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Comment by hprotagonist | Hacker News Reader

The No side's ads are incredibly scummy.

The retired boston police commissioner has done an ad spot for Yes on Right To Repair specifically to slap down the "you will be raped in a parking lot" FUD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bye5DRBSpw

The EFF is also strongly in favor, naturally, but i think Ed Davis will pull more weight if anyone's undecided.

(when marijuana legalization was on the ballot in 2016, the then-chief of the state police did a similar ad spot whose pitch boiled down to "vote yes so we can stop wasting our time on stupid college students, willya?", which I think had a similarly large impact. )

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Scummy is a polite word for the advertisements. It's been fascinating to watch them evolve in waves.

First wave: POV of a predator in a parking garage approaching a woman. Grave female voiceover: "Sexual predators could track your automobile, and remotely control the vehicle - including unlocking the doors." The female victim turns as the camera descends on her - she screams - "Vote No on Question 1. Don't let sexual predators control YOUR vehicle."

Second wave: Russian hackers with pimples nodding with pleasure as they take control of your vehicle, in a "Kremlin-sponsored hacking room" that looks like NCIS by way of Dr. Strangelove. Vote no - don't let Russian hackers control your vehicle.

Third wave - Muddy the waters by changing tone entirely to mimic the "Yes on 1" ads which have local, named individuals urging "it's your data, keep control of it." Muddied version - "It's your data, keep it safe. Vote no on 1."

Fourth wave - white unnamed men in auto shops with forced-sounding boston accents explaining that if you vote yes on 1, it'll hurt the little guy.

The insane $$ being thrown at trying to kill this bill [] tells a story in itself.

[] https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Question_1,_%22Right_t...

Do you have links to these videos? They sound hilarious.

Con side

https://safeandsecuredata.org/

(They have a youtube)

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCGB8blHHwEhHILzENXb1_9g

This is the fear spot shown:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NYp2_oiwtIg

Pro side

https://massrighttorepair.org/

They have a youtube Channel too (which is Massachusetts in a nutshell):

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCYOxd_3siXOYMrUvdJQDMOA

They pulled the former police commissioner to rebut some of the fear in a second ad. And this animated one with strong local accents

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pYmViMg5fQI

Ha, as if auto manufacturers all have an org dedicated to monitoring and deterring sexual predators and Russian hackers. Can anyone from one of these companies comment on this? Can I get a discount if I opt out of that at the dealership? I'm a techie, really I'd prefer to install Windows Defender on the car myself, thank you!

It wouldn’t be so laughable if the auto manufacturers didn’t already claim your data as their own and sell it to marketers.

This tidbit from the Onstar privacy policy made me laugh:

“The nature of our products and services means that there may be circumstances where you might let someone else use a product or service that we provide to you (for example, you let someone else drive your OnStar equipped vehicle). It is important that if you do let someone else use one of our products or services that you inform them of this Privacy Statement and of the privacy choices that you have made.“

Over $23 million paid by automakers funded these scummy advertisements. Thankfully we know this from campaign finance transparency. The ads say in fine print that they are paid for by the "Coalition for Safe and Secure Data" and that top donors include "the Alliance for Automotive Innovation."

A Coalition campaign finance report from 2020 [0] shows $23 million in receipts from the likes of Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and others.

Expenditures in that report show who is helping them produce these ads.

[0] https://www.ocpf.us/Reports/DisplayReport?menuHidden=true&id...

Do these reports really matter? Did they change your mind about the issue, or shape your opinion in any way other than fueling your previous view?

I hear many people support these sorts of rules, but nobody seems to really benefit from them.

Which reports? Reports that require disclosure of political advertising spend?

Yes. They're incredibly important. I want to know who is paying to try to influence an election. Many times, actionable information is exposed through these reports.

Are you going to sell your car or buy a different make of car because of information contained in these reports specifically?

It’s interesting that the German automakers have only given a relatively small amount compared to the others.

AIUI the German solution is to make their cars so difficult to repair and maintain, and require so many specialised tools, that nobody who isn't an authorised dealership will want to touch them.

It's interesting that there's no norm against participating in this kind of gross dishonesty. Everyone is comfortable that political speech is just a set of things you say to win the argument, and need bear no relation to any real or plausible events.

I think that it's not that there is no norms, it's that there's no point in having norms. These attack ads are conducted by proxies, not the interested parties themselves. It takes more energy to go after them then it takes for the interested parties to make a new proxy.

The "No" column in the official state voter information booklet is almost criminally scummy. They quote Jane Doe, the Mass coalition against sexual assault and domestic violence, to make it seem like they're against the law. If you go to Jane Doe's website they say they aren't against the law, that the quote wasn't authorized, is out of context, and that they're disgusted that somebody would use battered woman as pawns to further their unrelated political agenda.

They're incredibly scummy but a super thin veneer. I don't know how anyone buys their BS. On one hand they feature grease monkeys talking about people hacking your car, I'm not sure people should be using their local mechanic for cybersecurity advice. More important, the fine print at the end makes it clear that it's the auto manufacturers sponsoring those ads, and their bias is obvious.

I'll lose some faith in humanity if it doesn't pass.

I think it will pass,but I am pretty sure that such ballot initiatives are not binding. It might pass only to be quickly forgotten.

There are procedural ways certain bodies can drag their feet but it is binding. Marijuana was legalized for recreational use through the same process.

Depends on the ballot issue. Some are binding, some are not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy_in_Massachuse...

MA ballot initiatives, if passed, become ordinary laws. The Legislature can modify or delete them, just like any other ordinary law. However since the people voted for it, the Legislature is generally reluctant to do that.

>I don't know how anyone buys their BS.

Treat people like they're too stupid to think for themselves long enough and it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. If the people of Massachusetts buy that crap they need only look in the mirror to find who to blame.

The last time anyone bothered to run a poll on this question, it was 65-35 Yes, which is roughly the same margin that Right to Repair passed by in 2012.

We live in a society where conspiracy theories based on lies, lack of knowledge or pure insanity trump actual scientific facts, and where basic health tools such as masks have been politicized.

In such a society I would be (pleasantly) surprised if the majority doesn't buy this BS.

What I don't get is, why hasn't anyone stated the obvious.

Why do cars have location data stored onboard? Personal information? GPS data?

I have a phone, which already has stupid levels of personal info in it. Who on Earth needs another phone in their car, tracking everything, watching where I drive, who I call, on and on and on.

I don't get it. No one needs any of this crap in a car.

Take a phone for example, terrible security updates (eg, many phones barely have them last the terms of a 2 or 3 year contract). Then? Nada!

So how does that relate to my car? Lots of people keep cars for a decade.

Where are my free security updates, to all aspects of these network connected, wifi enabled, cars?

You think GM is going to give you a security update on a 10 year old platform?

It's a car, yet it's treated like the most horrid of things by GM/others, an IOT connected device.

Most cars probably don't store that data. The opposition ad is lying about whats in your car and who can access it.

If it's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that if someone can, and there's any profit motive, they will.

In terms of storing data? 20 years ago my VW recorded a great deal, as I discovered when the dealer's repair shop said to me "So you like to drive fast, eh?".

They knew precisely how fast, too.

What else is stored in that black box, which is often used by insurance companies, and police, after an accident? And required to be there, by US law? Or I suppose if they decided to execute a warrant against it?

These days, I'd be astonished if GPS data wasn't stored there too. And a lot more, as well.

Yet I say this ; do you know? Precisely? Exactly and precisely what is stored there?

Yet outside of the EDR/black box, there's the infotainment system, often with GPS data as well.

Note that I 100% agree with 'right to repair'.

German vehicles are known to keep speeding data especially around redlines. I know BMW’s do this and it sounds like VW.

However, I’ve never personally heard about Japanese or American cars saving redlines. Does anyone know if they do?

https://www.autogespot.com/tracking-your-car-say-goodbye-to-...!

All of the crap in modern cars makes me worried about my 2006 toyota dying.

It bothers me how hard it is to talk to the computers in that, these new cars are an entirely new level of disturbing.

It's absolutely disgusting how privacy and the right to repair are being mixed together.

We need better privacy but that is a separate topic.

Control over your device and the data it generates/transmits is fundamental to both. You can choose to care about one or the other, but they’re practically and ideologically closely related.

The car makers’ ads are probably getting more votes for yes because they are so bad.

To be fair, police already had the option to stop wasting their time on stupid college students, it's called discretion.

In a city near me, they gave officers the discretion to either write people a ticket, or haul them to jail, for personal amounts of marijuana. After a few months, it was reported that not a single ticket had been written. I don't think most officers know what "discretion" means. Sad state of affairs, that.

A police officer always has the option to do nothing, so I'm not sure that needs to be enumerated.

It's not that cut and dry. Police officers have a duty to uphold the law. They swear an oath to be faithful to that duty. Thankfully, that still means something to most people. However, when given a choice as to how to uphold the law, they often take the low road, unfortunately.

The problem with discretion is that it is also a common tool of discrimination. I'm fairly sure I have been given a pass on a few traffic violations that I probably wouldn't have if I weren't white.

That Yes ad raises more questions than it answers. What constitutes mechanical data? Does it include timestamps of when the engine was running and for how long? Is location data explicitly excluded? What about data that could be used to infer location, like vibration sensors picking up pothole impacts or gravel roads?

It seems simpler to just say: "This bill gives you, the owner of the vehicle, the right to give access to your car's data (that the automobile manufacturers are already collecting with little oversight into how it is used) to a third party mechanic of your choice for a limited time. It does not make this data available to literally anyone who wants it."

(The "for a limited time" concept does appear in the actual text of the bill in section 3 [1].)

[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Question_1,_%22Right_t...

If you are actually a potential rapist there are plenty of easier methods than setting up a fake repair garage and matching vibration sensors with pot holes. The entire idea is ridiculous.

Well sure, but if the larger point you're trying to make is that sensitive data doesn't get into the hands of the wrong people, "the data isn't actually sensitive data" is a weaker argument than "random people can't access your data without your explicit permission, and then only for a limited time."

The creepy "no" add is implying that your car's data is just available on some website for anyone to look up. That's a pretty big misconception that should be contradicted.

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