Your Car Is Tracking You. Abusive Partners May Be, Too.

Submitted ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨silence7@slrpnk.net⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/technology/car-trackers-gps-abuse.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KE0.qcr6.VFFhQR09Stfp

She stopped responding to him, she said, even though he texted and called her hundreds of times.

Ms. Dowdall, 59, started occasionally seeing a strange new message on the display in her Mercedes, about a location-based service called “mbrace.” The second time it happened, she took a photograph and searched for the name online.

“I realized, oh my God, that’s him tracking me,” Ms. Dowdall said.

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LainOfTheWired@lemy.lol ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why is it people only care about digital privacy when it effects someone in a negative was like this.

For me the basic concept that someone can sell you something with the ability out of the box to do that and whatever else they want to do with it worries me and makes me want no part of it

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- Piemanding@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  People have been warning about all this back when the internet started becoming popular. People just stopped caring when they got so many services for free. Now we are seeing all that public and private presence backfire on us.
  
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- psud@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  There’s privacy versus the car company that has various levels of concern about it.
  
  This is privacy versus others with access to your car.
  
  It should be easy to remove another user’s access from within the car
  
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Makeitstop@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is just going to keep getting worse until we have laws to protect our privacy. Laws that are strong enough to force transparency and accountability on companies that gather data, and to prevent them from holding features hostage if we opt out.

Unfortunately, the current congress can’t even pass legislation that they mostly agree on. And I doubt more than a handful of them give a shit about our privacy. Maybe some future election will bring in some strong privacy advocates, but I’m not holding my breath. I just don’t see things getting better any time soon.

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- Adalast@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I am now of the radical opinion that company CEOs and boards of directors should be criminally liable for the actions of their company. This means conspiracy too. So if someone uses their car tracking to stalk and murder someone, they become criminally liable for the conspiracy charge. Pretty sure we would see a lot of this shit vanish if their freedom was suddenly on the line.
  
  (yes, I recognize the issues with the idea as presented here, but this is just a cross section of a much more fleahed out concept that closes abuses and loopholes)
  
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  - Yamainwitch@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I actually love this idea, I mean CEOs make those mega salaries because of the risks they take, well let’s see how many want that role when there are actual consequences.
    
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stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I love that the focus of this article is privacy and not the fact that an individual trusted to be working for the nation at a federal fucking level did some abusive, manipulative shit.

Is it really that hard to filter out scum from the application process or is it just that nobody cares because they follow orders (as long as it serves their interests)

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- paultimate14@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This happens again and again and again. At every level, public and private.
  
  The answer is not “filter these people out of these jobs” because very often they have no prior records. Or sometimes someone gets phished. The answer is to stop enabling this in the first place.
  
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  - stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Can you speak more to what you mean by enabling? And who’s enabling who?
    
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- brbposting@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  He may have been hired while he was still “the charming man [the abused woman] had fallen in love with.” I bet it’s very difficult to catch an employee who’s (slowly?) gone bad, and perhaps only in a certain context - perhaps he was always a great employee but became a terrible husband.
  
  Note he died by suicide, so I expect some part of the situation caused him intolerable distress. Sad situation.
  
  Like Paultimate said, we do have to fix the car privacy problem. But I’m sure more can be done to continually re-evaluate clearanced employees too.
  
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  - stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I agree about privacy, don’t get me wrong. But I think the bigger problem isn’t the tech (gun) they’re using it’s the people themselves. If this guy wanted to he could go online and find a billion different types of trackers which would work just the same.
    
    I don’t see a point in chasing down shoplifters when there’s obviously a factory churning out more of them down the street.
    
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- Lath@kbin.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  No one is allowed to give a fuck or they're out of a job. Corporations love AI development because it will give them the obedient machines they need to do whatever they want without pesky human morality or emotions getting in the way.
  
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  - stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Don’t forget the military!
    
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- sour@kbin.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  and that company doesnt care about abuse if abuser is also customer
  
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  - psud@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Courts should order car companies to revoke all access to the vehicle for the person losing the car, and grant all to the one gaining exclusive use of it when they order a car to one person
    
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mesamunefire@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What’s the dumbest new car? That’s what I want.

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- silence7@slrpnk.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  None of them unfortunately
  
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  - frickineh@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    This is why I’m going to drive my 2012 RAV4 until it dies or I die, whichever comes first. I’d love to switch to an EV but unless something drastically changes in the industry, I’m not paying that kind of money for a car company to spy on me. At least my phone does me the courtesy of being fairly cheap while it harvests my data.
    
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  - smort@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Huh Mazda isn’t listed. I assume because it wasn’t tested, rather than because it’s so much better than the others
    
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  - pineapplelover@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    My new car, I’m gonna find out how to rip out internet capability from it.
    
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- metaStatic@kbin.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  How do you feel about kit cars?
  
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  - mesamunefire@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I would immediately break something like that. I wish I had that kind of time/expertise.
    
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  - tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Do they have airbags?
    
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- Steve@communick.news ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The Carice TC2 looks a good one
  
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- sour@kbin.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  feet
  
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- scytale@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Can’t 100% avoid it, but your best bet is getting a base model. It will probably still have some tracking somehow, but it will be the one with the least “tech”.
  
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Bye@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I find it very hard to believe that almost any car made before 2012 or so is tracking me.

My aftermarket radio may be tracking me though.

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- silence7@slrpnk.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Sure, but cars have a useful life of about 20 years. Using only old cars is not a long term solution
  
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  - Bye@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I was making the point that “your car is spying on you” probably isn’t true for a huge section of people, since there are lots of 10-15 year old cars on the road.
    
    Also, older cars are much more repairable than people consider. We just have a huge economic infrastructure set up around having the “next best thing”.
    
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  - SlowLoudEasy@r.nf ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Tell that to my 97 Astro
    
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  - thisisawayoflife@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Much less than that now assuming you do average mileage, probably 5 years tops before major maintenance. Around 50k miles, most direct injected engines start to have problems due to significant carbon buildup on intake valves, because PCV and no fuel in the intake valves anymore. Just Google - it’s a huge issue that is affecting virtually every brand.
    
    I’m the market for a slightly used car right now. Avoiding anything with over about 10-15k miles and I want something fairly luxurious for the size. It’s depressing knowing I’ll still be spending $30k and it will have a shorter life than either of my sports cars.
    
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  - afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    They have a useful life like that because people are whiny bitches. Any car ever made can be kept going forever. Something doesn’t work right with us. We see a 3 grand repair estimate and a 30 grand new car with high insurance premiums and high interest rates and decide to make the wrong decision.
    
    Buy a car used when you get your license. That is the last car you need for life.
    
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- altima_neo@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Same with a current year Nissan. Shit is so half baked. Everything is in the head unit. Just swap out out for an aftermarket one
  
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crsu@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I remember when the rebuttal everyone used to all of these countless privacy infractions was “I don’t have anything to hide” as if life is going to be ideal always and that the person handling the information won’t use it for their own benefit. As usual this sort of misplaced paranoia people have about their cars doesn’t justify the existence of the app. Things like this are more of a threat vector than a tool.

I do not welcome this CCTV in the bathroom everyone is a channel dystopia that too many have bought into.

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Arghblarg@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
So surely there must be an easy way to cut/disconnect whatever antenna(s) are used for OnStar, LTE, Bluetooth etc. in modern cars? I know when I finally am forced to get a car with always-on systems I will be looking for ways to disable them.

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- silence7@slrpnk.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You can, but the result is that a bunch of navigation and other features break
  
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  - Lifecoach5000@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    laughs at tire pressure monitoring from my 2000 Honda CRV
    
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  - vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That sounds like a bonus to me. Seriously I have bad luck with those type of sensors, fulty pieces of crap. Also built in navigation is shit and if it also breaks every other stupid feature like bluetooth or back up cam id consider that a bonus. Mind you if I ever got an electric car id probably cut off the roof and remove the doors to improve the mileage. So maybe I shouldnt be allowed near modern cars.
    
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  - Arghblarg@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Fine with me, I don’t need those :)
    
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Ozymati@lemmy.nz ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Yeah like, ok my hypothetical teenage child borrowing my car, I want to be able to see where the car went and how fast it was going to get there. Because I know from personal experience that teenagers are idiots and need some level of supervision. Similar vein, stolen vehicles. So it’s a feature with some utility.

I’m even OK with my insurance company offering a discount if I give them telemetry so they know I drive the speed limit and am not a risk. Though for people on the low end of the economy in a place where insurance is mandatory that can verge on extortion - so I’m only conditionally OK with it, the condition being that there must be a tier of mandatory insurance which is price capped regardless if the telemetry is granted or not. Because in a lot of places not being able to drive cuts people off from pretty much everything.

But I am absolutely not OK with the feature being so insecure that I can’t lock users out, and am not notified by several channels about new users. Also I am super not OK with the car company itself getting telemetry without my express permission. I dgaf how it might improve the future product. I bought a car, I did not buy a spy.

In this particluar case though, it is complicated because the technically the ex is the actual owner of the car. I have no idea why the court didn’t force him to sign it over to her, but I can see why the car corp isn’t being helpful. It’s deeply unfortunate that this stalker is able to keep doing his thing via the car but at the same time regardless of how many unlockable doors the car has, it’s his behavior that is the proximate issue. Like yeah absolutely get the car fixed, but how about also the legal system steps up and makes this entitled loser knock it off?

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afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Of course it was a C300 owner. Anyone who buys a C300 is saying to world “it’s a Mercedes”. Yes, buddy it is the cheapest Mercedes you can buy outside of Germany. Middle aged failure wife abusing piece of shit who wants a Mercedes to show off but can’t afford a real one.

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- Yoz@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Bro these type of 9-5s are the worst. Can’t afford jackshit but still want to pretend that she’s making millions and don’t take orders lol
  
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autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:

After one of their fights turned violent in September 2022, Ms. Dowdall, a real estate agent, fled their home in Covington, La., driving her Mercedes-Benz C300 sedan to her daughter’s house near Shreveport, five hours away.

Ms. Dowdall called Mercedes customer service repeatedly to try to remove her husband’s digital access to the car, but the loan and title were in his name, a decision the couple had made because he had a better credit score than hers.

Modern cars have been called “smartphones with wheels” because they are internet-connected and have myriad methods of data collection, from cameras and seat weight sensors to records of how hard you brake and corner.

Detective Kelly Downey of the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office, who investigated Ms. Dowdall’s husband for stalking, also reached out to Mercedes more than a dozen times to no avail, she said.

Katie Ray-Jones, the chief executive of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, said abusive partners used a wide variety of internet-connected devices — from laptops to smart home products — to track and harass their victims.

Adam Dodge, a former family law attorney turned digital safety trainer, called car app stalking “a blind spot for victims and automakers.”

The original article contains 1,642 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 88%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

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kawa@reddeet.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Dacia gang rise UP

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- MrDrProfJimmy@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Good news!
  
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tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Although this is beyond the skill set of most people, you can unplug the cell connection.

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