Bad-At-Privacy Car Companies Now Have to Answer to the FTC
Bad-At-Privacy Car Companies Now Have to Answer to the FTC
From local news outlets, podcasts, and TV to... the FTC?! Citing our research, US Senator Markey calls for an investigation into cars and privacy.
This is good news, hopefully the FTC actually does something.
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The government may do something. It will just take them five years to do so.
Edit: In the meantime, buy yourself a bike or a golf cart or four wheeler or something. Though maybe not a four-wheeler or golf cart, since I don't think you can drive those on regular roads, but you can ride a bike on regular roads, so maybe that. Or a motorcycle. That's putting your money where your mouth is because a motorcycle is highly not likely to have spy equipment just because of lack of space.
Edit 2: Motorcycles do not burn fuel as cleanly so are more harmful to the environment though so trade-offs
Edit 3: open source cars I wonder if that's a thing
There are low emission older cars too. Just saying. Not much tech BS.
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open source cars I wonder if that's a thing
I recently heard Mercedes have some focus on open source.
https://opensource.mercedes-benz.com/That's cool. We definitely need open source car software But when I said that I was thinking more about hardware Because with open source hardware you couldn't sneak connectivity chips Etc. in without people knowing about it
Something like this?
I've been following the progress on this for a while. Pretty awesome stuff.
Yeah, something like that looks like it's on the right track.
Motorcycles do not burn fuel as cleanly so are more harmful to the environment though so trade-offs
I'm assuming probably not on a "vehicle miles traveled" basis, though.
From a link someone provided above it seems legit.
the motorcycle used 28% less fuel than the comparable decade car and emitted 30% fewer carbon dioxide emissions, but it emitted 416% more hydrocarbons, 3,220% more oxides of nitrogen and 8,065% more carbon monoxide. The MythBusters’ conclusion: ‘At best, it’s a wash. Motorcycles are just as bad for the environment as cars,’ Savage said on the show. ‘At worst, they’re far worse.’
I recognize it's not an official study, but seems to be more concrete than anecdotal evidence and changed my perspective some. The article also quotes a researcher at UC Riverside which makes more sense on what's going on
‘We’ve been working to clean up passenger vehicles since the ‘70s,’ said Kent Johnson, who’s on the research faculty at UC Riverside and is director of its emissions lab, where the MythBusters’ numbers were analyzed. ‘We’ve been putting on catalytic converters and sensors to improve their ability to control emissions. We didn’t start doing that on motorcycles until the 2000s. It just shows you how far we’ve taken passenger vehicles and how difficult it is to do the same thing with motorcycles. First of all, there’s no room. And the incremental cost might double the price of a bike.’
(link)
Motorcycles do not burn fuel as cleanly so are more harmful to the environment though so trade-offs
That very much depends on the bike and if the owner is a douchebag that notifies it to be horrible.
Also, motorcycles can get around 50 miles per gallon. So that's a win vs other ICE vehicles.
It's not the gas mileage, that's the problem. It's the amount of CO2 and whatever it emits into the air is higher in particulate matter or whatever because there's not a catalytic converter and such like there is in cars. at least from what I understand.
Or you could drive a older car. You will need to learn how to do at least of of the maintenance yourself but being able to do simple maintenance like a oil change is a good skill and isn't hard to learn.
Just bought a 2014 RAV4
Looking forward to zipping around my friend's 2023 Bronco in 20 years when mine is still kicking at 400k miles and his transmission took a shit
The last car I bought is a 2014 model year. The one before that is a 2016. I'm not buying anything made after 2020, even if I have to squeeze gasoline from the rocks with my bare hands. Not because I don't like electric, but because I don't want a spy appliance to drive around in, even if it has emoji headlights.
If I remember correctly, you're probably already buying two new and need to go back further to like 2003 era or before.
Anything with OnStar capability can definitely track you, which I know started at least as far back as 2006 in Saabs
And even before that, you have to worry about the dealership plugging one of those devices into your car and pulling the data from it, even if it's not uploaded remotely, it could still be grabbed. I think you may have to go back to about 2000 or before to see cars that don't have that or it's not common or does not collect very much data at all.
I think you are talking OBDII systems, and while they communicate with the ECU, that system wouldn't need any GPS access. I don't think it has a direct link with the cambus that would hold the more advanced data. (Which if memory serves, also doesn't handle GPS.
There is a dedicated port in my car specifically for data logging, but it only records realtime, not past travel. My GPS unit does track "breadcrumbs" if not following a road, but you'd have to interface directly to that computer. since there is no Bluetooth, there is no contact data or advanced privacy weaknesses.
That is likely it. I just could not remember the name of the system, but I know it has a data log port that you can connect a machine to that reads diagnostic data.
My ‘14 has no connectivity beyond GPS and Bluetooth. My ‘16 had internet connectivity but only via 2G which doesn’t work anymore. I think I’m good.
What about the device the dealership can plug into your car and pull the diagnostic data from it and upload it while you take your car in for maintenance or whatever.
Only rich people and idiots take their car to a dealer for service.
That's a fair point, but as cars have gotten more and more complicated, it takes more than just your normal shade tree mechanic to fix them in a lot of cases.
Sure, but there's still a lot you can do with a cheap bluetooth OBD-II reader.
Fair enough.
It wasn’t until recently that that basically all cars came with tracking built in. Some not that old models (like my 2018 Outback) can easily be bypassed with a quick harness install. But others are integrated into the ECU AMD cannot be removed.
What about the dealership uploads? Where? They plug that device into your car to see if there's any errors or whatever and They can pull the data from it then and upload it I Want to say those go back as far as about 2000
That’s the same module. The dealer could add their own to the car, but those would be removable. Also on BHPH dealers add shit like that to make repoing the car easier.
There are electro cycles.
Open source cars are kind of a thing, if you're doing an engine swap, or building from scratch or something, that will usually require you to remove all of the privacy violating parts as a side effect. You could probably achieve a similar result with slightly less effort by removing the infotainment and replacing the ECU with an aftermarket one...
Most of the privacy violation parts are just in the infotainment though, so if you manage to replace that you'll be pretty much there. Only issue is newer cars have all the hvac and things like reverse cameras controlled through it...
Another option would just be to make sure it has no network connections.
Or just get an older vehicle.
This only works up to a point, and that's a little concerning IMO. It'll be true for longer than, say, cellphones, but no car lasts forever and at some point they could be prohibitively expensive.
maybe not a four-wheeler or golf cart, since I don’t think you can drive those on regular roads
Look up your local neighborhood / neighborhood electric vehicle / low-speed vehicle laws.
There are some places where they are allowed. There's also a lot of places where the cops just don't care enough to do anything about it, at least so long as you stay off arterial roads.
Though I cannot recommend a cargo ebike enough. Long-tail or bakfiets, though I personally prefer the long-tails as they ride more like bikes and the racks on the back tend to be extremely versatile for mounting weird stuff. The cheapest good ones are around $1,200 with near-0 cost of ownership. Incredibly useful vehicles.