Your new car may be a 'privacy nightmare on wheels'

[Gefn]

New cars come with helpful bells and whistles, but also cameras, microphones and sensors that are reporting on everything you do

"Bad news: your car is a spy," Gizmodo reported, citing new research from the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation that found new cars to be the worst category for privacy of any product it had ever reviewed since 2017. "If your vehicle was made in the last few years, you're probably driving around in a data-harvesting machine that may collect personal information as sensitive as your race, weight and sexual activity."

Mozilla's *Privacy Not Included testers said they spent more than 600 hours researching the privacy practices at 25 of the top automakers in the U.S. and Europe. None of the automakers met the team's minimum standards for data use and security, and most also got black marks on data control and privacy and security track records. "We can't stress enough how bad and not normal this is for an entire product guide to earn warning labels," Mozilla's researchers wrote.



https://theweek.com/business/1026345/cars-privacy-nightmare

[Gefn]

Scary, but how does a car know if you are making whoopee?

[Smokin Joe]

Scary, but how does a car know if you are making whoopee?

Probably something to do with the suspension or subtle changes in tire pressure, while the car is sitting still.

I remember in the 90s, when Onstar had just come out, there was a lawsuit brought by the service provider against the FBI (who had hacked a particular car in Nevada to hear conversations inside it) because the service provider could not provide the service while the FBI was listening in on conversations in the car.

My vehicles don't have that, nor any of the new stuff like cameras or lane monitors or even Onstar.
Unfortunately, my phone could provide most of my location info, rate of travel, etc. that the surveillance state craves.

As for monitoring conversations, well I was talking with a friend just today about the economy and how something was going to have to break (the latest 20 cent per gallon jump in fuel prices having brought that on--now $3.99/gallon for regular).

I had just commented that if it did break, then this administration would have all the excuse it needed to become the dictatorship it wants to, and my phone dropped off the network, ending the call. I had to restart the phone to get back on the cell network, with a longstanding account with a major provider. Spooky, that. 

Gibbs Rule 39 may apply.