The car of the future will sell your data and also be vulnerable to hackers, and extremely difficult or even impossible to repair.
I know a few others in the tech industry who also spend their spare time collecting and restoring old cars, as in made more than 50 years ago. Parts and documentation are surprisingly available, and there's an extensive aftermarket thanks to a general lack of DRM-ish things --- these were made even before microcontrollers, so they're as "unconnected" as possible, and anything that goes wrong tends to be a relatively simple fix. Manufacturers were more concerned with actually making good products than locking out competitors or planning obolescence. The lack of annoyances such as needing to wait for the radio to "boot up"[1] or controls hidden behind layers of menus is also a plus.
They may not be as safe, fuel-efficient, nor environmentally friendly as today's cars, but there's a certain amazingly pleasant and comforting feeling of freedom in driving one. It's hard to describe.
> know a few others in the tech industry who also spend their spare time collecting and restoring old cars, as in made more than 50 years ago.
They don't even need to be 50 years old.
80's and 90's Japanese sports cars are my cup of tea, and mainly for the reasons you state. Even vehicles from the mid-to-late 90's that had OBD II connectivity are still relatively easy to fault find with. The ECU's are fairly basic generally, there's no outside connectivity apart from the obd port, and even if it's running a basic CAN-BUS in the vehicle, they don't usually have any DRM style nightmares in this era.
It's interesting too, that a car like a KP61 Starlet from the early 80's can achieve similar fuel efficiency as modern small cars, because what they lack in emissions control systems, optimised combustion chambers or direct injection (as examples), they make up for with a substantial lack of weight. (Mainly due to a complete and total lack of safety features haha!).
Though I think there's a lot to be said for keeping old cars running. You're not expending resources to build new batteries, mill new steel, and not contributing to landfill (or recycling byproducts and waste). I don't know what the direct environmental comparison is between running a car for 20 years and building a new car every 3-4 years (as is the common purchase cycle), but I would be under the impression that it would be comparable?
I've got a Nissan C34 Stagea, and everything you say is so true. Currently working on getting the Nissan Consult system to talk to a RPi, then use K11Consult to make a touch screen dashboard with AFR/boost/etc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cykgpQZ5iEU
I've loved 80s/90s Japanese cars since the 80s/90s, then got sucked into the social pressures and spent 5-6 years in a couple of different brand new cars. Last year after a horrific experience with a brand new VW (3 page list of repairs and replacements in the first year of ownership, they bought it back off us), it hit home how screwed we are when a modern car breaks. They're so complicated now, with so much electronics. They even steer and park themselves. You can't tinker with them, tweak the ECU to your liking, or fix things yourself. There's some you can't even service yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_YCC
Now I'm back in 90s cars. Something breaks? Buy the part on eBay and swap it out yourself. Anyone can do it really, they're such simple cars. They're still comfortable, have aircon, generally higher quality than modern cars, way cheaper, and they can't ever track/sell your data.
> The car of the future will sell your data and also be vulnerable to hackers
I see few things happening. There will be a time when modern connected car I own no longer receives software updates while it otherwise would remain a great daily driver. Each passing day it becomes more vulnerable to being hacked to perform variety of things. What is the level of risk that I am willing to accept before having to get rid of the otherwise good car since I no longer feel safe operating it? Eventually there will be an event where this risk gets realized. This will further hasten the move towards policies/legislation where private automotive ownership is no longer allowed and everything moves towards subscription based auto ownership. This will take longer in the US due to cultural reasons, whereas Asia and Europe will hesitate much less to implement this.
At which point I suspect also the data collected by subscribed automotive belongs to the vendor 'renting' it out.
I think the trend will go even further where private autos are replaced with a fleet of automated taxis. Especially in dense cities, this would allow for more utilization and require less need for parking.
It really isn’t a new thing in countries where (non-automated) taxis are super common and private car ownership is much rarer (e.g. much of Asia and some of Europe).
> There will be a time when modern connected car I own no longer receives software updates while it otherwise would remain a great daily driver. Each passing day it becomes more vulnerable to being hacked to perform variety of things. What is the level of risk that I am willing to accept before having to get rid of the otherwise good car since I no longer feel safe operating it?
I had a laugh last night watching an episode of The X-Files. This is a show that's all about conspiracies and not trusting the government and relying on hackers, yet the show (likely due to a product placement agreement) had Scully conspicuously turning on a car's wifi hotspot and connecting to it. I'd think that the main duo of that show would be tech savvy enough to know that such a thing (since it's connected to microphones, cameras, GPS, and the internet) would be anathema to remaining clandestine.
John Wharton when at Intel was on the team that built a chip of which there are now more instances of than there are people on Earth (a description that's probably held true for several decades now). I'm not sure which it was, but he's worked on the 8085 and 8048 chips (see link below), though it may have been the MCS-51 (see Wikipedia link below). That's not the important part of this story.
What is, was John's telling of getting stranded with car trouble out somewhere in rural California -- central valley or the desert, pretty much the middle of no-where -- and ending up spending time at a local garage getting his car fixed up, and talking to the gearheads there.
They knew his chips better than he did, and had customised the living hell out of them. By John's own account.
I'm not convinced that this must be the inevitable consequence of Chipping All The Things, or that it's always going to be possible to reverse-engineer and hack everything and anything. And I've quite pessimistic about a great many elements of this trend, including what seems an inevitable conclusion that digitised cars will spy on and betray their owners (or more likely, merely users and/or occupants). That's a social and legal, not a technical problem, ultimately.
But ... there's some glimmer of light in history to date, as well.
(Accounts via personal conversation, though John may well have written this down or been quoted on it elsewhere. He's rather fond of the story.)
I actually think Open Source Hardware for cars will be more common.[0] Replace the Dash computer with an Android version etc. Renault are already looking into an open source car.
Comma.ai did an open source L2 autonomous driving system.
A car software is much much more than just the MMI.
A modern full-size luxury sedan has about 110 to 130 electronic control units from simple things like automatically open the doors and the trunk, to complex things like automatic beam light control (detecting obstacles that could be blinded so that this area is switch from high beam to low beam), automatic lane keeping, and even auto park.
None of those ECU is and will be using open source for various reasons.
> The car of the future will sell your data and also be vulnerable to hackers
These hackable cars are not of the future, even many of today's cars can be quite easily hacked with some knowledge and the right tools. Luckily this doesn't seem to happen yet as far as I'm aware.
And I fully agree on repairing old cars and the passion that can be put in these machines. It's in a sense sad that cars like this don't get made anymore, but on the other side it's better for the planet.
Depends on what you mean by hacked - I know that for cars with keyless entry you can relay key-fob signals from keys inside a house to parked cars to get it open, then get to the cars software via the service port. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is a viable method to steal a car.
My girlfriend had her car stolen from her driveway that way; the thieves disconnected the infotainment cellphone (dug under the dash to remove the sim card, probably) and it has not been recovered in 3 weeks.
Presumably it was a key amplification attack. And they knew what they were doing when it came to being tracked.
But I wonder if the repairability issue will eventually hit consumers in the pocketbook and drive demand. For instance, the risk that a car can't be repaired by an indie mechanic will dramatically lower its resale value.
An interesting opportunity might be for people to gather car performance data in real time, and tell us which brands and models have the best efficiency and reliability.
At some point I think we'll need strong regulation to stop advertising getting weaseled into every product and service. There doesn't even seem to be much of any exchange here (e.g. free stuff for ads), just a one-sided grab for profits. "Discounts and rewards" are often just advertising by another name.
I'm really glad that I was careful not to buy a "connected car." I was mostly concerned with security (e.g. ransomware), but this is another problem to add to the list. As far as I can tell, the connectivity offers little to no actual benefit to owners.
Profits from serving ads should be heavily taxed, since they are non-productive anyway. All bussiness are in a bidding war for ads, and they have to try to outspend themselves. By taxing ads, we don't change the balance of power between businesses (so it's still a fair game), but we lower the importance of ad-based businesses which don't add much (if any) value to the overall economy.
hum, this takes ramsonware to a totally new level in fact.
"Ill crash this driverless car with your son (or you) inside unless you transfer me 1 million bitcoins in the next five minutes".
The kidnappers wouldn't even need to be in the same country. I wonder how the car maker would attack this hypothetical scenery. Would make a good film in any case.
2017 Honda Accord V6 with the sensor package. I'm not a total luddite. As far as I know, it has no physical modem hardware of its own, based on some online research and creative questioning of different dealer salesman (none of them would knew to answer the most direct technical question).
I didn't go digging through maintenance manuals, however. I probably should.
Not buying these products is a false affordance. Your friends have them, your spouse carries one every time you go out together, your children clamor for them at Christmas. If I have to keep my lawn well maintained or face a fine, there's no good reason that people should be exempt from laws that regulate behavior that has a greater impact to society than tall weeds.
>there's no good reason that people should be exempt from laws that regulate behavior that has a greater impact to society than tall weeds.
Let's re-criminalize marijuana and get alcohol and junk food onto the Schedule I list then. While we're at it, banish low-brow entertainment from the airwaves and pulp fiction from the shelves/Kindle store. Use the full power of the legal system to avenge society's loss of your productivity when you slack off in school or at work. All these behaviors impose a far greater cost on society than an unmowed lawn.
Have you considered that it's actually HOAs which are an egregious affront to individual liberty?
It's not an HOA. It's actually part of the city's code, so it's an actual minor criminal offense we're talking about. But that's not important right now. All of us are required to abide by laws, sometimes over things we consider trivial, like the speed limit. Why should a "person" with far more resources than any individual not be held accountable for their actions?
Well, you can always get better friends, and if you cannot have a serious, honest talk with your spouse about these issues, you might want to reconsider your relationship.
That's what I did, but it may not be much longer until...
> Couldn't you just, you know, not purchase those products or services?
...means buying a beater that barely runs, because they stopped making cars that aren't "connected."
Or maybe you did buy a connected product, and were really careful to make sure it did nothing you didn't want it to do at the time of purchase...
...but then two years later the manufacturer pushes and update that adds 24/7 tracking and mandatory banner ads. What do you suggest doing in that case? Return your car to the dealer for a refund? Take a time machine back to tell your old self to "not purchase those products or services?"
In short, market thinking is not the solution to all problems, because markets can be broken in innumerable ways. And even if the brokenness can be worked around, people usually lack the expertise or time-bandwidth to do it.
> but then two years later the manufacturer pushes and update that adds 24/7 tracking and mandatory banner ads. What do you suggest doing in that case? Return your car to the dealer for a refund?
I expect, well more hope, someone to try exactly that. Then for some interesting case law to develop.
I sure hope everyone isn't just going to roll over and accept this shit.
Judge: “Well, you signed this contract two years ago, which specifically states that you consent to OTA updates of any kind.”
Done. The judicial system is not always the place to fight these things, especially when you have existing case law working against you. It’s important to remember that we have a legislature whose job is to, ostensibly, make laws. Congress could quite easily make a law that no car company can advertise at you in your vehicle, but I’m having a hard time fathoming such sensible legislation with this current administration.
But my larger point stands: the courts will be of no use here, and rightfully so, because we already have a branch of government that is supposed to deal with this: the legislature. Not “roll[ing] over and accept[ing] this shit” will involve voting, unfortunately.
Hmm, perhaps it's a UK/EU difference to the US. Judges here are perfectly happy to strike clauses in contracts or terms they think unreasonable or at variance to law or custom. Agreed to or not.
Whether it comes down to UK/EU sale of Goods Act, or contract law I could not say.
Is it as clear cut as that? Such a thing would probably be some kind of EULA, and I think those have more limits on the kinds of terms they can include.
I would take it back to the dealer. If they can't remedy it demand a full refund. If they do not give a full refund sue them, but please get a good lawyer. We want good court precedents. Heck you might be able to get the EFF to represent you or something similar.
What choice do you have once every single provider is doing this? Seriously are we supposed to build our own car? Businesses only care about profits, so if one manufacturer sees other manufacturers doing this and making money, they will follow suit, until all cars are just another data mining machine.
What possible motivation would a car manufacturer have not to do this? It's all about $$$
As a computer scientist, and all around maker/hacker, I find shit like this despicable. I'd love to be able to get a Tesla, download the data to my own lap top, and play around with their API's and what not, but it's not an option. Tesla owns all the data, and they can do whatever they want with it. No thanks.
All modern cars are all proprietary, and their hardware/software is mostly garbage that can't be tinkered with, fixed, or modified.
If that's the only option in the future, I'll take my welder, and my old cars and head for the hills to try and finish off the rest of my days in relative peace -- free of intrusive spying and advertising.
Tesla has an API that you can use to download quite a bit of data in real-time. You can't get past data with it.
Also, you can write Javascript apps that run in the web browser.
I did a bunch of hackathon projects using that data when the Model S first came out, now there's an ecosystem of apps and stuff available for the cars.
I won't fault your opinion for Tesla having more access to your data than you might like, but your opinion about what you can download seems a little incomplete.
Yeah I understand. What I meant by "not an option" is that it's not personally an option for me because I don't like how much data Tesla has in the first place, so I won't be buying one.
This is why I support local motors and their open source vehicle efforts. The cost is high, but my dream vehicle is essentially a rally fighter. Till then, this is why I still like old jeeps and the like.
Why? There is nothing stopping manufacturers from applying this to ICE cars. In some cases they already have as there are some ODB2 codes that are proprietary.
As emissions standards get tougher makers are relying on increasingly complex fuel and emission maps that are also proprietary. There is nothing stopping you from building an electric car today from Open hardware and software. The same can’t be said for ICE cars.
Well I will add some states are quite stringent with safety standards for cars made that year. So if you build a car it may not be road legal in some states. Unless your diy car meats certain safety requirements. That's why either mod or heavily modify older cars. Same applies with emissions.
Yet motorcycles are road legal. I honestly don't understand the law some times.
The workaround for this (while it lasts) is to only buy vehicles targeted at fleet purchasers.
You get the barebones version of a much smaller selection, sure, but the vehicles still tend to be serviceable by in-house/shadetree mechanics instead of the dealership.
I couldn't imagine my vehicle doing anything I didn't tell it to do, or at least do anything I didn't optionally allow it to do for me.
Maintain a certain distance from another car when I set the cruise control? Sure, that's not a bad feature.
Play a nasty little ad on a touchscreen "infotainment system" that is downright distracting to use as it is, especially when driving? That sounds like disaster waiting to happen.
There needs to be regulations in place so that we do not build another free market tech Stasi. Stasi was the secret policy in east germany that spyed on every move of its citizens. In other words that we do not have devices that spy on us all the time and that data is sold for profit.
Examples
Geo location based ads where you have been driving.
Real estate ads where you have been driving.
Increased health insure if you eat junk food.
Marketing from online brands when you stop by your local store.
Automatic speed tickets if you exceed the speed limit
Higher auto insurance if you speed.
More expensive car insurance if you drive reckless or honk too often.
Gym card ads if you do not exercise or eat a lot of junk food
I wonder to what extend the typically German forms of tormenting an individual like copyright trolling or Rundfunkbeitrag letters have their inspiration in Zersetzung practices.
Probably not at all. It's absolutely easy to not be subject to that: Pay all your dues as required by law and don't distribute copyrighted content you have no license to.
What if that kindle was $25, but every time you wanted to use it, you had to watch a 30s ad and then while reading give up 20% of the screen for a banner ad? Still wanna buy/use that kindle?
I think what GP is trying to say, from my perspective, is where does it stop? All this effort just to get the end user to consume more and more. The brainpower that's being wasted on delivering ads! Could that not be used to solve actual -- real -- problems instead? Why is delivering ads such a big problem that we're spending so many resources and so much effort on it?
You pay $50 for that kindle and save some money, but don't fool yourself into thinking it's not costing you -- really use as a civilization -- a lot more.
> Why is delivering ads such a big problem that we're spending so many resources and so much effort on it?
Showing ads isn't really that difficult of a problem, especially on tablets which have built in video players.
> You pay $50 for that kindle and save some money, but don't fool yourself into thinking it's not costing you -- really use as a civilization -- a lot more.
Isn't it bit presumptuous/egotistic to assume that you're a more accurate judge when it comes to the value of not seeing ads for a given consumer than them themselves?
And what if the subsidized cost resulted in a new form of public transit that massively reduced fatalities and expanded people's work range while reducing pollution and traffic? Some things may be worth a few ads if tax dollars can't fully fund them to the level they would need to get prioritized.
Because we unfortunately often see competing political viewpoints on what should be a major win for most, and so things don't always get the political funding they deserve.
I worry that soon many cars will share ads and/or sell your location information with basically no way to opt out. If automakers are determined to make you run their adware, they can just program their cars not to start unless you have the latest software. They even have a couple legitimate excuses to do this: maybe the latest software fixes some remote exploitable security hole that makes the car unsafe to use, or maybe always-on tracking is an anti-theft feature.
If software updates are an all-or-nothing affair, then they can bundle whatever they want and force you to use it if you want a working car. If it's too obnoxious you could sell it, but the resale value might not be very good and we'd end up with a lot of people driving adware-infested automobiles because they can't afford anything better. I hope we have some sensible consumer protection laws to prevent this kind of thing coming to pass.
This issue reminds me of a Vernor Vinge science fiction novel that describes battles between space-faring civilizations. If one side happened to capture a ship that belonged to the other side, they really couldn't do anything with it except melt it down for scrap metal because they couldn't trust all the embedded computers not to do anything nefarious.
I'm presently replacing my car (Europe) with a new Opel, I'm somewhat disgusted at how the manufacturer is pushing their OnStar service as a wonderful thing. It's GPS and full-time connected LTE with a suite of sensors in the car, and this is for a commodity €25k vehicle. It's a big-brother network, it defaults to "on" and whilst there is a "disable onstar" software button it cannot be defaulted to "off".
Customer benefits are touted as being "crash assistance if you need it", "easy access to a customer service agent (phone) who knows your position and can program your navigation" and "always-on unlimited LTE hotspot".
My wife is excited about it because always on-lte means wireless entertainment for the kids, a "safety" net incase we have a crash (but we drive nearly exclusively inner city miles, and within that group, nearly exclusively the same 5 mile stretch of main-roads). I'm flabbergasted by people's convenience over security mindset, or maybe it's the pseudo physical security offered by such overwatch programmes vs. the digital privacy security.
I am so interested in the modern car for it's sensor suite... but so uninterested for it's cloud features. My hope is, when I next buy a car, that I can still disable the manufacturer's network connection, even if I have to go under the hood or behind the dashboard to do it.
is that actually a thing for cars without a subscription? i'd imagine they forgo the monthly cost of a data connection (that they're not getting paid for), and download any data off the car when you take it in for servicing instead.
Let's take Tesla as an example. Not representative, but still.
They are constantly connected and log __everything__. They own the data, and they will happily use it against you if it serves them (ie, you die in an "autopilot"-related car crash, they pull your location data and show that you were leaving from a bar at 2:00 AM). Since it's not encrypted to a device key that only you own, like how iOS devices work, Tesla is also forced to hand over your data to federal authorities as soon as they get subpoenaed.
It scares me a lot, frankly. I don't have enough money to buy a Tesla either way, but I don't think I could pull the trigger knowing what their data policy is like.
Of course, with the way automated license plate readers are going, you'll probably be location tracked even with a "dumb" car, but at least the data would be more fragmented.
Yeah, paying six figures to buy a car that's been built to rat me out if it serves the corporate interest is not what I'd call a good investment. They've also threatened to sue someone for interfacing with the software of their own car, vindictively banned a journalist from buying their cars due to a negative blog post, and the only place you can even see a Tesla repair manual is in a state that legally requires it... and Tesla charges $30 an hour for the privilege.
They hinge heavily on how evil laws are requiring third party dealerships, while being a case-in-point example of why third party dealerships protect consumers from an overbearing mothership.
> is that actually a thing for cars without a subscription?
Subarus have them. As far as I could tell, all of their cars came with a modem, and all you had to do to enable it was call the dealer and subscribe to their "connected car" service. No installation or shop appointment required, that means the modem's there and always in communication to something.
It's also pretty well known that all Tesla's have a cellular modem which they used to pull updates (and probably send back telemetry), and I don't think there's an associated subscription fee.
They can turn a nice profit off the data. Also, consider that a car manufacturer can get a very sweet bulk deal on the network connections. Let's say it only downloads say, map directions and uploads metadata it collects. (The car can presumably get software updates and map downloads when it has Wi-Fi, or insist the user pair their phone and use it's data for the big stuff.) The data usage can be easily measured, and it's very restricted. The carrier can safely offer that line at pennies on the dollar, because they know nobody's gonna thrash their network trying to stream in 4K over it. Verizon definitely sells bulk service to companies for their connected devices, and they definitely don't pay as much per line as you or I do.
If these connections are such low traffic and don't have significant performance needs, carriers can even sell them as 3G only, for example, and use older, less critical network resources to handle them.
That might be less of an issue for a car, though, given they have useful lives far beyond their warranties.
I'm not even sure how the warranty for the rest of the car would be affected if you replaced the head unit with a 3rd party one or clipped an LTE antenna.
I worry that they will somehow tie the functionality of the sensors to an internet connection somehow. I wonder how hard it will be to write an entire car firmware from scratch.
Mine won't, I guarantee it. As long as it is just technology it should not be too hard to strike back. It will get more complex when it is both tech and legal, such as 'you shall never touch the radio module of your car for safety reasons' because the data harvester/ad injector uses the same platform as the collision detector and OTA update.
There ought to be a mandatory disclosure of any phone home or online activity engaged in by your car.
My car of the future will have a very complicated hosts file. The manufacturer had better not try to break the self-driving features if I block the ads. If they do I volunteer to be the pedestrian that gets hit by a car with ad-block so I can sue them for the stupid decision.
Considering how difficult it is already to use hosts file (e.g. on iPhone) I wouldn't count on this brilliant and lightweight universal blocker to have a use with cars.
That is the question people should be asking if you don't like the question "how much extra would you pay not to see ads in you car?" we can do the equivalent "how much of a discount would trade to see ads in your car?"
The problem with cars is that you cannot avoid them, like you can avoid browsing ad-infested website or turning off add-annoying TV channel.
Everyone will know that and hence car manufacturers and car dealers seriously subsidied by an ad publishers will charge hefty price tag for anyone trying to escape ad prison system.
> The problem with cars is that you cannot avoid them, like you can avoid browsing ad-infested website or turning off add-annoying TV channel.
The web and TV are open enough that you can work around those negative experiences (with ad-blockers on the web or a DVR to skip the ads on TV).
I don't see car manufacturers that engage with this scheme allowing third-party software or hardware that would block the ads. If anything, you'll only see an extra fee to drop the ad.
just a scam to collect data and turn the consumer into a never ending product and revenue source for the manufacturers. What's worse is this will have a higher usage on low to medium earners who will opt in and save some money.
i'm building my own. i already ride an ebike everywhere and i'm working on some modifications to extend my range to what i used to be able to reach in my ICE vehicle.
i have been ebiking for a while to force myself into a healthier lifestyle. more recently, i was inspired by sun trip[0][1] to explore the concept of a light electric vehicle (lev) powered by a combination of solar and human power. since its diy, you can bet that any "connected" parts of the machine will be running libre software and the most open hardware i can get my hands on.
why depend on car companies when i can bypass them and buy parts wholesale? electric drive trains aren't very complex[2], especially the sort that you would put on an ebike. like, a basic understanding of electronics and the ability to follow some instructions is all you need.
Yes but that data is mostly owned by a few giant tech companies.
This gives the automotive manufacturers a chance to get into the personal information brokering business. They have different priorities to Google and may be willing to sell data for uses Google won't.
It would be interesting if beyond the free access to services we get from companies selling our data, we also actually got payed. Maybe that could act as a bootstrapped first approximation of basic income. Get money by doing nothing, just selling your data and activities to ad machines or as machine learning training data. Just go out and exist in the world, act naturally, and if you're ok with your data being recorded and fed into a model, you'll be able to pay rent this month.
For decades, IMO, the companies have tried their best to make it as hard (and expensive) as possible for people who can fix their own. Making this another gambit in the chess game.
We are so carpet bombed with ads that in some sense the demand for peace and contemplation is a synthetic need generated by not only the content of ads, but by their very presence. Ad free consumer gadgets provide a new way to price differentiate between the wealthy and the poor. The advertisers, and through them, the owners of corporations and the owners of the society, win no matter how you slice it.
Sigh, why can't we have technology to already embed a microchip in the brain that would modulate the electrical impulses in the visual cortex to display ads in your visual system directly.
Oh and you absolutely need to accompany that with a rectum insertable GPS tracker that will become standard goverment issue and mandatory same way was biometric passports.
Good we have EU and GDPR, IMO the largest difference between USA and EU when it comes to data protection is that in EU MY data is mine, it don't belong to the company who store and they cannot sell it to any 3rd party without me first accepting it
Showing ads, even when you seem to be at a stop, would be far too much of a liability issue. People would get distracted at a stop sign, or when waiting to make a turn. You'd end up paying for half the world's fender benders.
This means it is a hardware and a software-platform where besides basic tasks like driving - everything can be bought by third party vendours, who pay a fee to the supplier of the software-platform.
S/He whoever overcomes his embedded plattform - fire and forget idea of software in this area first, shall inherit it all.
Let the challenge begin.
PS: Seriously- take John Deere- they basically have people begging and hacking, to work for them for free- and decide - no we sell parts and packages.
The car of the future will sell your data and also be vulnerable to hackers, and extremely difficult or even impossible to repair.
I know a few others in the tech industry who also spend their spare time collecting and restoring old cars, as in made more than 50 years ago. Parts and documentation are surprisingly available, and there's an extensive aftermarket thanks to a general lack of DRM-ish things --- these were made even before microcontrollers, so they're as "unconnected" as possible, and anything that goes wrong tends to be a relatively simple fix. Manufacturers were more concerned with actually making good products than locking out competitors or planning obolescence. The lack of annoyances such as needing to wait for the radio to "boot up"[1] or controls hidden behind layers of menus is also a plus.
They may not be as safe, fuel-efficient, nor environmentally friendly as today's cars, but there's a certain amazingly pleasant and comforting feeling of freedom in driving one. It's hard to describe.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15934023
> know a few others in the tech industry who also spend their spare time collecting and restoring old cars, as in made more than 50 years ago.
They don't even need to be 50 years old.
80's and 90's Japanese sports cars are my cup of tea, and mainly for the reasons you state. Even vehicles from the mid-to-late 90's that had OBD II connectivity are still relatively easy to fault find with. The ECU's are fairly basic generally, there's no outside connectivity apart from the obd port, and even if it's running a basic CAN-BUS in the vehicle, they don't usually have any DRM style nightmares in this era.
It's interesting too, that a car like a KP61 Starlet from the early 80's can achieve similar fuel efficiency as modern small cars, because what they lack in emissions control systems, optimised combustion chambers or direct injection (as examples), they make up for with a substantial lack of weight. (Mainly due to a complete and total lack of safety features haha!).
Though I think there's a lot to be said for keeping old cars running. You're not expending resources to build new batteries, mill new steel, and not contributing to landfill (or recycling byproducts and waste). I don't know what the direct environmental comparison is between running a car for 20 years and building a new car every 3-4 years (as is the common purchase cycle), but I would be under the impression that it would be comparable?
I've got a Nissan C34 Stagea, and everything you say is so true. Currently working on getting the Nissan Consult system to talk to a RPi, then use K11Consult to make a touch screen dashboard with AFR/boost/etc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cykgpQZ5iEU
I've loved 80s/90s Japanese cars since the 80s/90s, then got sucked into the social pressures and spent 5-6 years in a couple of different brand new cars. Last year after a horrific experience with a brand new VW (3 page list of repairs and replacements in the first year of ownership, they bought it back off us), it hit home how screwed we are when a modern car breaks. They're so complicated now, with so much electronics. They even steer and park themselves. You can't tinker with them, tweak the ECU to your liking, or fix things yourself. There's some you can't even service yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_YCC
Now I'm back in 90s cars. Something breaks? Buy the part on eBay and swap it out yourself. Anyone can do it really, they're such simple cars. They're still comfortable, have aircon, generally higher quality than modern cars, way cheaper, and they can't ever track/sell your data.
> The car of the future will sell your data and also be vulnerable to hackers
I see few things happening. There will be a time when modern connected car I own no longer receives software updates while it otherwise would remain a great daily driver. Each passing day it becomes more vulnerable to being hacked to perform variety of things. What is the level of risk that I am willing to accept before having to get rid of the otherwise good car since I no longer feel safe operating it? Eventually there will be an event where this risk gets realized. This will further hasten the move towards policies/legislation where private automotive ownership is no longer allowed and everything moves towards subscription based auto ownership. This will take longer in the US due to cultural reasons, whereas Asia and Europe will hesitate much less to implement this.
At which point I suspect also the data collected by subscribed automotive belongs to the vendor 'renting' it out.
I think the trend will go even further where private autos are replaced with a fleet of automated taxis. Especially in dense cities, this would allow for more utilization and require less need for parking.
It really isn’t a new thing in countries where (non-automated) taxis are super common and private car ownership is much rarer (e.g. much of Asia and some of Europe).
> There will be a time when modern connected car I own no longer receives software updates while it otherwise would remain a great daily driver. Each passing day it becomes more vulnerable to being hacked to perform variety of things. What is the level of risk that I am willing to accept before having to get rid of the otherwise good car since I no longer feel safe operating it?
I had a laugh last night watching an episode of The X-Files. This is a show that's all about conspiracies and not trusting the government and relying on hackers, yet the show (likely due to a product placement agreement) had Scully conspicuously turning on a car's wifi hotspot and connecting to it. I'd think that the main duo of that show would be tech savvy enough to know that such a thing (since it's connected to microphones, cameras, GPS, and the internet) would be anathema to remaining clandestine.
John Wharton when at Intel was on the team that built a chip of which there are now more instances of than there are people on Earth (a description that's probably held true for several decades now). I'm not sure which it was, but he's worked on the 8085 and 8048 chips (see link below), though it may have been the MCS-51 (see Wikipedia link below). That's not the important part of this story.
What is, was John's telling of getting stranded with car trouble out somewhere in rural California -- central valley or the desert, pretty much the middle of no-where -- and ending up spending time at a local garage getting his car fixed up, and talking to the gearheads there.
They knew his chips better than he did, and had customised the living hell out of them. By John's own account.
I'm not convinced that this must be the inevitable consequence of Chipping All The Things, or that it's always going to be possible to reverse-engineer and hack everything and anything. And I've quite pessimistic about a great many elements of this trend, including what seems an inevitable conclusion that digitised cars will spy on and betray their owners (or more likely, merely users and/or occupants). That's a social and legal, not a technical problem, ultimately.
But ... there's some glimmer of light in history to date, as well.
(Accounts via personal conversation, though John may well have written this down or been quoted on it elsewhere. He's rather fond of the story.)
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_Histo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_MCS-51#Enhanced_8-bit_bi...
I actually think Open Source Hardware for cars will be more common.[0] Replace the Dash computer with an Android version etc. Renault are already looking into an open source car.
Comma.ai did an open source L2 autonomous driving system.
[0] https://thepihut.com/blogs/raspberry-pi-roundup/an-open-sour...
[1] https://comma.ai/
A car software is much much more than just the MMI.
A modern full-size luxury sedan has about 110 to 130 electronic control units from simple things like automatically open the doors and the trunk, to complex things like automatic beam light control (detecting obstacles that could be blinded so that this area is switch from high beam to low beam), automatic lane keeping, and even auto park.
None of those ECU is and will be using open source for various reasons.
to complex things like automatic beam light control (detecting obstacles that could be blinded so that this area is switch from high beam to low beam)
It's worth noting that manufacturers tried this before many decades ago, entirely without computers:
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/great-info-on-th...
> The car of the future will sell your data and also be vulnerable to hackers
These hackable cars are not of the future, even many of today's cars can be quite easily hacked with some knowledge and the right tools. Luckily this doesn't seem to happen yet as far as I'm aware.
And I fully agree on repairing old cars and the passion that can be put in these machines. It's in a sense sad that cars like this don't get made anymore, but on the other side it's better for the planet.
Depends on what you mean by hacked - I know that for cars with keyless entry you can relay key-fob signals from keys inside a house to parked cars to get it open, then get to the cars software via the service port. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is a viable method to steal a car.
https://www.wired.com/2017/04/just-pair-11-radio-gadgets-can...
My girlfriend had her car stolen from her driveway that way; the thieves disconnected the infotainment cellphone (dug under the dash to remove the sim card, probably) and it has not been recovered in 3 weeks.
Presumably it was a key amplification attack. And they knew what they were doing when it came to being tracked.
My 1980s bicycle is similarly repairable.
But I wonder if the repairability issue will eventually hit consumers in the pocketbook and drive demand. For instance, the risk that a car can't be repaired by an indie mechanic will dramatically lower its resale value.
An interesting opportunity might be for people to gather car performance data in real time, and tell us which brands and models have the best efficiency and reliability.
/r/phonesarebad
At some point I think we'll need strong regulation to stop advertising getting weaseled into every product and service. There doesn't even seem to be much of any exchange here (e.g. free stuff for ads), just a one-sided grab for profits. "Discounts and rewards" are often just advertising by another name.
I'm really glad that I was careful not to buy a "connected car." I was mostly concerned with security (e.g. ransomware), but this is another problem to add to the list. As far as I can tell, the connectivity offers little to no actual benefit to owners.
Profits from serving ads should be heavily taxed, since they are non-productive anyway. All bussiness are in a bidding war for ads, and they have to try to outspend themselves. By taxing ads, we don't change the balance of power between businesses (so it's still a fair game), but we lower the importance of ad-based businesses which don't add much (if any) value to the overall economy.
I love this idea.
hum, this takes ramsonware to a totally new level in fact.
"Ill crash this driverless car with your son (or you) inside unless you transfer me 1 million bitcoins in the next five minutes".
The kidnappers wouldn't even need to be in the same country. I wonder how the car maker would attack this hypothetical scenery. Would make a good film in any case.
Regular ransomware would be annoying enough. "Pay up or keep taking a cab to work."
What kind of car do you have?
2017 Honda Accord V6 with the sensor package. I'm not a total luddite. As far as I know, it has no physical modem hardware of its own, based on some online research and creative questioning of different dealer salesman (none of them would knew to answer the most direct technical question).
I didn't go digging through maintenance manuals, however. I probably should.
Couldn't you just, you know, not purchase those products or services?
Not buying these products is a false affordance. Your friends have them, your spouse carries one every time you go out together, your children clamor for them at Christmas. If I have to keep my lawn well maintained or face a fine, there's no good reason that people should be exempt from laws that regulate behavior that has a greater impact to society than tall weeds.
Sounds like your part of HOA that's your first mistake. Although some cities are picky as can be.
Although, I hate ads and, they are just low information propaganda. Honestly, I wish they would go the way of the dodo.
Yeah, it's a city ordinance.
>there's no good reason that people should be exempt from laws that regulate behavior that has a greater impact to society than tall weeds.
Let's re-criminalize marijuana and get alcohol and junk food onto the Schedule I list then. While we're at it, banish low-brow entertainment from the airwaves and pulp fiction from the shelves/Kindle store. Use the full power of the legal system to avenge society's loss of your productivity when you slack off in school or at work. All these behaviors impose a far greater cost on society than an unmowed lawn.
Have you considered that it's actually HOAs which are an egregious affront to individual liberty?
It's not an HOA. It's actually part of the city's code, so it's an actual minor criminal offense we're talking about. But that's not important right now. All of us are required to abide by laws, sometimes over things we consider trivial, like the speed limit. Why should a "person" with far more resources than any individual not be held accountable for their actions?
Well, you can always get better friends, and if you cannot have a serious, honest talk with your spouse about these issues, you might want to reconsider your relationship.
Kids are the deal breaker, I guess.
That's what I did, but it may not be much longer until...
> Couldn't you just, you know, not purchase those products or services?
...means buying a beater that barely runs, because they stopped making cars that aren't "connected."
Or maybe you did buy a connected product, and were really careful to make sure it did nothing you didn't want it to do at the time of purchase...
...but then two years later the manufacturer pushes and update that adds 24/7 tracking and mandatory banner ads. What do you suggest doing in that case? Return your car to the dealer for a refund? Take a time machine back to tell your old self to "not purchase those products or services?"
In short, market thinking is not the solution to all problems, because markets can be broken in innumerable ways. And even if the brokenness can be worked around, people usually lack the expertise or time-bandwidth to do it.
> but then two years later the manufacturer pushes and update that adds 24/7 tracking and mandatory banner ads. What do you suggest doing in that case? Return your car to the dealer for a refund?
I expect, well more hope, someone to try exactly that. Then for some interesting case law to develop.
I sure hope everyone isn't just going to roll over and accept this shit.
Here’s what will happen:
Judge: “Well, you signed this contract two years ago, which specifically states that you consent to OTA updates of any kind.”
Done. The judicial system is not always the place to fight these things, especially when you have existing case law working against you. It’s important to remember that we have a legislature whose job is to, ostensibly, make laws. Congress could quite easily make a law that no car company can advertise at you in your vehicle, but I’m having a hard time fathoming such sensible legislation with this current administration.
But my larger point stands: the courts will be of no use here, and rightfully so, because we already have a branch of government that is supposed to deal with this: the legislature. Not “roll[ing] over and accept[ing] this shit” will involve voting, unfortunately.
Hmm, perhaps it's a UK/EU difference to the US. Judges here are perfectly happy to strike clauses in contracts or terms they think unreasonable or at variance to law or custom. Agreed to or not.
Whether it comes down to UK/EU sale of Goods Act, or contract law I could not say.
Is it as clear cut as that? Such a thing would probably be some kind of EULA, and I think those have more limits on the kinds of terms they can include.
I would take it back to the dealer. If they can't remedy it demand a full refund. If they do not give a full refund sue them, but please get a good lawyer. We want good court precedents. Heck you might be able to get the EFF to represent you or something similar.
What choice do you have once every single provider is doing this? Seriously are we supposed to build our own car? Businesses only care about profits, so if one manufacturer sees other manufacturers doing this and making money, they will follow suit, until all cars are just another data mining machine.
What possible motivation would a car manufacturer have not to do this? It's all about $$$
Not that this is a perfect option, but it's exactly because of this I've been able to justify buying classic/collector vehicles.
They have the added benefit of either appreciating, staying put or only very mildly depreciating.
Plus I get to drive fun cars and claim a moral high ground.
We're still subjected and tracked by them even if you have zero interest in advertising/the product or you don't want to be tracked.
Over time this creates significant toll and wears you down. I'd rather we not subject everyone to this for the supposed benefit of a few companies.
Doesn't work that way. Companies change their privacy policies all the time.
No the data industry should have been euthanized years ago.
That's what they did.
As a computer scientist, and all around maker/hacker, I find shit like this despicable. I'd love to be able to get a Tesla, download the data to my own lap top, and play around with their API's and what not, but it's not an option. Tesla owns all the data, and they can do whatever they want with it. No thanks.
All modern cars are all proprietary, and their hardware/software is mostly garbage that can't be tinkered with, fixed, or modified.
If that's the only option in the future, I'll take my welder, and my old cars and head for the hills to try and finish off the rest of my days in relative peace -- free of intrusive spying and advertising.
Tesla has an API that you can use to download quite a bit of data in real-time. You can't get past data with it.
Also, you can write Javascript apps that run in the web browser.
I did a bunch of hackathon projects using that data when the Model S first came out, now there's an ecosystem of apps and stuff available for the cars.
I won't fault your opinion for Tesla having more access to your data than you might like, but your opinion about what you can download seems a little incomplete.
Im certain hes implying they have stored history of vehicular data
He did, and they do. I don't like that Tesla knows as much about my habits as Apple does. That wasn't my point, however.
Yeah I understand. What I meant by "not an option" is that it's not personally an option for me because I don't like how much data Tesla has in the first place, so I won't be buying one.
This is why I support local motors and their open source vehicle efforts. The cost is high, but my dream vehicle is essentially a rally fighter. Till then, this is why I still like old jeeps and the like.
This is one of the biggest reasons for why I hope gasoline vehicles don't get banned as we move toward a more electric vehicle society.
Why? There is nothing stopping manufacturers from applying this to ICE cars. In some cases they already have as there are some ODB2 codes that are proprietary.
As emissions standards get tougher makers are relying on increasingly complex fuel and emission maps that are also proprietary. There is nothing stopping you from building an electric car today from Open hardware and software. The same can’t be said for ICE cars.
Well I will add some states are quite stringent with safety standards for cars made that year. So if you build a car it may not be road legal in some states. Unless your diy car meats certain safety requirements. That's why either mod or heavily modify older cars. Same applies with emissions.
Yet motorcycles are road legal. I honestly don't understand the law some times.
The workaround for this (while it lasts) is to only buy vehicles targeted at fleet purchasers.
You get the barebones version of a much smaller selection, sure, but the vehicles still tend to be serviceable by in-house/shadetree mechanics instead of the dealership.
I was thinking more a long the lines of cars without ECU's.
Most ICE cars are equipped with ECUs for various subsystems
I couldn't imagine my vehicle doing anything I didn't tell it to do, or at least do anything I didn't optionally allow it to do for me.
Maintain a certain distance from another car when I set the cruise control? Sure, that's not a bad feature.
Play a nasty little ad on a touchscreen "infotainment system" that is downright distracting to use as it is, especially when driving? That sounds like disaster waiting to happen.
Computer engineer here! Totally agree!
You know what about a electric car with open design files, and system firmware and software.
There needs to be regulations in place so that we do not build another free market tech Stasi. Stasi was the secret policy in east germany that spyed on every move of its citizens. In other words that we do not have devices that spy on us all the time and that data is sold for profit.
Examples Geo location based ads where you have been driving. Real estate ads where you have been driving. Increased health insure if you eat junk food. Marketing from online brands when you stop by your local store. Automatic speed tickets if you exceed the speed limit Higher auto insurance if you speed. More expensive car insurance if you drive reckless or honk too often. Gym card ads if you do not exercise or eat a lot of junk food
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi
I wonder to what extend the typically German forms of tormenting an individual like copyright trolling or Rundfunkbeitrag letters have their inspiration in Zersetzung practices.
Probably not at all. It's absolutely easy to not be subject to that: Pay all your dues as required by law and don't distribute copyrighted content you have no license to.
or otherwise you wouldn't want your life to become accidentally inconvenient and your opinion dented, would you?
> There needs to be regulations in place so that we do not build another free market tech Stasi.
Too late, sorry. Try going back 30 years in time and pray our younger selves listen to you.
...
OMG!!! Did I just create Richard M. Stallman????
Ads in the car dashboard?! Let the meteor hit the earth already and put an end to our civilization.
But what if it's a few thousand $ cheaper? Like the $50 Kindle Fire tablet.
What if that kindle was $25, but every time you wanted to use it, you had to watch a 30s ad and then while reading give up 20% of the screen for a banner ad? Still wanna buy/use that kindle?
I think what GP is trying to say, from my perspective, is where does it stop? All this effort just to get the end user to consume more and more. The brainpower that's being wasted on delivering ads! Could that not be used to solve actual -- real -- problems instead? Why is delivering ads such a big problem that we're spending so many resources and so much effort on it?
You pay $50 for that kindle and save some money, but don't fool yourself into thinking it's not costing you -- really use as a civilization -- a lot more.
> Why is delivering ads such a big problem that we're spending so many resources and so much effort on it?
Showing ads isn't really that difficult of a problem, especially on tablets which have built in video players.
> You pay $50 for that kindle and save some money, but don't fool yourself into thinking it's not costing you -- really use as a civilization -- a lot more.
Isn't it bit presumptuous/egotistic to assume that you're a more accurate judge when it comes to the value of not seeing ads for a given consumer than them themselves?
Great! What we really need are more cars on the road.
We have different def's of "cheaper".
And what if the subsidized cost resulted in a new form of public transit that massively reduced fatalities and expanded people's work range while reducing pollution and traffic? Some things may be worth a few ads if tax dollars can't fully fund them to the level they would need to get prioritized.
If it's really needed, why the aren't tax dollars enough?
Because we unfortunately often see competing political viewpoints on what should be a major win for most, and so things don't always get the political funding they deserve.
I worry that soon many cars will share ads and/or sell your location information with basically no way to opt out. If automakers are determined to make you run their adware, they can just program their cars not to start unless you have the latest software. They even have a couple legitimate excuses to do this: maybe the latest software fixes some remote exploitable security hole that makes the car unsafe to use, or maybe always-on tracking is an anti-theft feature.
If software updates are an all-or-nothing affair, then they can bundle whatever they want and force you to use it if you want a working car. If it's too obnoxious you could sell it, but the resale value might not be very good and we'd end up with a lot of people driving adware-infested automobiles because they can't afford anything better. I hope we have some sensible consumer protection laws to prevent this kind of thing coming to pass.
This issue reminds me of a Vernor Vinge science fiction novel that describes battles between space-faring civilizations. If one side happened to capture a ship that belonged to the other side, they really couldn't do anything with it except melt it down for scrap metal because they couldn't trust all the embedded computers not to do anything nefarious.
I'm presently replacing my car (Europe) with a new Opel, I'm somewhat disgusted at how the manufacturer is pushing their OnStar service as a wonderful thing. It's GPS and full-time connected LTE with a suite of sensors in the car, and this is for a commodity €25k vehicle. It's a big-brother network, it defaults to "on" and whilst there is a "disable onstar" software button it cannot be defaulted to "off".
Customer benefits are touted as being "crash assistance if you need it", "easy access to a customer service agent (phone) who knows your position and can program your navigation" and "always-on unlimited LTE hotspot".
My wife is excited about it because always on-lte means wireless entertainment for the kids, a "safety" net incase we have a crash (but we drive nearly exclusively inner city miles, and within that group, nearly exclusively the same 5 mile stretch of main-roads). I'm flabbergasted by people's convenience over security mindset, or maybe it's the pseudo physical security offered by such overwatch programmes vs. the digital privacy security.
I am so interested in the modern car for it's sensor suite... but so uninterested for it's cloud features. My hope is, when I next buy a car, that I can still disable the manufacturer's network connection, even if I have to go under the hood or behind the dashboard to do it.
>the manufacturer's network connection
is that actually a thing for cars without a subscription? i'd imagine they forgo the monthly cost of a data connection (that they're not getting paid for), and download any data off the car when you take it in for servicing instead.
Let's take Tesla as an example. Not representative, but still.
They are constantly connected and log __everything__. They own the data, and they will happily use it against you if it serves them (ie, you die in an "autopilot"-related car crash, they pull your location data and show that you were leaving from a bar at 2:00 AM). Since it's not encrypted to a device key that only you own, like how iOS devices work, Tesla is also forced to hand over your data to federal authorities as soon as they get subpoenaed.
It scares me a lot, frankly. I don't have enough money to buy a Tesla either way, but I don't think I could pull the trigger knowing what their data policy is like.
Of course, with the way automated license plate readers are going, you'll probably be location tracked even with a "dumb" car, but at least the data would be more fragmented.
Yeah, paying six figures to buy a car that's been built to rat me out if it serves the corporate interest is not what I'd call a good investment. They've also threatened to sue someone for interfacing with the software of their own car, vindictively banned a journalist from buying their cars due to a negative blog post, and the only place you can even see a Tesla repair manual is in a state that legally requires it... and Tesla charges $30 an hour for the privilege.
They hinge heavily on how evil laws are requiring third party dealerships, while being a case-in-point example of why third party dealerships protect consumers from an overbearing mothership.
>> the manufacturer's network connection
> is that actually a thing for cars without a subscription?
Subarus have them. As far as I could tell, all of their cars came with a modem, and all you had to do to enable it was call the dealer and subscribe to their "connected car" service. No installation or shop appointment required, that means the modem's there and always in communication to something.
It's also pretty well known that all Tesla's have a cellular modem which they used to pull updates (and probably send back telemetry), and I don't think there's an associated subscription fee.
They can turn a nice profit off the data. Also, consider that a car manufacturer can get a very sweet bulk deal on the network connections. Let's say it only downloads say, map directions and uploads metadata it collects. (The car can presumably get software updates and map downloads when it has Wi-Fi, or insist the user pair their phone and use it's data for the big stuff.) The data usage can be easily measured, and it's very restricted. The carrier can safely offer that line at pennies on the dollar, because they know nobody's gonna thrash their network trying to stream in 4K over it. Verizon definitely sells bulk service to companies for their connected devices, and they definitely don't pay as much per line as you or I do.
If these connections are such low traffic and don't have significant performance needs, carriers can even sell them as 3G only, for example, and use older, less critical network resources to handle them.
This will almost certainly be a warranty-voiding action, if it isn't made straight-up illegal.
That might be less of an issue for a car, though, given they have useful lives far beyond their warranties.
I'm not even sure how the warranty for the rest of the car would be affected if you replaced the head unit with a 3rd party one or clipped an LTE antenna.
A fieldstrength meter and some wire snips should do the job.
I worry that they will somehow tie the functionality of the sensors to an internet connection somehow. I wonder how hard it will be to write an entire car firmware from scratch.
Mine won't, I guarantee it. As long as it is just technology it should not be too hard to strike back. It will get more complex when it is both tech and legal, such as 'you shall never touch the radio module of your car for safety reasons' because the data harvester/ad injector uses the same platform as the collision detector and OTA update.
There ought to be a mandatory disclosure of any phone home or online activity engaged in by your car.
> "Telenav Inc., a company developing in-car advertising software, is betting you won’t mind much"
That's not a bet I'd put £5 on.
Will they be giving dealers a "magic remote" to make sure no ads pop up during a test drive?
My car of the future will have a very complicated hosts file. The manufacturer had better not try to break the self-driving features if I block the ads. If they do I volunteer to be the pedestrian that gets hit by a car with ad-block so I can sue them for the stupid decision.
Considering how difficult it is already to use hosts file (e.g. on iPhone) I wouldn't count on this brilliant and lightweight universal blocker to have a use with cars.
Google's Waze does exactly that. Ads at a stoplight.
Get ready to pay the premium for no-ads. However likely very hefty!
That is the question people should be asking if you don't like the question "how much extra would you pay not to see ads in you car?" we can do the equivalent "how much of a discount would trade to see ads in your car?"
The problem with cars is that you cannot avoid them, like you can avoid browsing ad-infested website or turning off add-annoying TV channel.
Everyone will know that and hence car manufacturers and car dealers seriously subsidied by an ad publishers will charge hefty price tag for anyone trying to escape ad prison system.
> The problem with cars is that you cannot avoid them, like you can avoid browsing ad-infested website or turning off add-annoying TV channel.
The web and TV are open enough that you can work around those negative experiences (with ad-blockers on the web or a DVR to skip the ads on TV).
I don't see car manufacturers that engage with this scheme allowing third-party software or hardware that would block the ads. If anything, you'll only see an extra fee to drop the ad.
They're literally the same thing since the person pushing these things are the ones who set the pricing?
Well, we were going to sell at $10 without ads, but NOW we sell at $15 without ads, and get $10 with ads.
So the banner ad will now follow you from your website and phone onto your car's navigation screen - sigh.
I can't wait for the car to drive you to the store posting the ad, whether you want to go or not. Spend a mandatory 60 seconds in the parking lot.
Somehow we have to stop the madness. If only we had the guts.
Ah, the future... Where all cars are Indian taxis which take you round the back streets to their brother's carpet shop.
just a scam to collect data and turn the consumer into a never ending product and revenue source for the manufacturers. What's worse is this will have a higher usage on low to medium earners who will opt in and save some money.
It will probably also have planned obsolescence.
I highly suspect that the car of the further future won't be owned by individuals and we will start seeing the opposite of planned obsolescence.
Unplanned evolution?
> the car of the future
i'm building my own. i already ride an ebike everywhere and i'm working on some modifications to extend my range to what i used to be able to reach in my ICE vehicle.
i have been ebiking for a while to force myself into a healthier lifestyle. more recently, i was inspired by sun trip[0][1] to explore the concept of a light electric vehicle (lev) powered by a combination of solar and human power. since its diy, you can bet that any "connected" parts of the machine will be running libre software and the most open hardware i can get my hands on.
why depend on car companies when i can bypass them and buy parts wholesale? electric drive trains aren't very complex[2], especially the sort that you would put on an ebike. like, a basic understanding of electronics and the ability to follow some instructions is all you need.
[0]: https://www.thesuntrip.com/
[1]: https://viewer.heropunch.io/%25RE0KrWXuFmUSXFhaHNWfT8HNSBuut...
[2]: https://bafangusadirect.com/products
Is this data that valuable? You already have more granular info from everyone's phones.
Yes but that data is mostly owned by a few giant tech companies. This gives the automotive manufacturers a chance to get into the personal information brokering business. They have different priorities to Google and may be willing to sell data for uses Google won't.
It would be interesting if beyond the free access to services we get from companies selling our data, we also actually got payed. Maybe that could act as a bootstrapped first approximation of basic income. Get money by doing nothing, just selling your data and activities to ad machines or as machine learning training data. Just go out and exist in the world, act naturally, and if you're ok with your data being recorded and fed into a model, you'll be able to pay rent this month.
For decades, IMO, the companies have tried their best to make it as hard (and expensive) as possible for people who can fix their own. Making this another gambit in the chess game.
We are so carpet bombed with ads that in some sense the demand for peace and contemplation is a synthetic need generated by not only the content of ads, but by their very presence. Ad free consumer gadgets provide a new way to price differentiate between the wealthy and the poor. The advertisers, and through them, the owners of corporations and the owners of the society, win no matter how you slice it.
I rarely see ads. But then, no TV or smartphone for me.
And I'll be keeping my '92 Civic hatchback.
Sigh, why can't we have technology to already embed a microchip in the brain that would modulate the electrical impulses in the visual cortex to display ads in your visual system directly.
Oh and you absolutely need to accompany that with a rectum insertable GPS tracker that will become standard goverment issue and mandatory same way was biometric passports.
Good we have EU and GDPR, IMO the largest difference between USA and EU when it comes to data protection is that in EU MY data is mine, it don't belong to the company who store and they cannot sell it to any 3rd party without me first accepting it
They seem to suck at enforcing that. Does tesla not track EU cars? I bet they do.
Showing ads, even when you seem to be at a stop, would be far too much of a liability issue. People would get distracted at a stop sign, or when waiting to make a turn. You'd end up paying for half the world's fender benders.
Im'a let you finish, but every device and capable to communicating with any other device in the present and the future will sell your data.
Yet again, another site with autoplay video.
The data orgy is everywhere :(
The car of the future won't be your car, so it won't be your data.
The <blank> of the Present already sells your data
"Officer, I was distracted by a Durex ad."
...or:
"I was in rush to take advantage of a valuable offer I just saw at the last stoplight" ...
that's what something like oculus go will be for, your (the) car is doing the driving so just watch a movie.
The car of the future will run on steam.
This means it is a hardware and a software-platform where besides basic tasks like driving - everything can be bought by third party vendours, who pay a fee to the supplier of the software-platform.
S/He whoever overcomes his embedded plattform - fire and forget idea of software in this area first, shall inherit it all.
Let the challenge begin.
PS: Seriously- take John Deere- they basically have people begging and hacking, to work for them for free- and decide - no we sell parts and packages.
In America sure, lost cause. I expect this wouldn't fly in EU unless you give your consent. And why would you?
The 'consent' will be rolled in to the purchase contract. Dont want us to have your data? No car for you.