Volkswagen has been collecting geolocation data from their smart cars, which were accidentally made public
Mathias Payer (@gannimo@infosec.exchange)
A Volkswagen id4 was the best choice I had from work (Belgian companies give company cars for personal use as perks because of tax benefits).
I completely disagreed to all terms involving internet access in the vehicle, but I have no doubt they are tracking me without my consent too...
I mean this just went public so idk, trials might take a while, but yeah i agree probably no consequences.
Not just Europe, everywhere. Look at all the breaches, every day.
Until those breaches cost companies serious money, they won't do anything about it.
I just got a notice that a place I worked 12 years ago got breached and my info like full name and social was in it.
Cool. Idk why they even kept info that far back..
Have you not been paying attention to GDPR courts? The fines are usually in the hundreds of millions od Euros.
"Accidentally"
From what a gathered, it was the classic misconfigured AWS S3 Bucket. It's criminal how AWS still makes the default configuration insecure.
Edit: apparently buckets are private by default now, haven't set up S3 in a while.
It was also the classic "collecting the information to begin with," and it's criminal how that is allowed, too.
The default for net new buckets is actually very strict.
But it's that strictness that makes devs just to open it up to everyone and not learn proper IAM syntax.
The unfortunate part is that AWS made rules and privileges so nuanced and detailed that it makes people want to make everything public and deal with it "later".
It doesn't default insecure anymore and it bitches at you when you try to make it public.
My bet would be that It was either a pre-existing bucket, or some team put a "temporary" measure in (making it public) instead of using the API to pull the data until they got around to implementing it correctly.
"Accidentally" is the new "through incompetence"
Negligence. Volkwagen can afford competence, but chose not to invest in it.
After dieselgate and the discovery that VW was subjecting monkeys and humans to exhaust fumes in experimentation, their sales are still fine.
I honestly don't think consumers give a shit about what negative things companies do.
I think they just don't know. People are oversaturated and oversaturated and overloaded, and suffering for scraps, nobody has time, mental space or money to be choosy. Researching companies, suspiciously doesn't show results. Finding that information isn't easy, by design. It might be released, on the same day something else happens. But mostly people aren't watching the news to the depth required to soak that stuff in, and don't have the extra energy to soak anything in. Everything sent into our hands and eyes as news is controlled by a few with vested inrests. It would be lovely if there was a place that collected atrocities and kept them fresh. Who stopped buying nestle after all the horrible things they've done. I can bet you have supported a company with your dollar, that's responsible for huge atrocities, it's almost impossible to avoid. Look at the stuff happening in the Congo atm, all the top brands, committing atrocities for new phones to be built. How much have we heard about all of that? There's so much. Where do you start. Funny story, I watched resident evil with my kid, just recently, and it was terrifying for whole new reasons. A top company who owns everything, goes into weapon manufacturing and creating advanced bio weapons, accidentally releases it, then doubles down continuously, shutting thousands in to die, and firing into crouds to cover up what it did. And that doesn't seem far fetched, any more. All for the ever expansion of money, something that has a finite amount set. Literally the only way to achieve ever expansion is to commit atrocities, there's a point where you take too much and the only option is atrocities to make more. And that's capitalism, baby!!
That’s why there will be many more Luigi’s before anything improves.
Thank you. There is so much shit going on, keeping up to date with everything is literally unhealthy.
It's when they become loud mouth attention seekers like Musk that people begin to care. But if everyone claiming to boycott Musk products actually boycotted all the companies that have done terrible things (and way worse than musk), they'd suddenly have nothing to buy.
My boycott is not meaningful because I can't really finance such an expensive car anyway.
Is there a company yet that let's me pay them to internet disconnect and rip out sensors on a modern car?
Has someone located the frequent visitors of "houses of ill repute" yet?
The republicans are on it in the US, but now they call them drag shows.
…and hospitals.
I would love to know how to disable telemetry on my own hard drive on wheels or at worst prevent it from phoning home. Mozilla did a great job bringing this issue to light but now we need actionable solutions that don’t rely on governments passing laws
GDPR/DORA monies when?
The made public part is the accidental
Anyone that has owned a recent VW, knew this was true. I would get text messages from my local dealer anytime I was close to needing an oil change.
Wouldn't that just be a time based notification rather then dependent on any privacy invading metrics?
Not from my experience. I went from driving the car like 30000 miles a year to like 5000, the text messages were always about right on time for my services based on miles driven. Clearly the car was reporting to VW in some way routinely.
That's so weird! Just like when my dentist calls me to an appointment when I've had a cavity for six years! Incredible! Just when I need to fill it!
"I told a joke to my wife. I laughed, my wife laughed, my smart toster laughed "
Shame on VW, but if you have a mobile phone...
Obviously... It's anti-libre software. It fails to include a libre software license text file, like GPL. We do not control it.
Is it identifiable? Can it be attributed to individual car level?
I don't imagine it would be difficult to figure out, especially if you know someone's address.
Looking at the map, assuming these models aren't for sale in Poland, Czech and so forth?
Maybe Skoda wasn't part of it, that's the most sold brand in Czechia and Slovakia
Spain is mostly empty
I don't get why they feel the need to keep it a secret.
Google takes GeoLocation data with maps and people happily use it. I even put reviews for places I go to.
If they were to just be above board about it while selling the stuff, they would have much happier customers and they could even get some legitimate use out of the data, like traffic status that Google does.
I'm not a fan of Google, but must say, they definitely managed to do better in this regard.
Let's be 100% clear, all of these cars with "smart" features are collecting your data and selling it. Insurance companies are also buying this information and using it to raise premiums if they determine you a "bad driver." Also this could reveal info such as where you live if anyone is determined enought depending on the info if stores (such as geolocation data).
Basically I'm saying wrap your car in tinfoil
I live in a small, rural community. The county sheriff's department just announced how they bought the GPS tracking data for every vehicle in the county and how it's going to "help calm traffic because they can predict where people are going to be speeding and can have an officer waiting"
The pre-crime department is starting and no one batted an eye.
Every time I hear something like this I'm glad I bought an old car without any connectivity.
Just let the car deduct the points from my licence automatically already.
Upload & embed don't work mama
USA?
Hmm. Is there a faraday vinyl I can wrap my car in?
Or, alternatively, would the pelts of tech billionaires offer any protection?
Or just pull the fuse to the antenna?
Are antennas usually behind a fuse?
and don't ever let diagnostic tools with network access be connected to it. just as well could say never bring it to service, which is not really possible
At this point, just get a bicycle without a battery.
Of course, sometimes you need to move heavy stuff and there's nothing you can do about it, bu I tend to save enough, not owning a car/motorbike that I can afford to pay for a pickup on those occasions.