A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don’t promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
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The last car I bought is a 2014 model year. The one before that is a 2016. I’m not buying anything made after 2020, even if I have to squeeze gasoline from the rocks with my bare hands. Not because I don’t like electric, but because I don’t want a spy appliance to drive around in, even if it has emoji headlights.
If I remember correctly, you’re probably already buying two new and need to go back further to like 2003 era or before.
It wasn’t until recently that that basically all cars came with tracking built in. Some not that old models (like my 2018 Outback) can easily be bypassed with a quick harness install. But others are integrated into the ECU AMD cannot be removed.
What about the dealership uploads? Where? They plug that device into your car to see if there’s any errors or whatever and They can pull the data from it then and upload it I Want to say those go back as far as about 2000
That’s the same module. The dealer could add their own to the car, but those would be removable. Also on BHPH dealers add shit like that to make repoing the car easier.
My ‘14 has no connectivity beyond GPS and Bluetooth. My ‘16 had internet connectivity but only via 2G which doesn’t work anymore. I think I’m good.
What about the device the dealership can plug into your car and pull the diagnostic data from it and upload it while you take your car in for maintenance or whatever.
Only rich people and idiots take their car to a dealer for service.
That’s a fair point, but as cars have gotten more and more complicated, it takes more than just your normal shade tree mechanic to fix them in a lot of cases.
Sure, but there’s still a lot you can do with a cheap bluetooth OBD-II reader.
Fair enough.
Anything with OnStar capability can definitely track you, which I know started at least as far back as 2006 in Saabs
And even before that, you have to worry about the dealership plugging one of those devices into your car and pulling the data from it, even if it’s not uploaded remotely, it could still be grabbed. I think you may have to go back to about 2000 or before to see cars that don’t have that or it’s not common or does not collect very much data at all.
I think you are talking OBDII systems, and while they communicate with the ECU, that system wouldn’t need any GPS access. I don’t think it has a direct link with the cambus that would hold the more advanced data. (Which if memory serves, also doesn’t handle GPS.
There is a dedicated port in my car specifically for data logging, but it only records realtime, not past travel. My GPS unit does track “breadcrumbs” if not following a road, but you’d have to interface directly to that computer. since there is no Bluetooth, there is no contact data or advanced privacy weaknesses.
That is likely it. I just could not remember the name of the system, but I know it has a data log port that you can connect a machine to that reads diagnostic data.