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Transportation

Class Action Accuses Toyota of Illegally Sharing Drivers' Data (insurancejournal.com) 51

Posted by EditorDavid from the you'll-never-drive-alone dept.
"A federal class action lawsuit filed this week in Texas accused Toyota and an affiliated telematics aggregator of unlawfully collecting drivers' information and then selling that data to Progressive," reports Insurance Journal: The lawsuit alleges that Toyota and Connected Analytic Services (CAS) collected vast amounts of vehicle data, including location, speed, direction, braking and swerving/cornering events, and then shared that information with Progressive's Snapshot data sharing program. The class action seeks an award of damages, including actual, nominal, consequential damages, and punitive, and an order prohibiting further collection of drivers' location and vehicle data.
Florida man Philip Siefke had bought a new Toyota RAV4 XLE in 2021 "equipped with a telematics device that can track and collect driving data," according to the article. But when he tried to sign up for insurance from Progressive, "a background pop-up window appeared, notifying Siefke that Progressive was already in possession of his driving data, the lawsuit says. A Progressive customer service representative explained to Siefke over the phone that the carrier had obtained his driving data from tracking technology installed in his RAV4." (Toyota told him later he'd unknowingly signed up for a "trial" of the data sharing, and had failed to opt out.) The lawsuit alleges Toyota never provided Siefke with any sort of notice that the car manufacture would share his driving data with third parties... The lawsuit says class members suffered actual injury from having their driving data collected and sold to third parties including, but not limited to, damage to and diminution in the value of their driving data, violation of their privacy rights, [and] the likelihood of future theft of their driving data.
The telemetry device "can reportedly gather information about location, fuel levels, the odometer, speed, tire pressure, window status, and seatbelt status," notes CarScoop.com. "In January, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton started an investigation into Toyota, Ford, Hyundai, and FCA..." According to plaintiff Philip Siefke from Eagle Lake, Florida, Toyota, Progressive, and Connected Analytic Services collect data that can contribute to a "potential discount" on the auto insurance of owners. However, it can also cause insurance premiums to be jacked up.
The plaintiff's lawyer issued a press release: Despite Toyota claiming it does not share data without the express consent of customers, Toyota may have unknowingly signed up customers for "trials" of sharing customer driving data without providing any sort of notice to them. Moreover, according to the lawsuit, Toyota represented through its app that it was not collecting customer data even though it was, in fact, gathering and selling customer information. We are actively investigating whether Toyota, CAS, or related entities may have violated state and federal laws by selling this highly sensitive data without adequate disclosure or consent...

If you purchased a Toyota vehicle and have since seen your auto insurance rates increase (or been denied coverage), or have reason to believe your driving data has been sold, please contact us today or visit our website at classactionlawyers.com/toyota-tracking.
On his YouTube channel, consumer protection attorney Steve Lehto shared a related experience he had — before realizing he wasn't alone. "I've heard that story from so many people who said 'Yeah, I I bought a brand new car and the salesman was showing me how to set everything up, and during the setup process he clicked Yes on something.' Who knows what you just clicked on?!"

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the news.
AI

DeepSeek IOS App Sends Data Unencrypted To ByteDance-Controlled Servers (arstechnica.com) 68

Posted by EditorDavid from the you-hear-that-mr-anderson dept.
An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a new article from Ars Technica: On Thursday, mobile security company NowSecure reported that [DeepSeek] sends sensitive data over unencrypted channels, making the data readable to anyone who can monitor the traffic. More sophisticated attackers could also tamper with the data while it's in transit. Apple strongly encourages iPhone and iPad developers to enforce encryption of data sent over the wire using ATS (App Transport Security). For unknown reasons, that protection is globally disabled in the app, NowSecure said. What's more, the data is sent to servers that are controlled by ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok...

[DeepSeek] is "not equipped or willing to provide basic security protections of your data and identity," NowSecure co-founder Andrew Hoog told Ars. "There are fundamental security practices that are not being observed, either intentionally or unintentionally. In the end, it puts your and your company's data and identity at risk...." This data, along with a mix of other encrypted information, is sent to DeepSeek over infrastructure provided by Volcengine a cloud platform developed by ByteDance. While the IP address the app connects to geo-locates to the US and is owned by US-based telecom Level 3 Communications, the DeepSeek privacy policy makes clear that the company "store[s] the data we collect in secure servers located in the People's Republic of China...."

US lawmakers began pushing to immediately ban DeepSeek from all government devices, citing national security concerns that the Chinese Communist Party may have built a backdoor into the service to access Americans' sensitive private data. If passed, DeepSeek could be banned within 60 days.

Comment Re:If masks do nothing (Score 0) 31

by r_naked (#65093477) Attached to: FTC Says Refunds For Razer's False N95 Face Masks Are Going Out Now

Face masks do, in fact, help prevent the spread of airborne viruses. The key is that it's the INFECTED that need to wear them. And the second key is that in the case of a widespread pandemic with a long incubation and post-symptom contagion period, you don't know if you are infected or not. That's why widespread masking was the recommendation.

It's a pity that Trump's Treason Fucks and the rest of the Inbred Klanass Republican Brain Dead Shitbags don't understand that logic. Thank you for killing my grandmother you sick treasonous subhuman sacks of shit.

N95 masks *help* -- they don't PREVENT, and the paper masks that most people were wearing don't do a GOD DAMN THING.

Dumbasses like you gave people a false sense of security. You caused more harm than good with your "wear a mask and you will be safe!!" bullshit.

Oh, and FYI, Trump is your president now -- deal with it.
Medicine

Hydroxychloroquine-Promoting COVID Study Retracted After 4 Years (nature.com) 110

Posted by EditorDavid from the following-the-science dept.
Nature magazine reports that "A study that stoked enthusiasm for the now-disproven idea that a cheap malaria drug can treat COVID-19 has been retracted — more than four-and-a-half years after it was published." Researchers had critiqued the controversial paper many times, raising concerns about its data quality and an unclear ethics-approval process. Its eventual withdrawal, on the grounds of concerns over ethical approval and doubts about the conduct of the research, marks the 28th retraction for co-author Didier Raoult, a French microbiologist, formerly at Marseille's Hospital-University Institute Mediterranean Infection (IHU), who shot to global prominence in the pandemic. French investigations found that he and the IHU had violated ethics-approval protocols in numerous studies, and Raoult has now retired.

The paper, which has received almost 3,400 citations according to the Web of Science database, is the highest-cited paper on COVID-19 to be retracted, and the second-most-cited retracted paper of any kind....

Because it contributed so much to the HCQ hype, "the most important unintended effect of this study was to partially side-track and slow down the development of anti-COVID-19 drugs at a time when the need for effective treatments was critical", says Ole Søgaard, an infectious-disease physician at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, who was not involved with the work or its critiques. "The study was clearly hastily conducted and did not adhere to common scientific and ethical standards...."

Three of the study's co-authors had asked to have their names removed from the paper, saying they had doubts about its methods, the retraction notice said.
Nature includes this quote from a scientific-integrity consultant in San Francisco, California. "This paper should never have been published — or it should have been retracted immediately after its publication."

"The report caught the eye of the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz," the Atlantic reported in April of 2020 (also noting that co-author Raoult "has made news in recent years as a pan-disciplinary provocateur; he has questioned climate change and Darwinian evolution...")

And Nature points out that while the study claimed good results for the 20 patients treated with HCQ, six more HCQ-treated people in the study actually dropped out before it was finished. And of those six people, one died, while three more "were transferred to an intensive-care unit."

Thanks to Slashdot reader backslashdot for sharing the news.

Comment Re:so, Tor? (Score 1) 31

by r_naked (#65028075) Attached to: This VPN Lets Anyone Use Your Internet Connection. What Could Go Wrong?

Bid difference between being aware you are running a tor node, and being unaware though..

I think most thinking people would agree that PUAs are bad. I think a lot of people who would never set themselves up to be a tor exit node for a variety of reasons would install some vr head set stuffs to play with. If the hey and you'll be a vpn transit egress is not disclosed or buried down in the fine print, well that is kinda nasty behavior

If they are unaware (and that is a very big if) then yes, PUAs are bad.

I was referring to the general tone of the article, and a lot of the comments -- that allowing VPN connections to exit *in general* is bad.

Comment Re: Beaurocrats with too much time on their hands (Score 1) 279

by r_naked (#65026399) Attached to: NHTSA Will Require Audible Seatbelt Reminders For Everyone In the Car

Canada has universal healthcare. Despite the strain our system is under, we both pay less per capita than Americans, and have better health outcomes and greater life expectancy.

You should not be asking "How will we pay for universal healthcare??" You should be asking "What are the best ways to spend the billions of dollars we save once we have universal healthcare?"

The reasons universal healthcare saves money are many. Some of them are: Getting rid of the profit motive in healthcare, encouraging people to get treatment before it progresses to a severe (and expensive) stage rather than avoiding going to the doctor for fear of fees, and having much more leverage when bargaining over drug prices because you represent an enormous buyer.

LMFAO!

Canada patient: Doc, I have a hangnail. Can you help me out?
Canada doctor: Have you considered the end of life options that we have?
Canada patient: ??????? WTF???????

Before anyone thinks this is a joke:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Freason.com%2F2022%2F09%2F07%2F...

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapnews.com%2Farticle%2Fcov...

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fworld...

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalreview.com...

Comment Re: Beaurocrats with too much time on their hands (Score 2) 279

by r_naked (#65026387) Attached to: NHTSA Will Require Audible Seatbelt Reminders For Everyone In the Car

Canada has universal healthcare. Despite the strain our system is under, we both pay less per capita than Americans, and have better health outcomes and greater life expectancy.

You should not be asking "How will we pay for universal healthcare??" You should be asking "What are the best ways to spend the billions of dollars we save once we have universal healthcare?"

The reasons universal healthcare saves money are many. Some of them are: Getting rid of the profit motive in healthcare, encouraging people to get treatment before it progresses to a severe (and expensive) stage rather than avoiding going to the doctor for fear of fees, and having much more leverage when bargaining over drug prices because you represent an enormous buyer.

LMFAO!

Canada patient: Doc, I have a hangnail. Can you help me out?
Canada doctor: Have you considered the end of life options that we have?
Canada patient: ??????? WTF???????
Australia

Australia Struggling With Oversupply of Solar Power (abc.net.au) 203

Posted by msmash from the like-tears-in-the-rain dept.
Mirnotoriety writes: Amid the growing warmth and increasingly volatile weather of an approaching summer, Australia passed a remarkable milestone this week. The number of homes and businesses with a solar installation clicked past 4 million -- barely 20 years since there was practically none anywhere in the country. It is a love affair that shows few signs of stopping.

And it's a technology that is having ever greater effects, not just on the bills of its household users but on the very energy system itself. At no time of the year is that effect more obvious than spring, when solar output soars as the days grow longer and sunnier but demand remains subdued as mild temperatures mean people leave their air conditioners switched off.

Such has been the extraordinary production of solar in Australia this spring, the entire state of South Australia has -- at various times -- met all of its electricity needs from the technology.

[...] [T]here is, at times, too much solar power in Australia's electricity systems to handle.

Comment Re:By that time SpaceX will have a base on Mars (Score 1) 81

by r_naked (#64963211) Attached to: NASA Wants SpaceX and Blue Origin To Deliver Cargo To the Moon

Hi. SpaceX's new rocket uses methane, which burns to create CO2 and H2O. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but this reaction is much cleaner than what a lot of other rockets use. The cleanest would be hydrogen, but hydrogen is very difficult to store.

There are something like a million commercial airliners that fly every day (data is here: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.oag.com%2Fairline-fr...), so the amount of greenhouse gas from rocket launches it extremely tiny by comparison - like literally five orders of magnitude less.

In terms of non-chemical alternatives, those are coming, but it will be a decade or more. Here is one project that I am hopeful about: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpsatellite.com%2Ftechnol...

I am no fan of Musk personally, but the whole reason he got involved with Tesla was to shift us to clean energy.

Wow, you have far more patience than I do -- taking the time to actually explain to that idiot. I would have gone with something along the lines of: "DEAR FUCKING GOD YOU ARE A FUCKING MORON!"

Either way he isn't going to actually pay attention, comprehend, and process the facts you threw at him.

Comment Re:We fear change. (Score 0) 522

by r_naked (#64885407) Attached to: EVs Are Just Going To Win

I don't drive at all.
However, I know what the safety recommendations are.
If your wiener feels a tiny touch larger because you don't take breaks while driving, then you do you, mate.

You'll come around when your friends or relatives get wounded or killed by a tired driver.

It is 453 miles from my house to Atlanta. Doing the speed limit, it is 6.5 hours to get there. I have a 15 gallon tank and get around 35 mpg.

If you can't handle that drive, it is a good thing you aren't on the road. That isn't a "rough" drive. That certainly wouldn't be considered exhausting. I agree if I had been up since 5am and I hopped on the road at 11pm and tried to make that drive, I would be a moron -- hell, even taking 2 hour breaks would be stupid. Getting on the road at a reasonable time (10am) and just driving through is is not only safe, it is fucking normal.

You are the prime example of the pussification of America. Please shred your man card.

Comment Re:We fear change. (Score 0) 522

by r_naked (#64884957) Attached to: EVs Are Just Going To Win

A full electric is totally impractical for this kind of thing given current recharge rates.

No, it is not, unless you drive for more than six hours continuously, or have two drivers alternating, neither of which is an ideal, or even recommended situation.
Current recharge rates for new vehicles are around 1h on average, with an average charging station. You could go 20%-80% in about 25-35 minutes, once every 4 hours or so. Less if your car allows faster charging. Let's say 30 minutes on average.
Sure, if you drive like a maniac and ignore safety recommendations, you won't like it. That doesn't mean "totally impractical".

When they get it down to 5 minutes, we can talk...

Comment Re:Counting down (Score 5, Interesting) 77

For all the complaints about Star Trek and being "woke" now and somehow missing all the previous symbolism in their money free socialist utopia. What did you think the episode about the half black and half white aliens was really about?

Now for Doctor Who. I love the character of the new doctor. He actually seems to enjoy himself compared to the terrible acting of Jodie Whitaker. However the episodes themselves were mostly bad. Space babies with CGI mouths?

Woke didn't destroy Star Trek and Doctor Who -- *REALLY BAD WRITING* did.

Doctor Who: Retconning the origin of the Doctor just effed it all up, but the god damn sonic screwdriver just FUCKED THE WHOLE year 2005+ episodes. Every fucking episode the fucking screwdriver just saves that day. PISS POOR WRITING.

Star Trek Discovery -- there was not ONE good thing about that series. Nothing. Zilch. Season 4 finale is a great example. They just stood in the shuttle bay and in a matter of hours figured out way to communicate with a species so advanced that they didn't even realize humanoids had sentience. Give me a fucking break.

As for the new Section 31 movie. I watched the trailer, and if it didn't have the name Star Trek: Section 31 I would have had no clue what I was watching. That doesn't mean that it is going to be bad, but don't fucking call it Star Trek if you are going to make something that isn't Star Trek...

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