Comment by kogepathic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kogepathic | Hacker News Reader

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> FUD is fear uncertainty and doubt, they did the exact opposite. Dispelled the FUD with an investigation. And then published it.

Please point out the original FUD the EFF is refuting in this article.

Their title is sensationalist, a more accurate title would be, IMO, "a car dealership installed a third-party GPS tracking device in a vehicle" but anything more is a stretch because they have n=1 here. But you can see my proposed title is certainly less interesting than their portrayal.

> You can't write an article about something you haven't done.

Yes, and my point is that they are the EFF, not hackaday. The article does not inform the reader of how common GPS trackers are in vehicles, or what privacy implications they have, because the EFF just took the lack of a response from the sole vendor they contacted and went ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I would expect an organization that's supposed to advocate for privacy issues and carries clout to have covered at least some of the privacy concerns in more depth. FFS, they couldn't even establish if the device is still (or ever was) transmitting the car's location.

Geolocating cars is not new or novel, OnStar (GM) has had this capability for ~20 years now. [1] If the EFF wants to raise awareness about the privacy issues of vehicle location technology, they could have easily picked a more common case.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnStar

I interpreted it as the author and car owner had fear uncertainty and doubt, about what the tracker was for. As we probably all did when clicking the title. And they dispelled it.

The case they investigated was one that came to them, from one of their own, they explain that.

Research costs time and money. I don't think you should _expect_ that donors money is spent, when after investigating this isolated case, nothing too nefarious was found. As you say, geolocating vehicles is not new or novel.

It's a good write up of the work that was done, and the thought process, engaging and short, and as I mentioned above, you don't always want a spoiler in the title.

> I interpreted it as the author and car owner had fear uncertainty and doubt, about what the tracker was for.

Something between two private individuals, which was resolved through the subsequent investigation. No need to write an article about this.

> As we probably all did when clicking the title.

FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a manifestation of the appeal to fear. [1]

> you don't always want a spoiler in the title.

The GPS tracker is not mysterious (they identified the source and likely purpose), and the individual's support for the EFF did not contribute to the presence of the GPS tracker in their car.

Could you clarify how the title accurately reflects the situation in light of this?

> Research costs time and money.

Indeed, and FUD is free.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt

> No need to write an article about this.

To clarify your underlying principles here:

Are you broadly suggesting there should be rules for what type of articles can be written on the internet (presumably that align with your values)?

Are you suggesting that EFF should not have written this article (because of the $/time cost?)? And that it's okay if someone else wrote the article?

Are you suggesting that EFF should not have done the investigation in the first place, because of the $/time cost?

As an EFF supporter myself, I enjoyed the article. I liked the walkthrough of the investigation, and all the steps they used to deduce the source of the tracker. It was interesting on its face, and also educates on a methodology for making deductions for other things.

> Are you broadly suggesting there should be rules for what type of articles can be written on the internet (presumably that align with your values)?

Yes, the EFF should not be promoting FUD.

As I have stated several times in my comments, if the EFF had chosen a less sensationalist title, there would be no grounds to label this as FUD.

> And that it's okay if someone else wrote the article?

Yes, if someone had written such an article for their personal blog, or as a private individual on a site like hackaday, then it wouldn't have the endorsement of the EFF.

> Are you suggesting that EFF should not have done the investigation in the first place

No, however their choice to pulicize an otherwise unnoteworthy event was in my opinion, an extremely poor choice.

> As an EFF supporter myself, I enjoyed the article. I liked the walkthrough of the investigation, and all the steps they used to deduce the source of the tracker. It was interesting on its face, and also educates on a methodology for making deductions for other things.

That's fine, and I'm not here saying "the EFF should not be doing this" I feel I've been very consistent in saying:

* the title is sensationalist and this is bad for the EFF's credibility

* the methods in the article are very amateur, a more detailed investigation and/or a discussion about the privacy and legality of vehicle tracking would have been much more in keeping with the EFF's stated mission

Re: "No need to write an article about this."

I think it is within their remit to discuss such issues.

I enjoyed reading it, I feel it received quite a harsh critique for a short article that was well written and engaging.

If the goal was to get people thinking about the privacy implications, it worked. Here we are talking about it on HN.

With the suggested title "a car dealership installed a third-party GPS tracking device in a vehicle" I doubt I would have read it. If it hadn't been by the EFF I doubt I would have considered the privacy implications.

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