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Comment by BoredPuffin | Hacker News Reader

Owns by the highest bidder, be it measured by monetary value or political power.

IEEE should have done this piece way earlier, not after BMWs heating seat already grabbed people's attention.

>If they want to opt out of data collection completely, they can ask Tesla to disable the vehicle’s connectivity altogether. However, this would mean losing features such as remote services, Internet radio, voice commands, and Web browser functionality, and even safety-related over-the-air updates.

Fairly cheap price to pay if they really allow a full opt-out though

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> and even safety-related over-the-air updates.

I update the GPS data in my decade old VW once a year using an SD-card. Not having always-on internet is certainly no reason you can't get updates.

There is no good reason they can't provide updates without scooping up all your data.

As a minimum they could keep vin/installed software version number and date times. It would be an acceptable compromise.

There are many good reasons. Must have to do with profit and rent seeking.

I can think of a few million, if not billion, off the top of my head.

I think any car company is toast, if it sells users' private data. Including Tesla. I really doubt any data is being sold.

Most companies do actually collect data for a very simple reason: they want to genuinely improve their products and services. (Although some companies, like Google, Samsung and Facebook collect it also to help other companies sell more crap to you.)

Please provide details if you have any evidence that Tesla (or any other automotive company) is selling users' data.

What about policy(ies) relating to providing data to law enforcement, and whether a warrant is required?

I know this is moving the goalposts from selling data - but I don't think folks concerned with data privacy are strictly and exclusively concerned about the sale of such data.

Yeah, that is a huge problem in authoritarian jurisdictions OR if data is provided without warrant.

Warrants are easy to come by even in supposed democracies like the US or Germany. Alternatively, the US government has repeatedly shown it does not give a fuck about laws and simply compels providers to accept whatever they are doing (Room 614A), or outright hacks the company in question (e.g. Google got their datacenter fiber connections spliced).

Even if it's not sold, the car's behavior may expose some user data to external services - navigation systems enriching maps with local data (restaurants, gas stations, charger occupancy, parking spaces, hotels) may connect to services that allow an external entity to identify a car or the person driving it. I don't know Tesla's software enough to make any further observations, but the possibility exists.

>I think any car company is toast, if it sells users' private data. Including Tesla. I really doubt any data is being sold.

Any car company whose parent owner has multi-billion dollar contracts with the US government is toast if it doesn't sell its data, at least to the NSA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest#Refusal_of_NSA_surveilla...

For a brief time, Ford tried to rebrand as a quasi-electronics company in some circles. Ford has been on the record saying they would be in a position to create “customer experiences” and “ownership offers based on connected vehicle data.” It’s all a bit cryptic but you can look up the Team Upshift project.

Some state DMVs regularly sell citizens' data [1]. Not an automotive company but related.

[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a32035408/dmv-selling-...

My Toyota app apparently provides insurance quotes based on my driving behavior (until I saw it in the data privacy section and disabled it).

Was turned automatically on with the connected app (that I do find useful so I have it enabled).

I have to imagine that the data isn’t provided free of charge to insurers and includes my info, car info, and driving behavior.

Trend Micro: Honda to Start Selling Smart Car Data (Oct 2021) https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/21/j/honda-to-star...

I think the rubicon is crossed with connected car data.

Why can't updates be installed via a USB stick or over Wi-Fi at home?

Updates are rolled out over time by HQ, and there is no way to force an update for your car if you're stuck on a specific version but you keep hearing about a newer version that people are using (both of my Model 3's are on 2022.20.7, while there is a 2022.20.8 bugfix update as well as 2022.24.1 which adds features[0]).

Rolling out updates in this way provides a major advantage In terms of QA testing: they can start a new software update out on employee cars, then move to maybe a few thousand owners to get initial thoughts on the update and make sure an update works on multiple model years of cars with different hardware and module configurations (since they're constantly changing out parts to increase assembly efficiency and work through supply shortages). This is especially important given the update system in the car isn't limited to just the infotainment, pretty much every software system in the car can be updated during an OTA update, including the battery management system, ABS, safety systems[1], etc.

0: https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1555380064228876289?...

1: https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/tesla-data-cameras-improved...

> Rolling out updates in this way provides a major advantage In terms of QA testing: they can start a new software update out on employee cars, then move to maybe a few thousand owners to get initial thoughts on the update

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I believe in doing the QA before you ship the code. Especially for safety critical code. "Move fast and break things" was cute when it was just for some upstart entertainment company, but is straight up professional malpractice for any product that is expected to be reliable.

Lack of centralizing connectivity was actually a beneficial constraint for most contexts. If a car model's software is found to have a safety critical bug that needs fixing, the recall process of making cars go back to the dealer should be regarded as a small price compared to the gravity of the mistake.

The Tesla Model 3/y infotainment system that's often updated by over the air updates isn't "safety critical" code. You can drive the car without the infotainment system and screen even on. There is a completely separate system that goes through a much more rigorous process.

And Tesla has incredible reliability for how complex the software is (in my opinion). They actually fix bugs. I had weird issues with Bluetooth and the radio on my Honda that were never fixed the entire time I've owned the car.

I've seen newer Mustang Mach-Es and Volkswagen iD cars that have really severe issues in their UI.

The comment I responded to was talking about safety critical systems:

> This is especially important given the update system in the car isn't limited to just the infotainment, pretty much every software system in the car can be updated during an OTA update, including the battery management system, ABS, safety systems

Also, I'd say that even the entertainment system is still safety relevant. Arbitrarily changing the UI on something that is meant to be used while driving is a terrible idea. At the very least, whether and when those changes are applied should be under control of the owner and able to be rolled back. Surprises like needing to figure out how to turn on the defrost kill a driver's OODA loop.

You can update it over WiFi, not sure why people are saying you can’t.

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