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by ashafer 1018 days ago
Certain cars let you physically disable this. For example, the Tacoma has a "Data Communication Module" (DCM) that performs all of this and has a cell radio to phone home. There's a fuse in the fusebox you can pull to prevent the DCM from getting any power. Only side effect is the in-cabin microphone stops working and you can reconnect the fuse at any time.

It's as if the engineering team didn't want to develop a spying product and made a convenient way to disable it...
2 comments
EricE 1018 days ago
lol - if they were only that altruistic. Toyota doesn't make the tech, they buy modules from suppliers and integrate the tech. Better hope someone doesn't come out with a fancy super module that has everything integrated because there will be no disabling it as soon as that happens :/

Don't forget Toyota was the manufacturer that was going to charge a monthly subscription just for the key fob (!) to work until they got a massive backlash over it. A freaking key fob that doesn't use cellular or the cloud at all - it's 100% local between the fob and the car. And don't think for one minute that they won't try to sneak it back in.

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philsnow 1017 days ago
> Better hope someone doesn't come out with a fancy super module that has everything integrated because there will be no disabling it as soon as that happens

I was just thinking about how to find and disable all the microphones in a car and realized that, with software, any speaker can be used as a microphone, so the logical conclusion is that you'd have to disable all the speakers as well.

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RealityVoid 1018 days ago
> Better hope someone doesn't come out with a fancy super module that has everything integrated because there will be no disabling it as soon as that happens :/

Well, hello there, zone ECU!

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Night_Thastus 1017 days ago
FWIW, getting to that fuse is a massive, massive pain in the ass on some of their newer cars like the 2023 corolla. It's basically not possible. The alternative requires taking off the dash and manually pulling out some wires.

In the process you may lose some functionality like some speakers, the radio, wireless android auto, microphone, etc.

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