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Comment by more_corn | Hacker News Reader

Is there anything we can do about it short of avoiding new cars? Our legislators have proven unwilling to pass real privacy laws.

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Yes - remove the telematics radio and GPS antennas. They are usually in the overhead console area around/behind the lighting and mirror controls.

In BMWs, the gps antenna is behind the upper lights, the telematics and V2V antenna is in the sharkfin(unplug it from underneath the headliner)

In some seem to be in the fin antenna:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OqFdFO_STJ0

But what's the point if you're just going to use Android Auto or Apple's car-thing instead? You're just letting some other company invade your privacy.

Assuming things much? It's actually totally reasonable to opt out of both of those, too.

Then on the other hand, who cares about those when your car is already tracking you? /s That kind of helpless reasoning needs to die.

Consent and convenience. When I use google maps, I am trading my privacy for accurate directions and traffic times. When I buy a car that sells my location, and I get nothing in return, I feel like the deal is inequitable.

OsmAnd works fine in Android Auto with WiFi and mobile data turned off. Sygic does too. I believe TomTom also sells navigation apps that will work fine under these conditions.

I use Android Auto mostly because I don't trust manufacturers of car components to maintain their software and to put more than bargain bin SoCs in their infotainment consoles. There's no need for your Android phone to have a connection to the outside world if all you're using it for is locally installed apps.

Giving car companies your money (and then modifying your car) is still rewarding car companies for their bad behavior. We really need to stop buying new cars and somehow make it clear that telematics are the reason, but it's never going to happen. Not enough people care, and of those who care, not enough of them care enough to stop buying these cars.

In my BYD Seal, I removed the SIM card that's easily accessible from inside the armrest compartment.

Maybe there is a way to pollute the data? At least it makes data cleaning more expensive.

Ride a bike.

I've never had a driver's licence, lived in a zillion countries; don't think I could do that in America though.

Over half of New York City households are car-free. That jumps to 3/4 in Manhattan.

Millions of American households don’t have a car, but you rarely hear about it as a viable option.

Because as soon as you leave a major metropolitan area, not having a car is almost a nonstarter.

Over 100 million people live in just the top 20 metro areas alone. It's hardly an edge case.

And _not_ living in one of the top 20 metro areas is also hardly an edge case.

And even in most of those metros (OK. Leave aside Manhattan), not having a car tends to imply a lot of lifestyle choices in terms of activities, visiting friends outside of the metro, etc.

There are certainly people who are OK with living like they did in their urban school for a few years after graduation. But that's not a long-term solution for most people.

A massive chunk (if not majority?) of those top 20 metro areas are largely car dependent for most of their populations. Large areas don't have any public transit at all, and the rest is often designed to be actively hostile to pedestrians.

Try living without a car in these places, all in the 4th largest MSA.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/mHmGidZRJaKptHeL8

https://maps.app.goo.gl/5P4mW5iM6b5ab9Ve7

https://maps.app.goo.gl/JCiBgESKs5ZWqGny8

https://maps.app.goo.gl/E1iVwLCB28ooGhQL9

These are all in "urban" areas and a part of DFW. But how about Houston, the 5th?

https://maps.app.goo.gl/7yEAimERmyE1EGde6

https://maps.app.goo.gl/UKSQjPqifWUSv82H7

I don't know how one would even get groceries without a car.

And even then, you're then talking about less than 1/3 of Americans living in that mostly car dependent space.

It's the same in Europe, but people pushing an agenda don't talk about that either.

The US takes this to an entirely different level.

In places like Vegas, even on days with great weather, trying to WALK 2-3km in residential areas is a nightmare.

People who are "pushing an agenda" aren't arguing that there should be no cars ever, anywhere. Cars are the smallest-scale form of long-distance transport, they are unavoidable in low-density areas or for services that requires complete flexibility. All the agenda-pushers I've seen in real life are just saying that there's better options within cities, at least for a lot of people. Most of the time, most people only move within their cities, myself included. If transit within my city was in any way adequate, I would choose it over the car. I could cover those rare out-of-city edge cases with rentals or train travel.

Besides, it's not even the same in Europe. In a few countries, maybe, but in the majority the inter-city transit or transit within small towns is not even in the same universe as what's available in most of the US.

"the best public transit in the densest US city barely manages to reach 50% of car-free lifestyle" is what you're leaving out.

A household not having a car is a much higher benchmark than being able to live a car free lifestyle.

It’s common for people to own a car and not use it for weeks, months, or in some cases years at a time.

I would argue that even in NYC, having a car is necessary if you ever want to leave NYC (and you will want to).

It’s not useful if you generally fly most places you travel to. An of course if you’re going months-years without using a car then renting becomes relatively more convenient.

NYC is the absolute best case in the US, if you're talking about the ability to exist without a car. It's not that no one talks about those millions of households, it's that they are all concentrated on a few standout islands (literally!) in a sea of the nearly identical car-only supermajority of cities. It's the exception to all exceptions.

Most people live on a few islands of density in a sea of nearly empty land in the US.

Most people live in cities, but the vast majority of American cities do not approach even 10% of the quality and availability of transit in NYC. That's why I said that NYC is a massive outlier among the rest of the US.

I don’t think the average city is a useful comparison when more people live in larger cities which tend to have better mass transit options.

People live car free in a wide range of cities, it’s more convenient for more people in NYC thus the large percentage of people doing so, but the percentage is rarely zero.

Not possible when things are 10+ mile apart and a general grocery run takes 3+ hours and you can't carry more than a backpack, so you have to do it multiple times a week.

The US is ripe for an e-bike revolution. The distances, the wide roads with plenty of room for bike lanes, and the revulsion against things like Flock...

Unfortunately it's as likely as this being the year of the Linux desktop because Windows 11.

Meanwhile a few months back I watched a pickup swerve towards a bicyclist. USA on the average is hostile to anything non-car in a way that is hard to even comprehend.

No. Enjoy the ride.

Defeatist and cowardly.

Given that GP is accepting a level of additional risk which you profess not to be willing to accept, perhaps "cowardly" is not the correct adjective.

Moving to the EU becomes a more appealing option every day.

Greetz from Germany, we have Chat Control now even though we've been trying to reject it for at least 3 years.

Autocracy is just everywhere these days, Noah get the boat.

This is false, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46063166

The Chat Control problem isn't nearly as final as some news sources try to brand it. They were running up against deadlines and submitted their work knowing statistically their proposal would get shot down based on existing voting rounds.

I, too, would rather see this bullshit die in committee before reaching the next stage, but this bullshit can still be stopped.

No panacea here! Better in some points. In general privacy. OTOH many things are not afvancing.

In the EU, eCall is mandatory and disabling it fails most roadworthiness checks and voids most insurance policies, so it doesn't help much.

Also, while the EU does (for now) have stronger privacy protections for citizens against corporate interests, the opposite is true in most EU countries for Government surveillance.

eCall has very strong privacy protections, see Article 6: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2015/758/oj

While eCall has some weak privacy protections (it's open to all the standard cellular network surveillance lawful in each country), it also means you cannot disable the vehicle's modem in most (maybe all) EU countries with failing roadworthiness checks and insurance policies.

eCall mustn't be active until an accident occurs. The lawful interception lobby tried hard to turn every car into a free data point they could sell to the government, but their efforts have failed.

Last I heard they've shifted their efforts to making remote activation of on-board cameras part of the 5/6G smart car bullshit (which will of course be part of road safety requirments not long after).

No, that's not correct. The eCall spec requires self-checks that include registering with the network on at least every ignition.

However, more importantly, it means you can't lawfully disable the modem that the manufacturer uses for its own telemetry.

Are you sure about that? My understanding was that the eCall self test does not connect to a network.

That’s stated on the eCall page linked above. Do you have a source that contradicts that?

Yes, I am sure.

Annex VII only rules out connecting to the PSAP/112 side, not routine network attaches. To detect faults in the “means of communication”, the IVS has to verify that the SIM, baseband and RF path are actually usable, and you can’t test that without a network attach.

In practice that’s what all current eCall implementations do. The modem attaches to the cellular network at each ignition so it can confirm it’s capable of placing an eCall. If you block the modem or antenna, the IVS fails its self-test and the vehicle is no longer roadworthy.

Does that mean the modem used for eCall is the same that is used to transmit telemetry? Because that's a level of shitty I hadn't even considered. That said, it would go against the spirit of the law as I read it.

There are always workarounds, of course, but that does pose an annoying problem to patch.

Yes, unfortunately in all modern calls there's a single Telematics Control Unit with a modem, GPS/GNSS, eCall (where required) and whatever OEM telemetry stack.

Like you say, there are always workarounds, but none that the home-gamer can safely or legally modify without taking eCall out of compliance.

There are standalone eCall units for retrofitting, e.g. [1] and likely soon more since 2G/3G gets phased out. Presumably you could disable the manufacturer’s built-in system and use standalone system instead?

[1] https://www.bosch-presse.de/pressportal/de/en/emergency-call...

How is this possible? Cars start where there is no cell service.

This crap is being done because of EU rules. It's "for your protection." The vehicles are being secured from you.

https://www.coro.net/blog/what-new-eu-cybersecurity-rules-me...

https://www.dw.com/en/new-eu-cybersecurity-rules-push-carmak...

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