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Comment by AlexandrB | Hacker News Reader

Car software seems to be lacking all of the explicit and implicit permissions systems that phones have. Can't disable location services, can't put the car in "airplane mode", and the on/off state of the electronics is unclear because there's always ample power available from the large car battery. Sure these levers could be a fig leaf that does nothing on phones, but some (e.g. airplane mode) are there for regulatory/safety reasons so you can be fairly confident they do what they claim.

The other issue is that a remote exploit of a moving car is potentially much more dangerous than remote exploit of a phone. Worst case with a phone is a massive breach of personal data. Worst case with a car is death.

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Airplane mode is an odd one to me. It only means that the cell receiver is turned off now, right? Wifi and bluetooth are more than welcome to stay on. So, what exactly is it claiming? (Indeed, it is not uncommon to not remember to turn on airplane mode, such that I honestly don't know what it does.)

But my point was more for "privacy" reasons. I confess many of the cars with cameras on them probably are worth a bit more looking at specifically. I'd be fine with a "not really allowed to record" things from the outside cameras. Dashcams would need a carve out, I suppose? (And really, any sensor reading that can go to a "blackbox" device is probably ok? That said, physical access is probably best required for those.)

I fully agree on the concerns of exploits. Remote control of a car is where my main worry of these would be. Exploits of your phone are probably already pretty scary with passkeys and other similar things growing in use.

Incorrect, you are disabling RF transmissions when you go into airplane mode. GPS usually stays on, since it's receive only.

What RF transmissions, though? I literally just got off a plane where I had in flight wifi. And I was using my bluetooth headphones. Have been doing this for a while, now. So, unless that is somehow magically working without RF transmissions, than the fact that my phone had airplane mode on feels less comprehensive than you are implying.

Not sure about Android, but in iOS you can be in Airplane mode and then explicitly turn Wifi/Bluetooth back on. But I believe the default behavior is for Airplane mode to disable all of them.

Edit: It is unfortunate that the iOS Control Center toggles for WiFi/Bluetooth no longer turn the radios off but just prevent "association". AFAIK you can still turn these radios off in "Settings", but it's pretty misleading UI.

My understanding is that it is more that the old behavior was for it to turn off things. However, the world moved pretty quickly so that majority cases were such that that just doesn't make sense as the default anymore.

Not that there aren't some problems here, of course. My point was more amusement that I doubt I could tell you exactly what "airplane mode" actually does, now.

On topic for this article, my question is what makes cars more of a privacy nightmare than the phones and basically every other connection that we have? Note that I'm not trying to say there is no nightmare, per se. I just don't know that I buy the car being a prime mover on that.

Now, I will gladly bold and underline the security/safety concerns in cars getting connected. That, I 100% agree with.

First, RF emissions from phones really don't affect airplane equipment. They haven't for a long time, if they ever have.

Airplane mode is one of those things that sticks around because people think it's important and they expect it. It doesn't really help airplanes, it's more of a general "disable radios" mode now.

Typically airplane mode does turn off all radios in your device, but modern devices allow you to turn WiFi or Bluetooth back on while keeping the cell radio turned off.

I think the reasoning here is that while in a plane, your phone will try really hard to find a cell tower to connect to. The output power of the radio will get turned up to max, which ends up being a lot more RF power being sent out than your WiFi or Bluetooth radio puts out. Hypothetically this can interfere with safety-critical electronics in the plane, but in reality those systems are incredibly robust and very well shielded.

Right, this is why I called it out as an odd one. It being used as a valid "control" on your phone to somehow be a privacy win is awkward, as most people don't know what it actually turns off, anymore. Not to mention, with it turned on, your phone is not exactly a phone anymore. :D

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