Everyone is focusing on Flock, but there are lots of other companies where law enforcement gets this or similar data from. Focusing on Flock will not save us from this. The only thing that will is pestering our elected officials to change the laws. Law enforcement long ago figured out that they could get around constitutional rights when data comes from non-governmental companies. The only thing that is going to fix this is the laws being updated to the point that anything that government needs a warrant for if they do directly, would also need a warrant if they use non-governmental data. Otherwise we will just be chasing our tails from one company to the next.

So much of security comes down to the authority to say no by the security team. When that happens things can be very secure for much less money spent. When companies realize that making things secure very frequently diverges from making people happy, then there can be security. So with that said, why the FUCK does this equipment even need to be connected? It should be air gapped and PLC programming laptops and others should also be sequestered and kept offline and free from any pluggable drives as well. But even with that said, most of the time issues come from C level. They are the ones that refuse to be told they can't do things on company equipment. I worked for a company that fell under DHS chemsec level 2, and even with those requirements they refused to do what the requirements said and the government was toothless for any ramifications for not doing it. When people grow a spine and start setting security to the absolute bare minimums necessary for specific company usage, then security things will keep happening. Again security is surprisingly easy when you run systems as pure whitelist and only for vetted and confirmed business need rather than letting people do whatever the fuck they want to.

People on ALL social media NEED to see what the other side says just as much as their own. Echo chambers make everything worse for everyone.

I try my best to keep atomic package managers off my machine. They are just laziness embodied. I want coders and software makers to honor the speed, memory and storage of my machines. I dont want my machine to have to unpack before it can run something. I don't want 97 copies of the same libraries stored on my machine. I dont want apps or systems that make it hard to share data between apps or don't honor theming on my machine. And I most definitely dont want application management systems that take control away from me as the owner about when and how updates are done.

To many that coherence you speak of it bad. Jobs went against everything that made consumer computers popular and went against the entire open culture of everything. Specifically configuration options. It was the Jobs way or the highway, the ability to configure things to function the way the owner wanted it to was ditched. You operated the way jobs wanted it to or it didn't allow it. Also the entire concept of suites of apps is anathema to open computing. Small dedicated apps that do one thing and do it well was also ditched for integrated suites. Jobs created a consumption based environment, not a creation based environment. And many people think that is still a bad thing and always will.

I'm as big of a privacy and security advocate as anyone. Heck, I even disconnect my EV's and only run them over network connections that I fully control. I also rarely use cloud services because they are NOT under my control, but as an IT guy, I fully believe in full control by the OWNER of devices, whether that be a single person or a company. If an employee is using company provided equipment, then they (the company) have a right to know and control every single thing done on it and every single bit of information into and out of that device. If you want privacy and security from YOUR perspective, do it on devices that you own and control. Companies have the same right though.

It is still the human in control that decides to say "good enough" that makes it slop. Judge the content based on the content itself, not where it came from or how it was created. Also, not everyone enjoys live music. I can't stand live music (not joking and not trolling) at least from any band that I truly love. I am all about the finished product. Live music is always different from the studio version that makes me fall in love with it. I get so intimate with my favorites, every drum tap, every note or squeek from a guitar, every exact intonation in the singers voice that even when I see my real favorite bands play my favorite songs, it feels like a cheap coverband. There is always backup singers, or layers missing in live music. I do much better seeing live music with bands that I have never seen before. That is the only way I can enjoy live.

I don't understand the hatred of AI just because it is AI. Yes, there is lots of AI slop. But people make slop without AI as well. AI is just a tool. And slop is slop regardless or source. People have the option to keep tailoring prompts and tweaking to their perfection weather it is words, images, sounds or videos. It is still teh human in control that decides to say "good enough" that makes it slop. Judge the content based on the content itself, not where it came from or how it was created.

TV's are just the starting point. Many cars, especially EV's need help from legislation like this. Most are linux based but there are lockouts that are weaponized against the owners of the vehicles. The argument should start and end with the security and privacy component. An owner of a thing should not be forced to allow the manufacturer access to that thing unless there is a documented short term need such as updates or repairs. Industry standard zero trust configs should be guaranteed as a right of ownership. For EV's these things are connected to the grid for God's sake. Even just a portion of any given manufacturers vehicles are connected to the grid at any given time. Most will be done charging but still connected. If a manufacturers systems are compromised either through hacking or even a single rogue employee, then something as simple as a command to start charging would melt the grid. This is before you even bring in any privacy component. This is before you bring in any right to repair component. But both of those stack on top. People should be infuriated. Reviewers should be rating companies on this but they don't because they cant get their hands on the next car to review if they are too rough on the automakers. At some point people have to learn and fight back.

Yes, but it is proven over and over that opt outs are completely and utterly useless because it is still trust based. Not a single company that has offered or responded to trust based opt outs has ever been 100% onboard. Every single case in history at some level is still being abused and justified as necessary by the company completely or partially ignoring the opt out. A no that means no with 100% verifiable cut off only comes when it happens forcefully.

Yes, but that is only part of the picture. Despite their lead in technology implementation, it is all state controlled. Every vehicle that comes over is a potential spying device and even allowing access to source code does not stop it just having the information passes information that state level spying can use against the US. TikTok for example is one case where people never realize how it is used to spy. It has been proven that TikTok application, even when verified free of true malware allows information gathering by using negative data. For example, NDAA disallows TikTok on military bases and government facilities, some of which are secret and non-disclosed. But yet TikTok has access to GPS data even when not truly functioning as malware, the GPS data allows them to look for building or areas where the app just never shows anyone going. Those areas become spying interest. Imagine when cars do this? EV's are connected to the grid for Gods sake. If there are hundreds of thousands of cars connected to the grid at any given time. The system self throttles because not everyone charges at the same time and people drive different amounts, but imaging if even 30% of them are connected to the grid and all are told to start charging at the exact same time. Instant grid meltdown. Despite the leading technology, those vehicles should not be here.

Opt outs are never good enough. That requires trust. They deserve none. There has to be government guaranteed ability for owners of connected things to institute industry standard zero trust configurations on connected things and if the owner chooses, force lock out manufacturers with guarantees that the manufacturer can't punitively brick basic features if they choose to do so.

Despite my gripes with the data collection that I have worked around as detailed above, my wifes Equinox EV is actually the best bang for the buck vehicle that we have ever owned and it really isn't even close. I think for the vehicle itself even the infotainment center once you have blocked their tracking, they hit it out of the park. We don't 3 second 0 to 60, so why would we pay for that? And despite the hype, the new guys like Rivian and Tesla are still playing catch up for just general fit and finish on the vehicle that that the traditional car makers have had that nailed down for decades. And Rivian and Tesla are even more pig headed about artificially crippling functionality if you even think about trying to bypass their built in cellular and the data collection. They punitively disable functionality if you disable the cellular and in Teslas case will attempt to void your warranty if they cant push updates to the vehicle within 4 days of release.

GM sells our data, but at least you can do certain things to the current GM EV's like I have done to mine and it still functions. I have an Equinox EV and I have the cellular connection resistor terminated at the telematics module. I then use my own cellular setup which is a miniPC with sim card slot and wifi running PFsense to stand up my own mobile full UTM firewall that run in whitelist mode. I open communications to only bare minimum sites to keep nav and streaming audio/video so I can watch and listen to things while charging. All GM and onstar sites are blocked by default because it is in whitelist only mode. Yea Google still has my data by handling it this way, but it is much much much harder for them to correlate to the vehicle in any way that ties their data to a real humans name since I don't run the vehicle on my normal Google accounts. I also just periodically reset it and start a new one account as well.

I have been arguing that on Rivian forums for months and fanboys have their heads up their asses. People have to realize that security should be in the hands of the owners. Privacy options should not be trust based on a slider to disable tracking in the infotainment system. It should be able to be verified secure with true zero trust configs available to owner in a way that DOESN'T brick the ability to use the car, nav etc.. There should be regulatory oversight that guarantees that manufacturers of connected things must provide a way for owners to audit communications in a way that does not allow the manufacturer to change the behavior because it knows its being watched. Such as the ability to load owner provided security certs for an authorized man in the middle audit. And for security, especially for EV's owners should have the ability to completely lock down communications unless there is a documented need. These things are connected to infrastructure for Gods sake. Having them full time connected to the internet is just one secuirty breach from state hackers having control of an entire companies fleet of EV's. Just simply commanding all of the ones currently connected to start charging at the same time would absolutely destroy the grid. We HAVE to allowed to use industry standard zero trust configurations on our things.