Mozilla released their studies, and I’m seeing a growing number of posts on the Internet about cars and the privacy nightmare they entail. I remember how this issue wasn’t talked about earlier because “just buy an older car” was still prevalent. I’m so happy that people are taking notice. Thank you to this community and Mozilla for the work they are putting in!
I’m basically in the position that I’m driving a car from 1999, and when it finally dies, I’ll either be resigned to riding the bus or finding another aged used car without all this absolute bullshit in it.
Maybe it really is time for the Free Open Source Vehicle.
Maybe it really is time for the Free Open Source Vehicle.
Sure, but what it is for certain time for is making this sort of spying and tracking illegal. If I as a private citizen tracked someone this much, it would be considered stalking, which is a criminal offense.
Getting a base model can somewhat help too. My 2020 car only has carplay. No built in navigation or any remote or homing tech (that I know of). It’s the higher trims that get all the fancy tech “features”.
I mean sort of. What is “base” has also changed.
Try finding an EV that doesn’t have automatic windows but has old school manual rollup/rolldown windows. You can’t, even though its more environmentally friendly.
I’m sorry but roll windows are awful and I’ve personally seen people nearly get in accidents because they’re focused on rolling the window instead of the road.
I am willing to bet A LOT that the energy consumption of the small window servo is trivial on the ev’s battery and is a worthwhile expenditure so that the already incompetent drivers aren’t engaging in a physical task while driving down the highway.
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I mean, that has a lot more to do with trying to multitask on the freeway than it does the windows. I’ve seen people fiddling with their phones or the touchscreens in their car just as badly.
That’s an issue of an unwillingness to plan ahead and focus on driving, not the windows themselves.
I’m definitely not a fan of treating everyone like a baby who needs coddling because some people can’t be fucked to do better. Aww poor babies need power windows so they can drive without distraction!
Telling me I can’t have manual roll windows because some people are fucking idiots is a joke.
When someone slams their car into mine on the freeway because they were dicking around with their phone, I’ll make sure to blame the phone for existing.
If you can’t roll up a window and drive in a straight line on the freeway, then you shouldn’t have a driver’s license.
This is a stupid take. You’re telling me that you expect car manufacturers incorporate manufacturing techniques that apply to your small niche that is also demonstrably less safe? And for what, “Privacy” reasons?
The extraction and refining of the copper ore needed for the motor, which has brushes (so a finite lifespan) but is also sealed without any way to replace those brushes (not to mention the hassle of getting into the door . I don’t think I’ve ever done it, on dozens and dozens of doors, without breaking clips), so they’re manufactured essentially as a throw away item, the opposite of sustainability.
Manual windows are easy, take no thought and if the window falls off track, you just get into the door and bend the track back into shape. Anyone can do it. You just got to open it up, roll it up and down a couple times to understand how it works and literally anyone can figure out their fix then. And at a cost of a few door clips, not an EXTREMELY overpriced $100+ for a 12v motor.
I don’t like buying guaranteed points of failure in my purchases when I don’t have too, that’s all I’m saying.
So say it to the guy who is arguing that? I’ve had two responses to my post act like I’m arguing for power windows when I’m aruing against them. I don’t understand why I’m getting downvoted while I have two people who have been upvoted who fucking agree with me.
I’m backing you up homie, not arguing with you. You’ve got my upvotes
I’m sure [email protected] would be happy to welcome you if you decided to go with buses.
That community completely ignores reality for
millionsbillions of people that absolutely need a car to live a life in the thousands of cities that don’t have adequate public transportation and 100% of the rural areas in the world.I don’t think they ignore it, they’re just not happy about it.
Multiple billions no. There’s 1.4 billion cars after a casual google, and considering how many people have cars as a convenience or multiple cars I think it might be closer to a single billion people need cars.
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That’s kinda extreme lol but I hope that companies start selling non smart cars. I don’t want my car to be smart , I want my car to take me to point A and B , and be able to fix it myself.
I miss my old 1999 Grand Marquis. Plenty of power, stupid easy to work on, rode like a dream, no tech bullshit. Fuel mileage was pretty crappy (owing to the V8 and curb weight) but it was a solid car. I largely drive cars until the die (did with that one too) and am thinking forward I may do the same and try to find older vehicles.
Man I would loooooove to find an old like 95 Regal. Totally a grandpa car, but all the freaking amenities, better cushioning than your couch, leg room, bench seat half the time, a V8 that can’t dump power and you can hold like 5 half racks under the hood if you needed too (tho pls don’t) there’s so much room.
Not a knuckle of blood anywhere to be found.
One thing I love about older cars from Detroit, definitely not the gas mileage but I can keep my spare fluids in the engine compartment lol
The Mozilla report in case some readers missed it: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/
People are starting to comment on the topic and take notice? That is great to hear. It is not often that this happens when such a study is released. It might be that ordinary people who lack the knowledge on the subject may be able to comprehend the concerns regarding privacy in cars more readily than in other areas. Whatever the case is, I’m happy the discussion is finally happening.
Huge props to Mozilla on this one - their article is clear and thorough. A lot of the studies are very vague, limited in scope, or way too technical, which makes them hard to share and discuss broadly.
That is true and might be the reason the study is successful at raising public awareness about the topic.
I think it also has a little bit of shock factor. Everyone expects Google to be spying on you, so nobody is surprised when a report is released about a Google Home speaker being bad for privacy. When you’re buying the speaker, you’re making an active choice to trade privacy for convenience.
But the average person probably doesn’t expect that from their vehicle. I think lots of people are shocked to find out how much info their car has been collecting about them. Especially since cars aren’t usually considered a luxury in the US. To make the same comparison, a smart speaker is a luxury. You can opt out of the data collection by refusing to purchase one. You can do without it. But in most of the US, a car is a necessity, and this means that you can’t opt out of the data collection because you need a car to survive.
Also, while Google collecting data on you means they use it for advertising, your vehicle collecting driving data on you absolutely can and will be eventually used for insurance coverage. Insurance companies are absolutely salivating at being able to prove people’s bad driving habits with data and use those as ways to increase the cost of their coverage.
Not loving the idea of being spied on by the insurance company dickbags just so they can look for any amount of “bad driving” as an excuse to pump up my rates.
I’m waiting for Elon to release a dumb tweet (xeet?) about how tesla has zero data collection
Are those sort of lies from a company’s CEO punishable by fine or perhaps prison, or is flat-out lying about your company in a public statement totally cool, totally legal nowadays?
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I’m not sure how much it matters that people are taking notice. If all cars are doing it, what can we do? It’s not like people can’t buy cars anymore and it’s not like individual people can pay off politicians to make it illegal like large corporations can to make it legal.
There are a few options I guess. If enough people notice then there may be more money in being the company that respects privacy and just charges more for the car up front.
It might even encourage more people to buy used instead of new.
Or some people might just decide they don’t need a car.Caring is the first step to actively doing something. The more people that know, the more that will care and the more people that will act. Gotta start somewhere.
Ever since Jeep released their current gen Cherokee and two hackers revealed that they could hack into the entirety of the car by just knowing the phone number of the car’s hotspot, I have avoided new cars like the plague
maybe I’m a little behind the times when it comes to cars, but shouldn’t it be relatively trivial on the community scale to create foss head unit OS’s? are there other components that phone home besides the head unit? most cars have replaceable head units anyway, right? I feel like I must be missing something here
Well… No. Head units are pretty much integrated units nowadays. That transition started back in the 2000’s, and pretty much any car after like 2012-2015 is going to have a fully integrated head unit. Unless the FOSS unit is custom made for the car, replacing the head unit would severely impact the car’s functionality. It’s not as easy as just wiring a power and audio cable in, and it hasn’t been for about a decade.
Ironically, I don’t even think that was the reason for making integrated head units. I think auto manufacturers realized that touch screens and PCBs were cheaper to mass produce and install. Analog control systems fell out of favor because they require a team of techs sitting on a manufacturing line wiring them together. But a PCB and touch screen can just be plugged in and screwed in by a single tech.
Exactly. My car is 10-15 years old, and the touchscreen handles the climate control, radio, gps, phone, interior lighting, and ton of ancillary features. I doubt it’s possible to replace the system with anything but an OEM replacement unless you’re a really dedicated hardware hacker.
Exactly. The only reason I still have analog controls in my 10 year old car is because it’s a Toyota; Toyota is infamous for lagging behind other auto manufacturers, because they prize reliability over function. So they’ll only add something to a vehicle once they’re sure it’ll survive a decade of regular use. Back in the 2010’s, they were still refusing to add integrated head units with massive screens, because they weren’t fully time-tested yet. But if you get a current Toyota, you’ll find that enough time has passed for them to have integrated head units.
Feels like any car after around 2000 has an integrated head unit with other controls. Not easy or possible in many cases remove it without impacting the functionality of the car.
Have… you been in a new car in the last 20 years?
Thanks for this. I’m not in USA but I had chatgpt summarize my vehicle manufacturers privacy policy. Its wasn’t great, so I sent an email to their privacy inbox. Next, I’ll email my politicians.
How exactly do they collect info other than GPS?
How are people interacting with the “radio” that it’s given so much info?
Are new vehicles required to be connected to phone network to function?
What functionality is lost of not connected.
As a motorist who prefers to drive cheap cars that have a little tech as possible so that there is little to go wrong and what goes wrong I can fix myself I know nothing about the latest gen of cars
Cars are mandated to have a “SIM” (I don’t know how this is implemented, that’s a question for the engineers) inside that can be connected at all times. This was originally meant for faster accident response, and I’m assuming car companies have contracts with the Telecom companies (someone from the engineering/law teams help me here) to transmit data over their networks even when the user’s devices are not connected
If that’s the case then why do cars cry about wanting internet connection for updates?
It may be that the car company doesn’t want to pay more for the cell service than they need to; if they can push the download onto your cell plan it’s cheaper for them.
That’s why I’m glad I have an older car that doesn’t have any computer crap in it. I don’t want to have to jailbreak my car for it to be usable.
I don’t have to worry about this stuff, because my car is too old to have RFID, or GPS tracking
Guys honestly just buy a kei car like a Honda N-Van and a phone mount. 42 mpg, spacious, tons of cargo capacity, comparatively minuscule carbon footprint, and a basic 2din radio.
