this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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Privacy

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Cars are scary (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 week ago by Geodad@lemm.ee to c/privacy@lemmy.world
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I went war-driving on a whim today. You wouldn't believe how much personal information your car leaks out. I saw names like "Drew's Chevy" and Oscar's Audi S5".

I locked my car down as much as possible when I got it.

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[–] infeeeee@lemm.ee 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Where or how did you see that? As bluetooth clients?

Bluetooth radios have unique mac addresses, so adding a relatively common first name to it doesn't mean much, if someone wants to track you via this, it doesnt really matter if it's 04:ad:22... or Geodad's car

[–] dogs0n@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I don't know why the car has the persons name, but it's the same thing with most peoples smartphones. People usually never turn off bluetooth when not in use and it's always blasting their name. Though it is of course easier to see who Oscar is when there's a whole car model to match it to.

For car's, I wonder why they can't only blast a device name while in pairing mode. Dunno of it's just not a possibility, but that seems smort.

[–] Geodad@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

All these cars had cell modems and shared it as WiFi hotspots.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

There's also Bluetooth radios all over, and those tire pressure monitoring systems, which I understand are legally-mandated on new cars, broadcast a unique identifier.

https://askmyauto.com/are-tire-pressure-sensors-required-by-law/

Are Tire Pressure Sensors Required by Law? A Comprehensive Guide

October 15, 2024

Yes, tire pressure sensors (TPMS) are required by law in several countries. In the United States, TPMS has been mandatory for all new passenger vehicles since 2007 under the TREAD Act. Similarly, the European Union mandates TPMS in new cars sold after 2014.

https://medium.com/@doctoreww/day-2-your-car-is-trackable-by-law-1d5f74388850

To prevent TPMS systems from mixing up which tire goes to which vehicle, each TPMS sensor has a unique ID. The transceiver module in the car is told which sensor ID’s go to which tire and displays tire pressure accordingly. TPMS sensors can be forced to immediately send the tire pressure (and thus their ID) when the receive a particular signal. This signal is used in products like this to send pair the TPMS to the car.

Problem

Although a unique ID can be used to avoid other TPMS sensor’s messages on the road, this unique ID can also be used by an attacker to track a vehicle’s movements. This ID is broadcasted unencrypted and, therefore can be used to track when a particular vehicle has passed nearby.