[honkdaddy]

It's amusing to me that someone would go through the effort of deconstructing it, writing a gist, and posting it on HN before literally just googling "device under steering wheel" and seeing other people posting about the _exact_ same device.

People tend to imagine their lives are more interesting and worthy of surveillance than they really are :)

[rocqua]

He googled the device name, which I would also expect to show up in posts by others.

[burrows]

Yeah, people are just imagining the NSA led global surveillance apparatus.

[kersplody]

Nah, the NSA doesn't need to bug your car. All cars after 2016 or so come pre bugged with an OnStar/StarLink/BMW Assist Remote/etc Telemetry System continuously sending data over 3G or LTE. Conveniently, the manufacturers already sell this data in an "anonymised" form. (cough Otonomo cough Wejo).

Private companies are so much scarier than the NSA when it comes to privacy -- you have none -- your life's data is to be mined, brokered, and sold to the highest bidder.

The NSA only cares about you if you are talking to a small number of known hostile foreign people who are already a party to a FISA warrant.

[ClumsyPilot]

> "Private companies are so much scarier than the NSA"

We are in the long swing where people think only state tyrany matters. They forgot how bad private tyrany can get, of robber barons were.

[mellavora]

or state-enabled abortion vigilantes.

[toast0]

Welp, my car is now effectively bug free. It shipped with 2G, got a free upgrade to 3G, because 2G was being shut down. It has an optional upgrade to LTE but the features don't justify the cost and the mounting is derpy (new modem is a different shape, so it's velcro + double sided tape)

[yonaguska]

> Private companies are so much scarier than the NSA when it comes to privacy -- you have none -- your life's data is to be mined, brokered, and sold to the highest bidder.

Intel agencies privatize their spying to get around warrants. Private companies spying on you are not a far step from the NSA spying on you directly.

> The NSA only cares about you if you are talking to a small number of known hostile foreign people who are already a party to a FISA warrant.

Hah. If you have any political aspiration at all, you are a potential target. FBI lied to attain FISA warrants, and the lawyer responsible got a slap on the wrist. DC juries will never convict one of their own, there is zero accountability at this point.

[burrows]

> The NSA only cares about you if you are talking to a small number of known hostile foreign people who are already a party to a FISA warrant.

Why are you so confident about who the NSA cares about?

COINTELPRO anyone?

[tinus_hn]

Or if you are making a phone call or transferring data over the internet. They might not be bugging just any guy but they track everything they can.

[nephanth]

I wonder how those telemetry systems work for EU customers. Cause that sounds pretty much illegal under GDPR (non-consented tracking, data stored overseas...)

[mellavora]

Works just fine. The major German carmakers have an alliance to share data, and treat cars as roving sensor networks.

The data is used for improved road safety (real-time traffic jam awareness) and also so premium clients can find parking spots.

[closewith]

Do you have a source for these claims? Without informed consent, they would be significant breaches of both national data protection legislation and the GDPR.

[RuggedPineapple]

People tend to VASTLY overstate what sort of protections you get under the GPDR, to the point that I tend to assume nobody has actually read the regulations built off it.

In this case, there is no protection for data from your car, beyond the fact that carmakers don't want to share it. Writing regulations to cover it is being done now, and the tug of war is between giving any company who wants it access and giving companies the car manufacturers themselves select and get paid by access to it.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/your-c...

[JPLeRouzic]

I do not know for cars, but some major news websites in France and Germany are still not GDPR compliant (no cookie consent), yet nothing happens.

[andrepd]

I wonder what percentage of people are aware that their car is tracking them at all times. Surveillance capitalism is scary.

[bsenftner]

And this is exactly why I have a manufactured in 2016 Subaru. I saw this regulation going into effect, investigated what vehicle would last the longest, and purchased the last available non-snitch personal vehicle generation.

We're in the initial stages of a new dark age for humanity. Surveillance Capitalism and our generalized Adult Immaturity is going to swallow the free world, and it may be hundreds of years before actual human maturity develops to allow whatever comes after.

[Barrin92]

the NSA is certainly real, the likelihood of them bugging your car unless you're smuggling nuclear secrets is rather low

the three letter agencies don't care about people who play video games and watch cat videos all day

[natch]

> unless you're smuggling nuclear secrets

unless you're suspected of smuggling nuclear secrets

ftfy

[brigandish]

And yet they engage in mass surveillance, even of their own citizens.

[iratewizard]

No, no. That's done by the contractors they ship data to. Otherwise they would be breaking federal laws.

[worker767424]

For several months, keyless entry stopped working on my car. It fixed itself. My unlikely conspiracy theory is I was being tracked and interference kept the keyfob from working.

[markhahn]

never attribute to malice (or conspiracy) what can be explained by incompetence (or bugs).

[burrows]

Is there a reason it is better to attribute to incompetence? Or are you just mindlessly parroting shit

[influx]

If this is America, it would be the FBI who has jurisdiction. If this was outside America, CIA would be more likely to be installing hardware on a vehicle. If you hear the guys breathing on your phone line, that's probably the NSA ;)

[jll29]

depends what's embedded in your cat videos.

[867-5309]

sublimiaow message? stegaMOGraph?

[burrows]

If your car has a networked computer it’s probably bugged/backdoored imo.

(Talking out of my ass)

[lrvick]

If it is a Tesla they advertise this as a feature.

[nebulousthree]

You make it sound like the NSA can never fail. If it's monitoring you then you are likely doing something deserving of monitoring. They can be wrong though and you'll still have been spied on and information collected for future use. Consider a career in politics, perhaps?

[behringer]

The NSA is known to surveil people who are completely harmless, including spouses, loved ones, romantic interests, etc.

[thinkingemote]

They are imagining being part or the target of a conspiracy. It's a paranoid quirk of American politics, all sides see scheming and conspiracy.

Catholics, Communists, Woke subversives, or white supremacists. If you are part of American politics there is a mainstream conspiracy theory that your group has.

[hannasanarion]

The NSA isn't interested enough in you to send somebody to your house to break into your car and install a gps tracker.

[kevinh456]

Imagine if they got some in at an F&I company and convinced car dealers to install the surveillance without the installers even being aware of it