I posted a flavor of this comment on an article a few months ago, but it's relevant here:
I have a seven year old Volkswagen, not financed. I'm security conscious and made sure to disable all the data collection I could find in the companion app before removing my account, turn off remote access services, dig through the infotainment to turn off what I could, etc.
Last year I requested a Carfax on it, and one of the fields in the request was current mileage. I entered an estimate like 75000 miles. On form submission, that field failed validation with red subtext along the lines of 'this is less than the last reported mileage of 75345, reported <5 or so days prior>'. Checking my odometer and looking at my past few days' trips, that was indeed accurate.
The car hadn't been to a shop or out of my possession in weeks, so I can only assume the telemetry was still dialing home and selling to third parties despite my best efforts to disable it.
Tangential, but one of the concerns I have about these 'smart' cars is they have an expiration deadline.
There's an exceedingly common type of failure I have seen myself in industrial electronics and (has happened with Tesla at least once), that some module keeps a log of some kind in a nonvolatile flash, and this flash has a limited lifecycle, which the equipment reaches at some years into its life (or earlier, if the flash came from a bad batch, or more logging happens than planned).
At this point the board usually gets bricked and replacement is very hard due to cryptographic handshakes between components.
I share the sentiment. I want a new car, but only if I can guarantee all telemetry is hard disabled. But I don’t have the kind of money to buy a new car and risk bricking it. Luckily I’m pretty handy, so I’ll have to keep my 2014< cars forcefully running as long as I can.
I have non concerns about having a built in button to phone emergency services. I don’t even mind if it auto rings in a crash. I’m even happy to provide position to the emergency service in the event of dialing them.
Manufacturers use this capacity as an excuse to push more adtech penny and dime data abuse, knowing half the world will blame the government.
From a cellphone’s perspective a crash = extreme acceleration with different vectors vs a dropped phone, they can also listen for broken glass etc. So even with GPS off that’s detectable.
Generally I read your comment that a dropped phone only hits the floor once, therefore there is only one vector and the car always overturns/flips/turns and therefore there are multiple vectors measurable in the car?
I am not convinced yet, it might be possible without GPS, at least to some degree of error (false positives and false negatives).
The info in the link requires GPS to be switched on.
hmm
Disabling the antennas is the only way to be sure. There will typically be a coax connection that you can cap with a terminator. GPS can be merged with other radios you might not want to lose but suitable splitters are available.
GPS uses a different frequency and a very weak signal. The antenna is typically separate from the others but it's very small <5 mm¹. It can be on the same board with other antennas with 3…4 cm separation between them. Also, we tested a GSM tracker and it still worked with a mismatched antenna. This was in Eastern Europe where cell tower power is quite strong. You have to completely remove the antenna and terminate its connection to be 100% sure. If you have coax cables with external antennas, you're lucky. The worst case scenario is when they're embedded in the infotainment system with amtennas and everything. This is also a cost cutting measure, so it's very likely to be used. The infotainment system is usually ideally placed under the windshield for undisturbed signal reception. But there is still hope to completely cover its back side and edges with aluminium foil tape.
I thought most would use their “shark fin” on the roof for everything (if there is one but there usually is). Terminating on the other end somewhere with a color coded FAKRA connector.
That's quite far away for the weak GPS signal over RF cable, but they still do it. Or maybe the GPS unit and LTE modem are also in the shark fin or nearby and they use a serial, CAN FD/XL or single pair ethernet connection to it? Another choice is in the center of the dashboard under the winshield or under the mirror.
Ford has GPS with FM on the same cable. They have splitters for this arrangement. This is why they transitioned to stubby antennas for better GPS and good enough FM.
> turn off remote access services, dig through the infotainment to turn off what I could
This is never enough. You can't trust a software switch. You need to remove the hardware capability if you want to make sure the car isn't spying on you. In the best case, the telematics box has it's own fuse, and that may be enough. In other cases, you need to find the box and unplug it. The service manual will have it's location. In some cars it's easily accessible, in others less so and you need to remove the glove box or part of the dash. Dealers will probably refuse to do it, my advice would be to DIY or find an independent mechanic who will do it.
The most reliable way to permanently silence the cellular modem is to pull the relevant fuse. In the above case, this also disables the microphone, which I think is a positive. Unplugging the DCM entirely, however, seems to disable to right speaker, which is wired through the DCM for some reason.
>Unplugging the DCM entirely, however, seems to disable to right speaker, which is wired through the DCM for some reason.
I'm cynical, but unnecessarily coupling the ability to send telemetry with some feature people definitely want seems like exactly the sort of thing that would be done intentionally.
>right speaker, which is wired through the DCM for some reason
This is to provide cell phone audio during calls – if you're already inside your dashboard to remove the DCM (modem), there is an easy pin-out to restore the right speaker's music audio (which varies across Toyota models, but usually is as simple as placing a jumper across two pins of the unplugged wiring harness.
It varies by car. For my Honda, I believe disconnecting the antenna is enough. I looked at a Toyota and the antenna is shared. To disable the phone-home you had to disconnect a box … but that’s difficult. The box is also designed to call 911 or 999 emergency services and is connected to the microphone and one of the speakers. You have to rewire those if you want to use the microphone with your cellphone or play any stereo sound. Do your research before buying or disconnecting things.
Your mileage went from VW->telematics vendor->broker->carfax, thats the chain it usually follows. The fuse stops it but the real issue is the owner is the only one without the record.
You could probably find some interesting info if you send out some privacy requests through the chain. LexisNexis and Verisk are consumer reporting agencies, so they have to provide you a disclosure on request. Start there.
Is there usually a fuse that just turns off the telemetry? I would be surprised if that is the case. I could see the design being "if you turn this fuse off to turn off telemetry, you'll also lose these functions: ..." and if they did it "right" they'd make the car non-functional.
My car is from 2011 and I do wonder if there is any telemetry in it.
Just looked up my 2016 Toyota. My car has no telemetry module, and for cars that do there are companies that sell harnesses that plug into the module, terminating the antennas and/or cutting power without affecting anything else
There’s probably a fuse to turn off the cellular radio that transmits the data. Whether that’s all it covers may vary from car to car. Or in some models it’s probably possible to just disconnect the radio entirely.
Yeah an electrical fuse for telemetry seems really odd. Even without malice it would be strange if disconnecting power to some part of the computer only affected telemetry.
I could see a fuse for cellular comms, be presumably that would also disable maps, contacting emergency services in an accident, etc. which might be an acceptable tradeoff.
My Ford has a dedicated fuse for accessory packages that include the modem. Mine doesn't have any other options that share that fuse so it is functionally the telemetry fuse.
Telemetry is usually a standalone module. Heres one off a 26 Hyundai Palisade --
Telematics (DCU)
Part num: 96510P9100 firmware (OTA updatable) 01F.7.CAN.3.000.18.714.9
Its only job is to detect harsh acceleration and brake events. Probably being sold to your insurer.
So I first read this comment and thought is looked like AI and thought I’d give the benefit of the doubt. Then I saw this where there is no doubt: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49687774
I thought, I wonder if it’s the same guy? Sure enough.
If I take your two sentence comment and remove one sentence it also is non-sensical. Stop removing context.
>Your mileage went from VW->telematics vendor->broker->carfax, thats the chain it usually follows. The fuse stops it but the real...
Prior commentary advised removing the fuse to stop the telemetry. This comment points out that the chain of information flow precludes the owner of the car.
>the real issue is the owner is the only one without the record
I don't understand what "the record" is referring to here. The mileage is presumably still on the odometer of the car. So what is "the record" that the owner does not have and how is that causing the owner an issue?
You have to read it in context with what it is referring to, and perhaps to know a little bit about the issue. In that respect, it's like a lot of conversations around here.
I read this as:
"Removing the fuse that provides power to the telematics module can stop data collection from a vehicle, but the real issue is that the putative owner is the only one who isn't instantly privy to all of the collected data."
In any case, the complaint above was obviously about AI usage, and there are a lot of good reasons to use AI for editing your words, starting with (for example) if you're not a native speaker.
I have been thinking of upgrading from my 2003 Corolla to an electric (not Tesla). The Corolla hasn't had a single repair problem in 23 years!
My main motivation to get a better car was, DD goes to a super prestigious college and it seems degrading to put their bumper sticker on a 23 year old car! But I guess I won't get another car. Serves you right mfr mfrs!
See my other comment, but the fuse pulling stuff still works on GM EVs and disables connectivity, but the telematics unit may still be collecting offline to batch upload.
Right?! There is so much of this! In my country, for financial products, there needs to be a very clear label with some obligatory fields (we don't allow pharma commercials, but I think Americans know this as the details rattled off after a pharma commercial). It's time we get this for any tech. Companies just let you opt-out, but some weasel words in the terms and conditions let them still do 90% what they did before you hit the switch.
Carfax also can report estimated mileage, but it might have a different flag in the system that allows override.
I've been handed a Carfax on my own car that has a reported mileage much greater than the actual mileage on the car, and the car has not been out of my possession.
All it would need is a wi-fi antenna internally, and then it could connect to an open wi-fi network anywhere. And it's going to be pretty much impossible to avoid ever driving your car within range of some open network.
It would have to find an open Wi-Fi network that isn't gated behind a captive portal, which is very rare. Rare enough that most telemetry would be too stale to be useful.
Xfinity (Comcast) does the same, and the LG TV data leak demonstrated it joining these open “xfinitywifi” SSIDs to transmit telemetry home (edit: retracted, see below subthread).
While LG TVs send a lot of private data when connected to the internet, I'm not aware of any credible reports that they automatically connect to open or partner-provided wifi networks without a user choosing to do so.
It's certainly a threat to keep an eye open for, but it seems manufacturers haven't quite stooped to that low yet.
It has not been demonstrated actively in use, only that it is possible and trivial to implement. Statement with regards to it being demonstrated retracted.
I stand by the concept that any consumer IoT device could join these networks, and the end user would never know. The only legal solution to this problem statement is to physically disable the radio on the device if assurance is desired.
The most horrible part this crime is I read somewhere That the amount the car companies get for spying on your locations is some pathetic paltry amount like $1-$5 one time. These car companies sell you out to insurance companies and such so they can collect data and use it AGAINST you. Ghouls everywhere now.
Random Public data:
Honda sold data on roughly 97,000 cars to Verisk for $25,920—amounting to about 26 cents per car.
Hyundai sold data on about 1.7 million vehicles for roughly $1 million—about 61 cents per car
That doesn’t smell right. Why develop the telemetry and go to all of the trouble for such a paltry return? That probably wouldn’t even cover the legal consulation to cover their ass, much less go through the trouble of implementing and selling the telemetry.
It would be cheaper to do nothing if that were true.
There are less questionable things they can do with all that data: I'm sure it's really useful to figure out how electrical and mechanical faults correlate with driving conditions / weather / region etc. The result from this is just a better car in the next iteration.
Then someone offers them $1 each for a fleet of 1M cars, who is going to turn down $1M for a few TB of data?
To your second point, surely they’ve considered the hit to their relationship with their customers before selling for $1/car. Surely the trust between them and their buyers is worth far, far more than that.
Even assuming maximum greed, is every car manufacturer really so short-sighted as to break that trust for so small of a return?
We need to start thinking more like the average evil C-suite. We live in the golden age of fraud. Not my words. There's probably some sort of circular deal where the people that enacted this data sharing personally benefit in some massive financial way. The low financial benefit from the parent company side is probably to avoid regulatory eyeballs.
something around 50% of Uber's profits now come from their "private" owned insurance Company. That, of course, does not have to disclose how they are making money. Even though Uber is their only customer.
There is probably some sort of similar deal happening here.
I oversimplified this, and actually it's a lot closer to what happens with any digital service.
Rather than saying "give us 1$ and we'll sell you a customer's data" it was more like "provide the navigation software and we'll let you keep the data". It probably seems like an elegant solution: as long as the driver needs navigation they "pay" for it with their data. It's really no different from how gmail or facebook works.
Telemetry is used to push service, which is the big money maker for dealerships. Roadside assistance, maps subscriptions, driving data for market research.
I would be very surprised if it was that simple - systems in modern cars are so interlinked that I would expect that pulling a fuse would cause something else to break, resulting in dash lights or broken functionality.
> I'm security conscious and made sure to disable all the data collection I could find in the companion app before removing my account, turn off remote access services, dig through the infotainment to turn off what I could, etc.
Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, OEM mobile app...Bluetooth??
Consider the business case of leased Comcast (as the largest ISP in the US) modems broadcasting open side-channel xfinitywifi SSIDs...essentially everywhere.
> Antennas or not, the dealer might just plug in and upload everything during service.
You should have an empty glovebox as well when you take it in for service if you don't trust the shop.
If you have registration / insurance paperwork, you're now on that shop's mailing list and can expect to get "$15 off your next oil change ..." flyers in the mail.
Lots of automotive OEMs want that specific kind of information for generic reasons (how many of what model made it to what mileage under what circumstances) that are entirely reasonable. Lots of them also want that info for warranty related reasons (you've hit the mileage limit and we won't do anything for you anymore). But, my state of Michigan is starting a program to evaluate replacing registration fees with mileage charges to account for the additional wear and tear on the roads from EVs that don't pay gas taxes to fund road repairs. This would require some kind of verification of mileage, which we can't currently do during emissions testing, since it doesn't exist here. Legally required data retention is becoming a bigger and bigger issue, particularly in light of the driver monitoring requirement starting in MY27 vehicles by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act terms. That will presumably be integrated into any black box recording in a crash and probably subpoenaed in any dispute going forward.
In other news, I think I'll be taking a trip to somewhere down south to find a nice, used 1999 F350 dually with a manual transmission, since they're going to cease to exist shortly...
I know you're not the culprit, but it's annoying to see crap like this (highly invasive tracking, ostensibly for slightly more efficient tax collection), when far cheaper, better efforts (like Rhode Island's attempt to add tolls for just semis -- 98-99% of their freeway maintenance costs) are killed before they have a chance to prove themselves.
It’s not futile. Write your congressperson and state representatives. If enough people do this around the country, laws will eventually be passed to prevent it.
This is why there are
moral panics about things people feel in their guts: most people are reasonably easily unsettled and distracted by queer people, people who look different, people their people don’t trust being in charge.
It works. Most people are happier focusing and holding forth on that and repeating familiar statements than they are talking to congressional staff about policy.
Your car that you paid a lot for and you like and have positive useful experiences with every day? That’s going to be way farther down the list of things to worry about.
I have a seven year old Volkswagen, not financed. I'm security conscious and made sure to disable all the data collection I could find in the companion app before removing my account, turn off remote access services, dig through the infotainment to turn off what I could, etc.
Last year I requested a Carfax on it, and one of the fields in the request was current mileage. I entered an estimate like 75000 miles. On form submission, that field failed validation with red subtext along the lines of 'this is less than the last reported mileage of 75345, reported <5 or so days prior>'. Checking my odometer and looking at my past few days' trips, that was indeed accurate.
The car hadn't been to a shop or out of my possession in weeks, so I can only assume the telemetry was still dialing home and selling to third parties despite my best efforts to disable it.