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from the all-your-data-are-belong-to-us dept.
The Verge is reporting that the next data minefield is your car. GM has been capturing lots of user data from the cars they have sold and is apparently planning to sell that (stolen|coerced) data to advertisers targeting, for now, radio advertising. Newer cars generate upwards of 600GB of user data per day. This is causing business leaders to drool because some expect the value of this data to reach more than $1.5 trillion by the year 2030, if the data (capture|theft) remains uncontested. GM is the first auto maker so far to try this. The first batch took data from around 90,000 vehicles. However, there was not much detail given about how permission was gained for this data capture and whether agreement was coerced or through ignorance.
GM captured minuted details such as station selection, volume level, and ZIP codes of vehicle owners, and then used the car's built-in Wi-Fi signal to upload the data to its servers. The goal was to determine the relationship between what drivers listen to and what they buy and then turn around and sell the data to advertisers and radio operators. And it got really specific: GM tracked a driver listening to country music who stopped at a Tim Horton's restaurant. (No data on that donut order, though.)
Also at The Detroit Free Press : GM tracked radio listening habits for 3 months: Here's why.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @02:55AM (10 children)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday October 20 2018, @03:03AM (6 children)
A good start but insufficient. Unfortunately by the time you secure one of these traitor systems you'll have essentially re-engineered the entire car.
I foresee nothing but vintage cars in my future.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Some call me Tim on Saturday October 20 2018, @03:47AM (4 children)
His solution is perfectly acceptable. How much useful data can they get between the dealer and his home? When I bought a car with On-Star I pulled the antenna and installed a terminator as soon as I got home. Didn't want it and the dealer refused to disconnect it as it was so embedded in everything it would have caused problems (they said). Years later I got a recall notice notice that required an On-Star disconnect because they switched to digital and analog was no longer supported. I showed the mechanic what I did and he said I was good to go.
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday October 20 2018, @04:21AM (3 children)
It's nice that it's working for you (as far as you know) but I wouldn't count on it forever. Particularly with the next generation of cars.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @10:31AM
A couple of years back they were talking about putting wireless in all cars so they can all talk to each other. Your data gets replicated into cars that can upload.
Good luck blocking that.
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Saturday October 20 2018, @03:06PM (1 child)
In this context terminator replacing an antenna would be a dummy load. Terminator is an odd term for me in radio context because it makes it sound like it's the end of a SCSI chain but it would be correct because both a terminator and a dummy load should impedance match.
A dummy load is a resistor that eats the radio power basically. They leak a little but not very much if you do it right.
Radios with poor antennas or even no antennas would be operating in a high impedance or high SWR mode. It's fine for receive (can blow up the RF amp in transmit though) but performance is typically much worse than having a proper antenna.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Saturday October 20 2018, @05:36PM
Exactly what I expected it to be then.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday October 21 2018, @12:10AM
> I foresee nothing but vintage cars in my future.
Yep, me too.
The dummy load resistor is a great idea, but, ... I have right here an OBD2 tracker that looks like this: https://gotrack.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2_GotrackIMGobdfront.png [gotrack.com]
The internal antenna is a PC board pattern. It appears to have 2- one looks much lower frequency. Obviously it can be buggered / terminated, but a bit more work and it will be obviously tampered with.
If I'm ever forced into owning a car with built-in tracking, I'll have to build/buy an RF signal detector and find the thing(s). Not sure what will happen next...
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Saturday October 20 2018, @03:39AM (1 child)
Not sure if it is still true, but Onstar used to be able to be disabled on many GM cars just by pulling a single circuit breaker for it and not affect other systems.
I would assume that this is how they transfer all the data and should do the trick. (otherwise, a 2nd circuit breaker may need pulling.)
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 4, Informative) by stretch611 on Saturday October 20 2018, @03:56AM
additional information: How to deactivate Onstar [wikihow.com]
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by Some call me Tim on Saturday October 20 2018, @03:53AM
I love Mini Circuits! Their LNAs are rock solid. Rebuilt a telemetry feed using their stuff and got a 30% increase in usable signal over the factory crap. That was a fun job ;-).
Questioning science is how you do science!