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Comment by kersplody | Hacker News Reader

Nah, the NSA doesn't need to bug your car. All cars after 2016 or so come pre bugged with an OnStar/StarLink/BMW Assist Remote/etc Telemetry System continuously sending data over 3G or LTE. Conveniently, the manufacturers already sell this data in an "anonymised" form. (cough Otonomo cough Wejo).

Private companies are so much scarier than the NSA when it comes to privacy -- you have none -- your life's data is to be mined, brokered, and sold to the highest bidder.

The NSA only cares about you if you are talking to a small number of known hostile foreign people who are already a party to a FISA warrant.

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> "Private companies are so much scarier than the NSA"

We are in the long swing where people think only state tyrany matters. They forgot how bad private tyrany can get, of robber barons were.

or state-enabled abortion vigilantes.

Welp, my car is now effectively bug free. It shipped with 2G, got a free upgrade to 3G, because 2G was being shut down. It has an optional upgrade to LTE but the features don't justify the cost and the mounting is derpy (new modem is a different shape, so it's velcro + double sided tape)

> Private companies are so much scarier than the NSA when it comes to privacy -- you have none -- your life's data is to be mined, brokered, and sold to the highest bidder.

Intel agencies privatize their spying to get around warrants. Private companies spying on you are not a far step from the NSA spying on you directly.

> The NSA only cares about you if you are talking to a small number of known hostile foreign people who are already a party to a FISA warrant.

Hah. If you have any political aspiration at all, you are a potential target. FBI lied to attain FISA warrants, and the lawyer responsible got a slap on the wrist. DC juries will never convict one of their own, there is zero accountability at this point.

> The NSA only cares about you if you are talking to a small number of known hostile foreign people who are already a party to a FISA warrant.

Why are you so confident about who the NSA cares about?

COINTELPRO anyone?

Or if you are making a phone call or transferring data over the internet. They might not be bugging just any guy but they track everything they can.

I wonder how those telemetry systems work for EU customers. Cause that sounds pretty much illegal under GDPR (non-consented tracking, data stored overseas...)

Works just fine. The major German carmakers have an alliance to share data, and treat cars as roving sensor networks.

The data is used for improved road safety (real-time traffic jam awareness) and also so premium clients can find parking spots.

Do you have a source for these claims? Without informed consent, they would be significant breaches of both national data protection legislation and the GDPR.

People tend to VASTLY overstate what sort of protections you get under the GPDR, to the point that I tend to assume nobody has actually read the regulations built off it.

In this case, there is no protection for data from your car, beyond the fact that carmakers don't want to share it. Writing regulations to cover it is being done now, and the tug of war is between giving any company who wants it access and giving companies the car manufacturers themselves select and get paid by access to it.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/your-c...

This is nonsense. The protections of both national and EU regulations apply to personal data collected via your car.

I can only ask that you refrain from spreading misinformation - it muddies the waters.

Read the article I linked yourself, no misinformation.

Quoting:

The contest is entering a pivotal phase as EU regulators look to hammer out the world's first laws for the ballooning industry around web-enabled vehicles, pitting carmakers against a coalition of insurers, leasing companies and repair shops.

[...]

Car manufacturers, guarding their gatekeeper role in accessing data from their vehicles, have resisted specific regulations for in-vehicle data, saying that protecting consumers is paramount.

"Europe's auto industry is committed to giving access to the data generated by the vehicles it produces," said a spokesperson for the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA). "However, uncontrolled access to in-vehicle data poses major safety, (cyber) security, data protection and privacy threats."

I did read the article. It doesn't make the same claims that you do, and - strangely - it doesn't superceded national and EU regulation.

I do not know for cars, but some major news websites in France and Germany are still not GDPR compliant (no cookie consent), yet nothing happens.

There's definitely a decided lack of enforcement across the bloc. Location data collected via vehicle telemetry would be a significant breach, though.

I wonder what percentage of people are aware that their car is tracking them at all times. Surveillance capitalism is scary.

And this is exactly why I have a manufactured in 2016 Subaru. I saw this regulation going into effect, investigated what vehicle would last the longest, and purchased the last available non-snitch personal vehicle generation.

We're in the initial stages of a new dark age for humanity. Surveillance Capitalism and our generalized Adult Immaturity is going to swallow the free world, and it may be hundreds of years before actual human maturity develops to allow whatever comes after.

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