She stopped responding to him, she said, even though he texted and called her hundreds of times.
Ms. Dowdall, 59, started occasionally seeing a strange new message on the display in her Mercedes, about a location-based service called “mbrace.” The second time it happened, she took a photograph and searched for the name online.
“I realized, oh my God, that’s him tracking me,” Ms. Dowdall said.
Why is it people only care about digital privacy when it effects someone in a negative was like this.
For me the basic concept that someone can sell you something with the ability out of the box to do that and whatever else they want to do with it worries me and makes me want no part of it
People have been warning about all this back when the internet started becoming popular. People just stopped caring when they got so many services for free. Now we are seeing all that public and private presence backfire on us.
There’s privacy versus the car company that has various levels of concern about it.
This is privacy versus others with access to your car.
It should be easy to remove another user’s access from within the car
I love that the focus of this article is privacy and not the fact that an individual trusted to be working for the nation at a federal fucking level did some abusive, manipulative shit.
Is it really that hard to filter out scum from the application process or is it just that nobody cares because they follow orders (as long as it serves their interests)
This happens again and again and again. At every level, public and private.
The answer is not “filter these people out of these jobs” because very often they have no prior records. Or sometimes someone gets phished. The answer is to stop enabling this in the first place.
Can you speak more to what you mean by enabling? And who’s enabling who?
Can you read the article first?
I was asking the commenter to clarify their statement/opinion, not the fucking article but thanks for the rude ass comment dude:
But wasn’t it obvious that by “enabling” he meant the pervasiveness of privacy invasive things and company policies? In this case specifically the inability to turn off location tracking within the car. And I get it, a thief could disable it then as well, but they had her name since she was the one paying the loan, and a thief could also remove/block the cellular connectivity module.
And why would I make an assumption of someone’s thoughts? Especially someone on the internet I don’t know in the slightest.
Fuck off dude, wasn’t even talking to you to begin with and you’re just out here picking fights
Now’s the time to read your bio
He may have been hired while he was still “the charming man [the abused woman] had fallen in love with.” I bet it’s very difficult to catch an employee who’s (slowly?) gone bad, and perhaps only in a certain context - perhaps he was always a great employee but became a terrible husband.
Note he died by suicide, so I expect some part of the situation caused him intolerable distress. Sad situation.
Like Paultimate said, we do have to fix the car privacy problem. But I’m sure more can be done to continually re-evaluate clearanced employees too.
I agree about privacy, don’t get me wrong. But I think the bigger problem isn’t the tech (gun) they’re using it’s the people themselves. If this guy wanted to he could go online and find a billion different types of trackers which would work just the same.
I don’t see a point in chasing down shoplifters when there’s obviously a factory churning out more of them down the street.
No one is allowed to give a fuck or they’re out of a job. Corporations love AI development because it will give them the obedient machines they need to do whatever they want without pesky human morality or emotions getting in the way.
Don’t forget the military!
and company doesnt care about domestic abuse
Courts should order car companies to revoke all access to the vehicle for the person losing the car, and grant all to the one gaining exclusive use of it when they order a car to one person
I would have my lawyer ask for such orders were I to become divorced again, whichever of us got the car
What’s the dumbest new car? That’s what I want.
This is why I’m going to drive my 2012 RAV4 until it dies or I die, whichever comes first. I’d love to switch to an EV but unless something drastically changes in the industry, I’m not paying that kind of money for a car company to spy on me. At least my phone does me the courtesy of being fairly cheap while it harvests my data.
I think you can get low end Nissan Leafs with none of infotainment tracking stuff.
Huh Mazda isn’t listed. I assume because it wasn’t tested, rather than because it’s so much better than the others
That’s correct. All models not listed were simply just not evaluated. You cannot trust any of them at this point. Which is just a pure fucking shame.
I’d personally like to see them do an exhaustive research into all brands… so I can actually strictly buy the one that values me the most.
My new car, I’m gonna find out how to rip out internet capability from it.
How do you feel about kit cars?
I would immediately break something like that. I wish I had that kind of time/expertise.
i wish those existed in my country, they look fun as hell
Do they have airbags?
The Carice TC2 looks a good one
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Can’t 100% avoid it, but your best bet is getting a base model. It will probably still have some tracking somehow, but it will be the one with the least “tech”.
I find it very hard to believe that almost any car made before 2012 or so is tracking me.
My aftermarket radio may be tracking me though.
Sure, but cars have a useful life of about 20 years. Using only old cars is not a long term solution
I was making the point that “your car is spying on you” probably isn’t true for a huge section of people, since there are lots of 10-15 year old cars on the road.
Also, older cars are much more repairable than people consider. We just have a huge economic infrastructure set up around having the “next best thing”.
Yes, they can be repaired but it stops being cost-effective eventually. So almost everybody eventually replaces old cars
Yep. We got a new car since repairs were billed at the fucking value of our old piece of crap. Tired of paying that price every year lol
Not really. The insurance premiums on a new car will dwarf repair costs of an old car. That is if you buy it in cash which almost no one can do. Chances are you are going to take out a loan. Plus you are going to lose 5k the moment you take it out of the lot. Go ahead and prove me wrong, there are a whole mess of calculators online that will show you complete total cost of a vehicle.
Factories are infamous for having old equipment. They pretty much only throw stuff away a machine when they are totally out of room. When you are only concerned with money you repair, when you want to impress your “friends” you buy new.
Not arguing, but one thing I want to note: I’ve never had a new car cost more to insure than an old car (well maybe a few dollars, but not a significant change). Most of the time the premium is essentially the same, though one time it went down significantly because the safety features were better - that was going from a 2001 Saturn to a 2012 Honda. Going from a 2012 Honda to a 2020 Mazda did not significantly change our insurance premium.
Wish I still had that 2012 Honda. Alas, it was totaled in a crash. :(
Tell that to my 97 Astro
I retired my 22 year old sentre when my wife became pregnant.
They have a useful life like that because people are whiny bitches. Any car ever made can be kept going forever. Something doesn’t work right with us. We see a 3 grand repair estimate and a 30 grand new car with high insurance premiums and high interest rates and decide to make the wrong decision.
Buy a car used when you get your license. That is the last car you need for life.
Its less about the cost of repair and more about its ability to safely get you where you’re going. Even well maintained vehicles break more the older they get. You dont want a vehicle to leave you stranded and a vehicle prone to issues will be much less trustworthy on longer trips. Sometimes youll also spend a couple grand on repairs and realize that the issue was misdiagnosed or caused another latent issue to show up and then your vehicle is in the shop for even longer. Its one thing to have to pay a couple grand in repairs but its a whole nightmare to be without transportation for potential weeks
While true unless you are in a very rural area it would still be cheaper to use a rideshare service for that month. As for longer trips you can rent a car. I don’t mean to be rude but I got to ask if you used those calculators I mentioned. I think if you see the actual numbers we are talking about your views would change. A new car insurance can be hundreds a month, the first ride you lose 5k, 10% car payment rates are common.
As for misdiagnosing yes it happens but what I tend to see it happens more often with less common fancier cars vs your economy car the mechanic sees all the freaken time. I got a friend with a Buick Lacrosse and he has dealt with that quite a few times I have a Civic and never deal with it.
But hey do what you want. I am confident that my tax dollars are going to bailout the industry again. So maybe I am the dumb one being responsible.
So my perspective may be a little skewed cause I used to do the song and dance with used cars until I just bought a new motorcycle and primarily use that for my transportation now but because ive gone that route my montly payment is really low and so is full coverage insurance even though my lender didnt require me to have full coverage insurance.
No rudeness assumed! I didnt see mention of a calculator was it in a different comment on this post?
As for the misdiagnosis stuff its purely anecdotal but it happened to me twice on an old F150 i had that blew the radiator, replace the radiator and then it had some wild overheating issue that was so sporadic i couldnt get it to happen in front of a mechanic, queue chasing parts down: tstat, temp sensors, etc it also proceeded to have a leaking heater core and then a blend door issue meaning the cracking dash had to come out or a hole had to be drilled into the air box to fix, until then no heat OR ac after all that it never quite worked right and then I started having issues with the brakes in which chasing parts ensued with that as well. Ive also had a 93 acura vigor with endless electrical issues and bad syncros, a 2011 Hyundai accent super base model with consistent upper end lubrication issues (that was actually common with that engine and they typically grenaded at 100k miles) It just becomes a huge headache and a lot of stress to deal with I even had an 04 Rav4 lose its transmission while I was trying to take my then gf out to a concert and that vehicle was meticulously maintained, I joke thats where my vehiclular trust issues started
Most of my family lives 1-6hrs away depending on who i was visiting so getting a new sport touring motorcycle that I knew was going to work and get me there with no issues whenever I wanted is just the better move. renting a car would be silly and add a lot of cost just to go see family or to go camping. The last time I did rent a vehicle while on a trip it cost as much as the fairly cheap hotel i was staying at and essentially doubled the price of the trip
Much less than that now assuming you do average mileage, probably 5 years tops before major maintenance. Around 50k miles, most direct injected engines start to have problems due to significant carbon buildup on intake valves, because PCV and no fuel in the intake valves anymore. Just Google - it’s a huge issue that is affecting virtually every brand.
I’m the market for a slightly used car right now. Avoiding anything with over about 10-15k miles and I want something fairly luxurious for the size. It’s depressing knowing I’ll still be spending $30k and it will have a shorter life than either of my sports cars.
Same with a current year Nissan. Shit is so half baked. Everything is in the head unit. Just swap out out for an aftermarket one
I remember when the rebuttal everyone used to all of these countless privacy infractions was “I don’t have anything to hide” as if life is going to be ideal always and that the person handling the information won’t use it for their own benefit. As usual this sort of misplaced paranoia people have about their cars doesn’t justify the existence of the app. Things like this are more of a threat vector than a tool.
I do not welcome this CCTV in the bathroom everyone is a channel dystopia that too many have bought into.
So surely there must be an easy way to cut/disconnect whatever antenna(s) are used for OnStar, LTE, Bluetooth etc. in modern cars? I know when I finally am forced to get a car with always-on systems I will be looking for ways to disable them.
You can, but the result is that a bunch of navigation, tire pressure monitoring, and other features break
laughs at tire pressure monitoring from my 2000 Honda CRV
That sounds like a bonus to me. Seriously I have bad luck with those type of sensors, fulty pieces of crap. Also built in navigation is shit and if it also breaks every other stupid feature like bluetooth or back up cam id consider that a bonus. Mind you if I ever got an electric car id probably cut off the roof and remove the doors to improve the mileage. So maybe I shouldnt be allowed near modern cars.
Tesla let you opt out of all connectivity. No need to cut any wires or disconnect any antennae.
Ed. Sure downvote me because you hate the brand, they are still the only brand that lets you make your new car almost* as privacy respecting as an old one
*It will still store driving data in the car, which your insurance company may use for our against you
I dont trust tesla, also you couldnt pay me to drive their cars.
Fine with me, I don’t need those :)
Yeah like, ok my hypothetical teenage child borrowing my car, I want to be able to see where the car went and how fast it was going to get there. Because I know from personal experience that teenagers are idiots and need some level of supervision. Similar vein, stolen vehicles. So it’s a feature with some utility.
I’m even OK with my insurance company offering a discount if I give them telemetry so they know I drive the speed limit and am not a risk. Though for people on the low end of the economy in a place where insurance is mandatory that can verge on extortion - so I’m only conditionally OK with it, the condition being that there must be a tier of mandatory insurance which is price capped regardless if the telemetry is granted or not. Because in a lot of places not being able to drive cuts people off from pretty much everything.
But I am absolutely not OK with the feature being so insecure that I can’t lock users out, and am not notified by several channels about new users. Also I am super not OK with the car company itself getting telemetry without my express permission. I dgaf how it might improve the future product. I bought a car, I did not buy a spy.
In this particluar case though, it is complicated because the technically the ex is the actual owner of the car. I have no idea why the court didn’t force him to sign it over to her, but I can see why the car corp isn’t being helpful. It’s deeply unfortunate that this stalker is able to keep doing his thing via the car but at the same time regardless of how many unlockable doors the car has, it’s his behavior that is the proximate issue. Like yeah absolutely get the car fixed, but how about also the legal system steps up and makes this entitled loser knock it off?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
After one of their fights turned violent in September 2022, Ms. Dowdall, a real estate agent, fled their home in Covington, La., driving her Mercedes-Benz C300 sedan to her daughter’s house near Shreveport, five hours away.
Ms. Dowdall called Mercedes customer service repeatedly to try to remove her husband’s digital access to the car, but the loan and title were in his name, a decision the couple had made because he had a better credit score than hers.
Modern cars have been called “smartphones with wheels” because they are internet-connected and have myriad methods of data collection, from cameras and seat weight sensors to records of how hard you brake and corner.
Detective Kelly Downey of the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office, who investigated Ms. Dowdall’s husband for stalking, also reached out to Mercedes more than a dozen times to no avail, she said.
Katie Ray-Jones, the chief executive of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, said abusive partners used a wide variety of internet-connected devices — from laptops to smart home products — to track and harass their victims.
Adam Dodge, a former family law attorney turned digital safety trainer, called car app stalking “a blind spot for victims and automakers.”
The original article contains 1,642 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 88%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Old cars FTW!
Yes, older ones don’t have tracking or user agreements which give the car company the right to record audio of your teens having sex. But that’s not a long-term solution.
Yesterday: New cars
Today: Old cars
Tomorrow: No cars
Without government forcing change, yes.
Dacia gang rise UP
Good news!
Although this is beyond the skill set of most people, you can unplug the cell connection.
Of course it was a C300 owner. Anyone who buys a C300 is saying to world “it’s a Mercedes”. Yes, buddy it is the cheapest Mercedes you can buy outside of Germany. Middle aged failure wife abusing piece of shit who wants a Mercedes to show off but can’t afford a real one.
Bro these type of 9-5s are the worst. Can’t afford jackshit but still want to pretend that she’s making millions and don’t take orders lol
