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> The government says it needs this information to identify and interview witnesses who can testify about how the tools were actually used. Why start this whol

> The government says it needs this information to identify and interview witnesses who can testify about how the tools were actually used. Why start this whole thing, if you don't already have this information and have people willing to help you as witnesses? Sounds to me they're saying they don't have this already, but why is this investigation happening in the first place then? Rather than finding every user of the tool, find the users who use the tool in the way you don't approve of, then request the information for those? Really bananas approach to go for "Every single user of the app" and "Everyone who bought a dongle" when it has very real and legal use cases.

seemaze 6mo ago
Why stop there? Why not request the PII of every person who could have plausibly downloaded the app at any point in time?
- khazhoux 6mo ago
  It's the only way to be sure. Also, think of the children.
- lern_too_spel 6mo ago
  https://dictionary.justia.com/overbroad https://dictionary.justia.com/overbroad
cogman10 6mo ago
Yeah, I'd HAPPILY report every single truck rolling coal around me if there was a place to report that information. Hell, I've seen a truck roll coal around cop cars and, obviously, nothing happened. This is just gross privacy intrusion masquerading as "protecting the environment". We don't need 100% compliance to the law and simple prosecution/ticketing of obvious violations would go a long way towards solving the problem outright. Much like we didn't need our cars emailing prosecutors every time someone drove without a seat belt on. Cops giving out tickets for not wearing a seatbelt was enough.
- andyjohnson0 6mo ago
  For those, like me, who aren't familiar with the term "rolling coal": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal
  - hughdbrown 6mo ago
    I had a driver in a Ford F-150 do this in front of me last week as he pulled away from a light. The smoke totally blacked out the windshield for 5 seconds while I was in motion. I was totally blinded by this. I had no idea this was a thing, much less that it was something people did on purpose.
    - bityard 6mo ago
      I wish they'd go back to just hanging plastic testicles from the trailer hitch, honestly.
      - malfist 6mo ago
        Something like these? https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1h82ja1/new_generation_of_truck_nuts/ https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1h82ja1/new_generati...
      - mindslight 6mo ago
        Maybe they finally realized that they had been giving their trucks gender affirming care.
    - js2 6mo ago
      https://old.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/1tdj76y/oc_idiots_in_monster_truck/ https://old.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/1tdj76y/oc_id... Many more: https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/search/?q=coal&restrict_sr=on https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/search/?q=coal&restric...
    - donkyrf 6mo ago
      It's very much on purpose. To do it with a modern diesel truck you need to remove the DPF, and reprogram the ECU to run rich and to ignore the missing DPF.
pc86 6mo ago
If you've ever seen any body cam footage on YouTube I'd wager that about half of them have a moment where the cop is asking someone for information they're not legally required to provide, and it's framed as "I have to investigate." The smart ones reply with some flavor of "ok, I'm not required to help you investigate." This seems like a much more invasive, much more expensive version of that. "We have [potentially spurious] evidence that this application is used in way we deem a Bad Thing. We need to violate the privacy of this company and thousands of individuals to gather evidence that we should be required to get before bringing this suit in the first place, but we're the government so we don't have to do that."
- CamperBob2 6mo ago
  Next up: expect the same treatment if you've ever downloaded a .gguf from HuggingFace.
ericmay 6mo ago
The DOJ first sued EZ Lynk in 2021, accusing the Cayman Islands-based company of violating the Clean Air Act by marketing and selling “defeat devices.” These tools allegedly allow users to bypass factory emissions controls on diesel vehicles, primarily through the EZ Lynk Auto Agent app paired with an onboard diagnostic (OBD) hardware dongle. Opponents say “Investigating this claim does not require identifying each person who has used the product,” That's not a a valid argument. That's just an opinion. The DOJ obtained a lawful subpoena through the legal system to request this information. The legal case is against EZ Lynk and by interviewing users (how will they know who to interview if they can't get the data? duh!) they can build their case against EZ Lynk and their product if the main usage is violating the Clean Air Act. How else would the DOJ obtain evidence if they don't know who is buying the product?
- embedding-shape 6mo ago
  > (how will they know who to interview if they can't get the data? duh!) What I don't understand is how they know someone has to be interviewed, but they don't already know who, which makes me question how the investigation got started in the first place? > How else would the DOJ obtain evidence if they don't know who is buying the product? The question is, how did the investigation got started, unless they already can see that people are misusing the product? And since they obviously must be able to see that people are misusing it, why don't they instead obtain evidence about those specific users, that they must have observed already?
  - ericmay 6mo ago
    The case is against EZLynk, not the folks using the product. > The question is, how did the investigation got started, unless they already can see that people are misusing the product? And since they obviously must be able to see that people are misusing it, why don't they instead obtain evidence about those specific users, that they must have observed already? Well you'd have to get into the legal case for the specifics, but I don't think this is an accurate assumption to make. They can just see the product "on the shelf", test it for themselves, realize it can be used to violate the Clean Air Act, and then request the ability to talk to the consumers of the product to see how they use the product or if they've used it to violate the Clean Air Act. You don't have to engage with a specific person at all. How else do you get what might be illegal products off the shelves? Perhaps the users primarily use it for other purposes and the interviews bear that out? That would inform the DOJ and the court on the merits of the case.
mothballed 6mo ago
I've learned never to believe the reasoning provided in DOJ filings. Realize it is written as a calculated manipulative tool to get a particular result. Whether they want it for the purpose stated is almost immaterial. The only thing you can really glean is they want the result is of whatever they're asking for, but no one knows if it is for the reason they state.
legitster 6mo ago
> Sounds to me they're saying they don't have this already, but why is this investigation happening in the first place then? They probably have tons of data and testimony from witnesses who use the product illegally. You can find hundreds of threads online of people telling you how to defeat emissions controls using their products. The case prosecutors want to make is that EZ Lynk knowingly enables this behavior. If they can show that the majority of users are committing crimes with the app, that's a much stronger case than just rounding up a handful of witnesses.
- JoBrad 6mo ago
  Then they don’t need to unmask users to get testimony, right?
- AnthonyMouse 6mo ago
  > If they can show that the majority of users are committing crimes with the app, that's a much stronger case than just rounding up a handful of witnesses. I still don't understand why this should even be relevant in cases like this. The thing is basically a generic OBD dongle, right? The same thing every DIY and shade tree mechanic uses to read codes and run service procedures. Suppose 20,000 people buy it and use it for defeating emissions. Some other number of people buy it for the normal thing. Why does it matter at all whether the other number is 50 or 50 million? Those are the people who aren't relevant. Should the OEM be in trouble if some unrelated third party happens to write the emissions defeat code to require their dongle in particular so they have a high proportion of customers using it for that? Should they get away with promoting it for that if they're a huge company with lots of sales to people not using it for that? None of that should matter. The seller doesn't even control what the users are doing with it, nor should they. If there is a law against advertising it for defeating emissions then prosecute them for the advertising. That's their crime, what the customers do is third party action.
  - corywadd 6mo ago
    > The same thing every DIY and shade tree mechanic uses to read codes and run service procedures. Now you have me wondering if this is their real target, to go after people who are defeating CRM on their vehicles so they can repair them themselves or in their small mom-and-pop garage of choice. But right to repair is popular, so they have to claim it's for something else.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
computomatic 6mo ago
My guess: they want to make the case that illegitimate use cases are indeed the primary use case. Their approach is to randomly sample all users and show that the vast majority use it to defeat emissions, undermining the app maker’s defence. I don’t think that justifies the overreach. As you said, if they don’t have a case already, they shouldn’t be allowed to violate user privacy on speculation that some statistical evidence might hypothetically fall out of the data. But the legal system may disagree.
- bluefirebrand 6mo ago
  I suspect there is a bit of parallel construction going on They might already know for a fact that illegitimate use cases are the primary use case, they just cannot use any of their evidence in court So they are seeking a way to legally obtain the information they already have, basically It's shady but my understanding is it happens kind of a lot in modern policing. They can get illegal information much easier than legal information. So the illegal information sort of forms the justification for the time and money spent pursuing and gathering the same information legally
  - esseph 6mo ago
    I wonder if they will use this case (depending on how it turns out), for a case against 3d printers. "You knowingly enabled $XYZ", etc. Or AI companies, for that matter...
    - tencentshill 6mo ago
      The supreme court struck that down for the Sony case. It was determined that since ISPs do not offer a service that is used specifically to break the law, they are not liable when their customers do. It would be the same argument here. the app is literally just an ODB tool, like many others on the market.
nurple 6mo ago
It's called "parallel construction".
hack1312 6mo ago
Cynical hat: they think they can use this case to establish precedent to later compel unmasking a different set of users.
LastTrain 6mo ago
That’s fine. We’re also going to need a list of every user who bought a <name gun accessory here> as well.
alsetmusic 6mo ago
> Why start this whole thing It's a pretext for when they want to force companies to reveal the names of their political enemies down the road. I'm certain of it. Why I think so: The rinky-dink panel that Trump formed to address "christian persecution" recommended that the IRS go after pastors who break tax laws by preaching from the pulpit. Sound counterintuitive? It's a pretext to generate cause for a lawsuit that would be challenged right up to the supreme court (the institution does not deserve the respect of being treated as a proper noun at this point). They want to overturn The Johnson Amendment[0] and they have the right justices installed to achieve it. Nothing these crooks and liars do is for the benefit of anyone but themselves and their cronies. They are open grifters and proven liars. They aim to remake the country into a christian nationalist fascist state. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Amendment
wutwutwat 6mo ago
Testing the fences... if they can get away with access to all the dataz, why settle for some of the dataz...

seemaze 6mo ago

Why stop there? Why not request the PII of every person who could have plausibly downloaded the app at any point in time?

khazhoux 6mo ago
It's the only way to be sure. Also, think of the children.
lern_too_spel 6mo ago
https://dictionary.justia.com/overbroad https://dictionary.justia.com/overbroad

cogman10 6mo ago

Yeah, I'd HAPPILY report every single truck rolling coal around me if there was a place to report that information. Hell, I've seen a truck roll coal around cop cars and, obviously, nothing happened. This is just gross privacy intrusion masquerading as "protecting the environment". We don't need 100% compliance to the law and simple prosecution/ticketing of obvious violations would go a long way towards solving the problem outright. Much like we didn't need our cars emailing prosecutors every time someone drove without a seat belt on. Cops giving out tickets for not wearing a seatbelt was enough.

andyjohnson0 6mo ago
For those, like me, who aren't familiar with the term "rolling coal": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal
- hughdbrown 6mo ago
  I had a driver in a Ford F-150 do this in front of me last week as he pulled away from a light. The smoke totally blacked out the windshield for 5 seconds while I was in motion. I was totally blinded by this. I had no idea this was a thing, much less that it was something people did on purpose.
  - bityard 6mo ago
    I wish they'd go back to just hanging plastic testicles from the trailer hitch, honestly.
    - malfist 6mo ago
      Something like these? https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1h82ja1/new_generation_of_truck_nuts/ https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1h82ja1/new_generati...
    - mindslight 6mo ago
      Maybe they finally realized that they had been giving their trucks gender affirming care.
  - js2 6mo ago
    https://old.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/1tdj76y/oc_idiots_in_monster_truck/ https://old.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/1tdj76y/oc_id... Many more: https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/search/?q=coal&restrict_sr=on https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/search/?q=coal&restric...
  - donkyrf 6mo ago
    It's very much on purpose. To do it with a modern diesel truck you need to remove the DPF, and reprogram the ECU to run rich and to ignore the missing DPF.

pc86 6mo ago

If you've ever seen any body cam footage on YouTube I'd wager that about half of them have a moment where the cop is asking someone for information they're not legally required to provide, and it's framed as "I have to investigate." The smart ones reply with some flavor of "ok, I'm not required to help you investigate." This seems like a much more invasive, much more expensive version of that. "We have [potentially spurious] evidence that this application is used in way we deem a Bad Thing. We need to violate the privacy of this company and thousands of individuals to gather evidence that we should be required to get before bringing this suit in the first place, but we're the government so we don't have to do that."

CamperBob2 6mo ago
Next up: expect the same treatment if you've ever downloaded a .gguf from HuggingFace.

ericmay 6mo ago

The DOJ first sued EZ Lynk in 2021, accusing the Cayman Islands-based company of violating the Clean Air Act by marketing and selling “defeat devices.” These tools allegedly allow users to bypass factory emissions controls on diesel vehicles, primarily through the EZ Lynk Auto Agent app paired with an onboard diagnostic (OBD) hardware dongle. Opponents say “Investigating this claim does not require identifying each person who has used the product,” That's not a a valid argument. That's just an opinion. The DOJ obtained a lawful subpoena through the legal system to request this information. The legal case is against EZ Lynk and by interviewing users (how will they know who to interview if they can't get the data? duh!) they can build their case against EZ Lynk and their product if the main usage is violating the Clean Air Act. How else would the DOJ obtain evidence if they don't know who is buying the product?

embedding-shape 6mo ago
> (how will they know who to interview if they can't get the data? duh!) What I don't understand is how they know someone has to be interviewed, but they don't already know who, which makes me question how the investigation got started in the first place? > How else would the DOJ obtain evidence if they don't know who is buying the product? The question is, how did the investigation got started, unless they already can see that people are misusing the product? And since they obviously must be able to see that people are misusing it, why don't they instead obtain evidence about those specific users, that they must have observed already?
- ericmay 6mo ago
  The case is against EZLynk, not the folks using the product. > The question is, how did the investigation got started, unless they already can see that people are misusing the product? And since they obviously must be able to see that people are misusing it, why don't they instead obtain evidence about those specific users, that they must have observed already? Well you'd have to get into the legal case for the specifics, but I don't think this is an accurate assumption to make. They can just see the product "on the shelf", test it for themselves, realize it can be used to violate the Clean Air Act, and then request the ability to talk to the consumers of the product to see how they use the product or if they've used it to violate the Clean Air Act. You don't have to engage with a specific person at all. How else do you get what might be illegal products off the shelves? Perhaps the users primarily use it for other purposes and the interviews bear that out? That would inform the DOJ and the court on the merits of the case.

mothballed 6mo ago

I've learned never to believe the reasoning provided in DOJ filings. Realize it is written as a calculated manipulative tool to get a particular result. Whether they want it for the purpose stated is almost immaterial. The only thing you can really glean is they want the result is of whatever they're asking for, but no one knows if it is for the reason they state.

legitster 6mo ago

> Sounds to me they're saying they don't have this already, but why is this investigation happening in the first place then? They probably have tons of data and testimony from witnesses who use the product illegally. You can find hundreds of threads online of people telling you how to defeat emissions controls using their products. The case prosecutors want to make is that EZ Lynk knowingly enables this behavior. If they can show that the majority of users are committing crimes with the app, that's a much stronger case than just rounding up a handful of witnesses.

JoBrad 6mo ago
Then they don’t need to unmask users to get testimony, right?
AnthonyMouse 6mo ago
> If they can show that the majority of users are committing crimes with the app, that's a much stronger case than just rounding up a handful of witnesses. I still don't understand why this should even be relevant in cases like this. The thing is basically a generic OBD dongle, right? The same thing every DIY and shade tree mechanic uses to read codes and run service procedures. Suppose 20,000 people buy it and use it for defeating emissions. Some other number of people buy it for the normal thing. Why does it matter at all whether the other number is 50 or 50 million? Those are the people who aren't relevant. Should the OEM be in trouble if some unrelated third party happens to write the emissions defeat code to require their dongle in particular so they have a high proportion of customers using it for that? Should they get away with promoting it for that if they're a huge company with lots of sales to people not using it for that? None of that should matter. The seller doesn't even control what the users are doing with it, nor should they. If there is a law against advertising it for defeating emissions then prosecute them for the advertising. That's their crime, what the customers do is third party action.
- corywadd 6mo ago
  > The same thing every DIY and shade tree mechanic uses to read codes and run service procedures. Now you have me wondering if this is their real target, to go after people who are defeating CRM on their vehicles so they can repair them themselves or in their small mom-and-pop garage of choice. But right to repair is popular, so they have to claim it's for something else.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

computomatic 6mo ago

My guess: they want to make the case that illegitimate use cases are indeed the primary use case. Their approach is to randomly sample all users and show that the vast majority use it to defeat emissions, undermining the app maker’s defence. I don’t think that justifies the overreach. As you said, if they don’t have a case already, they shouldn’t be allowed to violate user privacy on speculation that some statistical evidence might hypothetically fall out of the data. But the legal system may disagree.

bluefirebrand 6mo ago
I suspect there is a bit of parallel construction going on They might already know for a fact that illegitimate use cases are the primary use case, they just cannot use any of their evidence in court So they are seeking a way to legally obtain the information they already have, basically It's shady but my understanding is it happens kind of a lot in modern policing. They can get illegal information much easier than legal information. So the illegal information sort of forms the justification for the time and money spent pursuing and gathering the same information legally
- esseph 6mo ago
  I wonder if they will use this case (depending on how it turns out), for a case against 3d printers. "You knowingly enabled $XYZ", etc. Or AI companies, for that matter...
  - tencentshill 6mo ago
    The supreme court struck that down for the Sony case. It was determined that since ISPs do not offer a service that is used specifically to break the law, they are not liable when their customers do. It would be the same argument here. the app is literally just an ODB tool, like many others on the market.

nurple 6mo ago

It's called "parallel construction".

hack1312 6mo ago

Cynical hat: they think they can use this case to establish precedent to later compel unmasking a different set of users.

LastTrain 6mo ago

That’s fine. We’re also going to need a list of every user who bought a <name gun accessory here> as well.

alsetmusic 6mo ago

> Why start this whole thing It's a pretext for when they want to force companies to reveal the names of their political enemies down the road. I'm certain of it. Why I think so: The rinky-dink panel that Trump formed to address "christian persecution" recommended that the IRS go after pastors who break tax laws by preaching from the pulpit. Sound counterintuitive? It's a pretext to generate cause for a lawsuit that would be challenged right up to the supreme court (the institution does not deserve the respect of being treated as a proper noun at this point). They want to overturn The Johnson Amendment[0] and they have the right justices installed to achieve it. Nothing these crooks and liars do is for the benefit of anyone but themselves and their cronies. They are open grifters and proven liars. They aim to remake the country into a christian nationalist fascist state. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Amendment

wutwutwat 6mo ago

Testing the fences... if they can get away with access to all the dataz, why settle for some of the dataz...