard to mount our phones. Phones already have big-ass touchscreens and anything else we want... except of course now the audio outputs have been removed. We should simply have a well in the dashboard with replaceable inserts that snap in to accommodate different-sized phone models, which would connect to the audio system and power. But no... we still have phones bouncing around in the cabin or attached to hokey third-party claws, and janky-ass Bluetooth which (how many years in now?) can't handle simple music playback reliably. Every car in my household has an auxiliary input for audio and no support for audio over Bluetooth. One is a 2013 Mini, so it's not as if they're ancient. And that's just fine. And if it MUST be overcomplicated, then yes... AirPlay seems to be the way.
  - fho 3y ago
    > no support for audio over Bluetooth So you rant about Bluetooth in cars ... without owning a car that gas Bluetooth? Just checking, because we put after market radios (with BT) in our last two cars and, while not a miracle experience, music playback and handsfree telephony worked without problems.
    - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
      I guess you don't think people rent cars, or drive family members' cars, or go on road trips with friends. Bluetooth implementations are trash. Rented a brand-new Toyota over the summer and its radio suffered from all the same playback defects that Bluetooth has been offering for a decade or more. Playback randomly starting when not told to... showing the wrong info on the display... showing that no songs were available but playing songs anyway (four out of five times; once it did decide to show a song list).
gav 3y ago
> * If you use a rental car, Factory Reset the head unit when you leave. If I rent a car, I won't pair my phone at all, even going so far as to use a car charger instead of the provided USB ports.
- rsync 3y ago
  Agreed, although I use a “usb condom” for convenience…
  - giantg2 3y ago
    What's the technical term for those? (I'm afraid to search for that at work haha)
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      You can find them with the term "USB data blocker". You might have to add "dongle" onto that.
    - x86x87 3y ago
      Usb power-only or charge only cable. You can create one by severing the data lines in a normal usb cable
- dylan604 3y ago
  most car USB ports are slow charging. my little power port convert provides fast charging. so not only do i get the extra speed, but the assurance that the USB isn't nefarious. which admittedly is probably a bit paranoid, but what if i'm not?! i didn't even like having my phone data sunk to a my own personal car. it just made no logical sense on why that would be useful, so being me, i just assumed it was for nefarious purposes. people no longer get the benefit of the doubt of being lazy/incompetent. i immediately jump to the situation essentially being an attack vector.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > most car USB ports are slow charging TBH, in this day and age where it's difficult to replace batteries when they wear out, I strongly prefer slow-charging over fast-charging. Fast-charging wears out the batteries more quickly.
noman-land 3y ago
Translation: It is 100% legal for car companies (and by extension just about any company) to, when you connect your phone to them, to download your call and text history and then sell it. By extension, that means it is 100% legal for anyone, including any branch of any government to get a copy of your call and text history.
- grepfru_it 3y ago
  >By extension, that means it is 100% legal for anyone, including any branch of any government Always has been
  - noman-land 3y ago
    The "always" in your comment is only a few decades old. This scale of data collection simply hasn't been possible before.
DANmode 3y ago
> It's not quite as sinister > Here's the fix that 95%+ of the users impacted will never use Hopefully you only had HN users in mind while writing your comment, otherwise you've intentionally downplayed one of dozens of security & privacy risks "our moms" are dealing with daily.
lencastre 3y ago
I factory reset the entertainment system in all car rentals at pick up, never share contacts or give access to media folders of my phone and finally reset again when returning the car. It’s a pain to know who is calling you but you get use to it.
gleenn 3y ago
I don't understand how you think this isn't nefarious based on your own post. I didn't ask my car to basically give a backdoor to all my texts and contacts to law enforcement. If that exists, it is certainly being used. I find it very sad that you have to prove injury despite the fact that is is clearly not in a user's benefit. Laws are always playing catchup to tech and we shouldn't have to play wackamole for every new absurd way our privacy is being abused just becawe can't prove that police aren't doing parallel construction to avoid the direct "injury" to us.
- bri3d 3y ago
  Why do I think these features are not nefarious? * There's an obvious, legitimate want for the vehicle's head unit to ingest this data, in order to display a UI (or provide a voice UI) which allows the user to call a contact by name or read a recently received text message. Is this a poor implementation concept which has mostly been supplanted by better implementations (Android Auto / CarPlay), sure, absolutely but it's not some thing that was added for the express purpose of "stealing" information. It's a long-standing set of features which use obvious, standardized Bluetooth technologies to fill an obvious, straightforward user need. Nothing weird there. * There's no sign whatsoever that there was any collusion with law enforcement in the construction of these systems. They're just badly implemented, vulnerable software which is exploited by a forensics vendor (just like literally every other piece of hardware and software under the sun).
  - lrvick 3y ago
    I have worked for enough IoT and whitelabeled tech companies to know spying is normally never a plan from the start. It is the lack of planning to prevent it that is years later branded as a feature to sell when company leadership looking to boost numbers or build political capitol start talking to law enforcement. Often after an acquisition or two. I personally know a release engineer that was required to quietly send all new code changes to an NSA ftp server, presumably to make sure none of the bugs they rely on were fixed. If something is in popular use and -can- collect data covertly, it will be co-opted to do so by someone for power or money without fail.

by bri3d 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Caboose8685 3y ago

I think an argument should be made against normalizing this, which could then lead to OEMs building in internet assisted data export functionality in new cars and people won't know until a lawsuit (likely) starts years after the fact and the harm is done.

zlg_codes 3y ago
This is why I've taken a more and more grim look at technology and software, in particular. Stallman was right, about nearly everything concerning power, companies and governments using it, and the role the citizen is viewed to have in such a limited capitalist view. Without government mandates to open the source of every chip and firmware, none of the modern hardware we use is trustable.

drewcoo 3y ago

> * If you use a rental car, Factory Reset the head unit when you leave. That is ridiculously onerous! Just because geeks can share arcane knowledge about how to be safe does not mean that this isn't horribly anti-consumer.

Caboose8685 3y ago
I wholly agree with your sentiment, but as someone who cares to actually take action for my privacy this kind of onerousness is par for the course, unfortunately.
kulahan 3y ago
You're right, but it's the world we live in, and we need to exist within the system. This is the best way to do it - and spread the knowledge among your social circles.
dylan604 3y ago
It should be policy for the rental company to do this. On more than one occasion, I have received a car with a previous renter's personal data still in the system.
- simbolit 3y ago
  When I am out of town, I sometimes print at copy shops. You'd be amazed what kind of PDFs are left open in Acrobat, just because people are too lazy to close the application. I have seen contracts, bank account statements, residency permits, letters of incorporation, private messages logs, .... All without doing any digging, I just get assigned a computer for printing, turn on the screen, and it's there.
  - hilbert42 3y ago
    "You'd be amazed what kind of PDFs are left open in Acrobat," Observation tells us it's a lost cause to teach people about privacy/security of this type and have the large majority of people observe prudent ways of preventing their data from leaking. We've known about this since before the internet when people would chuck old documents in the garbage under the assumption no one would ever bother to go through their trash digging for information. But, we've learned from police, private investigators and espionage accounts that huge amounts of data can be extracted from trash simply because people aren't careful. We also know there's always been a small percentage of people who have been careful, they're the ones who never throw out old accounts, letters, envelopes or even notes with phone numbers on them into the trash but they're so small in numbers that those who are scrounging for information know that the majority of their pickings will be successful. The only effective way around this is to build systems that automatically obfuscate data from anyone but their owner. As we know, this is easier said than done.

JohnFen 3y ago

My personal solution: I won't own a car that has this sort of capability in the first place, and when I rent a car, I will never allow it and my phone to talk to each other for any reason.

greentea23 3y ago
Is that possible anymore? I think all new cars are always online and always collecting data now, and you void your warranty (very different cost/benefit calculus than voiding a phone warranty) if you tamper with the antennas to keep it offline. Very sad state of affairs.
- everdrive 3y ago
  Some modern cars do not have telematics systems. As far as I know, base model Nissans often don't. In other cases, some telematics systems can be easily disabled. (in the Ford Maverick, it's got a single dedicate fuse, and doesn't complain when you pull the fuse.)
- lrvick 3y ago
  Exactly why I only buy used cars that predate all this insanity. If we can keep cars from the 40s running, keeping cars from the early 00s running is no big deal. Honestly older fully mechanical/analog cars with manual transmissions are often cheaper and easier to maintain than modern ones with high complexity and DRM on every part. Sadly my desire for privacy will likely prevent me from ever buying electric unless I build my own car, which I might.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > Sadly my desire for privacy will likely prevent me from ever buying electric Me too. I'm not that sad about it, though. Saving an older car from being scrapped also brings environmental benefits.
- uranium 3y ago
  We were considering a Hyundai Kona after seeing someone online just yank the modem without an issue. The first dealer I worked with said he could have their service department do it, but then couldn't get the model I wanted. The second had the model, but then said even disconnecting the cell modem would void my warranty, so they wouldn't do it without a letter from Hyundai corporate allowing it. So now I own a brand-new Chevy Bolt. You just yank a single fuse and that takes out OnStar and nothing else.

mattw2121 3y ago

Big opportunity for one of the big car rental agencies to come out looking great by advertising their "privacy focus". They could advertise to customers that they promise/certify that any personal data is wiped between rentals. Sort of like all the cleanliness guarantees that came about right after Covid hit.

someotherperson 3y ago
They'll just monetize it behind a $19.99 fee. And then they still won't do it, leading to some data leak, for which they'll be fined $2,000,000 despite having profited about $30,000,000 from it.
- progman32 3y ago
  ...and then lock the admin UI behind a password so you can't do it yourself :)
DANmode 3y ago
Apple Car will be marketed out of both sides of their mouth, just like oh-so-private iOS devices are marketed today.
- simbolit 3y ago
  Why is everyone so sure Apple Car will be a thing?
  - lrvick 3y ago
    Because Apple likes money, and cars have high profit margins.
    - simbolit 3y ago
      That is a good reason, but in and of itself, not a sufficient reason. Chocolate has fantastic profit margins. No Apple chocolate. ... mhhhmm, apple chocolate, that sounds yummy. A bit closer to home, fabbing microchips has great profit margins. Apple pays good money to TSMC. Just because it's good money isn't enough reason, I am sorry.

akira2501 3y ago

> This data is cached on the head unit so that finding a contact to call or reading a text message doesn't require 10 minutes worth of Bluetooth nonsense. This is such an early 2000s idea. I'd much rather my car act as a dumb display that shows a copy of my phone screen then an intelligent agent that tries to replicate functionality already extant in my phone.

thedaly 3y ago
Yes, Carplay is the correct way to implement this.
ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
EXACTLY. This "infotainment" BS harks back to vastly overpriced stock car radios of years gone by. All we need is a place in the dashboard to mount our phones. Phones already have big-ass touchscreens and anything else we want... except of course now the audio outputs have been removed. We should simply have a well in the dashboard with replaceable inserts that snap in to accommodate different-sized phone models, which would connect to the audio system and power. But no... we still have phones bouncing around in the cabin or attached to hokey third-party claws, and janky-ass Bluetooth which (how many years in now?) can't handle simple music playback reliably. Every car in my household has an auxiliary input for audio and no support for audio over Bluetooth. One is a 2013 Mini, so it's not as if they're ancient. And that's just fine. And if it MUST be overcomplicated, then yes... AirPlay seems to be the way.
- fho 3y ago
  > no support for audio over Bluetooth So you rant about Bluetooth in cars ... without owning a car that gas Bluetooth? Just checking, because we put after market radios (with BT) in our last two cars and, while not a miracle experience, music playback and handsfree telephony worked without problems.
  - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
    I guess you don't think people rent cars, or drive family members' cars, or go on road trips with friends. Bluetooth implementations are trash. Rented a brand-new Toyota over the summer and its radio suffered from all the same playback defects that Bluetooth has been offering for a decade or more. Playback randomly starting when not told to... showing the wrong info on the display... showing that no songs were available but playing songs anyway (four out of five times; once it did decide to show a song list).

gav 3y ago

> * If you use a rental car, Factory Reset the head unit when you leave. If I rent a car, I won't pair my phone at all, even going so far as to use a car charger instead of the provided USB ports.

rsync 3y ago
Agreed, although I use a “usb condom” for convenience…
- giantg2 3y ago
  What's the technical term for those? (I'm afraid to search for that at work haha)
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    You can find them with the term "USB data blocker". You might have to add "dongle" onto that.
  - x86x87 3y ago
    Usb power-only or charge only cable. You can create one by severing the data lines in a normal usb cable
dylan604 3y ago
most car USB ports are slow charging. my little power port convert provides fast charging. so not only do i get the extra speed, but the assurance that the USB isn't nefarious. which admittedly is probably a bit paranoid, but what if i'm not?! i didn't even like having my phone data sunk to a my own personal car. it just made no logical sense on why that would be useful, so being me, i just assumed it was for nefarious purposes. people no longer get the benefit of the doubt of being lazy/incompetent. i immediately jump to the situation essentially being an attack vector.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > most car USB ports are slow charging TBH, in this day and age where it's difficult to replace batteries when they wear out, I strongly prefer slow-charging over fast-charging. Fast-charging wears out the batteries more quickly.

noman-land 3y ago

Translation: It is 100% legal for car companies (and by extension just about any company) to, when you connect your phone to them, to download your call and text history and then sell it. By extension, that means it is 100% legal for anyone, including any branch of any government to get a copy of your call and text history.

grepfru_it 3y ago
>By extension, that means it is 100% legal for anyone, including any branch of any government Always has been
- noman-land 3y ago
  The "always" in your comment is only a few decades old. This scale of data collection simply hasn't been possible before.

DANmode 3y ago

> It's not quite as sinister > Here's the fix that 95%+ of the users impacted will never use Hopefully you only had HN users in mind while writing your comment, otherwise you've intentionally downplayed one of dozens of security & privacy risks "our moms" are dealing with daily.

lencastre 3y ago

I factory reset the entertainment system in all car rentals at pick up, never share contacts or give access to media folders of my phone and finally reset again when returning the car. It’s a pain to know who is calling you but you get use to it.

gleenn 3y ago

I don't understand how you think this isn't nefarious based on your own post. I didn't ask my car to basically give a backdoor to all my texts and contacts to law enforcement. If that exists, it is certainly being used. I find it very sad that you have to prove injury despite the fact that is is clearly not in a user's benefit. Laws are always playing catchup to tech and we shouldn't have to play wackamole for every new absurd way our privacy is being abused just becawe can't prove that police aren't doing parallel construction to avoid the direct "injury" to us.

bri3d 3y ago
Why do I think these features are not nefarious? * There's an obvious, legitimate want for the vehicle's head unit to ingest this data, in order to display a UI (or provide a voice UI) which allows the user to call a contact by name or read a recently received text message. Is this a poor implementation concept which has mostly been supplanted by better implementations (Android Auto / CarPlay), sure, absolutely but it's not some thing that was added for the express purpose of "stealing" information. It's a long-standing set of features which use obvious, standardized Bluetooth technologies to fill an obvious, straightforward user need. Nothing weird there. * There's no sign whatsoever that there was any collusion with law enforcement in the construction of these systems. They're just badly implemented, vulnerable software which is exploited by a forensics vendor (just like literally every other piece of hardware and software under the sun).
- lrvick 3y ago
  I have worked for enough IoT and whitelabeled tech companies to know spying is normally never a plan from the start. It is the lack of planning to prevent it that is years later branded as a feature to sell when company leadership looking to boost numbers or build political capitol start talking to law enforcement. Often after an acquisition or two. I personally know a release engineer that was required to quietly send all new code changes to an NSA ftp server, presumably to make sure none of the bugs they rely on were fixed. If something is in popular use and -can- collect data covertly, it will be co-opted to do so by someone for power or money without fail.