Edit: Just asked because of curiosity. I’m not actually looking for such vehicles.

Edit 2: So for context, my parents new Toyota has this feature that allows the GPS location of the car to be sent to toyota, then you can see the location via an app on android/ios (it’s supposed to be an anti-theft feature). The data is sent via an antenna that connects to cell towers, which then connects to the internet, and to the toyota servers. “Diagnostic” and “maintenance” information is also sent via those same antennas.

The dealer said it could be turned off, but who knows if they are really off. There’s not a hard switch on the car.

  • sic_1@feddit.de
    152·
    1 year ago

    Ouff.

    A few cars use Android Automotive OS. I wonder if it’s possible to run a privacy focused custom OS on them.

    • krnpnk@feddit.de
      11·
      1 year ago

      Doubtful. Android automotive OS runs on a single ECU in the car while a lot more are in there running QNX, Linux or some embedded OSes (sometimes there are more than 100 such ECUs in the car). So there’s no guarantee that the “problematic” services are even running on this ECU (I bet it’s more distributed). Furthermore updating / changing the software of a single ECU is done using special hardware or through some kind of gateway ECU. They will perform validation on the to-be-flashed software to ensure it’s from the vendor itself.

      And even if you’d get it flashed I can guarantee you that nothing will work.