#spy crap

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Removing the Modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 Hybrid

Modern cars are computers on wheels that send home nonstop telemetry about you. In this post I remove my 2024 RAV4 Hybrid's modem and GPS to

Modern cars are computers on wheels - they have more sensors than you can count and are constantly phoning home with telemetry data like your location, speed, fuel levels, sudden accelerations/decelerations, video footage, driver attention data from eye monitoring systems, and hundreds of other data points. Cars have inward- and outward-facing cameras. They have microphones. They have always-on modems. It’s all enabled by default with difficult or meaningless opt-outs, and your data is monetized through brokers like LexisNexis or Verisk. This all brings a host of security and privacy issues - here are some over the years:

In 2025 Subaru had vulnerabilities allowing anyone to remotely unlock customers’ cars, as well as access the real-time GPS location and location history of the car of the car

Car manufacturers share your driving data with insurance companies, which then increase your premiums

In 2023 Tesla employees internally shared camera footage of naked customers and other sensitive images

In 2015 Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek famously took over a Jeep Cherokee with full control of the ignition, brakes, locks, steering, etc.

Mozilla detailed how 25 car manufacturers scored abysmally on privacy and how they collect data including “sexual activity, immigration status, race, facial expressions, weight and genetic information.” They sell this data to third parties and use it to build profiles about you covering “intelligence, abilities, characteristics, preferences, and more.”

Tesla had a vulnerability in 2017 that allowed anyone to remotely see your car’s location, manage other features, and even summon the car to themselves

The Car That Watches You Back details how cars are now serving you ads, as well as collecting vast amounts of data about you. The Hacker News discussion about this article is what prompted this blog post

Now that we’re sufficiently motivated, what can we do about it?...

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In a free society, people should not have their private correspondence constantly examined. U.S. lawmakers, we would hope, understand that individuals have the right to a private conversation without the government looking over their shoulder.  ...

...  The idea of subjecting millions of people to false accusations of child abuse is horrific. NCMEC will export those false accusations to vulnerable communities around the world, where they can be wielded by police forces that have even less accountability than law enforcement in the United States. False accusations are a price that EARN IT supporters seem willing to pay.

We need your support to stop the EARN IT Act one more time.   Digital rights supporters sent more than 200,000 messages to Congress to kill earlier versions of this bill. We’ve beaten it twice before, and we can do it again.  ...

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EFF urges Chrome users to get out of the Privacy Sandbox • The Register

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has urged folks to switch off several Privacy Sandbox settings in Google Chrome to mask their online habits, or to consider switching to Mozilla Firefox or Apple Safari.

Chrome's Privacy Sandbox is neither private – preventing one from being observed – nor a sandbox – an environment in which code can be executed in isolation. Rather it's a suite of advertising, analytics, anti-spam, and anti-tracking technologies. The goal for some of these is to replace third-party cookies.

Third-party cookies, because they harm privacy by permitting people to be tracked online, are scheduled to be phased out next year in Chrome. But the online advertising industry isn't entirely sold on Google's replacement technology, and it may be that antitrust cases or other regulatory pressure will lead websites away from Privacy Sandbox and toward industry-backed ad tech like IAB's Seller Defined Audiences.

Google says its Privacy Sandbox has five major goals: fighting spam and fraud on the web; showing relevant ads and content; measuring digital ads; strengthening cross-site privacy boundaries; and limiting covert tracking.

The proposal that most troubles the EFF in this instance is Topics, an API for delivering ads based on interests inferred from the web histories of Chrome users.  ...

...  "While there have been some changes to how this works since 2019, Topics is still tracking your internet use for Google’s behavioral advertising."  ...

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The Slow Death of Surveillance Capitalism Has Begun | WIRED

A European Union ruling against Meta marks the beginning of the end of targeted ads

Surveillance capitalism just got a kicking. In an ultimatum, the European Union has demanded that Meta reform its approach to personalized advertising—a seemingly unremarkable regulatory ruling that could have profound consequences for a company that has grown impressively rich by, as Mark Zuckerberg once put it, running ads.  ...

[This wired article sounds great, but I got a msg stating I’d used up all my free articles for the month.  Bitch, it’s damn near 7AM on the 6th of January, and I haven’t visited yr site since Dec 12th and 7th 2022.  Before that, it was once in Oct, once in Sept, once in June, twice in May, and once in March.  Never again bothering w/them.]

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By Khari Johnson

Cameras inside the device that track eye and face movements can make an avatar’s expressions more realistic, but they raise new privacy questions.

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Consumer Reports finds that websites are collaborating with TikTok, using the company's tracking technology to follow you when you aren't using TikTok

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If Google really wants more secure extensions, why not just police the store better?

Ron Amadeo    -  9/30/2022, 12:55 PM

Google's journey toward Chrome's "Manifest V3" has been happening for four years now, and if the company's new timeline holds up, we'll all be forced to switch to it in year 5. "Manifest V3" is the rather unintuitive name for the next version of Chrome's extension platform. The update is controversial because it makes ad blockers less effective under the guise of protecting privacy and security, and Google just so happens to be the world's largest advertising company.

Google's latest blog post details the new timeline for the transition to Manifest V3, which involves ending support for older extensions running on Manifest V2 and forcing everyone onto the new platform. Starting in January 2023 with Chrome version 112, Google "may run experiments to turn off support for Manifest V2 extensions in Canary, Dev, and Beta channels." Starting in June 2023 and Chrome 115, Google "may run experiments to turn off support for Manifest V2 extensions in all channels, including stable channel." Also starting in June, the Chrome Web Store will stop accepting Manifest V2 extensions, and they'll be hidden from view. In January 2024, Manifest V2 extensions will be removed from the store entirely.

Google says Manifest V3 is "one of the most significant shifts in the extensions platform since it launched a decade ago." The company claims that the more limited platform is meant to bring "enhancements in security, privacy, and performance." Privacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) dispute this description and say that if Google really cared about the security of the extension store, it could just police the store more actively using actual humans instead of limiting the capabilities of all extensions.  ...

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Stop Using Flashlight Apps

...  The reality is many of these flashlight apps have been found to abuse unnecessary permissions. It’s been a bigger problem on Android, but there have been some malicious iPhone flashlight apps too.

Back in 2019, looked at around 1,000 flashlight apps found on the Google Play Store. Over a quarter of those apps were requesting between 50 to 77 permissions. These were things like recording audio and reading contacts, which are certainly not needed by a flashlight.

The scary thing is several of these apps had over one million downloads. Who would suspect such behavior from an app that is supposed to be so simple? Thankfully, both the iPhone and Android have gotten much better permissions controls.

Thankfully, it’s no longer necessary to use any type of flashlight app. Android devices and iPhones now have built-in toggles to turn on the flash. There’s nothing to install or worry about permissions being abused.

On the iPhone, you’ll find the flashlight toggle on the lock screen and Control Center for quick access. You can even adjust the brightness. With the Shortcuts feature, you can even launch the flashlight by tapping the back of the iPhone.

Over on Android, the flashlight can be found in the Quick Settings panel. You can re-organize the panel to put the flashlight in a more prominent position if you’d like. It’s also possible to launch the flashlight by tapping the back of the device with the help of a third-party app.  ...