Ok, don’t buy Volkswagen. Got it.
Also, don’t buy “connected” cars. FFS, if your car features rely on an internet service provided by the manufacturer, you are just begging for these sorts of shenanigans.
privacy-conscious drivers
company’s mobile app
Hmmm.
Is there Lemmy r/sipsTea ?
FYI: Slate Auto is Volkswagen.
You sure about that? You’re bot confusing Slate with Scout are you?
Well damn, I’ve just placed a preorder. I’ll keep watching to see how it plays out…
Also with the most recent update, the halo collar app no longer has access to Google satellite data IF you operate Graphene OS. I suspect Google is the culprit because the folks at Halo have no idea how to fix this bug
weird. they are using mapbox which has nothing to do with google. maybe support just didn’t want to solve your case.
Volkswagen of all people.
After this fuckup: https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2024/fahrplan/talk/Q8ZAV9/
They should be the last ones to deny anyone else using privacy preserving tools.
(Hint the player has multiple audio tracks, there is a dub in English)
Block it all you want fuckheads. Wont buy a volkswagen ever.
Need to being back the old ones. Make 1981 Dasher Diesels Great Again
My car is staying dumb as long as possible it seems, I despise these tricks leeching into every new car these days.
Wonder if we can get that Faraday Cage color as an undercoat paint…
I said long time ago that EU really needs to focus on opening up the platforms. Force app makers to support de-googled phones. Force car makers to support de-googled phones. You can’t become technologically independent if you don’t control the platforms.
Why they do this:
After the first three years, Volkswagen is charging ev customers €150/year to see the charge level on the app, remotely start the air conditioning, schedule charge and so on.
Any tinkerer is thinking “well, if I am paying this extortion just to see the charge level on the app, then I want to exfiltrate my data in home assistant or similar, getting better stats and so on”
So they blocked the API with Google play integrity signatures
Now, instead of spending money on engineering ways to block uncertified devices, they could have simply introduced an official API with rate limits and stuff.
The fact that they noticed all those “unauthorized accesses” it’s prove that people just want to pay for a lightweight API access, not a 250mb app that takes 4 minutes to remotely start the air conditioning
After all, we’re talking for €150/year for accessing the data of a €1 iot sim card using 0.0001€ of compute time. There should be enough margin for that.
Sorry if I ask, what does it mean to remotely start air conditioning?
Do you mean you can start it while you are not in the car? What’s the purpose of such a feature?
It’s for when it’s hot outside, you’re leaving a store and you want it to be cool when you get to your car.
Too bad the people in charge and developers of sensible mind are not the same people
All of this leads back to an old rhetorical question I’ve often asked. Why the fuck isn’t the whole entertainment system and car connection just a standard touchscreen and communication protocol?
The fact that I need these proprietary patent-gated apps to use parts of my car, instead of just a driver that could work on any device with the right port, is overtly user-hostile.
Because many customers expect a seamless experience with zero tinkering
No, the lock in is not needed for seamless behavior. The lock-in is to secure various revenue opportunities.
For example, if I connect a displayport cable to a displayport connection, poof, display happens. There’s no ‘tinkering’, there’s no “trying to match vendors”, it just works.
Similarly, here folks sorted out the protocols in use, and none of the ‘seamless’ users were impacted. VW went out of their way to break them not to ensure a seamless experience, but because they wanted to paywall capability in a reliable way.
One could easily imagine schemes that didn’t require the lock-in, but would not assure an enduring revenue opportunity.
Totally possible with an open standard. Do you have to tinker when you plug in a monitor? Not really. How about a mouse or any other peripheral device? Generally not beyond installing the app, which would be the same with a car.
Friction in the user experience has everything to do with lack of attention and time spent on that development goal, and nothing to do with it being open and standard.
And you can’t have this with open standards…?
Because the greed of corporations knows no limit. They sold you the (expensive) hardware, now they want to sell you the (specific, usually compatible but not really, and slightly buggy implementation) software. Can’t do that with open specifications.
It is rhetorical because that answer is self-evident to many, but you are exactly right nonetheless. It is a major exhibit in the case of why companies must be regulated to act in the public interest, because every time we don’t, they pull this same rent-seeking crap without fail: the “sell me a hammer and charge me when I swing it” routine.
When XavDub contacted the German car maker, the company responded that GrapheneOS “is not an official Volkswagen offering” and advised them to contact their OS provider instead.
This is the only official word from Volkswagen in the whole article. To me, this reads less as “We are blocking GrapheneOS users” and instead “GrapheneOS is not something we give any official support” which I think is a key distinction.
It’s not clear what’s different in the update that doesn’t work with GrapheneOS, whether it’s an API call that doesn’t work or if they’ve implemented the Play Integrity API - but I think this article is a bit sensationalist and everyone’s reacted only to the headline.
Hopefully this doesn’t affect me
10/10, Would ride to the 1990 World Cup with.
T3 crew checking in
It does, unfortunately, affect you. Your van does not support GrapheneOS.
Hell yeah, brother
It’s glorious!
Nice!
I love it!
That’s a wonderful creature.
Awesome!
Cars didn’t need apps in the 1900’s and they sure as hell don’t need them now.
Note it is very nice for me to be able to start the air conditioning in my electric car when it’s 38C out before I leave my desk.
Other things are mildly convenient, like checking progress of charging, locking/unlocking doors remotely. It happens to be convenient to check problems, but that’s only because the in-car system isn’t very good, and I would happily take the in-car system being better.
But they force me to pay for parts I can’t use without doing things I won’t and agreeing to things I don’t.
You don’t need a computer to make a car. But you might need most of one to meet fuel economy and safety standards.
Yeah, good people had good ideas and created the computer link that allows your catalytic converter to function properly. As with all good things, some shithead ruined it and put Subaru’s remote start behind a paid app. Shit people ruining good things, tale as old as time.
Ty ,for info , next car will be no VW.
Not alone.
I once dared to run Ford’s app on a rooted device. They permabanned my account including a hundred dollars worth of included charging over it without so much as a warning.
Car vendors are absolute dicks about their apps.
Murica ? Not the right place to live in it now .
Class action for unilaterally modifying the agreement about feature access after the fact and to the detriment of the consumer.
There’s about 1000 companies to sue for this already
OK…?
Sue ‘em all!
BORN TO SUE
CONSUMER RIGHTS IS A FUCK
鬼神 Sue Em All 1989
I am trash man
410,757,864,530 DEAD CEOS
