Germany makes a big ruckus about their local industry struggling to compete with Chinese manufacturers, but meanwhile the Volkswagen Group stumbles from one scandal to the next. As far as I'm concerned, if that's the way you do business, go bankrupt. I know all big manufacturers have their warts and flaws, but VW continues to be the frontrunner year after year.
I own both Mercedes and Skoda (owned by VW) and I feel like both companies are headed in an extremely bad direction. The other day I saw that now Mercedes wants to charge me 200-300 USD/year for navigation and the ability to remotely lock your door.<p>The fact is they let you pay $100k for a car and then they behave like Facebook and other consumer platforms where you pay with your data and can buy add-ons.<p>You can't combine the two. In this case you paid for your car, so it's yours and they are hands-off unless you ask them for something. Also, the car should not randomly stop working after three years and ask you for extra money.<p>Unfortunately, I don't have any faith in Tesla either. While in front of innovation surely they are behind moral. If I were to buy a car today, I'm not sure where to look.
Video of the talk:
<a href="https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-wir-wissen-wo-dein-auto-steht-volksdaten-von-volkswagen" rel="nofollow">https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-wir-wissen-wo-dein-auto-steht-vo...</a>
Deliberate problem. The inevitable corporate "oops, we fixed the auth" and common reply of "never ascribe malice to incompetence" is textbook psychological warfare. More importantly it's an effective overtone move vs collecting the data at all.<p>Explicit instruction isn't necessary or desired, it's trivial to write a unfunded 'compliance' requirement, practically guaranteeing a specific outcome.
This is why you don't bring your car for service at dealers. On "dumb" cars, that's when the transfer happens and it can be location data and even car audio.<p>That's also why you don't install these little trackers to find your car when it gets stolen, because when it isn't stolen, they make money selling your location data, and that's the real product.<p>Weaponizing convenience, as usual.
Can someone point me in the right direction on how cars submit the telemetry in the first place?<p>Clearly some cellular technology is in use but this would require an eSIM or something from your local carrier. Do modern cars have "free internet" baked into them somehow that lets them upload this data? Whats the technology/protocol called ? How does it work in foreign countries with different carriers.
Ever since cars started having cell modems in “for emergencies” it has been clear governments are encouraging this sort of thing to enable mass population monitoring.<p>It is practically mandatory for manufacturers to do this.<p>Thanks to Starlink it is also possible for a private entity to track every device with cellular access. I don’t think people on here are ready for quite where all this goes.
I have a really hard time understanding why we as a society (or various societies) are okay these kinds of things.<p>Sure, I understand that there is little I can do about it, but why are powerful people okay with their car company or phone company knowing everything about them?<p>Are people in California and the EU at least covered by data privacy laws?
My understanding of GDPR law is that the fine is up to EUR 20M per breach. I have some experience with the data protection culture in Germany and it's frankly excessive at times. It's incredible that this was able to happen at this scale. In theory the company could be bankrupted by fines if the letter of the law is followed, never mind the reputational implications for a company only just getting over the emissions scandal.