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Posted by arkadiyt 20 hours ago

Removing the modem and GPS from my 2024 RAV4 hybrid(arkadiyt.com)
931 points | 480 commentspage 3
mistyvales 15 hours ago|
I was debating replacing the head unit in my old VW, but I actually like that it has a six-disc CD changer, SD card slot (32GB max, with support for MP3, WAV, etc.), 40-pin iPod connection, and regular AUX in. I use my phone with a USB-C DAC and have never felt like I needed anything else. With AUX I can plug in my Walkmans as well (both cassette and MiniDisc)!

Dangerous, but hilarious (Dubai raver has set up a 303 and 606 to make acid house while he drives): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwYtjQk0QaU

rdiddly 14 hours ago||
Thanks - Seeing how easy this was, encouraged me to do the same for my Subaru. The info and parts were easy enough to find.

Interestingly, Subaru itself used to make a DCM bypass kit for its cars. When AT&T shut down its 3G network, Subaru was stuck replacing all the DCMs, because they would search and search forever for a connection to a network that no longer existed, and slowly drain the battery. But there initially wasn't enough inventory to replace them all, so they offered these bypass kits if you weren't an active Starlink (cloud svcs) subscriber.

dbavaria 18 hours ago||
Apps like Spotify in my Volvo are convinced I am in New Jersey while I'm on the opposite coast. On one hand I like that inaccurate data is being peddled to advertisers but at the same time I would actually prefer regionally relevant ads if I have to listen to them anyway.
summermusic 19 hours ago||
I dread the day I will have to start doing this when the 2015 vehicle I have finally goes
lqstuart 15 hours ago||
This is really cool. One of my favorite parts of the internet is getting to see these kinds of projects by people who aren't afraid to tear into stuff and take it apart and put it back together.

But you do all that for privacy... and then you use CarPlay?

hollow-moe 16 hours ago||
Can't do that in Fr*nce and likely other European countries, all vehicles must have eCall and your vechicle might not pass the mandatory routine check you need to do once in a while to be allowed on the road. Hope you like biking a lot.
djoldman 15 hours ago||
TIL:

> eCall was made mandatory in all new cars approved for manufacture within the European Union as of April 2018.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECall

barrkel 14 hours ago||
It's one thing for something to be mandatory original equipment, it's another for them to be necessary for passing an inspection (MOT / roadworthiness certificates). It's not mandatory in many countries, AFAIK.
asdff 14 hours ago|||
There's going to be a lot of value in keeping cars from 5-10+ years ago around indefinitely.
hollow-moe 4 hours ago||
Until they're outlawed for the poor because "they pollute way too much"
oblio 16 hours ago|||
> Fr*nce

What's this?

djoldman 15 hours ago||
France.
oblio 15 hours ago||
Why not write France? I doubt HN has any censoring going on.
Cider9986 16 hours ago||
Just use public transit.. oh, wait, (https://reclaimthenet.org/the-eurail-breach-and-the-digital-...)
ComplexSystems 17 hours ago||
The reason I think this is a bad idea is that it lulls you into a false sense of security. The article makes recommendations that seem thorough and sensible - keyword "seem" - but, as mentioned elsewhere here, there are other potential hidden sources of telemetry (in CarPlay and Android Auto), and who knows what else.

For this kind of thing to succeed as a general lifestyle, you would need to invest an enormous amount of time making potentially irreversible modifications to all kinds of electronic equipment - only to be virtually guaranteed to miss something.

Do this kind of thing if you want, but don't be fooled into thinking you're actually solving the problem for real.

s3p 17 hours ago||
If you disconnect the modem, the car can't share any information by itself. In my opinion, that is a huge win.
egorfine 4 hours ago||
There is no way to know for sure that this data is not collected somewhere inside the car and then uploaded at dealer's.
mmooss 14 hours ago||
I think you can substantially reduce the information collected about you, without an enormous amount of time. Security - and any solution - isn't about perfection; it's about improving the situation and making attacks more expensive.

Every HN thread is accompanied by comments saying it's all hopeless.

amelius 19 hours ago||
Modern cars are like Smart TVs.
IdiotSavage 19 hours ago|
Soon: ads on your HUD while you wait in traffic.
placatedmayhem 19 hours ago|||
This has already happened: https://www.motorbiscuit.com/jeep-dodge-owners-mad-infotainm...
at-fates-hands 18 hours ago|||
Last year we got a rental car when we were in Florida. When we first left the airport, we were using the navigation app that was in the car. First red light? Navigation app suddenly goes black and a commercial starts playing. My wife and I both look at each other like, "WTF is going on?!?" Light turns green commercial clips out and the navigation app starts working again. We waited to see if it happened at the next light. Sure enough, the last commercial finished and another started as the light turned green.

Tuned it off and used our phones from there to the hotel. That was the last time we used a rental cars navigation.

So yeah, its already happening.

4chandaily 18 hours ago||
This would be the last time I used that rental car company. If they wanted to make more money from you, they should have just raised the price. That is disgusting.
dylan604 17 hours ago||
There's only so many rental companies. It might look like there's a lot, but they are all pretty much a sibling company to a larger parent.
fc417fc802 17 hours ago||
I've got a great startup idea - airbnb but it's for renting out your car. Nothing could possibly go wrong!
d3Xt3r 17 hours ago|||
New Zealand had a service called YourDrive[1] that was pitched exactly as "AirBnB for cars"[2]. I used it a couple of times and it was great, super affordable. Unfortunately they didn't survive the Covid crunch.

[1] https://www.drivencarguide.co.nz/news/new-zealand-startup-le...

[2] https://thespinoff.co.nz/partner/17-09-2017/the-airbnb-for-c...

fc417fc802 16 hours ago||
Thanks for the link. I once again find myself in that exceedingly strange zone where satire and reality become undifferentiable and I begin questioning my understanding of the world.
dylan604 17 hours ago||||
Doesn't that already exist?
fc417fc802 17 hours ago||
... does it? I've seen stuff like zipcar but that's centralized ownership.
dylan604 16 hours ago||
Someone else posted Turo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turo_(company)

fghorow 16 hours ago|||
Turo.
Riany 9 hours ago||
losing SOS/cloud features is real cost, but so is having an always-on telemetry device in a thing you own. this should be a software setting and a clear privacy contract
asdefghyk 15 hours ago|
About removing the modem. ....

I always though ...just need to remove the ... the antenna .. modem would always get no signal and transmissons would always fail....

Same for the GPS.

To verify- no other hiddwen transmitters could use some RF( Radio Frequency) analyzers

[RF analyzer (ie spectrum analyzer) is a tool for measuring the power, frequency, and signal strength of radio frequency signals.]

dfee 14 hours ago|
[meta] this response was clearly not from an LLM. i wonder what sorts of distinctive styles could be telltales going forward.
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