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Volkswagen has been collecting geolocation data from their smart cars, which were accidentally made public (infosec.exchange)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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[–] 154 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (16 children)

Let's be 100% clear, all of these cars with "smart" features are collecting your data and selling it. Insurance companies are also buying this information and using it to raise premiums if they determine you a "bad driver." Also this could reveal info such as where you live if anyone is determined enought depending on the info if stores (such as geolocation data).

Basically I'm saying wrap your car in tinfoil

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  • [–] 97 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    I live in a small, rural community. The county sheriff's department just announced how they bought the GPS tracking data for every vehicle in the county and how it's going to "help calm traffic because they can predict where people are going to be speeding and can have an officer waiting"

    The pre-crime department is starting and no one batted an eye.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Every time I hear something like this I'm glad I bought an old car without any connectivity.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Same, for now. Although, we have two ICE vehicles and want to swap to electric. I haven't looked, but I can't imagine there's a great selection of electric, but 'dumb' in the US, considering GPS was mandatory for new vehicles in .. 2016, I think?

    I've also heard people say you can just pull the fuse for the GPS, but I'm still skeptical.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Or just pull the fuse to the antenna?

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Are antennas usually behind a fuse?

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    Mine was, it'll be called OnStar in the manual.

    Here's a post with a pic https://sh.itjust.works/post/16735052

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Ah, pretty sure that'd be the whole OnStar transceiver, too (which isn't a bad thing to disable...).

    I thought the antenna itself was behind a fuse (as in, feedline has an inline fuse) which would be a peculiar design I think.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Basically I'm saying wrap your car in tinfoil

    and don't ever let diagnostic tools with network access be connected to it. just as well could say never bring it to service, which is not really possible

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    At this point, just get a bicycle without a battery.

    Of course, sometimes you need to move heavy stuff and there's nothing you can do about it, bu I tend to save enough, not owning a car/motorbike that I can afford to pay for a pickup on those occasions.

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