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Auto Industry TV Ads Claim Right To Repair Benefits 'Sexual Predators' (vice.com) 139

EmagGeek writes: A camera slowly stalks a woman walking to her SUV in a desolate, empty parking garage. "If question 1 passes in Massachusetts, anyone could access the most personal data stored in your vehicle," a narrator says. "Domestic violence advocates say a sexual predator could use the data to stalk their victims. Pinpoint exactly where you are. Whether you are alone ..." The woman's keys jingle as she approaches her car. The camera gets closer. The woman whips her head around. The stalker has found her. The screen flashes to black. "Vote NO on 1," the narrator says. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents nearly every major auto manufacturer in the United States, is funding this and a series of other TV ads like it to scare Massachusetts residents into voting against a ballot measure that would expand the state's already existing right to repair law to ensure that you can continue to get your car fixed by anyone you want. The ads heavily imply -- and at times state outright -- that the legislation would somehow lead women to be stalked and sexually assaulted, a charge that cybersecurity experts say has no grounding in reality. Instead, the auto industry wants to ensure that when your car breaks, you have to take it to a manufacturer "authorized" mechanic or the dealer itself.

The legislation is an update to an already-existing law passed by Massachusetts voters in 2012 that has become a national standard for auto repair and a model piece of legislation for other right to repair bills that would make it easier to fix all sorts of electronics. The 2012 law enshrines the ability for independent mechanics (meaning, anyone who is not a car dealer) to repair the vast majority of cars, because it requires manufacturers to use a nonproprietary diagnostic interface to diagnose problems. This means that anyone can buy an OBD reader (called a "scanner," a "dongle," a "computer"), hook it up to a port beneath their steering wheel, and determine what's wrong with their car. The law also makes repair information available to independent repair professionals. Question 1 seeks to close a loophole in that earlier law, which exempted cars that transmitted this data wirelessly. As cars become even more computerized, independent repair shops are worried that manufacturers will do away with the OBD port and will store this data wirelessly, exempting them from the earlier law. The new initiative simply guarantees that car owners and independent repair companies can access this data wirelessly without "authorization by the manufacturer," and requires car manufacturers to store this data in a secure, "standardized, open-access platform."

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Auto Industry TV Ads Claim Right To Repair Benefits 'Sexual Predators'

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  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:04PM (#60466640)

    ... of the infocalypse. Because anything bad for profits does, right? So expect terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles and organized crime to also benefit from right to repair legislation soon.

    In other news, some advertising people and their customers have no shame, no honor, and no integrity.

    • by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:13PM (#60466684) Journal

      To be fair, did anyone in advertising claim to have integrity, shame, or honor?

      I'm pretty sure you are highly encouraged to jettison those qualities during your internship.

      • I'm pretty sure you are highly encouraged to jettison those qualities during your internship.

        Actually, you have to sell them to pay for your training.

        In America, the poor can't afford ethics, and the rich can afford not to have ethics.

    • It also makes your hair fall out, is known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects, and encourages Anarchists, Agitators, Rioters and Looters, causing great danger to innocent people. They don't have any other way to justify it so why not pull out all the stops and claim any random thing they want?
  • by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:04PM (#60466644)
    It is simply a "sudo" to appeal to reject law , when they have no other solid argument : we see it on regular basis , either it is for domestic violence, pedophilia, terrorism or similar. And I am betting it could work, because politician do not like when somebody make an ad campaign during their election "politician XYZ refused to vote for a law against pedophilia" or "governor ABC voted for a law enabling domestic violence". Since (especially in the US I feel) most people at most check superficially and would find "law will enable pedophilia/domestic violence/kill all your puppies" will be placed high in the google result, that is very effective. And scummy. But effective.
    • by sjames ( 1099 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:35PM (#60466788) Homepage Journal

      I say turn it around. By moving to wireless as an end-run around the existing law, the auto industry is helping sexual predators and stalkers. Obviously they're fine with that as long as they get to continue to screw you with high repair costs.

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      Concise and incisive, and better than my verbose comment (far below). Too bad I have no mod points for you, but so far no one does. (Currently appears to be the first comment that deserves favorable moderation.)

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      A couple of decades ago a law was put to our state ballot to solve gerrymandering by having a committee of retired judges draw boundaries. The judges were to be selected by a kind of lottery.

      The ad against it said, "Do you really want a smokey room full of unelected cronies drawing the boundaries?" The ad showed a bunch of cigar smoking, grinning old men drawing on a map and joking around. I think that dogs-playing-poker poster was in the background.

      What they didn't state is that the current state of affair

  • by Insanity Defense ( 1232008 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:05PM (#60466650)

    If companies weren't already TRACKING EVERYTHING you do then there wouldn't be all that TRACKING DATA stored in your car for repairmen to steal. So outlaw corporations and government tracking you without a proper judicial warrant based on existing information that your are likely a criminal. Allow me to repair or have repaired by my choice of repairmen MY OWN DAMN PROPERTY. Don't allow corporations to claim ownership rights over what they SOLD TO YOU. DAMN AUTHORITARIAN ASSHOLES!

    • by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:16PM (#60466710) Journal

      The logical question to this ad would be exactly that: why is my car tracking all the places I drive it, forever? What is that data being used for, and by whom?

      However, this ad is crafted to create an emotional fear response, not a response of logic and reason. No one in the auto industry wants people asking the logical and reasonable questions.

    • If companies weren't already TRACKING EVERYTHING you do then there wouldn't be all that TRACKING DATA stored in your car for repairmen to steal. So outlaw corporations and government tracking you without a proper judicial warrant based on existing information that your are likely a criminal. Allow me to repair or have repaired by my choice of repairmen MY OWN DAMN PROPERTY. Don't allow corporations to claim ownership rights over what they SOLD TO YOU. DAMN AUTHORITARIAN ASSHOLES!

      Just responding to raise the profile of this post - it's currently only at '1' and I have no mod points left.

  • by JackSpratts ( 660957 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:06PM (#60466652) Homepage

    These guys have nothing on Jack Valenti, legendary Hollywood mouthpiece who when testifying before congress infamously gushed, "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." I mean really, with these copyright cartels danger is always lurking for women or kids. Ideally both if they can work it into a sound bite. Can't beat 'em for scares, but shame? They don't know the meaning of the word.

    - js.

  • by fermion ( 181285 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:06PM (#60466654) Homepage Journal
    Sounds like a lawsuit. Anyone can get your car data because it is probably stored in plaintext. There is no reason a mechanic needs or should be able to get this information. The auto manufacturers are clearly being negligent.

    Beyond that, this is like the stranger danger farce. Teaching kids to fear strangers, instead of just avoiding them, protects against maybe 10% of child abductions. Sexual Assault is not so skewed, but about 75% of victims know the perpetrator.

    Again if the issue with automobile computers is that anyone who has access to the car can gain personal information, that means that the pervert at your office, or the pervert in your complex, has hours, all day, all night, to break in and plan the best place to rape.

    • by skids ( 119237 )

      The proposed change in the law would require a system whereby a vehicle owner must approve of access by a mechanic. They leave the manufacturers a lot of leeway as to how to achieve that. It does demand that this functionality be available through a mobile device which... well I'm pessimistic about mobile app security, but considering people use apps with their banks and home security systems, is no worse than par for the industry.

      It could result in lawsuits if the automakers are negligent in picking a go

      • by sjames ( 1099 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:40PM (#60466808) Homepage Journal

        Of course, the auto industry could just avoid the whole problem by not using wireless access as a way to end-run the existing legislation protecting consumer access through the wired data ports. They opened the hole in the first place and they can close it just by not trying to prevent the right to repair. They're the ones who created the stalker/predator danger in the first place.

        • by skids ( 119237 )

          They could, and I'm not going to argue against the conjecture that avoiding right-to-repair was the primary reason they went wireless. It well could be.

          But I think the side-benefits to the manufacturers in early identification of defects can speed up the recall process, and the performance data can inform the design process for future models... those now have probably demonstrated their utility and wireless telemetry is here to stay. I'm not one to make blanket statements about nothing wireless being secu

    • ... Anyone can get your car data because it is probably stored in plaintext. There is no reason a mechanic needs or should be able to get this information. The auto manufacturers are clearly being negligent.

      Anyone can get your car data onlybecause it is collected in the first place. There is no reason for this information to be collected. The auto manufacturers are clearly being slimy greedy creeps.

      FTFY

    • ODBII mandates a standard connector and a way to pull operational data for diagnosing modern cars but it doesn't give you access to everything. A 'dealer' scan tool gives you a lot more but those are manufacturer specific and many thousands of dollars. That data might be in the car good luck getting at it without dealer only gear.
    • by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @06:03PM (#60467462) Homepage Journal

      > Teaching kids to fear strangers, instead of just avoiding them, protects against maybe 10% of child abductions.

      Actually, no. It's complex, but "Stranger Danger" training creates antisocial kids and increases vulnerability to being groomed, molested, and abducted. It's a net negative from what paranoid parents expect. Teach your kids to be outgoing and skeptical.

  • by Magnificat ( 1920274 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:09PM (#60466664)
    From a security standpoint, I would like to see the law state that all the data MUST be user and/or repairer accessible through a standardized interface, but that it cannot be accessible, even to the manufacturer, over a wireless interface. If it can be accessed wirelessly, it can and will eventually be hackable. Requiring someone repairing or diagnoses a vehicle to actually connect a USB cable to it is not exactly a huge amount of effort.
  • False advertisement (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dargaud ( 518470 ) <slashdot2@nOSpaM.gdargaud.net> on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:10PM (#60466670) Homepage
    Isn't there a Better Business Bureau or some such tasked with suing companies for false advertisement ? It seems pretty clear cut here in addition to being complete FUD.
    • by thomn8r ( 635504 )

      Isn't there a Better Business Bureau or some such tasked with suing companies for false advertisement

      The sole purpose of the Better Business Bureau is to shake down companies to pay for an endorsement which is not worth the paper or electrons on which its printed.

      • I've had quite a bit of luck getting cooperation from companies who fraudulently billed or otherwise bilked me. Filing a BBB complaint gets their attention.

        Chargebacks also work.

        I just wasted my lunch today, on the phone with an insurance company who has been trying to simultaneously bill me for 8 months of coverage while also claiming my account was closed, per my request, 8 months ago.

        And yet, I have the bill in front of me.

  • by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:10PM (#60466672)

    ... are storing personal data in vehicles in the first place. Where's their liability?

  • Very contemporary (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TimothyHollins ( 4720957 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:11PM (#60466674)

    This to me sounds very much like what is going on with Epic Games and Apple.

    In this case, Apple is represented by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation that wants to force consumers that bought their cars to use only their services or services "authorized" by them (authorized meaning a 30% cut). Massachusetts wants to make sure that other services, i.e. Epic Games, can also offer services to the consumer without needing "authorization". Sounds like Massachusetts is doing a good job trying to prevent a monopoly situation returning. I wonder if car analogies are allowed in a court room.

    • Restricting all of us, to protect against the worst of us!

      No thanks - not a bargain I'm interested in.

      • You have it twisted up. The auto industry wants to restrict us all to protect the worst of us: them.

        Instead of worrying about a hypothetical stalker, why don't we address the existing, known stalkers?

    • Apple is represented by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation

      This is a very bad metaphor, because Apple is not the entire smartphone industry - it's not even a majority of the industry.

      It's like ONE auto maker saying they wanted to build a very advanced car and some things people just might not be able to repair. With the rest of the industry and car consumers free to do what they like with other models.

      Even then it's a bad metaphor since Apple does allow third party repair.

  • by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:12PM (#60466678) Journal

    ...mechanics at dealers never commit crimes, as opposed to those mechanic scum that everyone else employs.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:17PM (#60466714)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:17PM (#60466716) Journal

    Here is a crazy thought..maybe my vehicle should not store personal data that isn't obvious and delete-able by the user, like say your in-dash-gps favorites.

    Maybe automakers should be required to provide a big red button - "erase all data"

    • Maybe automakers should be required to provide a big red button - "erase automaker responsible for this pile of shit".
  • Wirelessly? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Johnberg ( 1642323 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:21PM (#60466742)
    A better law would be to require a physical cable to get that data. That way you have to be IN the car already and the data isn't available to someone who hacks the wireless signal (which they will).
  • Those slimy admen earned their paychecks on this one.

    Of course a locked-down device is easier to use for slightly different and, in the big picture, arguably worse sorts of spying and control, and most devices could be hacked by a determined psycho regardless of how locked-down they are, but points for emotional impact and not being technically wrong.

  • by ickleberry ( 864871 ) <web@pineapple.vg> on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @02:26PM (#60466758) Homepage
    A car shouldn't be storing personal data. It is for driving. I get along fine without my Hilux or my Peugeot 405 storing any personal data. I suppose if one were to buy a Tesla it would be storing all sorts of crazy sh1t about you but that's just because of Big Tech's desire to crawl in under your skin to build up a complete profile on you & at the same time make you completely dependent on them.
  • bunch of old people sitting around a table looking nervous. Talking about something scary. How it was going to affect them, how they didn't think it should be. How just plain wrong it was. The advert ended with an impassioned plea to vote no on prop xyz.

    Turns out it was just a prop to ban net metering so the local power company didn't have to pay people for excess power generated by solar. It passed. By a wide margin. Even though polls showed it was very unpopular...

    These adverts usually target the
  • Can you even begin to imagine how screwed up a world we would have to live in for people to take the time to learn automotive repair (and possibly buy tens of thousands of dollars in equipment, rent/buy/build a repair garage, and advertise broadly enough to get people into their establishment) just so that they can find women to rape, rather than spending three minutes and twenty cents' worth of gasoline to drive over to the nearest shopping mall or local college?

    To be fair, if this whole coronavirus thing

    • If I were a stalking rapist, hypothetically, and I wanted to know where my specific target was heading, I would think it much easier to track their phone than than hack their car.

      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        And even if you wanted to track the person's car, you'd do it with a cellular GPS tracker, not by hacking the car in some bizarre way. It's like they tried to come up with the least plausible idea for what a bad person could do while repairing a car, and made that their main point. It's not even a straw man — more like a cardboard cutout of a straw man.

  • Ask to see the certification program that ensures that all of the manufacturer authorized repair shops and dealership mechanics aren't capable of being sexual predators. Then let the manufacturers and dealerships know that if they get their way with this initiative, they are now liable for any sexual predator offenses committed by anyone connected to them.

    I suspect that they have absolutely no certification program, nor would they accept any liability whatsoever even if one of their employees was caught r

  • Does anybody besides me believe the world would be a better place if every once in a while we picked a corporate lawyer, lobbyist or adman at random and simply hanged them from the nearest lamppost "pour encourager les autres"?

  • If Mass votes "no" then cars will all include wireless diagnostics to avoid the right to repair law. If the cars include wireless connections then that's where the predictors will get the tracking information. So the same ad is true but for a the opposite vote. It's interesting how the opposition calls them self the "Coalition for Safe and Secure Data".

    • So what you're saying is:
      The car companies have made an insecure wireless connection that will be available for anyone to access. Simple answer: Turn off the wireless access, or secure it. But of course it will never be secure. How long do you have a car? Alot longer then there are updates to security on the car's "wireless" connection. This is a broken model. There should be a way to turn this off.

      Gak, what do we get out of this as a consumer? Nothing.

  • Above is an excellent example of an abusive AC FP that is intended to derail or destroy rational discussion. I argue that it is not censorship to give such trollage less prominence. There is no right to lucky timing. (But I could make a verbose argument in favor of concision.) Unfortunately, Slashdot seems to lack the resources to fix anything, which goes back to the economic model, which is also the natural segue to the actual topic:

    It's a bad economic model that encourages gaming of social issues and prob

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      Wow. While I was writing that, 36 more comments appeared in front of it. Proves both my main point and the value of concision, eh?

  • This seems like a problem that most of the auto industry has already solved. I've done a fair amount of playing with engine management systems on cars and motorcycles converted from street use to track/racing use. Many manufacturers divide their data and data access into (at least) two categories - diagnostic data (which can be read/cleared by most any OBD tool) and other data (such as engine management software, ICE software, etc.) that can only be accessed via special tools that can only be purchased fr

  • Corruption (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @03:10PM (#60466932) Homepage

    The problem isn't the ads, or the companies. The problem is that there are far too many Americans who are willing to do horrifying things like this. Who was the actress who played this part? Did she know that she was a part of a scam? How about the person who did the lying voiceover? Did they stop to ask "Hey, what does being a sexual predator have to do with car repair?" How about the marketing team: these people are professional liars. What school did they graduate from? Does that school know that their marketing graduates are using their degrees to endanger democracy by lying to people in political ads?

    It seems like nobody is being held accountable for lying. It's just rampant in American culture today. We have to systemically fix this by holding individuals accountable for their actions. We can't just let them say "Well, I concocted lies that attacked the fabric of our democracy because my boss told me to."

    • "Fuck you, got mine."

    • "Morality" became a dirty word in the U.S.

      We now think those people are ungrounded, snobby, and not being realistic. Keeping the bar low is a great way to make sure no one ever feels out of place, bad about themselves, or obligated to feel responsibility about individual actions.

      It was a great experiment, but we Americans probably need to get back to reasonably labeling actions as good/bad for society. There's a taste of it with current social movements, but nobody is actually being compassionate, they're j

      • Morality ...

        A long-time ago, 'morality' became 'doing this gives me more rights than you'. It's difficult to create rules of common good without it becoming this, see below. It's why people screaming abortion is wrong, are also screaming for the judicial killing of murderers.

        ... no one ever feels out of place ...

        "I did it, so you have do it too", is a shitty argument. Yes, society as a whole requires rules but the demand that everyone be like you, is doomed to failure and destroys the concept (and rights) of the individual. Worse, we all spend time hi

    • You want us to shame people for lying, and for liars to feel sorry about it, because of ... ... ...
      tv ad attacking right to repair legislation.

      Ok bud, take a ticket, someone will call your number shortly. Number 24846269847 to the Mail-in Voter Fraud Window, number 24846269847! Number 91637400181554 to the Things Trump Said Window. We're about to start calling for Russia Lied About Murdering a Politician again, if you have an old ticket please grab a new one. Oh, it's my lunch break, bye.

    • You're not wrong, but if your system relies on there being nobody willing to do something questionable for a quick buck it is bound to fail.
  • I wish I had the time to start an open source hardware / softwawre project that would make after market parts to replace all the computers on any given model of car. Then i could make money while angering they automotive tyrants.

    not sure everything you would need to replace, spark control computer for certain. probaby the distibuter, ABS computer ... not sure what else. What would be really cool would be if you could work it up into a franchisable business where local mechanics could sell a 'take control

    • by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      not sure everything you would need to replace, spark control computer for certain. probaby the distibuter, ABS computer

      A multi-billion dollar R&D facility and a building full of lawyers.

      And cars don't have distributors any more. Modern cars are way more complex than you seem to think.

    • Cars don't have distributors any more. I think it might have to be all-or-nothing though - some cars use cryptographic authentication to test if any of the video electronics boxes have been replaced without the manufacturer-approved re-pairing process. Not all cars, but if your product ever caught on, it would become more common.

      The ECU would also be a very hard thing to replicate. Those are not simple little controllers - they are programmed for the specific model of engine to continually optimise performa

      • by PPH ( 736903 )

        And how many after market ECU hackers would you trust to maintain a car's emissions specs? Either due to ignorance or a conscious trade of more horsepower for worse NOx output.

        • All of them. After all, they're adult enough to drive mass-ive weapons around.

          If they're caught misbehaving, then so be it. Don't shit all over the rest of us and our right to own the things we buy.

          • by PPH ( 736903 )

            If they're caught misbehaving,

            Catching them implies a large emissions testing and enforcement infrastructure. And the money to support it. The EPA has determined that it's more economical to demand that manufacturers implement DRM up front. Whether that's right or wrong, it has the end effect of limit modding to those with a very strong motivation to do so.

    • by Duhavid ( 677874 )

      Look up/at MicroSquirt

  • Instead of arguing against the right-to-repair and the potential for predators to get hold of your information, this is making a good argument to store less information on the damn car.
  • When cheap tactics designed to make an appeal to emotion like this are used, Apple knows it's on the losing side of the debate.

    Sorry Apple, but you are wrong, you know you are wrong, and you know you can't nickle and dime your customers to death in every little way possible forever. People are going to get pissed.

    • Holy fucking shit, this was talking about the Auto industry, not Apple. Though honestly, I *thought* I saw "Apple" and not "Auto" in the headline.

      See Apple? You did a fine job with your shenanigans regarding iPhone parts and your whole iOS that you conditioned me to expect this kind of behavior (ad in question) from YOU, enough so that I would make this kind of mistake. Good job!

  • Why in the nine hells is my car supposedly storing "my most personal information"?
    If anything, we need a right to repair law and a law to restrict what data an appliance can collect, manipulate , store and pass on, especially without user consent, and I don't mean bs "take this as a package deal" EULA type 'consent'.
  • They have nothing. They know that they there is no plausible narrative that can convince people that they shouldn't be able to repair their own property.
  • Fear tactics, in other words. Guess they're taking a page from the current Administrations' playbook: spread FUD to manipulate people into doing what you want.
    • Like terrorists.

      They created this privacy nightmare, and now they're saying, "it'd be a shame if something happened to all that data we created on you and you got raped..."

      Nothing but terrorists.

    • "Fear tactics, in other words. Guess they're taking a page from the current Administrations' playbook: spread FUD to manipulate people into doing what you want."

      Apple just wants to nickle and dime it's customers to death, and will use every cheap tactic in the book that they think will work to keep their little racket going.

      This is all grade school bullshit, and Apple is the Brenda who desperately tries to keep her clique from associating with the unpopular girl Suzy, and fills their heads with ever

      • Oops, I mistook "Auto" for "Apple" for some reason, though it's not hard to see why with Apple's behavior during the past decade.

        Still, the point is valid, and this high school bullshit is far from being limited to the auto industry or Apple.

        Sigh, I miss the good old days when ads just said "Our product X is superior to our competetors Y" instead of playing the "OMG Rape!" card type bullshit they are doing now. This shit is just downright creepy, the way they are willing to stoop to this level.

  • It's pathetic than you even need an OBD scanner. Modern cars have touchscreens that convey all sorts of trivial and useless information all the time. Why can't it indicate detailed diagnostic information on the engine and drivetrain by default, beyond the dreaded "check engine" warning? It can, of course, the car's computer(s) have that information, the manufacturers just don't want to tell you.
  • Someone should copy this ad and put it on youtube but make sure the woman is getting in a Saab.

    Change the last bit where it is clear she can't get in her car because the key fob isn't working...

    "Right to Repair is essential when your dealer goes broke" Vote YES on 1.

  • instead of the huge corporations and the police who have all that data at their fingertips.

    The worst thing a mechanic is likely to do is tell me I need $3000 worth of repairs and I'm too ignorant to know if I'm being ripped off or not.

    "uh, will my car go after you fix it?"

    "Yes!"

    "Well, okay then - here's $3000!"

    It may be highway robbery, but suggesting it is rape or akin to sexual assault is wrong.

  • I liked this ad. Good way to highlight the utter irresponsibility of vehicle manufacturers rolling malware off their assembly lines.

    This offers one of many examples why pervasive tracking and monitoring over networks integrated into modern vehicles is dangerous and in dire need of legislative correction.

    • It's worse when it comes to cars where
      everything is controlled by computer, and
      people hand over critical driving tasks to
      "the computer".

      How well guarded is Tesla's "auto pilot",
      as features can be added (or taken away)
      through internet updates?

      [Malware corrupted auto pilot senses 18 wheeler in front of you...,ZOOOOM! Right into the back of the truck you crash]

  • ... anyone could access the most personal data stored in your vehicle ...

    The assumption is, that doesn't happen now. But no-one will ask "Why are vehicles storing personal data?" or "What are manufacturers doing now to protect personal data?"

    Domestic violence advocates say ...

    They don't say whether this ruling will make that event more, or less likely.

    ... somehow lead women to be stalked and sexually assaulted.

    This is the essence of propaganda: Associating good or bad outcomes (Y=sexual assault) with a specific attribute (X=car-owner's privacy) while ignoring the actual problem (Z=a law restricting the entitlements of manufacturers).

    It's difficult to argue that law Z

  • How about if the car doesn't collect data useful to stalkers to begin with.

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