Hacker News Reader

Comment by bell-cot | Hacker News Reader

> The letter comes in response to an inquiry by Sen. Wyden’s office, which asked the association representing automakers how their members respond to law enforcement requests for location information collected from internet-connected cars and trucks. He found that only five — GM, Ford, Honda, Stellantis and Tesla — require a warrant to provide location data to law-enforcement. And only Tesla notifies auto owners about government demands.

So, if the truth is being told, then some car manufacturers are breaking promises.

Vote your car purchases accordingly?

View on HN

> Vote your car purchases accordingly?

And wait for the next internal administration to change policy.

The issue is with the car being connected!

The issue is there are zero laws controling data collection. Online or from cars. And no ability to opt out. No practical ability at least.

You do not connect critical components. What about "connected pacemakers" and h- - well, us?!

Security design imposes reduction of all potential sources of failure to the essential required for function...

True. But if:

   #1 - You need a new car
     and
   #2 - All your new car options are connected
     then
   #3 - See #1

Or, maybe those cheap new Chinese EV's I've been hearing about will not be connected, nor connectable, "because cost-cutting". That trick might also save the Chinese manufacturers a load of legal headaches and issues.

#3 - Move somewhere you don't need a car.

lol jk, Vancouver is too expensive, and there is no where else in NA where car ownership is optional for parents.

That has also crossed my mind in the past. The Chinese government being the source of conserving privacy from an acceleratingly authoritarian, western world dominating centralized government is rather ironic.

I could see it happen just for the Chinese to enter the U.S. market. It would also at the same time cause massive rifts in the west’s self-image of openness, equality, non-discrimination, anti-racism, etc (just like the TikTok ban is exposing) and the public will become painfully aware of the false and fake nature of our governments, if they block cars/Chinese companies without a legitimate justification.

If I were the Chinese I would do just that, not only offer cars that are not connected other than if one wants to connect their phone, but even make it a major issue and part of their identify and advertisement campaigns.

There is nothing particularly ironic about that - it's in the Chinese government's interest to control its own citizens and subvert its adversaries' control over theirs, and vice versa. See also Russia granting asylum to Snowden, and the myriads of Chinese, Russian, Middle Eastern etc. dissidents sheltered by the Western bloc. I imagine we would see more of the converse were it not for the language barrier, too.

If anything, we should be grateful for this situation; in a worse world all these governments would abide by gentlemen's agreements to not act against each other when it comes to controlling their subjects, notwithstanding their differences.

> maybe those cheap new Chinese EV's I've been hearing about will not be connected, nor connectable, "because cost-cutting".

TCL TVs are so cheap because they sell ads and information about what you’re watching to anybody who will buy it. Why would cars be different?

Or buy an older used car.

We need a website that shows models and "safe" years.

Or how to modify them to not phone home. Happy to pull fuses or connectors.

Yea, it's gotten to the point where recent cars are such a minefield of misfeatures and unwanted features. Traditional car buying sites like Autotrader need to offer better filters. I should be able to check a box that says "No touchscreen," "No microphone," "No cellular connectivity," "No telemetry," "No account[1] required" and so on. Without this, you need to filter by year, but that's not really precise.

1: Aside: The idea of having to have an online account with the manufacturer in order to use a car is so ridiculous, I can't even believe I'm typing it.

At this point I've considered building a mostly finished kit car. These privacy violations should absolutely be illegal. I shouldn't have to deal with GM selling my driving data to my insurance provider. I can't just buy a different car either as they ALL do it now.

Also, a car should not be like setting up an iPad. Dedicated buttons are superior and safer, but it won't happen again at this point outside of an act of Congress as the manufacturers found out it's cheaper to make just a single touchscreen.

> The idea of having to have an online account with the manufacturer in order to use a car is so ridiculous, I can't even believe I'm typing it.

Where is this the case? I haven't heard of this before, granted i haven't bought a car in about 8 years. My 2016 4runner has the little mayday button and gps aftermarket thing but you have to pay for the service, if you don't pay then my assumption is it's not transmitting anything. I know Tesla does OTA updates so they must be connected 24x7 but I haven't heard of that requirement for any other cars. Is it just an EV thing?

I know there are still plenty of places in the US with absolutely no cell phone much less data service, i'm assuming these cars are drivable there with maybe a "no connection" indicator. I wonder if there's a way to disable the ability to get a reliable connection without actually removing power to a component.

On the other hand, if you're driving a car with your phone in your pocket then it's a moot point. Your phone is the best citizen tracking device ever invented.

edit: i want to be clear and I agree, having to have an online account to operate a car is _absolutely_ ridiculous!

You probably don't need a new car. A lightly used connected car with a 3g modem is no longer a connected car. I've got two now; one of which had a 3g modem added as a factory recall because 2g was shutdown and the connected features stopped working.

Depends in which country you drive. Germany has still 2G enabled (at least for some networks) while they removed 3G. Other countries did the opposite, but many European countries will still have 2G or 3G for a few years.

> 2g was shutdown

On T-Mobile it's still operational, they cancelled the sunset indefinitely. (3G is shut down though)

US car sellers seem to like ATT and Verizon. My personal experience with T-Mobile was that 2G became unavailable; maybe it worked in some places, but my 2G only phone would never connect anymore.

The coverage footprint was never as large as LTE or NR. They also never added new 2G coverage later on, some markets started with LTE-only.

If your device is 2G only, needs an older SIM containing the SIM application that T-Mobile doesn't activate anymore. (I only have one of these still working). However 3G phones with 2G fallback will work on new sim cards through the USIM application (technically even esim through stuff like esim.me).

Of course not! The Chinese will surely connect their EVs and report everything back to China if they can. We're talking about a country with mandatory PC (and probably phone) spyware.

> #1 - You need a new car

At this point I'm settled on the fact that I will never own a car newer than 2014.

And also that car ownership is de facto required to live as a productive citizen in most places in the US.

Sort of interesting that it's the 4 big American carmakers plus Honda.

Unfortunately Honda's been responsible for some questionable actions (along with other cos) in the US in the past (I think it was an anti-repair bill/lobby involving Louis Rossmann). However, apparently Honda US operates semi-independently vs Honda Japan/Global.

(Highlighting this because I'm a huge Honda fan and didn't know of the US/Global separation till I read up. Please correct me if I said something inaccurate, I'm going off memory here.)

I'm not sure I would describe Stellantis as a US carmaker. The majority of its marques are European, and it's headquartered in the Netherlands.

I wonder what the breakdown of Stellantis employees’ location is.

They make most of their money in North America.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1297320/net-revenue-stel...

Assuming Dodge Ram pickup trucks and Jeep SUVs are the highest profit margin product they sell, the US might be its most lucrative market.

>Volvo, which is owned by Geely, a Chinese company, did not respond to the request.

Volvo didn't share data too.

Volvo, which is owned by Geely

6.8% counts as "owned" now. Good to know.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo

Not the right company, you're looking at the holding. Volvo Cars is 78.7% Geely...

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

Geely owns 78.7% of Volvo Cars. Their ownership of semi truck / marine engine / ... divisions is irrelevant.

speaking as a diesel auto mechanic, these systems exist in the big 4 truck makers as well. The premise for them is useless. no one uses the SoS button, you have towing and repair service you pay for through your company or as part of your owner/operator insurance (probably similar for regular cars too.) everyone hits this button by mistake though, because its next to your sunglass holder and other buttons you actually use.

ive pulled dozens of these things out for customers. For people looking to gut the spyware from their car, The "phone box" as professional drivers call it is separate from the rest of the vehicle and often located in or near the glovebox. it typically contains a riser board you can remove to disable the cellular communications for the vehicle. barring this, it has a SIM card you can physically remove as well.

note that removing either will trigger a dashboard light. you can ignore it so long as you get regular maintenance, or occasionally pop the board back in to verify youre not throwing other codes for the engine/etc...

edit: customer support scumbags for truck companies will often warn you this will "disable" your hands-free calling. it absolutely does not, as handsfree is a feature of the info-tainment and NOT the modem.

The fact that this triggers a light is infuriating. I assume disabling this also voids warranties?

The Magnuson Moss warranty act says that manufacturers have to prove that something you did damaged the vehicle to deny a warranty claim.

A manufacturer merely observing that you modified the vehicle does not mean that the warranty was voided.

Of course the manufacturer will claim this every time, even if it’s not consistent with the law.

In emissions control areas it possibly prevents the vehicle registration from being updated, depending on the light, the policy, and the interpretation by the guy working the booth that day

Do they make any dummy boards that can stop the light?

I've noticed my smart TV has a separate wifi module on a card that I've been meaning to yank.

What do these devices use for an antenna? Do they have their own or do they reuse the radio antenna?

This means Toyota / Lexus, Subaru, Mazda, Volkswagen / Audi, Porsche, Volvo, and numerous other brands just blindly comply? Ugh

According to the Mozilla report on privacy in cars, Spet. 2023, in some countries several automakers do not even need a formal request - informal contact is sufficient, they say. Legal procedure is cultural and local.

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-...

> Hyundai’s privacy policy says, for example, that they can share data with law enforcement and governments based on “formal or informal” requests. Kia’s policy says they may share data in many scenarios “if, in our good faith opinion, such is required or permitted by law”

Volkswagen and Mercedes have a history of helping authoritarian regimes, like Brazil and Argentina.

And Nazi Germany :D

I drive a Jeep. Jeep owners tend to skew libertarian & DIY. Owners have found you can bypass or cut power to the modules via fuse pulls. I bet you can do this on other makes.

If anybody cares, I can post more. I have not done this myself.

> If anybody cares, I can post more

Please do. Information circulated that attempting to disable modules (e.g. the e-call) resulted in the vehicle returning a "cannot start" or "degraded mode", "core component missing" (or similar).

Jeep Wranglers & Gladiators are very similar.

This thread has links from how to opt out, where Stellantis is selling data, to potential module pulls, and possibly faraday cloth attempts, attaching resistive dummy loads for antennas, pulling 4g modem. [it's a smorgasboard... you're going to have to parse it to find what may interest you]

https://www.jeepgladiatorforum.com/forum/threads/how-to-opt-...

And then there's VW who decided that the Bluetooth microphone should be on the same fuse/module as the CAR-NET modem, so it's hours of work if you want to be precise about what you disable.

I’d love to read more - can you share a link?

This is a dual post from another comment in the same thread:

Jeep Wranglers & Gladiators are very similar.

https://www.jeepgladiatorforum.com/forum/threads/how-to-opt-...

Thank you!

For anyone searching in the future, I wanted to share this post about physically disconnecting the air card in a JL Wrangler: https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/forum/threads/anyone-enjoy-...

Thank you

Slightly off topic, but you you mentioned fuse pulls in a Jeep...I'm a glutton for punishment and I've always driven a Jeep (though I do have a 4Runner for my reliable car) - learned to drive on a CJ.

Anyway, the head unit in my JK stopped turning off when I took the key out - so that was a fun battery-draining episode. I've been waiting for the weather to get nice to pull the head unit and put something else in there, so in the mean time I just pulled the fuse.

Of course the head unit is responsible for publishing outside temperature to the CAN. I don't care that the dashboard says --F instead of a temperature now, but on a cold start, the ECU doesn't know if the oil pressure is high because of a fault of just because the oil is cold. So if I get on the throttle even a little before the engine is warm, I get a CEL now. The joys of Jeep ownership.

Why in the world does the head unit manage temp readings. Did they just wire the temp sensor all the way to the console?

It's the ambient temperature sensor, not the engine temperature sensor. My guess is that the head unit either contains the sensor or is responsible for broadcasting it. The head unit talks to the dashboard to redisplay nav instructions, I'm guessing it's also responsible for sending the temperature info to the dashboard. And since I pulled the fuse, all I get is --F, so the information isn't available on the CAN. Don't know why - I'm not an automotive engineer :)

I think those electronics are in the head unit mainly to provide interior weather resistance - just a feature other car designers don't generally need to worry about.

JK may have more CEL's than a CJ, but a lot more comfortable ;) but probably slower than the CJ

I’m extremely skeptical that the head unit pushes to the ECU.

To me, it sounds like you might have a faulty coolant thermostat. This part physically expands as engine temperatures increase. It’s essentially an analogue part.

I also have not done this myself but I see lots of folks asking for more info. Dug this up a while back when I was considering buying a Jeep (still am, haven't made a purchase yet)

http://sandsprite.com/blogs/files/airprime_ar7558.pdf http://sandsprite.com/blogs/index.php?uid=7&pid=462

A family member owns a Jeep (2016). It's been nothing but problems for them. They were brand loyal. But they've really gone off the rails lately. Jeep ranked 34/34 (dead last) in consumer satisfaction in Consumer Reports' 2024 rankings.[1]

[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/cars-driving/which-car-...

Jeep has never been top o' Consumer Reports. If you want to increase the odds in your favor: - Wrangler or possibly Gladiator only [high volume production] - Lower tier trims to reduce electronic malfunctions - No diesel - No first 2 years of new model - No Covid years

I've mainly driven Wranglers my entire driving career and had very few problems

Reply on news.ycombinator.com