Meet The Pardoned Delete Mechanic Who Wants To Stop Your Car From Spying On You

[emilion@infosec.exchange]

@DeniseG An article about a felon convicted for violating the US Clean Air Act and subsequently pardoned by Trump.

[androcat@toot.cat]

@DeniseG

That "pardoned" is good reason to assume he is a bad guy.

You know who pardoned him.

[xinit@mastodon.coffee]

@androcat
Yes, and that's gross. Defeating clean air controls in vehicles may be wrong.

However, deleting car company tracking, cameras, data collection. Sounds good to me.

@DeniseG

[jjtech@infosec.exchange]

@DeniseG This is nonsense...

I happen to know Ford vehicles, and the telematics module he's talking about is literally on it's own fuse.

Ford points out where this fuse is, and if you remove it, you'll lose cellular remote start capabilities and OTA and literally nothing else.
(It won't even nag you!)

[jjtech@infosec.exchange]

@DeniseG For example:
https://www.fordservicecontent.com/Ford_Content/vdirsnet/OwnerManual/Home/Content?countryCode=USA&languageCode=EN&Uid=G2427688&ProcUid=G2427689&div=f&variantid=10113&vFilteringEnabled=False&userMarket=usa&buildtype=web

See Fuse 11, "Telematics Control Unit"

You don't need some "genius" defeat device, the TCU is the only module with a cellular connection.

[acdingman@sandiegourbanists.com]

@DeniseG I'm not convinced the emissions changes should have been pardoned, since emissions actually cause harm to others. But stopping techno-stalking is God's work, if there is a god worth our consideration.

[androcat@toot.cat]

@xinit

But can you trust a bad guy?

No, you can not.

He's not the only one who knows how to do this, the others just aren't trying to make it a product (with likely backdoors for ICE).

@DeniseG

[jjtech@infosec.exchange]

@DeniseG

“My truck isn’t quite as complex as the newer ones,” said Jones. “You’ve got like the satellite radio, because that tracks you, then you’ve got the GPS.”

This is like, a fundamental misunderstanding of how satellite radio (and GPS) work...

GPS and satellite radio are both passive technologies... they recieve radio from satellites, but they don't transmit anything

[taoish@mastodonapp.uk]

@androcat @xinit @DeniseG
Maybe? Why don't you point us to some of the others, then?

[taoish@mastodonapp.uk]

@jjtech @DeniseG
Are you claiming that cars don't send data to manufacturers? That's hard to believe.

[bluewinds@tech.lgbt]

@jjtech @DeniseG Yep, the more of this article I read the more alarm bells it set off as "scam" and "marketing disguised as reporting."

Deeply unimpressed with the descriptions of "genius" over something that can be accomplished with a wiring diagram from the owner's manual and a screwdriver.