Your car is spying on you.
That is one takeaway from the fast, detailed data that Tesla collected on the driver of one of its Cybertrucks that exploded in Las Vegas earlier this week. Privacy data experts say the deep dive by Elon Musk’s company was impressive, but also shines a spotlight on a difficult question as vehicles become less like cars and more like computers on wheels.
“You might want law enforcement to have the data to crack down on criminals, but can anyone have access to it?” said Jodi Daniels, CEO of privacy consulting firm Red Clover Advisors. “Where is the line?”
Many of the latest cars not only know where you’ve been and where you are going, but also often have access to your contacts, your call logs, your texts and other sensitive information thanks to cell phone syncing.
This isn’t unique to Tesla.
There was a case several years ago in the UK, dubbed The crossbow killer where the cars (Land Rover Discovery) telemetry was able to provide a picture of what was happening with the car, such as which door was open for and how long, as well as things like the vehicles location.
The article above goes into the particular details about each element of telemetry and how it was used to piece together a puzzle or evidence against the murder.
There’s a podcast about the case called “The crossbow killer” by BBC Radio Wales that’s worth a listen.
Yeah. It’s every new vehicle out there, dating back probably 10-15 yrs or so. I had a 2017 Ram 1500 that tracked me, which is why I didn’t sync my phone, etc.
Yep. And they can report things like speeding and hard braking events, those get uploaded to data aggregation services so the dealer makes $ selling your data, then your insurance company can buy it from the aggregator and raise your rates because they don’t like how you drive.
raise your rates because they don’t like how you drive
That doesn’t sound legal, but who knows in America.
You can get tattletale telemetry devices offered by the insurer that will lower your rate if the insurers are happy with your driving. The opposite is true as well, except its buried in your new car purchase contract that the telemetry is collected and sold.
There are also plenty of horror stories of insurance companies trying to cancel insurance for drivers for things like the telemetry box reporting that the car is on a 30mph limit road that runs alongside a motorway that the car is actually on so it looks like the driver is doing 50mph over the speed limit.
If you get your insurance cancelled then you have to disclose it to future insurers for a long ass time afterwards, and if they then decide to let you insure (which a lot wont) then the cost to insure after having a policy cancelled is reportedly crippling.
I have never had an insurers telemetry box in my car and i never will. i’d rather pay more up front
There’s no question of legality if the don’t get caught.
👉🧠✨
Kinda funny how Musk wanted to sound like the hero by saying he himself personally helped out the police, who would have been nowhere without him of course, in solving what happened. But instead of being the hero people were like: “You did what now?” I think a lot of people didn’t know the extent to which car manufacturers (Tesla among the worst in this regard) collect data and have control over cars.
It’s sad how these so-called journalists act as if this is the first discovery of the topic. Like yo, it’s been talked all over last year with pretty much every car company spying on your shit and insurance companies already using that info to raise their prices.
I mean how far deep your own arses were your heads lodged to not notice this up until now?
Ffs, this sort of incompetence is astounding from an industry that’s supposed to be the source of news.
This is slowpoke level meme material.
If it’s got a connection to the internet, then it’s usually a safe bet that the device is spying on you. How easy it is to physically disable the internet connection on my vehicle will be a significant factor in my next purchase.
All car companies do. Their data also got leaked (German Source in more detail).
Even Tesla showed that they are able to gain control over customers cars remotely (article is from 2022). They are able to add or remove features at their own will. In this particular case it was a sign of good will by enabling this feature. But it can also go into the opposite direction (e.g. they disable features).
I cannot imagine that gaining control over someones car is a good thing in the future, considering Musks power and political influence. Next things are that cars of people who dare to citizise him or his politics are spied into or being altered immoveable. And soon other bootlicker manufacturers will be following the same path, in fear of economical disadvantages.
My car isn’t new enough to spy on me and it’s gonna stay that way.
Betteridge’s Law of Headlines defied!
“Is your car spying on you”
Does a bear shit in the woods? Come on, are people that dumb? You car, phone, TV, Rumba, washer, security camera, and microwave spy on you. In fact anything that sends anything through to your phone or wifi is spying on you.
It’s about control, and you don’t have it.Are people that dumb?
Man, you might wanna sit down for this one…
You car, phone, TV, Rumba, washer, security camera, and microwave spy on you. In fact anything that sends anything through to your phone or wifi is spying on you.
I have only one smart TV, and it’s not connected to any network.
I used to have an LG “smart” washer, it was also never connected to any network.
I have a robot vacuum, it’s incapable of connecting to a network.
I have several IP security cameras, they are all VLANed and blocked from reaching out to the internet. The recording software is self-hosted and only reachable external through Tailscale (WireGuard). The object detection system I personally built.
My microwave has buttons from 0 through to 9, start, and stop. That’s it.
My car is a 2013 Jetta.
The only thing that spies on me is my phone and general online activity.
Serious question: what rewards have you reaped with your privacy diligence? This is coming from a fellow lemming who also does not want his humidifier reporting back on his activities
Rewards? Like it’s some game show?
I guess the rewards are the same when I close the curtains on my windows.
The rewards are that my images from inside my home aren’t leaked.
The rewards are better privacy.
Not all. Privacy devices do exist.
We do have a deficiency currently in the private car market for privacy cars. Its a good business opportunity.
I’m sure there is a market for something like a 90’s era Civic or Corolla, but with an electric engine, and that’s the only difference.
If I could get an electric car with zero external connectivity, and the internals of an early 2010 vehicle. I’d be interested.
Check about retrofit kits, if you have 20k to put in your car
Yeah and I think there would be a lot of people who would pay a premium to aftermarket privacy-ify their electric cars.
Yes, and all 10000 of those people worldwide will enjoy the absolute lack of range on a vehicle never designed to accommodate enough batteries. Or if you do fit enough batteries to make it useful, you ruin all other characteristics of the car by increasing weight too much.
You want to keep an old car going in a useful manner, it’s not going to be an EV conversion, you’ll be getting your hands dirty. But at the cost of having a really outdated interior, you’ll get better ride quality out of an 80s Mercedes than you will out of a 2020 literally anything. And those OM604/5/6 diesels will last forever too. And I mean FOREVER.
Otherwise you’ll have to find a manufacturer to build you a proper new EV without tracking. It’s gonna be hell, but maybe someone will pop up eventually. Will be a fun time explaining it to the customers: “Noooo, you can’t turn on heating from the app when it’s -30 outside, but that’s a good thing!” (though obviously a remote would fix that)
I think there’s other benefits like regenerative braking. I had that in a Prius and the brake pads got replaced like once every 100,000 miles.
Sure, but that’s part of the electric drive train. That doesn’t require spyware or a 27" touch screen.
100% but my point is that newer cars do have better engineering thats more than just batteries and an electric motor.
And, yes it doesn’t require an internet connection or cameras/microphones inside the cabin.
Yeah and there’s a WHOLLLLLE lotta Muskovites over in other threads (I’m on the Blåhaj instance) being apologists & straight up lying
There are Musk apologists on Lemmy? That would be like seeing a Spez apologist or a Trump apologist. Is blahaj.zone like an opposite universe?
Reply guy trying to thin out the point go brrrr
Point: whoever might still think Lemmon is a safe space from the influencer brigade is not being realistic
Cool. So about those Musk apologists… I’m curious as to where?
Toxic
This comment is not productive
Your comment reeks of whale semen.
