I still drive an old car and this is one of many reasons why.
What year IS safe?
I just saw someone post of open source cars. Now I know why.
“Analysts estimate that by 2030, car data monetization could be an industry worth $750 billion.” Yo I bare the weight of the ads on my public bus/train rides… now why the heck would I want a modern car?
Here’s some tips:
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Sticking to this community’s name, ditch the automobile all together and adopt a hybrid approach of cycling and public transit. Buy and/or build a good bike or e-bike and learn the local bus route and/or routes of any other public transit.
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For those of us still stick in Der Orangenführer’s fascist regime, stick to cars made before 2012. Some cars were going to high tech before this but it’s bond to be outdated but check if it’s still used.
This is reminding me of a talk I had with a mechanic friend in the early 1990s, when integrated electronics started showing up in basic functions of a lot of new cars. People like him, who didn’t know crap about computers but were really good at the mechanical concerns when cars were pretty much mechanical devices - fuel goes in here, controlled explosions in that box there turn other things which make wheels go, and a bunch of cords and plumbing to connect it all up and levers and gears to direct the mechanical energy - were having to confront what to do when that mysterious circuit board began to need work.
This talk happened when I was visiting to set up a new cassette-based telephone answering machine for his auto workshop’s office and tutor him in its use, because he was that hopeless with electronics.
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Time for opensourcevehicles and opensourcetransit to become a thing. I’m one of many people interested in doing that. Anyone have spitball ideas on how to go about doing that?
Trying to think up some simpler first projects, how to get it funded, and how to get a community for that up and running
Also, some people were interested in making opensourcebusiness community. If anyone is still interested then please do it there was 7 people I remember that were interested at the time for that
We can also get opensourceanimation, opensourceuiux, and way more up and running. To slowly transform our world and get open source to grow even more
Edit: Would be cool for people to get community projects made for bikes, electric bikes, bike-cars, cars, VTOL’s, and way more overtime. Trams, trolleys, trains, high speed rail, airplanes, submarines, airships, etc
Edit 2: Main focus being people-focused transit. Didn’t realize I was in fuckcars. If we are going to have any transit might as well be open source especially EV’s
I love the spirit! I think about open sourcing vehicles all the time, but unfortunately I think the biggest hurdle might be in what constitutes a street-legal vehicle.
Even though there’s lots of dangerous problems with closed source cars, I’m pretty sure there’s some litany of safety / engineering standards that manufacturers have to meet, as well as passing “smog tests” in many places. (EVs still on the table tho…?)
So, an open source vehicle would be more transparent, which would be a huge win! But also if it was a community initiative like say, RepRap, I imagine there’d be a lot of red tape with user-designed or hypothetically 3D printed cars or somesuch, especially when it comes to safety standards.
The biggest worries I’d have would be how much interest such projects would get from safety engineers and other pros who know how to make the thing not kill the user.
Am I way off? I’d love to hear I’m wrong and there’s plenty of hope for this to be a thing. I really hate modern car manufacturers. They all suck. Their proprietary lock-in and user-hostile attitude sucks. We need better. :)
Something to consider, how does that law apply in the US making it illegal to break any digital lock, passed in the late 90s to protect CD companies? It’s our property, we should be able to program it how we want, just curious if a company could lean on (pay off) the feds to persecute someone wiping their programming and putting in their own?
I would assume an open source e-bike would probably be the place to start.
Or just a regular degular bike.
I’m not sure how much about a regular bike needs to be any more open source than it already is. The patent has long since expired. It’s not like there’s any major bike manufacturer trying to lock in owners.
Someone elsewhere in the thread linked https://www.openmotors.co/product/tabbyevo/, which I had never heard of before and which is actually pretty fascinating.
I’d obviously say the best open source vehicles are bikes and scooters, but I understand that currently isn’t an option for everyone and that even in the ideal scenario there’s going to need to be a small number of cars, trucks and vans. IDK how practical something like this will really be, but it’s at least pretty neat.
Hey that’s pretty cool!
If it were powerful enough to just slap a Honda Element chassis on there, it’d be so perfect. A man can dream. XD
Awesome thanks for the heads up! Feel like it will be possible just for bigger projects it will definitely need a community open source everything approach
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What if:
My car doesn’t have a cellular connection? Does it still spy?
I have SatNav, but it doesn’t have a hotspot/wifi/cell, does it so collect data somehow? I’m guessing somehow over GPS/sat maybe?
Some cars used 3G cellular connections, which is no longer active in most countries.
The only countries with active networks are Croatia, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Slovenia, and South Korea.
I believe countries in neither red nor green also have 3G. For example, India, where I live, still has 3G (and 2G). By the way, vehicles here don’t get SIM cards as far as I know.
If it doesn’t have ANY online or cellular features AND the model never had them as an option, it probably doesn’t have a sim card and won’t track you. Sim cards cost the manufacturer money.
But if the same model as your car was available with such features and yours was just configured without them, it’s entirely possible yours has a sim card too.
With no cellular connection, no data will go out as GPS is one-way by nature. I suppose it’s possible someone with physical access can retrieve some metrics if relevant but that’s not really a factor IMHO.
Y’all just need to stop being selfish and think about the shareholders.
I don’t have time for them.
I am worried about tHe eCoNoMy
It’s even trickier with EVs.
On the one hand you can charge your EV at home and no one knows about it.
On the other, you can’t pay for a public charger with cash, there’s always a trail. Cars have unique identifiers that are communicated to the charger when connected. Each time you charge in public they know exactly who are you and what car it is.
There’s always plugshare - charge at a random person’s house
Each time you charge in public they know exactly who are you and what car it is.
because they designed it that way. it doesn’t need to be designed that way.
and there’s no reason you couldn’t pay for charging your car in cash just like with a gas pump
State sponsored surveillance Flock cameras photographed the chat.
same is true when you fill up at a gas station…
You can pay with cash at a gas station.
Many smaller gas stations don’t have automated license plate scanning systems to track customers. I’m not even sure if bigger gas stations do it.
It’s not the gas station that is tracking you. It’s the Flock cameras.
So I guess we don’t have to worry about privacy in cars. Since everyone is tracked anyway being tracked by your car doesn’t change anything.
Subaru states that by being a passenger, you are considered a user — and by being a user, you have consented to their privacy policy. Several car brands also note that it is a driver’s responsibility to tell passengers about the vehicle’s privacy policies.
No way that holds up in court. But in what situation would that appear in court unless someone has money to burn?
This is the US courts, there absolutely is a chance the soul less mega corporation’s arguments get validated by the courts. Trial courts probably not, but on appeal? The federalist society runs the courts, they have a veto on every decision, and they were chosen to side with big money and entrenched interests.
everytime WE get into a car with our friends we ALWAYS read the privacy policy aloud to them right guys
(reads 15 minutes of legalese when the car starts)
“I agree!”
“I agree!”
“I don’t!”
“Isn’t there someone you forgot to ask?”
This kind of shit is what makes me not want an EV, that and I guess the ease of repair but that could change with proper regulation and resources. I’m all for EVs but my current relatively effecient ICE car doesn’t spy on me and that’s important as well.
This kind of shit makes me want to build an EV using a kit.
This makes me want open source community-made vehicles. Who else is with me on that?
Any recommendations? Not sarcasm, I genuinely wanna know.
Here’s a documentary about folks who wanted to do just that. It’s more difficult than you’d think.
Thank you!
It’s got nothing to do with EVs.
It’s all cars made in the last 6-8 years.Thats kinda my point. If my current car dies I’d like to replace it with an EV, but if even the ones used and 5 years old have this shit I’m not sure I’d want to compromise my privacy like that. My only options would likely be used plug in electric hybrids or early models of EVs that will likely need battery replacements/upgrades.
It sort of has something to do with EVs, in that it’s hard to find EVs made before this was standard, so if you’re looking for cars without it it’s hard to find one that doesn’t have an ICE engine.
(Where cars aren’t avoidable, I do prefer they be electric, as, I’m sure, do many, but the privacy concerns are apparently very real.)
(Edit: hydrogen cars are indeed very neat and more environmentally friendly than electric cars, and in the most ideal scenario what unavoidable car/truck/van usage there was would be hydrogen-powered. It is not AFAIK practical for the average consumer at this time and requires substantial infrastructure updates which the individual consumer can’t really do much about beyond lobbying reps, so when it comes down to an individual who does need a car weighing what kind of vehicle to buy, I think it is fair to say that electric cars are better than ICE for the environment but, due to being newer, have more privacy concerns than old ICE vehicles. Neither is as good on either criterion as being able to just go car-free, of course.)
If it makes you feel better, EVs aren’t a real solution to the problems we face anyways, public transport was always the solution and EVs was a way to get consumers to keep focusing on individualism and consumerism to solve societal problems.
Edit: So many replies falling over themselves about how EVs are a good “baby step”. They’re not. Hydrogen fuel cells is a good baby step. EVs are still extremely extractivist. Lithium batteries are very bad, environmentally speaking. Hydrogen is significantly cleaner. It is avoided because it would require unprofitable infrastructure to be rolled out to support hydrogen vehicles.
I am 100% in favor of density, non-car-centric urban development, active mobility and rock-solid public transit – I am on this community for a reason, after all, and I further do not drive. But I acknowledge that there are some cases where cars are important for trade work, hauling, etc., as well as where buses are the better option for transit, and in those cases I believe that the vehicle should be electrified. It may only be like 5% of the solution, but it’s a part of the solution nevertheless.
More of a tram person instead of buses for transit due to how much more comfortable of a ride it is. Everything else I fully agree with though
Open Source Electric vehicles here we come!
I generally prefer trams and light rail to buses, but buses do offer a lot of flexibility that can be useful in any transit system. I do think that right now they’re often not given appropriate priority and used for routes that should be run by trams or light rail though.
Rural places and bigots will still need or want personal cars. Some things like a trades work van or delivery service will still need a car/truck. These might as well be developed as electric. EVs are not the solution to our transportation and environmental issues but they are part of it.
EVs aren’t the perfect solution. But they’re less bad than ICE vehicles, and are a good interim measure unless/until public transport becomes more viable.
Don’t let the best get in the way of the good enough for now. It’s OK to be in favor of two things.
Cars will always be the best choice for many many trips for many many kinds of people. Cities are most efficient but not everyone can be in one, and public transit doesn’t work in farmland. We need both. EVs is a way to reduce the use of fossil fuels in transportation. We don’t have time to wait to densify every city and build out good transit networks, that will take decades. EVs have real benefits today. It just sucks modern cars are nightmares.
Guess who drives the most in total.
And guess how much it can be reduced with good public transport.
My car’s old enough to vote.
How would it vote?
I’d bet it’s all in on whoever supports more fossil fuels.It’s a Prius, fuckface.
It’s a joke sensitive toes.
2023 article. Would be good to have current information.
It’s safe to assume that it only got worse
A very good assumption. However, knowing the state of things is still powerful, and also helps one better thwart the nonsense.
They put AI in their cars nowadays, which is tracking on steroids. It’s gotten worse.
The very worst offender is Nissan. The Japanese car manufacturer admits in their privacy policy to collecting a wide range of information, including sexual activity, health diagnosis data, and genetic data — but doesn’t specify how. They say they can share and sell consumers’ “preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes” to data brokers, law enforcement, and other third parties.
What the actual fuck
a wide range of information, including sexual activity,
404 :(
iirc this got removed shortly after it got attention
and not before it was produced? press x to doubt they actually removed it… If there’s no independent research and we can’t have the CEO’s own data, then take it with a big grain of salt
I’m not sure what you mean, but I meant you could no longer find the bit about collecting sex related data on the nissan site after mozilla made that article. I read some of them before and I’m not 100% but I’m pretty sure I read that section, but when I shared the article with people it was gone from the car maker site by then.
They’re saying that corps barely give a shit about the law and will continue doing the thing, only they will stop telling people they are doing it. Then when they get caught for doing still doing it they will say ‘oh no we are so sorry’ and pay the meaninglessly small fine attached to it. And then still continue to do the thing.
If you have the url. Have you looked for it on the wayback internet archive?
Turns out this article is from 2023, but here you go - search the page for “sexual activity” and you’ll find it
$$$$$$$
There’s more than enough spying capability on most smartphones. I’m not worried about my car at all.
But your car is a heck of a lot harder to install a privacy-focused custom ROM on.
Indeed.
I hate the world we’re building.
I hate the world they’re forcing us to consent to live in.
They’re not even forcing us to consent. They’re forcing us without our consent and then claiming we consented by not having any other choice.
They don’t want you to know this, but members of the ruling class are human and therefore actually very easy to remove from power. You just take all of the goo out of them and that generally works.
Force and consent are contradictory.
Then revoke your consent insofar as you are able
This is why if you buy a car, you should get a “dumb” car.
Serious question, what is the best solution to this? My household has three cars, the newest is from 2008. It makes me nervous as to what to do if I wanted a “new” car (I’d never buy an actual new car, just new to me and made in the last ten years).
Takes some checking about what makes let you disconnect or not. Toyota does, Kia has no option, base models might still have the “feature” omitted, etc.
Remove the spyware junk. All you’d practically use (beside the driving essentials itself) is radio, heating, lighting, warning signs, aircon, and that’s it, really.* A Faraday cage can also help.
* Not gonna lie, something in me wonders whether those also have spyware or not… but either way.
How you gonna drive around with a car in a Faraday cage?
You ain’t gonna see shit
I meant getting the spyware parts out and then in a faraday cage back in, but honestly, easier to just remove those.
We need to find a way to cripple cars’ connectivity.
Check for a “telematics unit” Removed one recently for a 2016 Subaru Forrester because it was draining the battery.
If the data is stored in the car, that just changes the timing of the privacy breach, not its existence.
There are a lot of serious issues that get recalled that need to be fixed in software nowadays. If you disable the radio, sure you’re safe, but like you mention, if its stored on the car, now you either forego addressing recalls and risk your life, or you take it into the service center to manually update it and they get the data then.
How?
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