Build you own GPL GNU car
And get a lawsuit
TAPR or CERN OHL, probably— Kit cars do already exist, though are apparently aimed at hobbyists, and usually just partial cosmetic customizations. “Metal box on wheels with motor” ain’t exactly rocket science, although quality could be challenging and that’s especially important when it comes to safety.
That said, surely the production costs of modern vehicles needed to do their basic job— Efficient-ish and safe-ish transportation from point A to point B— Can’t possibly be worth their increasingly inflated costs? There’s probably something to be said about the marketability of a sub-$10,000 basic OHL car that you can choose to scratch build or kit-build or buy fully built.
cd /code/cars/manufacturers/nissan/altima
make -B
cp -r /* /var/www
Curl https://192.168.1.2/cars/built/altima
Downloaded a goddamn car son.
is it necessary for our cars to be connected to internet? I mean if you need maps, jus use the phone with a stand.
Phone screens are very small and hard to see while driving.
But no, it isn’t. And I have disabled any connectivity in the last 4 cars I have owned.
1 phone is tiny 2 phone doesn’t know what your vehicle charge is at and where to charge
I mean. Most modern cars have GPS and network capabilities. Just that allows them to track your travels and daily behavior.
Probably would vary depending upon the brand, but I wonder how hard it would be to disable the network. At some point would the vehicle refuse to operate without a network connection?
Maybe not even intentionally. When games first became “online only” it was a big deal, now many games just break if they can’t initialize an internet connection. Even ones that don’t use it.
Which is total and complete bullshit that should be illegal.
this is a legit usecase of game cracking
Probably not, I’m sure there’s plenty of situations they wouldn’t have network connections, so we’d have prohably heard about it if it were na issue with existing cars.
I don’t think so. The risk of a PR disaster because a car refused to start, due to them not having a signal either due to an outage, or being underground, is too great.
Car companies probably don’t want to deal with the headlines of “Man left stranded in parking garage after his car was unable to connect to the internet”, or “Woman marooned on mountainside because her car could not connect with the servers”.
At least, not until connection technology is good enough, or connectivity ubiquitous enough that neither of those are big enough issues for most.
At some point would the vehicle refuse to operate without a network connection?
No doubt.
Can anyone tell me how these vehicles are getting my data out of the car and into the hands of Toyota, or whoever, if I don’t use their app and never connect the vehicle to any networks?
I imagine the dealerships could probably pull my info out of the car when I take it in for a checkup, but outside of that I can’t think of how my data is getting offloaded.
Not trying to be a turd, I’m genuinely curious
OnStar has been a thing since '96. They’ve been putting antennas on cars to locate or other wise track them for a long time. One of the things that bothers me about this article is that they don’t say what year models or anything. While I’m sure that for the most part not all the automakers started this practice the exact same year, I am sure there was a starting point. Before then they couldn’t track you. After they could. That’s kind of disappointing. There are some people who think there early 2000’s cars are safe. I am not so sure.
They also don’t mention the fact that if they are using 3G or 2G or Edge components chances are they can’t still be collecting data on users driving those vehicles. But anything with a newer onboard modem would be effected I should think.
Purely theoretical as I don’t have any sources on how cars are doing this, but they could be communicating over low band networks similar to how Amazon home devices make a mesh network. Your car could send data to another car of the same manufacturer, who then phones home that data.
We need extremely punitive legislation to punish these companies for stealing data from their customers.
No, just need courts to do their fucking job correctly. Making new laws to fix problems only works when they are enforced properly. If courts and governments did what they are supposed to do then we wouldnt be where we are. But here we are
A boring dystopia
This is far from boring. This is outrageous. One of the most vicerally upsetting things I’ve seen all year. I’m more motivated than ever to keep my old reliable on the road for as long as possible. I’ll pay 450 a gallon if it means Nissan has no way to actively track my sex life. Car play is not worth the convenience at all if it’s pulling all the data from your devices and phoning home with it.
the worst mozillas seen.
… Yet
If experience has taught me anything, it’s that things can always get worse.
“Mozilla Foundation found that all 25 of the car brands it reviewed had glaring privacy concerns, even compared to the makers of sex toys”
Wait so my sex toys are collecting my data now?
I’m not interested in any vehicle that requires an app or has its own connection to the internet.
We don’t know how far back this problem will affect the automakers in question, but I can tell you that OnStar services launched in 1996. So don’t be surprised if your car does in fact have an internet connection. Unless I guess you don’t own a car. In that case, congrats.
My car is nowhere near that smart, and I don’t pay any subscription fees so I doubt I’m rolling around Australia with a data connection that I don’t know about.
Unless your car is older than 2010, there’s almost a 100% chance your car has a data connection and is collecting data. I’m not sure what you think you’re the exception to the rule.
2012 Toyota. Toyota T-Connect didn’t become available until 2014.
It’s also a paid service! It requires a sim card and a plan, and would have relied on the factory entertainment unit which I have removed.
I think you are mistaking ‘black box’ type data logging with an always-on internet connection phoning home with the ability to turn features on and off which is a more recent and far more sinister phenomenon.
Does the car still send data if you don’t subscribe to the data service? Because my car has lte, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why I would ever need my car to supply data when I already have a phone, that does hotspot and has a faster connection.
Almost 100%
The radios are used to push software updates and I think you can turn on emergency onstar/onstar-equivalent for a lot of vehicles. You are mostly paying to use the radio yourself and to cover additional data overheads.
Depends on the car but I’d hazard that yes it does. If it has a data connection according to some others in this thread and on other posts, they turn it on regardless of whether or not you subscribe for services. So for instance you still can get Sirius XM ads and so on if you have Sirius satellite radio installed as part of your cars package. If they can send you ads chances are they want to know if they’re effective and they want to better target those ads. Easy to do when they monitor which radio stations you have programmed and which ones you listen to most etc.
Actual Link to Mozilla’s reviews: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/categories/cars/
For some reason, journalists (or their editor) seem to hate linking to actual sources. But at leastthe article helps point you in the right direction for keywords to look out for with each manufacturer.Edit: The link is there on the second sentence. I just missed it.
Tesla was the worst-ranked brand in the study, getting flagged in every privacy category — only the second time this happened. Tesla’s AI-powered autopilot was highlighted as “untrustworthy” following its involvement in numerous crashes and fatalities.
Yeah, that does sound untrustworthy.
This is very confusing
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I thought this discussion was about privacy?
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Autopilot has never been “involved” in a crash anymore than your parking sensors have. It is a driver assistance system. It manages your cruise control and keeps you between the lines on the highway. The “driver” (you know, the person operating the vehicle) is the one responsible for avoiding crashes.
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Huh?! If I look at the source of the article at Mozilla, Tesla is actually ranked as almost least creepy.
So I do not understand where this is coming from. Also the picture of the article only showing teslas is highly suggestive
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/categories/cars/
This is the article being referenced. Specifically, the table listing the brands from “bad to worst”:
It looks to be based on user ratings (for the sort), and could change dynamically
Likely a lot of people dog piled on Tesla, then read the others.
The Tesla one’s main issue is “they grab a lot of data and don’t seem competent protecting it” which is less bad than “we will sell your sexual history if we can grab it from the car, and have a lot of sensors too”
Guess I better keep my old shitbox on the road a while longer 🚗💨
If presented with a binary choice between minimizing carbon footprint with privacy-evasive EV or sticking with more polluting ICE vehicle and keeping privacy, what would you choose? Which choice is more ethically sound? What is more important between mitigating human-caused climate change or preserving individual human privacy? 🤔
If presented with a binary choice between minimizing carbon footprint with privacy-evasive EV or sticking with more polluting ICE vehicle and keeping privacy, what would you choose?
Neither. I don’t even have a drivers license and I’m 34 years old. I walk, bike, or take a bus everywhere.
If it works for someone’s specific case than this is most certainly the way. 👊🏻
I just wish America wasn’t so damn car centric.
Privacy. Easy choice for me.
The impact of our cars, though significant, is far outstripped by global shipping (those container ships aren’t carbon-neutral), power generation (EV cars gotta get their power from somewhere), or the simple burning of rain forests to make room for cattle or crops.
It takes energy to smelt steel and aluminum and build a car, or to mine Rare Earth Minerals needed for the latest tech.
Driving and old car that you maintain, repair, and keep out of the junkyard is far more environmentally sound. So far. Hoping that balance will change in near decades.
It’s a false dichotomy. You don’t need to choose. None of them preserve your privacy.
I understand your comment but it is just a hypothetical question sans need. :)
Dammit! Just when I’m in the market for a car, this Mozilla study comes out.
