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Now that cars are like smartphones, we don’t really own them
(www.washingtonpost.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2023
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Friendly reminder: Mozilla studied 25 car brands and NONE of them passed the privacy test. Mozilla even said that cars are "privacy nightmares".
I mean this is gotta be on the newest Internet connected cars right? Cause like aint no way my 2017 ford focus has that many "privacy issues" it doesn't even have android auto lol.
Has what's called a Telematics Control Unit. And that thing phones home. It's basically a wifi modem.
No it does not. Some models may. But mine does not. Also, as far as I understand you would have to have like a cellular connection or something for your car to phone home anywhere? And not only is that not a service offered on my car? . It would also mean someone has to maintain that device and ensure it's communicating basically 24/7 . I mean who's paying for the cell service. Is it running on 3G which is defunct now? If I even had one How can it phone home? I don't understand.
Yes. A lot of cars and car manufacturers include a Telematics Control Unit (a Cellular wifi modem) in their vehicles.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2015/11/17/ford-steps-into-the-vehicle-telematics-space-with-sync-connect/
If people really cared about privacy and their cars and were serious about solving it, disabling the telematics control unit or the cellular modem would resolve this issue pretty quickly. None of the cars on the road today need internet connectivity to function.
However, if they have built-in Google maps or navigation system, well that's always going to be a privacy issue right? This is no different than having GPS and maps on your phone.
Judging by the lack of tik Tok videos on how to disable your car's cell modem, I'm guessing this isn't that big of an issue for people.
Disabling it often bricks the car because it's tied into an ECU or network that requires it. Even if it doesn't and you could say go and unplug it or a fuse for it, the one in the focus (according to Google) is behind the dash and would probably require you to remove the dash to access it. You could unplug an antenna or something but then other features like radio or GPS might not work. If your car has integrated GPS do not be surprised if it's the same antenna.
Disabling 4G breaks your car?
So how am I able to drive a Tesla across Northern Canada where there is no cell phone service or internet whatsoever?
That's not what I said. I said removing or messing with the modem may disable the car which was a known thing on on-star vehicles and generally any vehicle where you could for instance have the car disabled remotely or for instance use your phone as a key.
I just checked my user manual, and you can just pull the fuse for the OnStar unit and it will completely disable it. It does not break the car, I just verified.
May. I didn't say will. Congratulations on being pedantic for the purposes of one-upmanship. Your vehicle is probably newer. Like I said in the first comment originally they ran them through the ECU or similar and there was not a dedicated fuse because they were tied into the network traffic of the car to prevent thieves from being able to disable their ability to steal a car and prevent OnStar services from disabling or locating the vehicle.
Also gonna point out that GPS is built into newer cars and you may not be able to disable 4G without disabling that because they use the same antenna. Food for thought. Is disabling Onstar via the fuse deactivating the service or is it deactivating the SOS buttons? I'd love to see a schematic. In doing so can you still use onboard GPS?
https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/tracking-technology/
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/
Here's a better explanation than I can ever give on the privacy aspect of this and the data car manufacturers are collecting.
As these cards age out, the cellular standard that they support will be eventually dropped and then they won't work. Just like owning an old cell phone.
This has happened with 3G networked and older vehicles (OnStar has been a thing since the 90's). People tried to unplug the OnStar hardware but they ran it through a CAN bus and it would disable the car (to prevent thieves from circumventing it).
Nope, still a privacy nightmare
Go ahead and explain. Cuz there's nothing internet connected on my car.
My parent's Hyundai had no customer-facing internet-related features on the car. Still had a cellular radio for telematics. A potential tell is an SOS button. (That's a non-issue since it's 3G now and that went bye-bye but 4G is going to be around a while)
But my similar age to your Focus, newer than the Sonata, Sorento had nothing that I could find. So it's possible.
Ford started shipping all of their cars with one in 2015. I linked an article showing that somewhere up there. I'll edit to post it here too.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2015/11/17/ford-steps-into-the-vehicle-telematics-space-with-sync-connect/
Except I don't have sync connect. I have an old sync which as far as I can tell has no telemetry and is completely defunct considering it doesn't work with anything anymore.
You have sync 2. Because that is the standard sync system on your vehicle. It became standard on all Ford models in 2015, 2-ish years before your car was manufactured. Believe whatever you like, but please read the article.
I did read the article. And you're just proved my point. It says specifically in the article they can do ota updates to sync 3. Doesn't mention sync 2. And if sync 2 has a cellular antenna, it ran on a 3G which is now dying/ dead. So my car would not be connected. But there is nothing to indicate as far as I can tell that sync 2 has any sort of telemetry to the outside world.
https://www.cjponyparts.com/resources/ford-sync-versions
Take that info however you want. I don't care anymore.
I know what version of sync I have yah dingus
I could waste my time explaining or you could Google it. Long story short is that there are many ways to send information that don't involve the internet at all, and you'd have to get a mid 90s car if you didn't want any data sent at all. They got worse in around 2012 when more protocols were added as well
Sounds to me like you're talking out your ass. Otherwise you could just explain it instead of telling me to google it. You did after all "waste your time" by even responding.
Notable was (I believe) Nissan, who included a clause about tracking your sexual activity.