7 ms·

Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

508 points by 1vuio0pswjnm7 5mo ago

boneghost 5mo ago
Trying?
- dinkleberg 5mo ago
  Mine isn't doing too great of a job. It has a sketchy face cam that detects who the driver is and greets you and changes some settings. But half of the time it can't identify me.
- ssl-3 5mo ago
  Yeah. Trying. Now that we've got trillion-dollar computing machines that, at best, output indeterminate results, we've entered the realm where it is clear that even the very best computers are only capable of trying to do things. Sometimes they succeed, and sometimes they fail -- but they still try anyway. Therefore, in journalist logic: It's reasonable to expect that lesser computers have been this way all along.
petra303 5mo ago
[flagged]
- komali2 5mo ago
  I do wonder about the tradeoff between convenience and the various negative externalities. Example: trains are better for the environment than planes. I need to get from Copenhagen to London for a wedding next month. The train schedule is roughly 20 hours long, starts at 6am, several transfers, and something in the range of 250USD. On Skyscanner there's flights from Copenhagen to London essentially every 20 minutes, it takes an hour, and it costs 50USD. No wonder the ferry to London ended! No wonder everyone chooses the flight! If you walk around Taiwan you'll see all sorts of failures of governance. 60 year old crumbling buildings with double stacked illegal builds on top, each floor worth 1 mil USD because there's just no supply here. Pedestrian hell because it takes coordination with 6 different agencies to get a green line fake sidewalk put on the road, let alone an actual infrastructure change. Rapidly escalating in-your-face wealth concentration as most new buildings are luxury condos that are immediately purchased, held, and kept empty by the ultra wealthy while their failsons cruise around Taipei in Lamborghinis, flagrantly violating traffic laws. PRC propaganda against us is escalating and as soon as they learn to stop calling us separatists (and drop the Han Chauvinism angle that just centers Taiwanese identity around the island itself) and instead focus on how shit in the PRC Just Gets Done mostly to the benefit of the working class, you just gotta trade the right to protest and the right to privacy, I think that'll be the end of Taiwan sovereignty. I mean, wouldn't most people take that trade? A small increase in quality of life, an escalation in security and certainty, and all it means is you have to be a little more careful about what you say online? I think about this a lot. I think this is the root of a lot of the problems that grew in our world - the absolutely understandable tendency in people to just want to get on in their lives, and how this makes them vulnerable to exploitation by people who are very willing to put in a bit of extra effort exploiting them.
  - gnabgib 5mo ago
    Do you also think about your use of AI in posts? It's such a tradeoff. On the one hand - no one wants to read, on the other no one wants you to submit AI content. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - komali2 5mo ago
      What evidence do you have to support your accusation? Emdash usage? You have an emdash in your post, do you use LLMs? Go look at my blog. Any LLM use there? I care about writing, I use LLMs to write code but never let it touch my prose, hence why I'm on a no ai webring. I'm very annoyed by your drive-by accusation.
      - dingdongditchme 5mo ago
        not the accuser but I have seen even AI to drop its usage of the emdash... thankfully! (Whats wrong with brackets?)
  - dingdongditchme 5mo ago
    Very interesting perspective, thanks for sharing. No I am not a bot, I'm for reals. My two cents with the EU tinted glasses. I completely agree with failures of governance that you mention. Especially the plane/train cost comparisons are infuriating. My personal view is though that the slippery slope of "security" -> "control" -> exploitation. I heard the phrase "absolute power corrupts absolutely" in history class and time and time again, authoritarian systems have exploited the masses more effectively. All it takes is one bad ruler to turn thing around and syphon more than is "acceptable". Not that the western world is looking that great right now in terms of class divide, but the laundry at least is open for everyone to see. Freedom > Security for me.
- qwerpy 5mo ago
  At least you get that benefit. Most cars spy on you and can’t drive themselves!
  - Cider9986 5mo ago
    The ones that can drive themselves spy on you extra good. Tesla workers shared sensitive images recorded by customer cars (https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sensitive-images-recorded-by-customer-cars-2023-04-06/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sens...)
- dghlsakjg 5mo ago
  "Sure, he's a fascist, but the trains run on time"
- gdulli 5mo ago
  It's a bummer that the rest of us have no choice but to live in the world created by the tyranny of the docile.
monocasa 5mo ago
Basically why my car is so old it doesn't even have a CAN bus. Roslin: I heard you're one of those people. You're actually afraid of computers. Adama: No, there are many computers on this ship. But they're not networked. Roslin: A computerized network would simply make it faster and easier for the teachers to be able to teach- Adama: Let me explain something to you. Many good men and women lost their lives aboard this ship because someone wanted a faster computer to make life easier. I'm sorry that I'm inconveniencing you or the teachers, but I will not allow a networked computerized system to be placed on this ship while I'm in command. Is that clear? Roslin: Yes, sir. Adama: Thank you. 'Scuse me.
- rootsudo 5mo ago
  Battlestar Galactica. Just finished watching the remake. Spoiler for a 25yr old series: they network them anyway.
  - pndy 5mo ago
    They had to calculate jump fast to join the fleet and the only way was to break the taboo - connecting the computers. Cylons seized the opportunity and despite of the software firewall they managed to periodically disturb this network. In the end all computers were disconnected. IIRC Gaeta later had to wipe drives and install operating systems again, from these fancy octagonal "cds". Found the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CkDyc1TLrQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CkDyc1TLrQ
- PenguinCoder 5mo ago
  The man (character) was a rightful, respected, hard-ass. But made good points with evidence to explain the _why_; a true leader.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5mo ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uozmyRPVRHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uozmyRPVRHk
- helsinkiandrew 5mo ago
zuzululu 5mo ago
read this as Cats are trying to spy on you and got confused when I saw that woman's face. It made think if tiny cameras embedded in cat's collars.
giantg2 5mo ago
I yanked the bridge between the rest of the car and the cellular board.
- dyauspitr 5mo ago
  Yeah, I have a Ford F150 lightning. I just pulled fuse 8. I periodically connect it so I can receive over the air updates. I hope it doesn’t store all of its data and then upload it all at once every time I put the fuse back in.
  - huflungdung 5mo ago
    [dead]
  - rootsudo 5mo ago
    You should use ForScan and disable the telemetry completely
    - dyauspitr 5mo ago
      That’s great, I didn’t know you could use software to do that and guarantee disconnection. Thank you!
  - 1shooner 5mo ago
    I can't imagine it's designed to not log unless it had a live network connection.
  - gregoriol 5mo ago
    You do understand that cars are designed to be in situations where they don't have network access for some time? parking underground and stuff?
    - dyauspitr 5mo ago
      Well my thinking is maybe the telemetry module (which has no power) might be doing the logging itself.
sfRattan 5mo ago
With cars, networked computers are encroaching on privacy from two sides: the computers inside the car sharing sensor data and the computers outside the car sharing camera data from known points on the road. Older cars may not have cellular data, and some new cars (e.g. the Slate electric car) may be specifically designed without cellular connections or with easily removable chips, but so much can still be inferred from omnipresent roadside surveillance. It's not enough even to have private cars. The solution must be legislation that limits all of: data collected by cars and cameras, data shared among third parties, and placement of cameras without informed, specific, continuing public consent. And every time flock-style cameras "could have" done some good, the surveillance state's cheerleaders will beat their drums and bleat their demands.
- plagiarist 5mo ago
  There was a HN user recently on a related post explaining to everyone that they don't need privacy because they personally aren't harmed and a murderer was caught by one of these cameras. It turns out protesters don't need privacy, either, because of various reasons. Same for women seeking adequate healthcare, I'm sure. Or LGBT people attempting to exist. Sorry, I am strawmanning a little. Actually, we'll simply have regulations on use. Regulation which will certainly be followed this time by a government with complete disregard for Constitutional rights. Certainly they will never be misused by the police currently stalking their ex-partners with existing surveillance systems despite existing stalking legislation. I wish the legislation you talked about existed already. I am dismayed by the overwhelming number of people that love being surveilled. Without them, we would have it already.
  - Gigachad 5mo ago
    The end state is something like China, where petty street level crime is essentially solved. You can leave your bike unlocked because if anyone stole it the police would find them and return it since they can track the thief on a network of cameras. But like you say, many things which have been crimes were based on unethical laws. It's easy to two sides this issue, less crime would on a whole be a good thing but some level of committing crime and getting away with it is required for society to progress.
mothballed 5mo ago
One thing I learned when I was homeless and 'stealth' camping is that if a place isn't accessible by car, and you haven't parked a car somewhere that would indicate to someone that a person had left a car and went somewhere, you are basically completely off the map and ~no one will discover you exist. Came in quite handy when finding locations to sleep without being bothered.
- petre 5mo ago
  Also leave your phone behind.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- californical 5mo ago
  What would this mean? Like would you be driving to a library and leaving a car there, then hiking into the woods nearby to camp? As someone who may occasionally need to stealth camp on road trips I’m curious what you learned, or if it would even be useful
  - soperj 5mo ago
    He was homeless. I don't think he had to worry about where he was parking his car.
transitivebs 5mo ago
read this as "Cats are trying to spy on you" lol
woopwoop 5mo ago
[dead]
madanparas 5mo ago
Hyundai received 61 cents per vehicle from Verisk. Honda received 26 cents. California's $12.75M fine against GM, the largest CCPA penalty ever, is less than the $20M GM made from selling the data.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
  Sources?
  - madanparas 5mo ago
    Per-car prices (Hyundai 61 cents, Honda 26 cents): Source: Wyden-Markey Senate letter to FTC, July 2024. https://www.motor1.com/news/728428/automakers-sold-data-cheap/ https://www.motor1.com/news/728428/automakers-sold-data-chea... https://therecord.media/markey-wyden-ask-ftc-to-probe-car-company-data-practices https://therecord.media/markey-wyden-ask-ftc-to-probe-car-co... GM $20M revenue / $12.75M California fine: Official CA AG press release, May 8, 2026. https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/when-it-comes-data-privacy-consumers-must-be-driver%E2%80%99s-seat-attorney-general https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/when-it-comes-data-pr...
- Gigachad 5mo ago
  It's also surprising how little money is being made. If I was buying a new car and there was an option where I could pay 61 cents for the privacy respecting version, it would be a no brainer.
  - dingdongditchme 5mo ago
    oh god yes... but I am carrying my self chosen surveillance device with me every single time I enter a car.
    - sanex 5mo ago
      At least your self chosen surveillance device doesn't end up reporting rapid acceleration events to LexisNexis and then Progressive.
jdw64 5mo ago
[dead]
vannevar 5mo ago
Every corporation is trying to spy on you. Why wouldn't they? There is no real punishment, and large reward. As long as that is true, superficial regulations around tracking will always be circumvented or hollowed out. We need fundamental change in the way corporations interact with society, and in what is expected of them.
- coliveira 5mo ago
  The time to do this was 30 years ago. While today we need it more than ever, it is probably already too late: corporations will find those trying to do this and stop them.
  - bflesch 5mo ago
    Indeed. It started with intercepting letters and couriers, then storing phone calls, radio communications, operating labs to build DNA databases from blood samples, and now large-scale data collection for AI. Archives tie Epstein and Maxwell individually to various companies in those areas, and a truckload of familiar family names show up along them. My assessment is that people like Thiel and Musk are not self-made, they are intelligence nepo children leveraging aristocratic/colonial offshore wealth of their families. What is better than being rich and above the law due to your role in intelligence?
    - coliveira 5mo ago
      Don't forget Bill Gates. People generally don't know he's heir of one of the richest banking families in Washington state.
      - bflesch 5mo ago
        One thing is old money, another is telling everyone you are selfmade when in fact you are a nepo kid. If you are old money you tend towards intelligence roles because they give you diplomatic passport and make you immune to the law. It is much better than owning 5 passports from some banana republic because in the end only military might of the colonial powers counts (e.g. the british crown). So many of the silicon valley idols we cherish are in fact old money, parents were in intelligence, the child made a tech company, tech was national security relevant, they got funding and daddy handled their competitors through their government institution. Have a look at founders of YC for example. Or Mr. Thiel who officially came from nothing but miraculously has a university named after him and is super-deep into intelligence. Or Musk where unfortunately a lot of archives from South Africa are unavailable for research, but his wealth definitely does not come from repatriating colonial wealth from South Africa to the US. In terms of realpolitik all is fine but if you start fabricating terrorist attacks to cover up a potential PR scandal for your shitty family you are way out of line. And at that point only the next large-scale attack helps you cover up the scandal. Several tangential names in the Epstein files fall victims to freak terrorist attacks - those are quite convenient because they get rid of idealist defectors and have a new thing to set the public agenda with. It is how the world works and we have to accept it.
isodev 5mo ago
It was totally predictable, unfortunately. At least in the EU it’s quite illegal and even if a car maker slips something in, GDPR is always there so one can request a copy and have it deleted. Wish the regulation was even stricter though.
- drnick1 5mo ago
  The GDPR is a joke. It does not prevent the real problem (data collection). Tech companies can in principle be fined for misusing your data, but most companies won't get caught or will simply pay the fine.
  - isodev 5mo ago
    GDPR is useful because it defines what must be protected (or avoided). It’s straightforward to do the right thing as a company. To make it stricter or pack a bigger punch, there needs to be stronger mandate for such legislation. And we live in interesting times… wars, previously democratic allies disintegrating, useless right wing or russia-aligned governments and MEPs, etc… So yeah, could be better but all you and I can do is talk to our MEPs, help inform people outside tech, vote this way and hope enough people share the concerns
- nbernard 5mo ago
  At the same time, EU mandates that new cars must have a system able to call help if it detects a crash with the driver not responding... And I suspect most manufacturers will argue that telemetry data are not PIIs until taken to court, so since they have to put a cellular connection anyway, why not use it?
  - mrweasel 5mo ago
    When Cariad had a data leak, they were really quick to point out that no payment information had been leaked. That really shows how little they understand about PII. Screw the payment information, I'll just cancelled that card and get any abused funds refunded by my bank, that's not neither my problem nor my concern. For some strange reason most companies do not understand the inherent danger of having e.g. location data and behavioural patterns leaked. That's much much worse than you stupid debit card number.
JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
Has anyone proposed a solution that balances privacy and consumers’ desires for connectivity features? EDIT: Sorry, I meant a legal requirement.
- dleeftink 5mo ago
  Single solutions/solutionistic approaches will likely be incompatible with either goal; consumer needs are always changing and collection capabilities expanding. Data scope and retention also need not be counter to consumer wants, and in the very least requires a mechanism that allows consumers to 'dial in' their preferences rather than wholesale accepting/rejecting terms of usage (i.e. a gradient instead of a binary). I've yet to encounter a service that has implemented this successfully.
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 5mo ago
  I think that that would have been Apple’s positioning for their car project, but that seems to have been axed. Maybe they’ll bring it back someday, I hope they do, but it’s almost guaranteed that governments will rain down regulation on them for entering too many markets at once—and yes, for building operating systems to which Apple refuses to build a backdoor to the encryption.
  - JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
    Apple expends tremendous technical resources on privacy. It truly is a shame they killed Titan. (As a consumer. As a shareholder thank god.)
- Cider9986 5mo ago
  Apple Maps gives you good mapping without tracking you, but I'm not sure how much of that is a technical solution like e2ee(your FindMy data is e2ee) or just you placing trust in Apple to not break their privacy policy.
- goda90 5mo ago
  I propose requiring explicit opt in for each piece of data collected, and explicit opt in for each piece shared to a third party. Failure to opt in for a particular piece should only result in the degradation of features that can be reasonably explained as requiring the data.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
hacker_homie 5mo ago
I would pay for a car lobotomy service.
- stronglikedan 5mo ago
  It's probably a violation of DMCA section 1201 at this point.
allthetime 5mo ago
Just here to remind you all about bicycles.
- mc3301 5mo ago
  Climate and terrain allowing, bicycles reign supreme as a transport. Especially with all the new adaptive-, electric-, accessible- cycles out there, cars should be "rare but welcome strange guests" in many neighborhoods, downtowns, etc.
  - Zambyte 5mo ago
    As you mentioned, electric bicycles flatten terrains (so do wide gear ranges), and jackets neutralize climate. There seriously isn't anywhere that is inappropriate to cycle. The only major limiting factor for people feeling comfortable biking everywhere is the threat of violence due to people driving cars.
    - bluGill 5mo ago
      Lightening is another limit. I'm going to drive to work today because there is a 20% chance of thunderstorm when I'm planning to going home, and that is too much risk.
    - jamwil 5mo ago
      Without studded tires it’s very difficult to ride a bike on snow or ice.
      - aziaziazi 5mo ago
        Have you ever tried on snow ? Many bikers roams winter Finland and Russia without studded tires. Avoiding the ice is a great advice indeed, with or without those tires.
        jamwil 5mo ago
        Actually no I can’t recall the last time I tried to ride a bike in the snow. But I know inherently that snow itself would be alright, but snow is almost always accompanied by a layer of ice below, which simply can’t be fine. This is the case in Canada at least.
mulderc 5mo ago
Given how insane people are driving today, I sort of want a car to snitch on bad drivers.
- Zambyte 5mo ago
  We need viable, safe, comfortable alternatives to driving everywhere.
  - mulderc 5mo ago
    I live in the pacific NW and feel that we do largely have those but people don't know about them or don't want to use them. For example, the easiest way for me to get to Portland/Seattle/Vancouver is by far the train. In none of those cities would I recommend driving as public transit is better in almost all cases. I live in a medium sized city and even here we only drive about once a week. So it is totally possible but it takes some additional planning and tradeoffs that many people don't want to do.
    - Zambyte 5mo ago
      Most cities have alternatives to driving simply because they geometrically have to. When I say there should be viable alternatives to driving everywhere, I mean small, rural towns as well. I live in a well-connected, medium sized city in the North East, without a car. My parents live in a very rural town about 300 miles away. I can walk from my apartment to a local train, and then from there get to an Amtrak that will take me to 30 miles from my parents house. While I could technically bike that, that is quite the hike to make after 300 Amtrak miles. Especially fearing for my life sharing the road with distracted drivers. There is no reason for there to not be regular bus service from the city that I get off Amtrak in to the larger town between my parents and the station, and between my parents smaller town and the larger one. In a modern, developed nation I would be able to make that trip entirely by transit and walking. And by "modern" I mean as of the 1860s, because back then it was connected by train!
deleted 5mo ago
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jillesvangurp 5mo ago
Machines don't spy. People and governments do. Alarmist articles like this make good click baity head lines. But from a technical point of view there isn't a whole lot of new information here. Most people use smart phones. Those are generally GPS equipped and can also be triangulated between cell towers down to a few hundred meters. When using a WIFI, that gets a lot better. And they have a few other active radios as well (uwb, bluetooth, nfc, etc.). And they have active microphones that respond to phrases like "Siri!", "Hey Google!", etc. And they probably have exploitable back doors that shady government agencies might be exploiting. At least popular spy fiction from a quarter century ago suggests that governments might be doing such things. You'd have to assume they are at this point and that there's some level of truth to these Hollywood spy fantasies. Your car might be reporting its location and listening in on conversations as well but it's not adding a whole lot of new information. Most new cars actually come with induction phone chargers. Drivers put their phone right next to them to charge. Very convenient. And it connects to the car even! Shock horror. Most of the tracking and spying tech in the car is a bit redundant if you consider that. Nice to get a bit clearer audio from some extra microphones and slightly better precision of the user's location. But the good news is that most car drivers don't car pool and sit in the traffic jam alone mostly not having meetings. They might be taking calls (on their phone). But otherwise, there isn't a lot to spy on that wasn't already well covered for those interested in doing the spying. If you are worried about being spied on, have your meetings in a Faraday cage or in nature far away from any devices. And don't take your smart phones anywhere near those meetings. Also consider wearing a tin foil hat. And maybe don't hold your secret meetings in cars. You'll be fine. Otherwise, the bad news is that you are probably in reach of a vast network of cameras, active microphones, etc. regardless of what you do with your personal devices (including your car). You have been for the past few decades.
- Cider9986 5mo ago
  You are basically saying, "I'm spied on at school, therefore I'm paranoid if I don't want to be spied on at home in my bedroom." Every bit of surveillance should be prevented, but we shouldn't throw it all away if we can't be perfect.
  - 5mo ago
deleted 5mo ago
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userbinator 5mo ago
For those wondering, you can still buy all the major components for a simple pre-computerised car from the aftermarket, and classic cars are definitely going to continue rising in value.
- b65e8bee43c2ed0 5mo ago
  until they are outlawed. we are nowhere near done thinking of the children.
  - bluGill 5mo ago
    They won't be. The newer classics still have a lot of poor people driving them and so they don't date. The older ones so few exists (and most are only used in parades or Sunday drives) and so it isn't worth the bother - it wouldn't make a difference and would make the few people who have them mad. Unless we see a great push in good public transit such that most people choose not to drive. However that won't happen: Republicans hate transit, and Democrats like transit for non-transportation reasons.
- bluGill 5mo ago
  Classic cars are raising in value. Be very careful saying they are worth it. For the average driver, particularly if they're not doing their own maintenance, it eventually comes to the point where keeping that cost of car on the road is going to cost more than just buying a new one. So long as it's only basic maintenance and maybe a simple engine will be built, it's not a big deal. However, as the body starts rusting out and other things start failing, it quickly becomes a much more expensive repair than you realize. Electric car fans keep talking about how you don't have engine and transmission maintenance, which is true. However, those are also self-contained parts that have a lot of spare parts available and plenty of expertise in maintaining and so you can actually rebuild them as needed and it's not too expensive. There's also a lot of automation in rebuilding those parts. However, if it starts seeing all the body parts failing and the frame rusting out, which will happen eventually, it's much more expensive because there's a lot more labor and parts are often less available. Don't get me wrong. Most people give up on their cars long before they reach the point that new is cheaper.
soloto 5mo ago
> There are no rules limiting what the car companies can do with that information. More and more we are becoming subjects to be controlled and exploited by whoever has the means to do it, with the state as an accomplice and an interested party. Piece by piece, our agency is being taken away and we are too complacent and learnedly helpless to do anything about it.
warumdarum 5mo ago
So why all this? Because our governments havr programs that reveal a less ideal picture of mankind under economic stress. There is no progress, there is no "reprogramming " of human nature with education. Its a illusion, kept alive by a costly piece of planet beeing eaten. But i you regress under stress, technology becomes a trap. The very thing allowing us to stay sane and civilized, winds up with destructive potential like a bomb. So, the panopticon is a lesser evil, compared to everyone rushing for the replicators to get a bomb to throw at their fellow man. Technological utopism is not a ideology, its a diagnosis. So a panopticon is a good thing, but the center does not hold, government and companies abuse powers. A resistace culture is needed that replaces centralized panopticons with public open source panopticons and feeds power thirsty actors wrowrong information.
Mawr 5mo ago
> Some of it may even raise your insurance costs. > [...] > The information they harvest can include [...] whether you buckle your seatbelt, drive too fast or brake too hard. In a way this is good -- I want bad drivers to be incentivized to change their behavior. Just need to legislate away all the other, actually creepy stuff. Just.
- edrobap 5mo ago
  [dead]
rsamtravis 5mo ago
I hate how all of networked computing is just a trillion-dollar mechanism to make me watch advertisements for shit I don't want.
DoctorOetker 5mo ago
I know braking data is used to identify dangerous road sites / locations, and dangerous prior driving behavior of this car. The dangerous road site versus driver can be disentangled by statistics: if the road site / location results in similar braking behavior in other drivers, its more associated to the site, if the braking behavior is more correlated with the driver, its more attributable to this driver. However most people tend to have relatively regular commutes due to location of their home, their job, and their working hours, their shopping patterns etc. so it still entangled with other drivers, since they will tend to encounter the same subset of drivers, also having their own relatively steady probabilistic patterns. For example, when a user suddenly brakes with large delta v, is it really due to this driver's aptitude to not predict the results of their driving decisions? Or is it because they frequently encounter the same reckless drivers? It seems this could also be detected: for each braking event, consider a disc of sufficient radius and similarily downscore other drivers in this disc, use proper Bayesian inference of course, not naive linear score incrementing decrementing... Simply downrating the driver of the braking vehicle risks taxing the less reckless chickens vis-a-vis the dare's in chicken or dare scenario's, naive calculations risk taxing specifically those parties that decrease the total kinetic energy in potentially dangerous situations, if the reckless drivers don't flinch even if it would have gotten them into trouble if a chicken had been a reckless dare.
- kube-system 5mo ago
  The insurance company doesn’t care whether the risk is because of the driver or because of the road that the driver is on. They are on the hook for the risk either way. This is why insurance companies also use your zip code to rate you. If you live near roads with more losses, you are more likely to incur losses. Doesn’t matter if you’re a great driver or not — someone might hit you.
jmward01 5mo ago
Hey major CEOs, if you think this is all so ok then please start publicly publishing your real-time driving/sensor data to your privacy policy pages as an example of what you collect.
- cferry 5mo ago
  Get ready to hear something along the lines of "Rules for thee but not for me"...
  - yoyohello13 5mo ago
    This was literally in the Palantir manifesto posted a couple months ago. Karp called for more surveillance of the general population, but also more privacy for the tech billionaires and government officials.
phantomathkg 5mo ago
It is fascinating that we still haven’t have a law that forbid the car company from automatically share the data. The car owner is buying a car, using computer to handle complicate hardware I understand, but at what point it make sense to share the data automatically without consent?
- defrost 5mo ago
  > but at what point it make sense to share the data automatically without consent? At the point a third party offers $$$ to car company, or a state entity leverages some state power to coerce car company.
- jandrewrogers 5mo ago
  I haven’t kept up with it but at least at one point the regulations gave both the automotive manufacturer and national governments rights to the data. What those entities do with the data is up to them. A lot of this was done under the auspices of international treaties. When those regulations were written the sensing capability was much less invasive. This has been in the works internationally since the 1990s. Most governments don’t collect this data because they lack the technical capacity to do so. The legal frameworks were put in place long before the infrastructure.
- spockz 5mo ago
  I think GDPR should already covers this. What I’m unsure about is whether accepting one of the items in the menu on purchase of the car then allows it again because of “giving consent”.
- itopaloglu83 5mo ago
  In Honda vehicles, you can turn it off but then it will show a permanent warning on your dash saying your spying settings are off and keeps bugging you as if you’re out of fuel.
  - amelius 5mo ago
    Yes, we also need laws against dark patterns.
carycara 5mo ago
There is an "offline" or "incognito" mode available for most cars, but that means losing features like live traffic.
dackdel 5mo ago
trying? its like saying israel is trying to bomb iran. cars ARE spying on you.
hrisen 5mo ago
From someone who is working on this field, I do agree that we are collecting huge and unimaginable amount of personal customer data - and continuously transmit them to cloud via TCU which has persistent internet connection. But there is still some time for the (western/traditional) OEMs to catch up. They have so much data but have no idea what to do with it. Most of the times, it just stays there doing nothing and OEMs have no idea about it. On the other hand, Chinese OEMs are very saavy in this area. They know what to do with your data (Mobile phones background helps a lot here) and they're doing everything they can to get an edge over all other OEMs. This is why the industry has been going towards "who has the best tech and apps" instead of "who gives safest chassis and better engines/gearboxes"
fergie 5mo ago
What I actually want is a no-tech, half-price, electric car with a long range.
- manincharge 5mo ago
  No-tech car is a contradiction in terms. Even horse carriages are "tech".
  - fergie 5mo ago
    Fair. What I mean is no internet connectivity, and no electronics outside of the drivetrain.
hrisen 5mo ago
[flagged]
coolThingsFirst 5mo ago
I know, especially, unemployed cats.
girlwhocode 5mo ago
I was just thinking about this, how they have so many road driving data? there has to be some companies who are collecting and selling this data.
jimnotgym 5mo ago
Yet another reason to keep my 2012 Ford Focus...
prism56 5mo ago
I have a Kia that's networked (since disabled). I did a GDPR data request and after a couple of weeks they sent me numerous CSV files and I was a little amused at some of the data fields. Here's some examples I thought aren't for my benefit. - How long I let the car warmup before driving after every start, - max speed, - acceleration rates, - Lateral acceleration around corners tagged with GPS data, - every GPS datapoint, - destinations and exactly when I set off and arrived
- OptionOfT 5mo ago
  > How long I let the car warmup before driving after every start Tangentially related: I wish I could pull data on a used car to check whether the previous owner waited to floor the car until the car is on temperature.
  - prism56 5mo ago
    Yeah agreed, the data itself I don't have an issue with at all and this kind of info is stored on the vehicle. 1) We should have easy access to it. 2) Why is it instantly uploaded to some cloud, what I haven't done is tried to review how the data is used.
Ravus 5mo ago
I notice a different, amazing angle that doesn't really stand out in current comments. This is a BBC article. UK public broadcasting, paid with taxpayer money and aggressively collected - one of the first things I got when moving to a new home in the UK was letters from tv licensing. Yet it's all "In the United States". "Federal Law and state law". The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that, this Maryland researcher for Mozilla there. There are two references to the UK and Europe (lumped together) that vaguely say, "It's a little better for certain classes of data" and "you can request your data". Which effectively means, "GDPR exists and the UK has its version".
- bboreham 5mo ago
  I get the following banner: > This website is produced by BBC Global News Ltd, a commercial company that is part of BBC Studios, owned by the BBC (and just the BBC). No money from the licence fee was used to create this website.
  - Ravus 5mo ago
    Thank you. I was missing that info because I do not get that banner, currently surfing that site from the EU without any login. Visiting the same URL on the .co.uk version gives me a multi-article scroller with different layout and links (including a "What is BBC Future?"), but no trace of that banner. Guessing that you're in the UK from your comment history, my best guess is that they decide whether to serve that banner via geofencing.
SapporoChris 5mo ago
Do passengers have any rights against their personal data being collected when riding (not driving) in someone else's vehicle? I tried to look this up on my own but my results were always polluted with public transportation, or vehicle accident situations or just this gem "share your concerns with your driver, they can explain the data being collected".
- bluGill 5mo ago
  You probably do, but it would cost you tens of million in lawyer costs that you won't get back.
  - SapporoChris 5mo ago
    I'll keep wearing my surgical mask, dark glasses and tin foil hat.
qmr 5mo ago
Plenty of cheap, safe, reliable, and easy to repair vehicles on Facebook marketplace and craigslist without this bullshit. Personal inventory: Suzuki DL-650 V-Strom 650 $3500 1999 SW1 $1500 1998 SL2 $1500 1998 SL2 $1500 2005 Sienna $1000 (!). This one does have a crash "black box" but no phone home bullshit. I'd take any of them across the country tomorrow.
- ryan42 5mo ago
  Saturn is such a good underdog car brand. Take care of them there aren't too many on the road anymore. I want to someday get my family car from my childhood if I can find one. 1994 Pontiac Grand Prix
kleiba2 5mo ago
[dead]
ourmandave 5mo ago
Is there any PSAs about this I could share with those who are totally unaware or "don't think it's that bad"? My wake up moment was at Walmart self-check out when there was an error and the monitor showed screen shots of me from every angle. "So that's what the back of my head looks like." That's when you notice they have more cameras than casinos.
nntwozz 5mo ago
So you're telling me Mad Max is actually utopian?
- manincharge 5mo ago
  The future ain't what it used to be.
coldtea 5mo ago
Thankfully I have one with zero connectivity. Problem solved.
- gregoriol 5mo ago
  Which model is it? There has been no zero connectivity cars produced in the last 10 years or so, except maybe some niche manufacturer?
  - LeifCarrotson 5mo ago
    I've got a couple older cars (2010, 2003), but the only new one I'm excited about - the only actually new car I've ever considered buying - is the Slate truck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_G4OfXTlvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_G4OfXTlvs It has an LCD for the gauges and backup camera, but no modem and no surveillance tech. Bring your own phone/tablet if you want navigation or audio.
bilsbie 5mo ago
I’ve always wondered if someone could start a company that removes all this stuff. It seems like it would be in high demand.
scottkuhn 5mo ago
When will we ge able to trust our data and where it goes? Even if you opt out, are they really opting you out? You can't verify, impossible.
classified 5mo ago
And a milquetoasted editorialized title again. Who does that?
randerson 5mo ago
I requested my personal data from Lexus to see what they had on me. Not only did they store sensitive data about me, it also included personal data about 2 random Toyota owners who were incorrectly linked to my email address. I could see their full names, phone numbers, home addresses, details about their cars and every interaction they'd had with their dealers. It is a goldmine for a bad actor. And this is despite me not signing up for "Connected Services", because Toyota/Lexus's privacy notice says they too may sell your location and driving behavior to third parties including insurance companies if you enable features like Emergency SOS.
Rounin 5mo ago
A lot of articles and videos are reporting on this, but so far there's very little comprehensive information about what brands don't do this. Clearly, the 25 major brands examined by Mozilla collect a ton of data. Allegedly, BYD does so as well. What about the Slate truck? Was that even released? What about some of the Indian brands? Surely there's some useful car being produced somewhere that's just a car?

508 points by 1vuio0pswjnm7 5mo ago

boneghost 5mo ago

Trying?

dinkleberg 5mo ago
Mine isn't doing too great of a job. It has a sketchy face cam that detects who the driver is and greets you and changes some settings. But half of the time it can't identify me.
ssl-3 5mo ago
Yeah. Trying. Now that we've got trillion-dollar computing machines that, at best, output indeterminate results, we've entered the realm where it is clear that even the very best computers are only capable of trying to do things. Sometimes they succeed, and sometimes they fail -- but they still try anyway. Therefore, in journalist logic: It's reasonable to expect that lesser computers have been this way all along.

petra303 5mo ago

[flagged]

komali2 5mo ago
I do wonder about the tradeoff between convenience and the various negative externalities. Example: trains are better for the environment than planes. I need to get from Copenhagen to London for a wedding next month. The train schedule is roughly 20 hours long, starts at 6am, several transfers, and something in the range of 250USD. On Skyscanner there's flights from Copenhagen to London essentially every 20 minutes, it takes an hour, and it costs 50USD. No wonder the ferry to London ended! No wonder everyone chooses the flight! If you walk around Taiwan you'll see all sorts of failures of governance. 60 year old crumbling buildings with double stacked illegal builds on top, each floor worth 1 mil USD because there's just no supply here. Pedestrian hell because it takes coordination with 6 different agencies to get a green line fake sidewalk put on the road, let alone an actual infrastructure change. Rapidly escalating in-your-face wealth concentration as most new buildings are luxury condos that are immediately purchased, held, and kept empty by the ultra wealthy while their failsons cruise around Taipei in Lamborghinis, flagrantly violating traffic laws. PRC propaganda against us is escalating and as soon as they learn to stop calling us separatists (and drop the Han Chauvinism angle that just centers Taiwanese identity around the island itself) and instead focus on how shit in the PRC Just Gets Done mostly to the benefit of the working class, you just gotta trade the right to protest and the right to privacy, I think that'll be the end of Taiwan sovereignty. I mean, wouldn't most people take that trade? A small increase in quality of life, an escalation in security and certainty, and all it means is you have to be a little more careful about what you say online? I think about this a lot. I think this is the root of a lot of the problems that grew in our world - the absolutely understandable tendency in people to just want to get on in their lives, and how this makes them vulnerable to exploitation by people who are very willing to put in a bit of extra effort exploiting them.
- gnabgib 5mo ago
  Do you also think about your use of AI in posts? It's such a tradeoff. On the one hand - no one wants to read, on the other no one wants you to submit AI content. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - komali2 5mo ago
    What evidence do you have to support your accusation? Emdash usage? You have an emdash in your post, do you use LLMs? Go look at my blog. Any LLM use there? I care about writing, I use LLMs to write code but never let it touch my prose, hence why I'm on a no ai webring. I'm very annoyed by your drive-by accusation.
    - dingdongditchme 5mo ago
      not the accuser but I have seen even AI to drop its usage of the emdash... thankfully! (Whats wrong with brackets?)
- dingdongditchme 5mo ago
  Very interesting perspective, thanks for sharing. No I am not a bot, I'm for reals. My two cents with the EU tinted glasses. I completely agree with failures of governance that you mention. Especially the plane/train cost comparisons are infuriating. My personal view is though that the slippery slope of "security" -> "control" -> exploitation. I heard the phrase "absolute power corrupts absolutely" in history class and time and time again, authoritarian systems have exploited the masses more effectively. All it takes is one bad ruler to turn thing around and syphon more than is "acceptable". Not that the western world is looking that great right now in terms of class divide, but the laundry at least is open for everyone to see. Freedom > Security for me.
qwerpy 5mo ago
At least you get that benefit. Most cars spy on you and can’t drive themselves!
- Cider9986 5mo ago
  The ones that can drive themselves spy on you extra good. Tesla workers shared sensitive images recorded by customer cars (https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sensitive-images-recorded-by-customer-cars-2023-04-06/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sens...)
dghlsakjg 5mo ago
"Sure, he's a fascist, but the trains run on time"
gdulli 5mo ago
It's a bummer that the rest of us have no choice but to live in the world created by the tyranny of the docile.

monocasa 5mo ago

Basically why my car is so old it doesn't even have a CAN bus. Roslin: I heard you're one of those people. You're actually afraid of computers. Adama: No, there are many computers on this ship. But they're not networked. Roslin: A computerized network would simply make it faster and easier for the teachers to be able to teach- Adama: Let me explain something to you. Many good men and women lost their lives aboard this ship because someone wanted a faster computer to make life easier. I'm sorry that I'm inconveniencing you or the teachers, but I will not allow a networked computerized system to be placed on this ship while I'm in command. Is that clear? Roslin: Yes, sir. Adama: Thank you. 'Scuse me.

rootsudo 5mo ago
Battlestar Galactica. Just finished watching the remake. Spoiler for a 25yr old series: they network them anyway.
- pndy 5mo ago
  They had to calculate jump fast to join the fleet and the only way was to break the taboo - connecting the computers. Cylons seized the opportunity and despite of the software firewall they managed to periodically disturb this network. In the end all computers were disconnected. IIRC Gaeta later had to wipe drives and install operating systems again, from these fancy octagonal "cds". Found the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CkDyc1TLrQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CkDyc1TLrQ
PenguinCoder 5mo ago
The man (character) was a rightful, respected, hard-ass. But made good points with evidence to explain the _why_; a true leader.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5mo ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uozmyRPVRHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uozmyRPVRHk
helsinkiandrew 5mo ago

zuzululu 5mo ago

read this as Cats are trying to spy on you and got confused when I saw that woman's face. It made think if tiny cameras embedded in cat's collars.

giantg2 5mo ago

I yanked the bridge between the rest of the car and the cellular board.

dyauspitr 5mo ago
Yeah, I have a Ford F150 lightning. I just pulled fuse 8. I periodically connect it so I can receive over the air updates. I hope it doesn’t store all of its data and then upload it all at once every time I put the fuse back in.
- huflungdung 5mo ago
  [dead]
- rootsudo 5mo ago
  You should use ForScan and disable the telemetry completely
  - dyauspitr 5mo ago
    That’s great, I didn’t know you could use software to do that and guarantee disconnection. Thank you!
- 1shooner 5mo ago
  I can't imagine it's designed to not log unless it had a live network connection.
- gregoriol 5mo ago
  You do understand that cars are designed to be in situations where they don't have network access for some time? parking underground and stuff?
  - dyauspitr 5mo ago
    Well my thinking is maybe the telemetry module (which has no power) might be doing the logging itself.

sfRattan 5mo ago

With cars, networked computers are encroaching on privacy from two sides: the computers inside the car sharing sensor data and the computers outside the car sharing camera data from known points on the road. Older cars may not have cellular data, and some new cars (e.g. the Slate electric car) may be specifically designed without cellular connections or with easily removable chips, but so much can still be inferred from omnipresent roadside surveillance. It's not enough even to have private cars. The solution must be legislation that limits all of: data collected by cars and cameras, data shared among third parties, and placement of cameras without informed, specific, continuing public consent. And every time flock-style cameras "could have" done some good, the surveillance state's cheerleaders will beat their drums and bleat their demands.

plagiarist 5mo ago
There was a HN user recently on a related post explaining to everyone that they don't need privacy because they personally aren't harmed and a murderer was caught by one of these cameras. It turns out protesters don't need privacy, either, because of various reasons. Same for women seeking adequate healthcare, I'm sure. Or LGBT people attempting to exist. Sorry, I am strawmanning a little. Actually, we'll simply have regulations on use. Regulation which will certainly be followed this time by a government with complete disregard for Constitutional rights. Certainly they will never be misused by the police currently stalking their ex-partners with existing surveillance systems despite existing stalking legislation. I wish the legislation you talked about existed already. I am dismayed by the overwhelming number of people that love being surveilled. Without them, we would have it already.
- Gigachad 5mo ago
  The end state is something like China, where petty street level crime is essentially solved. You can leave your bike unlocked because if anyone stole it the police would find them and return it since they can track the thief on a network of cameras. But like you say, many things which have been crimes were based on unethical laws. It's easy to two sides this issue, less crime would on a whole be a good thing but some level of committing crime and getting away with it is required for society to progress.

mothballed 5mo ago

One thing I learned when I was homeless and 'stealth' camping is that if a place isn't accessible by car, and you haven't parked a car somewhere that would indicate to someone that a person had left a car and went somewhere, you are basically completely off the map and ~no one will discover you exist. Came in quite handy when finding locations to sleep without being bothered.

petre 5mo ago
Also leave your phone behind.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
californical 5mo ago
What would this mean? Like would you be driving to a library and leaving a car there, then hiking into the woods nearby to camp? As someone who may occasionally need to stealth camp on road trips I’m curious what you learned, or if it would even be useful
- soperj 5mo ago
  He was homeless. I don't think he had to worry about where he was parking his car.

transitivebs 5mo ago

read this as "Cats are trying to spy on you" lol

woopwoop 5mo ago

[dead]

madanparas 5mo ago

Hyundai received 61 cents per vehicle from Verisk. Honda received 26 cents. California's $12.75M fine against GM, the largest CCPA penalty ever, is less than the $20M GM made from selling the data.

JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
Sources?
- madanparas 5mo ago
  Per-car prices (Hyundai 61 cents, Honda 26 cents): Source: Wyden-Markey Senate letter to FTC, July 2024. https://www.motor1.com/news/728428/automakers-sold-data-cheap/ https://www.motor1.com/news/728428/automakers-sold-data-chea... https://therecord.media/markey-wyden-ask-ftc-to-probe-car-company-data-practices https://therecord.media/markey-wyden-ask-ftc-to-probe-car-co... GM $20M revenue / $12.75M California fine: Official CA AG press release, May 8, 2026. https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/when-it-comes-data-privacy-consumers-must-be-driver%E2%80%99s-seat-attorney-general https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/when-it-comes-data-pr...
Gigachad 5mo ago
It's also surprising how little money is being made. If I was buying a new car and there was an option where I could pay 61 cents for the privacy respecting version, it would be a no brainer.
- dingdongditchme 5mo ago
  oh god yes... but I am carrying my self chosen surveillance device with me every single time I enter a car.
  - sanex 5mo ago
    At least your self chosen surveillance device doesn't end up reporting rapid acceleration events to LexisNexis and then Progressive.

jdw64 5mo ago

[dead]

vannevar 5mo ago

Every corporation is trying to spy on you. Why wouldn't they? There is no real punishment, and large reward. As long as that is true, superficial regulations around tracking will always be circumvented or hollowed out. We need fundamental change in the way corporations interact with society, and in what is expected of them.

coliveira 5mo ago
The time to do this was 30 years ago. While today we need it more than ever, it is probably already too late: corporations will find those trying to do this and stop them.
- bflesch 5mo ago
  Indeed. It started with intercepting letters and couriers, then storing phone calls, radio communications, operating labs to build DNA databases from blood samples, and now large-scale data collection for AI. Archives tie Epstein and Maxwell individually to various companies in those areas, and a truckload of familiar family names show up along them. My assessment is that people like Thiel and Musk are not self-made, they are intelligence nepo children leveraging aristocratic/colonial offshore wealth of their families. What is better than being rich and above the law due to your role in intelligence?
  - coliveira 5mo ago
    Don't forget Bill Gates. People generally don't know he's heir of one of the richest banking families in Washington state.
    - bflesch 5mo ago
      One thing is old money, another is telling everyone you are selfmade when in fact you are a nepo kid. If you are old money you tend towards intelligence roles because they give you diplomatic passport and make you immune to the law. It is much better than owning 5 passports from some banana republic because in the end only military might of the colonial powers counts (e.g. the british crown). So many of the silicon valley idols we cherish are in fact old money, parents were in intelligence, the child made a tech company, tech was national security relevant, they got funding and daddy handled their competitors through their government institution. Have a look at founders of YC for example. Or Mr. Thiel who officially came from nothing but miraculously has a university named after him and is super-deep into intelligence. Or Musk where unfortunately a lot of archives from South Africa are unavailable for research, but his wealth definitely does not come from repatriating colonial wealth from South Africa to the US. In terms of realpolitik all is fine but if you start fabricating terrorist attacks to cover up a potential PR scandal for your shitty family you are way out of line. And at that point only the next large-scale attack helps you cover up the scandal. Several tangential names in the Epstein files fall victims to freak terrorist attacks - those are quite convenient because they get rid of idealist defectors and have a new thing to set the public agenda with. It is how the world works and we have to accept it.

isodev 5mo ago

It was totally predictable, unfortunately. At least in the EU it’s quite illegal and even if a car maker slips something in, GDPR is always there so one can request a copy and have it deleted. Wish the regulation was even stricter though.

drnick1 5mo ago
The GDPR is a joke. It does not prevent the real problem (data collection). Tech companies can in principle be fined for misusing your data, but most companies won't get caught or will simply pay the fine.
- isodev 5mo ago
  GDPR is useful because it defines what must be protected (or avoided). It’s straightforward to do the right thing as a company. To make it stricter or pack a bigger punch, there needs to be stronger mandate for such legislation. And we live in interesting times… wars, previously democratic allies disintegrating, useless right wing or russia-aligned governments and MEPs, etc… So yeah, could be better but all you and I can do is talk to our MEPs, help inform people outside tech, vote this way and hope enough people share the concerns
nbernard 5mo ago
At the same time, EU mandates that new cars must have a system able to call help if it detects a crash with the driver not responding... And I suspect most manufacturers will argue that telemetry data are not PIIs until taken to court, so since they have to put a cellular connection anyway, why not use it?
- mrweasel 5mo ago
  When Cariad had a data leak, they were really quick to point out that no payment information had been leaked. That really shows how little they understand about PII. Screw the payment information, I'll just cancelled that card and get any abused funds refunded by my bank, that's not neither my problem nor my concern. For some strange reason most companies do not understand the inherent danger of having e.g. location data and behavioural patterns leaked. That's much much worse than you stupid debit card number.

JumpCrisscross 5mo ago

Has anyone proposed a solution that balances privacy and consumers’ desires for connectivity features? EDIT: Sorry, I meant a legal requirement.

dleeftink 5mo ago
Single solutions/solutionistic approaches will likely be incompatible with either goal; consumer needs are always changing and collection capabilities expanding. Data scope and retention also need not be counter to consumer wants, and in the very least requires a mechanism that allows consumers to 'dial in' their preferences rather than wholesale accepting/rejecting terms of usage (i.e. a gradient instead of a binary). I've yet to encounter a service that has implemented this successfully.
rTX5CMRXIfFG 5mo ago
I think that that would have been Apple’s positioning for their car project, but that seems to have been axed. Maybe they’ll bring it back someday, I hope they do, but it’s almost guaranteed that governments will rain down regulation on them for entering too many markets at once—and yes, for building operating systems to which Apple refuses to build a backdoor to the encryption.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
  Apple expends tremendous technical resources on privacy. It truly is a shame they killed Titan. (As a consumer. As a shareholder thank god.)
Cider9986 5mo ago
Apple Maps gives you good mapping without tracking you, but I'm not sure how much of that is a technical solution like e2ee(your FindMy data is e2ee) or just you placing trust in Apple to not break their privacy policy.
goda90 5mo ago
I propose requiring explicit opt in for each piece of data collected, and explicit opt in for each piece shared to a third party. Failure to opt in for a particular piece should only result in the degradation of features that can be reasonably explained as requiring the data.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

hacker_homie 5mo ago

I would pay for a car lobotomy service.

stronglikedan 5mo ago
It's probably a violation of DMCA section 1201 at this point.

allthetime 5mo ago

Just here to remind you all about bicycles.

mc3301 5mo ago
Climate and terrain allowing, bicycles reign supreme as a transport. Especially with all the new adaptive-, electric-, accessible- cycles out there, cars should be "rare but welcome strange guests" in many neighborhoods, downtowns, etc.
- Zambyte 5mo ago
  As you mentioned, electric bicycles flatten terrains (so do wide gear ranges), and jackets neutralize climate. There seriously isn't anywhere that is inappropriate to cycle. The only major limiting factor for people feeling comfortable biking everywhere is the threat of violence due to people driving cars.
  - bluGill 5mo ago
    Lightening is another limit. I'm going to drive to work today because there is a 20% chance of thunderstorm when I'm planning to going home, and that is too much risk.
  - jamwil 5mo ago
    Without studded tires it’s very difficult to ride a bike on snow or ice.
    - aziaziazi 5mo ago
      Have you ever tried on snow ? Many bikers roams winter Finland and Russia without studded tires. Avoiding the ice is a great advice indeed, with or without those tires.
      - jamwil 5mo ago
        Actually no I can’t recall the last time I tried to ride a bike in the snow. But I know inherently that snow itself would be alright, but snow is almost always accompanied by a layer of ice below, which simply can’t be fine. This is the case in Canada at least.

mulderc 5mo ago

Given how insane people are driving today, I sort of want a car to snitch on bad drivers.

Zambyte 5mo ago
We need viable, safe, comfortable alternatives to driving everywhere.
- mulderc 5mo ago
  I live in the pacific NW and feel that we do largely have those but people don't know about them or don't want to use them. For example, the easiest way for me to get to Portland/Seattle/Vancouver is by far the train. In none of those cities would I recommend driving as public transit is better in almost all cases. I live in a medium sized city and even here we only drive about once a week. So it is totally possible but it takes some additional planning and tradeoffs that many people don't want to do.
  - Zambyte 5mo ago
    Most cities have alternatives to driving simply because they geometrically have to. When I say there should be viable alternatives to driving everywhere, I mean small, rural towns as well. I live in a well-connected, medium sized city in the North East, without a car. My parents live in a very rural town about 300 miles away. I can walk from my apartment to a local train, and then from there get to an Amtrak that will take me to 30 miles from my parents house. While I could technically bike that, that is quite the hike to make after 300 Amtrak miles. Especially fearing for my life sharing the road with distracted drivers. There is no reason for there to not be regular bus service from the city that I get off Amtrak in to the larger town between my parents and the station, and between my parents smaller town and the larger one. In a modern, developed nation I would be able to make that trip entirely by transit and walking. And by "modern" I mean as of the 1860s, because back then it was connected by train!

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

jillesvangurp 5mo ago

Machines don't spy. People and governments do. Alarmist articles like this make good click baity head lines. But from a technical point of view there isn't a whole lot of new information here. Most people use smart phones. Those are generally GPS equipped and can also be triangulated between cell towers down to a few hundred meters. When using a WIFI, that gets a lot better. And they have a few other active radios as well (uwb, bluetooth, nfc, etc.). And they have active microphones that respond to phrases like "Siri!", "Hey Google!", etc. And they probably have exploitable back doors that shady government agencies might be exploiting. At least popular spy fiction from a quarter century ago suggests that governments might be doing such things. You'd have to assume they are at this point and that there's some level of truth to these Hollywood spy fantasies. Your car might be reporting its location and listening in on conversations as well but it's not adding a whole lot of new information. Most new cars actually come with induction phone chargers. Drivers put their phone right next to them to charge. Very convenient. And it connects to the car even! Shock horror. Most of the tracking and spying tech in the car is a bit redundant if you consider that. Nice to get a bit clearer audio from some extra microphones and slightly better precision of the user's location. But the good news is that most car drivers don't car pool and sit in the traffic jam alone mostly not having meetings. They might be taking calls (on their phone). But otherwise, there isn't a lot to spy on that wasn't already well covered for those interested in doing the spying. If you are worried about being spied on, have your meetings in a Faraday cage or in nature far away from any devices. And don't take your smart phones anywhere near those meetings. Also consider wearing a tin foil hat. And maybe don't hold your secret meetings in cars. You'll be fine. Otherwise, the bad news is that you are probably in reach of a vast network of cameras, active microphones, etc. regardless of what you do with your personal devices (including your car). You have been for the past few decades.

Cider9986 5mo ago
You are basically saying, "I'm spied on at school, therefore I'm paranoid if I don't want to be spied on at home in my bedroom." Every bit of surveillance should be prevented, but we shouldn't throw it all away if we can't be perfect.
- 5mo ago

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

userbinator 5mo ago

For those wondering, you can still buy all the major components for a simple pre-computerised car from the aftermarket, and classic cars are definitely going to continue rising in value.

b65e8bee43c2ed0 5mo ago
until they are outlawed. we are nowhere near done thinking of the children.
- bluGill 5mo ago
  They won't be. The newer classics still have a lot of poor people driving them and so they don't date. The older ones so few exists (and most are only used in parades or Sunday drives) and so it isn't worth the bother - it wouldn't make a difference and would make the few people who have them mad. Unless we see a great push in good public transit such that most people choose not to drive. However that won't happen: Republicans hate transit, and Democrats like transit for non-transportation reasons.
bluGill 5mo ago
Classic cars are raising in value. Be very careful saying they are worth it. For the average driver, particularly if they're not doing their own maintenance, it eventually comes to the point where keeping that cost of car on the road is going to cost more than just buying a new one. So long as it's only basic maintenance and maybe a simple engine will be built, it's not a big deal. However, as the body starts rusting out and other things start failing, it quickly becomes a much more expensive repair than you realize. Electric car fans keep talking about how you don't have engine and transmission maintenance, which is true. However, those are also self-contained parts that have a lot of spare parts available and plenty of expertise in maintaining and so you can actually rebuild them as needed and it's not too expensive. There's also a lot of automation in rebuilding those parts. However, if it starts seeing all the body parts failing and the frame rusting out, which will happen eventually, it's much more expensive because there's a lot more labor and parts are often less available. Don't get me wrong. Most people give up on their cars long before they reach the point that new is cheaper.

soloto 5mo ago

> There are no rules limiting what the car companies can do with that information. More and more we are becoming subjects to be controlled and exploited by whoever has the means to do it, with the state as an accomplice and an interested party. Piece by piece, our agency is being taken away and we are too complacent and learnedly helpless to do anything about it.

warumdarum 5mo ago

So why all this? Because our governments havr programs that reveal a less ideal picture of mankind under economic stress. There is no progress, there is no "reprogramming " of human nature with education. Its a illusion, kept alive by a costly piece of planet beeing eaten. But i you regress under stress, technology becomes a trap. The very thing allowing us to stay sane and civilized, winds up with destructive potential like a bomb. So, the panopticon is a lesser evil, compared to everyone rushing for the replicators to get a bomb to throw at their fellow man. Technological utopism is not a ideology, its a diagnosis. So a panopticon is a good thing, but the center does not hold, government and companies abuse powers. A resistace culture is needed that replaces centralized panopticons with public open source panopticons and feeds power thirsty actors wrowrong information.

Mawr 5mo ago

> Some of it may even raise your insurance costs. > [...] > The information they harvest can include [...] whether you buckle your seatbelt, drive too fast or brake too hard. In a way this is good -- I want bad drivers to be incentivized to change their behavior. Just need to legislate away all the other, actually creepy stuff. Just.

edrobap 5mo ago
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rsamtravis 5mo ago

I hate how all of networked computing is just a trillion-dollar mechanism to make me watch advertisements for shit I don't want.

DoctorOetker 5mo ago

I know braking data is used to identify dangerous road sites / locations, and dangerous prior driving behavior of this car. The dangerous road site versus driver can be disentangled by statistics: if the road site / location results in similar braking behavior in other drivers, its more associated to the site, if the braking behavior is more correlated with the driver, its more attributable to this driver. However most people tend to have relatively regular commutes due to location of their home, their job, and their working hours, their shopping patterns etc. so it still entangled with other drivers, since they will tend to encounter the same subset of drivers, also having their own relatively steady probabilistic patterns. For example, when a user suddenly brakes with large delta v, is it really due to this driver's aptitude to not predict the results of their driving decisions? Or is it because they frequently encounter the same reckless drivers? It seems this could also be detected: for each braking event, consider a disc of sufficient radius and similarily downscore other drivers in this disc, use proper Bayesian inference of course, not naive linear score incrementing decrementing... Simply downrating the driver of the braking vehicle risks taxing the less reckless chickens vis-a-vis the dare's in chicken or dare scenario's, naive calculations risk taxing specifically those parties that decrease the total kinetic energy in potentially dangerous situations, if the reckless drivers don't flinch even if it would have gotten them into trouble if a chicken had been a reckless dare.

kube-system 5mo ago
The insurance company doesn’t care whether the risk is because of the driver or because of the road that the driver is on. They are on the hook for the risk either way. This is why insurance companies also use your zip code to rate you. If you live near roads with more losses, you are more likely to incur losses. Doesn’t matter if you’re a great driver or not — someone might hit you.

jmward01 5mo ago

Hey major CEOs, if you think this is all so ok then please start publicly publishing your real-time driving/sensor data to your privacy policy pages as an example of what you collect.

cferry 5mo ago
Get ready to hear something along the lines of "Rules for thee but not for me"...
- yoyohello13 5mo ago
  This was literally in the Palantir manifesto posted a couple months ago. Karp called for more surveillance of the general population, but also more privacy for the tech billionaires and government officials.

phantomathkg 5mo ago

It is fascinating that we still haven’t have a law that forbid the car company from automatically share the data. The car owner is buying a car, using computer to handle complicate hardware I understand, but at what point it make sense to share the data automatically without consent?

defrost 5mo ago
> but at what point it make sense to share the data automatically without consent? At the point a third party offers $$$ to car company, or a state entity leverages some state power to coerce car company.
jandrewrogers 5mo ago
I haven’t kept up with it but at least at one point the regulations gave both the automotive manufacturer and national governments rights to the data. What those entities do with the data is up to them. A lot of this was done under the auspices of international treaties. When those regulations were written the sensing capability was much less invasive. This has been in the works internationally since the 1990s. Most governments don’t collect this data because they lack the technical capacity to do so. The legal frameworks were put in place long before the infrastructure.
spockz 5mo ago
I think GDPR should already covers this. What I’m unsure about is whether accepting one of the items in the menu on purchase of the car then allows it again because of “giving consent”.
itopaloglu83 5mo ago
In Honda vehicles, you can turn it off but then it will show a permanent warning on your dash saying your spying settings are off and keeps bugging you as if you’re out of fuel.
- amelius 5mo ago
  Yes, we also need laws against dark patterns.

carycara 5mo ago

There is an "offline" or "incognito" mode available for most cars, but that means losing features like live traffic.

dackdel 5mo ago

trying? its like saying israel is trying to bomb iran. cars ARE spying on you.

hrisen 5mo ago

From someone who is working on this field, I do agree that we are collecting huge and unimaginable amount of personal customer data - and continuously transmit them to cloud via TCU which has persistent internet connection. But there is still some time for the (western/traditional) OEMs to catch up. They have so much data but have no idea what to do with it. Most of the times, it just stays there doing nothing and OEMs have no idea about it. On the other hand, Chinese OEMs are very saavy in this area. They know what to do with your data (Mobile phones background helps a lot here) and they're doing everything they can to get an edge over all other OEMs. This is why the industry has been going towards "who has the best tech and apps" instead of "who gives safest chassis and better engines/gearboxes"

fergie 5mo ago

What I actually want is a no-tech, half-price, electric car with a long range.

manincharge 5mo ago
No-tech car is a contradiction in terms. Even horse carriages are "tech".
- fergie 5mo ago
  Fair. What I mean is no internet connectivity, and no electronics outside of the drivetrain.

hrisen 5mo ago

[flagged]

coolThingsFirst 5mo ago

I know, especially, unemployed cats.

girlwhocode 5mo ago

I was just thinking about this, how they have so many road driving data? there has to be some companies who are collecting and selling this data.

jimnotgym 5mo ago

Yet another reason to keep my 2012 Ford Focus...

prism56 5mo ago

I have a Kia that's networked (since disabled). I did a GDPR data request and after a couple of weeks they sent me numerous CSV files and I was a little amused at some of the data fields. Here's some examples I thought aren't for my benefit. - How long I let the car warmup before driving after every start, - max speed, - acceleration rates, - Lateral acceleration around corners tagged with GPS data, - every GPS datapoint, - destinations and exactly when I set off and arrived

OptionOfT 5mo ago
> How long I let the car warmup before driving after every start Tangentially related: I wish I could pull data on a used car to check whether the previous owner waited to floor the car until the car is on temperature.
- prism56 5mo ago
  Yeah agreed, the data itself I don't have an issue with at all and this kind of info is stored on the vehicle. 1) We should have easy access to it. 2) Why is it instantly uploaded to some cloud, what I haven't done is tried to review how the data is used.

Ravus 5mo ago

I notice a different, amazing angle that doesn't really stand out in current comments. This is a BBC article. UK public broadcasting, paid with taxpayer money and aggressively collected - one of the first things I got when moving to a new home in the UK was letters from tv licensing. Yet it's all "In the United States". "Federal Law and state law". The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that, this Maryland researcher for Mozilla there. There are two references to the UK and Europe (lumped together) that vaguely say, "It's a little better for certain classes of data" and "you can request your data". Which effectively means, "GDPR exists and the UK has its version".

bboreham 5mo ago
I get the following banner: > This website is produced by BBC Global News Ltd, a commercial company that is part of BBC Studios, owned by the BBC (and just the BBC). No money from the licence fee was used to create this website.
- Ravus 5mo ago
  Thank you. I was missing that info because I do not get that banner, currently surfing that site from the EU without any login. Visiting the same URL on the .co.uk version gives me a multi-article scroller with different layout and links (including a "What is BBC Future?"), but no trace of that banner. Guessing that you're in the UK from your comment history, my best guess is that they decide whether to serve that banner via geofencing.

SapporoChris 5mo ago

Do passengers have any rights against their personal data being collected when riding (not driving) in someone else's vehicle? I tried to look this up on my own but my results were always polluted with public transportation, or vehicle accident situations or just this gem "share your concerns with your driver, they can explain the data being collected".

bluGill 5mo ago
You probably do, but it would cost you tens of million in lawyer costs that you won't get back.
- SapporoChris 5mo ago
  I'll keep wearing my surgical mask, dark glasses and tin foil hat.

qmr 5mo ago

Plenty of cheap, safe, reliable, and easy to repair vehicles on Facebook marketplace and craigslist without this bullshit. Personal inventory: Suzuki DL-650 V-Strom 650 $3500 1999 SW1 $1500 1998 SL2 $1500 1998 SL2 $1500 2005 Sienna $1000 (!). This one does have a crash "black box" but no phone home bullshit. I'd take any of them across the country tomorrow.

ryan42 5mo ago
Saturn is such a good underdog car brand. Take care of them there aren't too many on the road anymore. I want to someday get my family car from my childhood if I can find one. 1994 Pontiac Grand Prix

kleiba2 5mo ago

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ourmandave 5mo ago

Is there any PSAs about this I could share with those who are totally unaware or "don't think it's that bad"? My wake up moment was at Walmart self-check out when there was an error and the monitor showed screen shots of me from every angle. "So that's what the back of my head looks like." That's when you notice they have more cameras than casinos.

nntwozz 5mo ago

So you're telling me Mad Max is actually utopian?

manincharge 5mo ago
The future ain't what it used to be.

coldtea 5mo ago

Thankfully I have one with zero connectivity. Problem solved.

gregoriol 5mo ago
Which model is it? There has been no zero connectivity cars produced in the last 10 years or so, except maybe some niche manufacturer?
- LeifCarrotson 5mo ago
  I've got a couple older cars (2010, 2003), but the only new one I'm excited about - the only actually new car I've ever considered buying - is the Slate truck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_G4OfXTlvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_G4OfXTlvs It has an LCD for the gauges and backup camera, but no modem and no surveillance tech. Bring your own phone/tablet if you want navigation or audio.

bilsbie 5mo ago

I’ve always wondered if someone could start a company that removes all this stuff. It seems like it would be in high demand.

scottkuhn 5mo ago

When will we ge able to trust our data and where it goes? Even if you opt out, are they really opting you out? You can't verify, impossible.

classified 5mo ago

And a milquetoasted editorialized title again. Who does that?

randerson 5mo ago

I requested my personal data from Lexus to see what they had on me. Not only did they store sensitive data about me, it also included personal data about 2 random Toyota owners who were incorrectly linked to my email address. I could see their full names, phone numbers, home addresses, details about their cars and every interaction they'd had with their dealers. It is a goldmine for a bad actor. And this is despite me not signing up for "Connected Services", because Toyota/Lexus's privacy notice says they too may sell your location and driving behavior to third parties including insurance companies if you enable features like Emergency SOS.

Rounin 5mo ago

A lot of articles and videos are reporting on this, but so far there's very little comprehensive information about what brands don't do this. Clearly, the 25 major brands examined by Mozilla collect a ton of data. Allegedly, BYD does so as well. What about the Slate truck? Was that even released? What about some of the Indian brands? Surely there's some useful car being produced somewhere that's just a car?