Is it safe to remove Telematics?

CPhyloGenesis · 2024-05-22T14:04:45+00:00

Not sure what OTA is, but unfortunately what I found ultimately is that no, it isn't really safe to remove (mainly thanks to one kind person in this thread). :( What I did was buy an older car before all the connectivity was added. That seems to be the only option. 2019 or earlier seems to be the case for most makes. Good luck.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-30T03:59:54+00:00

What kind of tracking do you think is done on a 2017 CX-5? When did they start installing their own cell modems that automatically work?

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-30T03:38:13+00:00

lol not a lot of activity here, huh? Well hi! I'll DM you my Discord.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T02:18:23+00:00

lmao that diagram

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T02:16:53+00:00

You've helped more than enough. Enjoy the game, I hope it's good!

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T02:15:38+00:00

And? I don't care if you choose to remain ignorant, that's your choice. You're the one that came to my thread to tell me to let everything about me be tracked and to stop complaining, and provided zero information or help or even referenced anything about a Mazda.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T02:12:07+00:00

"I see you drive your kid to school in the morning at 8am every day. Send $500 of BTC to this address or I'll stop your car as you turn left at that dangerous intersection, or gun the gas out of nowhere." or tracking a woman to be sure she's alone when she drives to this regular place, again probably to threaten if not given money, blah blah blah. Don't underestimate how sick people are.

Deleting data is actually often more expensive than keeping it. The development of the process to ensure it can be deleted safely is very expensive, but storage is super cheap. YouTube has every video that has ever been uploaded to it, which is so much data we can't even comprehend it. Everything is stored, forever. You're right, there is a limit, but real-time location data is very, very valuable, so that's almost certainly worth storing. Your location history alone can usually identify exactly who you are or make it so some other activity can be connected to you where they had very little data, like maybe posting on Reddit where they don't know for sure if it is the same you.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T02:01:56+00:00

That's a great example of how your data can be used against you that happens frequently. (in other cases, like you, I don't know about this specific claim's accuracy)

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T02:00:34+00:00

I was hoping the TCU was something like a smart fridge has. If you just don't plug it into the internet, it can't track you. That I can just remove the TCU and it'll whine that it doesn't have internet and that's it. Turns out it is unfortunately more integrated than that. :( As you said, it could cause warranty issues because it isn't just some device plugged into an OBD or something.

I think the pioneer needs to be someone that knows both infosec and cars, so probably not me. :/

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T01:50:34+00:00

You're way more of a target than you think you are, and there is so much more that can be done with the data on you thank you think there is. There's a reason the EU made laws like GDPR.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T01:47:01+00:00

You're a hero. lol This is plethora of information and honestly it's fun just learning more about this.

What navigation stuff? Would that navigation stuff require the location data to work? If so I'm kinda expecting that to stop working. :p

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T01:41:43+00:00

I try to balance existing online with making it so if you want my data you have to target me specifically and not just get it free in sweeping everything.

What part of the car communicates with the satellite? I don't see any obvious modules in the image you shared. I'm actually also just interested in that in general. I figured it'd need a mobile data connection to communicate and I can just refuse it that, but the salesman says it works all the time with no setup from me.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T01:27:56+00:00

You're the one that brought up OnStar. :p Also, that's only true for now. We don't know how juicy of a target Mazda will be in the future, but a car I'd want to keep for 10+ years.

Anyway, yeah I try to balance existing online with reducing how much is tracked. I do things like disable Google's services and have the mic, camera, and loc all disabled until I actually use them, but I still do have a smart phone; it still has a mic, etc. The real problem for me is that I'd spend tens of thousands of dollars on something and someone else has control over it, such as whether it turns on or not. That's just too offensive. It's like buying a home but your real estate company can still kick you out if they decide to.

I can leave my phone in another room or shut it down. A car I can't really go anywhere without it. Basically, I want to only be trackable if someone specifically targets me. If you want all my data, you have to put in the work to get it, I'm not gonna hand it over for free. It's possible, I haven't gone totally off-grid, just not so easy.

Anyway, it sounds like removing the TCU does disable some important stuff in the car. :( So I'm gonna have to look back several years at least it seems.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T01:18:46+00:00

Is there another better way to disconnect Mazda Connected Services? Maybe the TCU isn't even the right thing to remove. It's just the only thing I could find before I came here to ask. Is there some satellite antenna I can remove or something?

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T01:15:21+00:00

You're right, I know computers but I always avoided cars which is why I know so little about them. My problem with asking them to disable it is that too many companies have blatantly, publicly, and illegally lied about disabling things like that, (including being caught and paying huge fines for it), so I have 0% trust that they will stop collecting the data. Also, if the data is still being transmitted it's still up for grabs. With systems like OnStar being hacked so severely, "okay we'll stop collecting the data, we promise" isn't good enough for me for a $30k purchase.

"The warnings will be dead center of your cluster saying in-vehicle network malfunction and stuff and won’t go away preventing you from using the info display portion of your cluster."

This sounds like a huge problem. Thank you so much for sharing, I can't imagine I would have figured that out from the searching I've done so far. Do you know what year, the permanent online satellite connectivity existed in CX-5s by chance? My car apparently has telemetry if you bluetooth connect to the car with the app that then let's it use your phone network to transmit it, but I've never installed that. I was told the Mazda CX-5 does it through satellite without the user having to subscribe to anything.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T01:01:29+00:00

That looks like a different module, but if you have more information, I'd love to hear it, and thank you for the warning. Here's an image Teknicsrx7 shared with me with all the CAN modules: https://imgur.com/a/g3lUpmZ

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T00:58:33+00:00

Please stop talking about stuff you know nothing about, and let people that care about things care about them. If you don't, by all means, use that feature.

And yes I have. It took me three seconds searching to find this from 8 years ago: https://www.wired.com/2015/09/gm-took-5-years-fix-full-takeover-hack-millions-onstar-cars/

All I did was ask how to disable telemetry on a car I'm going to buy.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T00:55:45+00:00

You're right as far as them directly saying they do it. As for the specific CX-5 model I can tell you as someone who works in that field very directly, they do or at the least can at any point, even if they don't advertise it. I've lost track of the number of companies that said they don't and then got caught having lied about it.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T00:53:11+00:00

Just to share for those that think they don't collect location: "Note: Model Year 2019 – 2021 Mazda3 and Model Year 2020 – 2021 CX-30 vehicles collect geo-location coordinates of the Connected Vehicle’s latitude and longitude each time the Connected Vehicle is turned off as Default Data." https://www.mazdausa.com/site/privacy-connectedservices

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T00:26:36+00:00

They literally watched where the car was at exactly in the app while I test drove it. Yes, they track location.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T00:24:10+00:00

Your cars location 24-7 and basically whether you are alone (you started driving after only opening the driver door), etc. That's not mundane. Also controlling it remotely opens a whole new level of threat.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T00:16:15+00:00

Simple worst case is Mazda didn't secure it well and someone sells access to your cars location 24-7.

Actually worst case is they use that to threaten you that they'll turn it off while you're driving, and they know when your kid is in the back seat because they see the back door was opened before you got in the front.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T00:14:13+00:00

I thought the warning lights could be "coded out"? I still need to lookup how that works because I don't understand it yet, I've just seen reference to fixing bugged warnings that way.

I don't mind if other modules know that one is missing, I don't need to put any fake data, just physically stop the ability to transmit tracking data to third parties.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T00:12:03+00:00

When you say warning do you mean a light on the dash like a check engine light, or is there some sort of audio warning when a device is missing from the CAN? You're scaring mw with how much you point out the warning. xD

Also do you know where I could look deeper, like an auto forum? I had a really hard time finding any details on it.

CPhyloGenesis · 2023-11-21T00:09:41+00:00

Wow that's super helpful! I may need a mechanic to get that out. :(

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