Your car is spying on you.
That is one takeaway from the fast, detailed data that Tesla collected on the driver of one of its Cybertrucks that exploded in Las Vegas earlier this week. Privacy data experts say the deep dive by Elon Musk’s company was impressive, but also shines a spotlight on a difficult question as vehicles become less like cars and more like computers on wheels.
“You might want law enforcement to have the data to crack down on criminals, but can anyone have access to it?” said Jodi Daniels, CEO of privacy consulting firm Red Clover Advisors. “Where is the line?”
Many of the latest cars not only know where you’ve been and where you are going, but also often have access to your contacts, your call logs, your texts and other sensitive information thanks to cell phone syncing.
“Is your car spying on you”
Does a bear shit in the woods? Come on, are people that dumb? You car, phone, TV, Rumba, washer, security camera, and microwave spy on you. In fact anything that sends anything through to your phone or wifi is spying on you.
It’s about control, and you don’t have it.
Man, you might wanna sit down for this one…
I have only one smart TV, and it’s not connected to any network.
I used to have an LG “smart” washer, it was also never connected to any network.
I have a robot vacuum, it’s incapable of connecting to a network.
I have several IP security cameras, they are all VLANed and blocked from reaching out to the internet. The recording software is self-hosted and only reachable external through Tailscale (WireGuard). The object detection system I personally built.
My microwave has buttons from 0 through to 9, start, and stop. That’s it.
My car is a 2013 Jetta.
The only thing that spies on me is my phone and general online activity.
Serious question: what rewards have you reaped with your privacy diligence? This is coming from a fellow lemming who also does not want his humidifier reporting back on his activities
Rewards? Like it’s some game show?
I guess the rewards are the same when I close the curtains on my windows.
The rewards are that my images from inside my home aren’t leaked.
The rewards are better privacy.
Not all. Privacy devices do exist.
We do have a deficiency currently in the private car market for privacy cars. Its a good business opportunity.
I’m sure there is a market for something like a 90’s era Civic or Corolla, but with an electric engine, and that’s the only difference.
If I could get an electric car with zero external connectivity, and the internals of an early 2010 vehicle. I’d be interested.
Check about retrofit kits, if you have 20k to put in your car
Yeah and I think there would be a lot of people who would pay a premium to aftermarket privacy-ify their electric cars.
Yes, and all 10000 of those people worldwide will enjoy the absolute lack of range on a vehicle never designed to accommodate enough batteries. Or if you do fit enough batteries to make it useful, you ruin all other characteristics of the car by increasing weight too much.
You want to keep an old car going in a useful manner, it’s not going to be an EV conversion, you’ll be getting your hands dirty. But at the cost of having a really outdated interior, you’ll get better ride quality out of an 80s Mercedes than you will out of a 2020 literally anything. And those OM604/5/6 diesels will last forever too. And I mean FOREVER.
Otherwise you’ll have to find a manufacturer to build you a proper new EV without tracking. It’s gonna be hell, but maybe someone will pop up eventually. Will be a fun time explaining it to the customers: “Noooo, you can’t turn on heating from the app when it’s -30 outside, but that’s a good thing!” (though obviously a remote would fix that)
I think there’s other benefits like regenerative braking. I had that in a Prius and the brake pads got replaced like once every 100,000 miles.
Sure, but that’s part of the electric drive train. That doesn’t require spyware or a 27" touch screen.
100% but my point is that newer cars do have better engineering thats more than just batteries and an electric motor.
And, yes it doesn’t require an internet connection or cameras/microphones inside the cabin.