I think car privacy isn’t talked about amongst any privacy enthusiasts online ever, and it apparently is one of the biggest data collectors out there. For someone like me who values electric cars for there affordability and environmental reasons, but still want physical car buttons and control over my data, how would I go about this?
Theoretically finding how it transmits data and hitting it with a hammer
“We’ve detected a malfunctioning data transmitter… we meant sensor. To ensure our data mining… we meant your safety, the vehicle will not start until we can properly spy on you… we meant before the issue is corrected. Please tow the vehicle to your nearest mining facility… we meant dealer.”
I don’t mean to be mean but that error writer is really bad at their job
Yeah, they fired me.
Out of a cannon?
In most vehicles with onstar (Chevrolet mainly) you can pretty easily disconnect the cable that connects the computers to the antenna. You need to install a dummy load to keep it from turning on the check engine light but other than that it’s trivial. Once that’s done, the car will still collect data but it can’t send it anywhere. Just don’t take the car to the dealership for maintenance or they might “fix” the antenna connection for you
Won’t the dealership also send all the now only locally stored data to their servers anyway (even if they don’t fix the connection, just automatically by plugging in OBD)?
That’s how that happened before always-online cars (pre 2010).
They might, I don’t know. But I don’t go to the dealership anyway and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
That depends on the brand and location (& in some cases even warranty tos, lol), manufacturers licence & maintain
dealershipslicenced mechanics/shops differently. It’s (maintenance costs & quality) an important aspect of owning a car.But generally, yes.
Tho non-official shops sometimes connect your car to the mothercloud too, depending on what needs servicing.
Never buy a new car. That’s half the problem. I refuse to ever take a car to a dealer.
Rule 2 of car ownership: never take it to the dealer for maintenance. Find a local shop and build a relationship with them.
Rule 1 is never buy a new car/buy a car from a branded dealer. Cars lose up to 30% of their value when first purchased. Several years ago I bought a 3 year old car for half it’s new value - that’s how much they depreciate (a Honda no less). Brand dealers are pros at screwing you over.
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By banning cars for trains!
What happened to that slate car?
There was a quite a lot of buzz around it a few months ago
Still taking “preorders”, which is basically a spot in line. Only going to be sold in US to start apparently. Which is unfortunate, because it would make a great little farm truck.
I’m curious about it too, especially knowing whether there are any car brands that are more privacy friendly than others.
Not really.
They all now have computers with data connections to report car metrics.
Buy a used car without a cellular connection. I promise it’s not going to explode.
Buy a motorcycle instead.
mozilla just cant be a good browser company can it? gotta be all over the map
I actually appreciated the article. The section about my car’s manufacturer was comprehensive and I learned a lot.
Scary times we live in.
