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Transportation Privacy

Rookie Dongle Warns Parents When Their Kids Are Driving Too Fast (thestack.com) 153

Posted by samzenpus from the always-watching dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Dongle Apps, a Belgian tech company, has introduced a new system which alerts a car owner if the vehicle's driver is breaking the speed limit. Initially designed for parents and guardians to keep an eye on their young ones behind the wheel, the 'Rookie Dongle', connects to the vehicle's on-board diagnostics (OBD II) port, internal GPS and mobile technologies to push real-time data to the cloud and send notifications to car owners via email or text when the driver is speeding, suddenly accelerates, brakes hard or has high RPM levels.
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Rookie Dongle Warns Parents When Their Kids Are Driving Too Fast More

Rookie Dongle Warns Parents When Their Kids Are Driving Too Fast

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  • Are these sponsored stories? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @07:20PM (#50682925)
    They keep saying submitted by "anonymous" and include a link in the title bar to the front page of the site that is hosting the article. Bullshit detector is going off full blast right now.
    • Hey look it's Slash-hoo!, or is it Sloogle? I can't tell. What I can tell is that it's BS. Next, we'll get a story about a newfangled doohickey that slices bread.

    • Re:Are these sponsored stories? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JMJimmy ( 2036122 ) on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @08:58PM (#50683311)

      Of course it's bullshit. So is the story itself - these devices are not about warning parents that their kids are driving too fast, it's a backdoor to gather driving data to sell to insurance companies. They do a very nice job of trying to conceal that fact though.

      Privacy Policy

      Your data will not be shared, lent out, sold or made available in any other way to third parties, unless you give us your explicit consent hereto or if we are obliged to by court.

      Sounds all well and good but then you go to the general conditions, which are in Belgian (even though the rest of their site is English)

      Dongle Apps is also the sole owner of the information collected automatically by the dongle or while using the corresponding Services by the Client.

      The Client grants Dongle Apps explicit authorization to exploit these data in accordance with Article 13 of these conditions.

      Basically, they can do what they want with the data and fuck you very much.

      • Re: Are these sponsored stories? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @09:30PM (#50683459)

        One should never, ever, for any reason allow telemetry data to be uploaded to anywhere. Even if it isn't sold to insurance companies (and the notion of them geting their slimy hands on it is bad enough), you should never subject yourself or your family to the pile of trouble this can cause in case of an accident.

        So your kid drives imperfectly. Who doesn't? Then maybe gets into a wreck. You now have a legally discoverable trail of evidence that can be made to show whatever the other party wants to. That your kid drove imperfectly in the past and you did nothing about it would be a good place for them to start.

        Never keep records you don't have to keep, and never help anyone sue you.

        • You now have a legally discoverable trail of evidence that can be made to show whatever the other party wants to. That your kid drove imperfectly in the past and you did nothing about it would be a good place for them to start.

          Good because fuck idiots who can't drive sensibly on the road.

          My parents were very clear about this when I got my drivers license. What I do on the road is my sole responsibility. I am not to expect any aid, backup, or even to be bailed out if my actions get me in the shit.

          I drive sensibly on the road. Many don't. I wonder if it's because people believe they won't suffer any consequences for their reckless actions.

      • If the insurance company wants the data, they would just mail them out honestly, offer a discount for people who use it, then raise rates across the board by the same amount as the discount. The vast majority of customers will be using it, and the average is all they care about.

        This product is about selling a false sense of control to parents, which is exactly what it is supposed to be. No conspiracy needed.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by JMJimmy ( 2036122 )

          If the insurance company wants the data, they would just mail them out honestly, offer a discount for people who use it, then raise rates across the board by the same amount as the discount. The vast majority of customers will be using it, and the average is all they care about.

          This product is about selling a false sense of control to parents, which is exactly what it is supposed to be. No conspiracy needed.

          The problem with insurance companies doing that is that they get the data on their customers only. Yes, that's useful for them and lots of them do that but it does not tell them anything about their new customer or customers they want to target. Third parties going after young drivers habits will allow insurance companies to target the drivers they want while having advanced warning about potentially costly customers before they get their first quote. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, it does mak

          • "It's already occurring due to historical data that showed that men under 25 were the most dangerous drivers, where I live that data lead to ~$900-1200/year initial premiums for young women and $2,500-3500 initial premiums for young men. It can be a serious impediment when your cost of employment for any job requiring a car (either on the job or just to get there) is 4 times hire than someone else with the same driving history as yourself. The sad part is, where I live anyway, the data that all that was bas

            • The opposite is happening of course... women's insurance is steadily going up as the new data, combined with the old, is starting to change the statistics. The problem is that these data points create falsehoods. Speed involved in an accident means speeding is bad to them, they collect data on speeders and charge them more... what really happens though is speed difference and distraction causes most accidents. Complex interactions that are not easily found in the single point data streams.

              Anecdotally, I

          • I'd like to know what fantasy universe we're role playing if you think that people don't still grow up with drunk driving.

            My advice is to go for a 5 mile walk along streets with traffic between the hours midnight and 2am on a Friday night/Saturday morning. I'd say to bicycle it, but I'm not trying to get you killed, just scare some sense into you.

            • I'm not saying it doesn't happen. Rates have dropped 60% from the mid-80s of reported drunk driving incidents. A decade or two before that it was a normal thing for the guys to get drunk and go joy riding. It wasn't reported to the cops because they didn't care.

    • They keep saying submitted by "anonymous" and include a link in the title bar to the front page of the site that is hosting the article. Bullshit detector is going off full blast right now.

      Not a Slashdot editor here, but I just assumed that they're finally going to improve how they're citing stories. Having the source for the story in the title bar is kind of nice.

    • I kinda like this feature. Now I know when not to read TFA 'n just start trollin' away.

  • Easy solution (Score:3)

    by tkrotchko ( 124118 ) on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @07:24PM (#50682949) Homepage

    Swap it to the parent's car in their OBD II port.

  • Parents (Score:3)

    by AK Marc ( 707885 ) on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @07:25PM (#50682959)
    If the kids moved it to the parents cars, the parents would be livid with their kids over their horrible driving.

    • /Oblg. "Do as I say, not do as I do! :-)

      Unfortunately, or fortunately, actions speak louder then words.

    • Re:Parents (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @08:12PM (#50683147)

      If the kids moved it to the parents cars, the parents would be livid with their kids over their horrible driving.

      And considering most teens learn to drive from their parents, the irony will be lost on these helicopter parents that they are responsible for their precious little snowflakes bad habits.

      Do these people honestly not consider that their kids are watching them speed, failing to indicate, aggressively tailgating and talking on the phone whilst driving and thinking that this is perfectly perceptible behaviour.

      Sorry for answering my own question, but of course not. See: Dunning-Kruger. We need a large campaign of public service announcements that begin with the words "Parents, you are not as good at driving as you think you are".

      • Dunning-Kruger proven for driving in 1981:
        http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... [sciencedirect.com]

        Every driver thinks they are better than average (including myself!)

      • I am as good a driver as I think I am. I use turn indicators, do not tailgate, and don't talk on the phone. (I do speed sometimes.) I monitor conditions (outside the car and inside me), and adjust accordingly. The result is that, although I don't think of myself as very safe, my insurance agent does.

      • Do these people honestly not consider that their kids are watching them speed, failing to indicate, aggressively tailgating and talking on the phone whilst driving and thinking that this is perfectly perceptible behaviour.

        Yes and Yes. The circle of influence on children is large and their local social groups have a far bigger influence than their household. As a kid I was not just in my parent's car. I was in their friend's car, in my friend's car, and in my parent's friend's car. As a 16.5 year old I felt an incredible sense of power when I got my license. I belong on the road, and someone told me I could be on that road so screw everyone. I OWN THE ROAD. That's the other thing about being a teenager, living at home with pa

      • considering most teens learn to drive from their parents

        Not where I live. In the UK, if you don't learn to drive with a proper driving instructor, you're very unlikely to pass your driving test, at least without several failed attempts first. A bit of off road practice when they're younger is fine, but you need to be drilled into doing things properly on the road.

        Obviously there are exceptions, and no doubt there are the usual slashdot geniuses who passed their test first time after teaching themselves on their custom made driving simulator in their basement

    • If the kids moved it to the parents cars, the parents would be livid with their kids over their horrible driving.

      If both cars are in motion while the app is being checked, my advice to parents is to hang up and drive .

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        If you are the driver in a car and are doing anything other than driving, my advice is to stop it and drive.

  • It's been done (Score:4, Informative)

    by dlleigh ( 313922 ) on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @07:27PM (#50682967)

    Fifteen years ago! The Autowatch a.k.a. "Narc on Lisa"

    https://news.google.com/newspa... [google.com]

  • How about (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Telling me something useful such as when the driver is tailgating, texting, not using turn signals, running lights and things that actually cause dangerous conditions while driving opposed to non-excessive speeding, which in no way directly causes an unsafe condition by itself.

    • "...opposed to non-excessive speeding, which in no way directly causes an unsafe condition by itself."

      Of course non-excessive speeding doesn't cause an unsafe condition. Excessive speeding on the other hand...

      Now: with regards of excessive speeding, what's its operational definition? Yes: whatever the law of the land sets as such -'dura lex sed lex' and all that stuff.

      • If you believe that speed limits are always set in order to maintain road safety then I have a bridge made of waterproof gingerbread to sell you.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Parents will complain the dongle is broken 'cause it goes off all the time.

    • Now that is a great idea, a tailgating indicator. I would better have the info not leave the car, but warn the driver. Use radar or laser or echo etc. to measure the distance to the car in front, then if you're two meters from the car while driving at 90 kph you get warned.

      I would not be surprised if that exists already but haven't heard of it. Hell, drive at 150 mph if you want but don't tailgate and don't be tailgated. (at 150 mph, I've computed the safety distance to be 134 meters)

      • Most people who tailgate aren't doing it accidentally, they are driving aggressively to try to force people to move over. A warning would be pointless.

        And if you need a warning message to tell you that a car is two metres behind you, you shouldn't really be driving as you're either half blind or not concentrating.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mark-t ( 151149 )
      If the thing has any smarts, it would only report sustained periods over the speed limit, perhaps by reporting whether an average speed over an interval has been excessive, where the duration of the allowed interval is a function of how far over the speed limit one actually drives. If you drive 5mph over the speed limit, the duration may be something like 5 minutes, while if you drive 25 mph over the speed limit, the duration may be something like only 15 seconds. And of course, it should report just how

  • Just a consumer version, not really new (Score:5, Informative)

    by localroger ( 258128 ) on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @07:33PM (#50682999) Homepage
    Businesses have used these things for years, especially for heavy trucks but my company sedan has one. My company gets a healthy break on insurance rates because it's there, and they get a nifty web interface where they can pull up everyone's real-time location. Some people find it intrusive but it's kind of hard to complain since it's their car and they pay for the gas. The reporting does include sketchy errors, so it's best not to trust the warning reports too much unless there's a clear pattern. It doesn't always know the real speed limit and sometimes the GPS thinks you're in a very different place than you really are.
    • a buddy of mine did long hauling. They had this stuff, but they couldn't have been using it. Every driver cheated their logs (buddy didn't, they eventually got fired for it cause he couldn't do his runs fast enough). I always wonder how they avoid getting called out when the data's there. I do know that they tell the companies in advance when (and who) is gonna get reviewed for compliance this month. But why not just check the entire companies' logs? They can't be doing it since every truck company in Ameri
  • Sounds like something the government will mandate soon, and the data will also be sent to your local police department. :(

  • Love it! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bwwatr ( 3520289 ) on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @07:40PM (#50683025)
    Let's condition our kids to expect systemic surveillance from early on, and teach them about trust by demonstrating a complete lack of it ourselves.

    • Re: Love it! (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Let's enable parents to catch kids with dangerous driving behavior before the police catch them, or worse, they kill someone!

      • Let's move to North Korea, then the issue is nullified in two ways : the tracking is expected and nobody has a car anyway.

    • I think the government and the education system is already do a good job of teaching that to them. Probably about the only thing the education system is excelling at at the moment.

    • Even better when the parents get the notification I'll bet that their first inclination will be to phone their child to tell them to stop. Then instead of having a teenager who's just speeding you'll now have one who is speeding while on a mobile and arguing with their parents!

  • Insurance companies would want this data in order to better classify the risk of drivers.
    What insurance companies want, they inevitably get.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xiaran ( 836924 )
      I work in insurance and these devices are already in all new cars(in the EU... and most in the US). Insurance companies also use them to adjust premiums based on other behavior like parking your car in a area prone to theft etc. Business fleet insurance(think truck fleets etc) can use them to contest speeding and parkign tickets issued in error(with surprisingly significant savings BTW).

    • They can get whatever they want because they're a cartel whose products the government mandates everyone buy.

  • Only good for the car it is installed in (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    How about an app on a cellphone that emails the teen's* guardian whenever the cellphone senses that it is moving too fast (or accelerating too quickly) for safety. No cloud required. Also, no connection to a single car means that the app can report when a teen is in a potentially unsafe situation regardless of the vehicle used.

    * I use "teen" as an example, but would work for any person including seniors.

  • Ya know, looking @ the bigger picture,, There must be a reason why automakers dont incorporate this in their vehicles now.. Privacy issues? Whats next?? Uber took over the taxi cab end Will this do away with the need to "tail" some one from a law enforcement perspective? What can be done to secure the tech, for example. If it some how got out that 95% of the people to whom this tech is deployed to are 20 and younger, how can the company secure that data from lets say pedophiles, or predators?? going back

    • Ya know, looking @ the bigger picture,, There must be a reason why automakers dont incorporate this in their vehicles now.. Privacy issues? Whats next??

      Could even be some liability issues. OnStar, GM's custom spying service that is on even when you don't pay for it, used to brag about how they could disable stolen vehicles, unlock your car for you, and analyze any problems while you are driving, among some other things.

      Basically, they had control of your vehicle, and could listen in on you any time they wanted to.

      Now just imagine if they disabled the wrong vehicle - which disengages the accelerator pedal, and while disabled, someone rams into you whi

  • Define speeding (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Livius ( 318358 ) on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @08:27PM (#50683181)

    What will be reported as speeding? Exceeding the speed limit in short bursts is necessary (and legal) if you are overtaking slower-moving vehicles.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      Exceeding the speed limit in short bursts is necessary (and legal) if you are overtaking slower-moving vehicles.

      Define "short burst" ?

      No more than 10% over the speed limit for no more than 1.5 seconds per 60 minutes?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by labnet ( 457441 )

      What will be reported as speeding? Exceeding the speed limit in short bursts is necessary (and legal) if you are overtaking slower-moving vehicles.

      Not in Australia & I doubt in the USA either.

      • What will be reported as speeding? Exceeding the speed limit in short bursts is necessary (and legal) if you are overtaking slower-moving vehicles.

        Not in Australia & I doubt in the USA either.

        In the USA it likely depends on the state. California has, for instance, what they call a 'Basic Speed Law'. That states that, except for certain exceptions, it is perfectly legal to drive up to 55MPH anywhere you'd like so long as you can prove that the speed you were traveling was safe. Typically the way you prove that the speed limit was safe is by citing the engineering reports that show safe speeds for the design of the road. This is handy because there are plenty of municipalities where I live now

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ET3D ( 1169851 )

      My guess is it will be configurable, and that notifications will also be optional. The system does show the speed during the trip, so parents will be able to make their own judgement.

    • No, it isn't, to both your statements. Not in any country I'm aware of

    • Really? You mean I can tell the officer I was doing 80 in a 50 zone because I was passing someone?

      I'm pretty sure I've never heard of passing as an exemption to speed limits. I'm pretty sure they don't write traffic laws which says "you can't go faster than X ever, unless you're passing, then it's OK".

      Are you sure it's actually "legal"? Or just something you heard once?

  • Great. Another internet-to-CANbus bridge (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07, 2015 @08:28PM (#50683185)

    The OBD-II port allows access to the life-safety systems of the car. It is a private unsecured network that performs no authentication.

    These dongles allow arbitrary access to the car bus, limited only by their buggy software. They shouldn't even be manufactured.

    • The OBD-II port allows access to the life-safety systems of the car. It is a private unsecured network that performs no authentication.

      These dongles allow arbitrary access to the car bus, limited only by their buggy software. They shouldn't even be manufactured.

      You are wrong. On the internet. Shame, shame.

      Arbitrary access to the car bus is provided by the port that you plug this device into. The device listens to that bus and takes actions outside of the car network. Arbitrary access to the car network existed already.

      Also, the only part of the "life-safety" system you can access is the airbag status. The "life" and "safety" things in the car computers are the airbags and brakes. Those both have their own isolated subsystems. You cannot mess up the "life-safety" s

      • Re:Great. Another internet-to-CANbus bridge (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jittles ( 1613415 ) on Thursday October 08, 2015 @07:02AM (#50685085)

        You are wrong. On the internet. Shame, shame.

        Pot meet kettle?

        Arbitrary access to the car bus is provided by the port that you plug this device into. The device listens to that bus and takes actions outside of the car network. Arbitrary access to the car network existed already.

        This 'arbitrary access' you refer to is only available to someone who has physical access to the CANBus to begin with. And when has anyone ever claimed that you could prevent a network from being owned when someone has physical access to it? These devices put that air gapped network ONTO the internet. Sure you could buy a car with OnStar and achieve the same thing, but many people are smart enough to avoid OnStar vehicles.

        Also, the only part of the "life-safety" system you can access is the airbag status. The "life" and "safety" things in the car computers are the airbags and brakes. Those both have their own isolated subsystems. You cannot mess up the "life-safety" systems in the car through the ODB-II port, you can only read the status.

        This is not true either. Just a few months ago black hats demonstrated the ability to control the ABS systems of cars, kill the engine while they are traveling at high rates of speed, and more. Less than a year ago I had a meeting with a major car manufacturer to discuss Android Auto and CarPlay with the engineers working to integrate it into their vehicles. With the prototypes I saw, you could start/stop the car and affect many other systems directly through the Manufacturer's own app. This app keeps you in their nice little playground. You could do a lot more if you escape their jail.

        The things you could change, if a device changed operating mode to the diagnostic mode, are just things that would make your car run like crap, or shut off.

        Having your car shut off at just the wrong moment could result in your death. And as I mentioned before it has already been established that ABS systems are vulnerable to tampering. So now you could have someone kill your engine and your brakes at just the right time to result in a fatal crash.

        Yeah, if you plug this thing into your car, and the software gets cracked, trolls could disable your vehicle. Why should manufacturing stop? If your doorknob was built with a lock that some people could pick, bad people could steal from you. Does that mean that locks shouldn't be manufactured? No, it means you have to choose what product to use, and some people will make poor choices.

        The CANBus was never designed to be exposed to attack like this. You're willing to have people in 2500+ pound vehicles flying down the road with script kiddies attacking their cars? And for what gain? So insurance companies can track your speed and position? So that you can have some company babysit your kid so you don't have to actually be a parent? So you can stalk your ex girlfriend? The risk to society far outweighs the benefit to society which, from my perspective is absolutely zero.

        My car is old, a 2000, but even with the car off and the main computer without power, the traction computer is still on and functioning. The anti-lock brakes are on the same computer as the anti-roll parking mode, and the traction assist for ice and snow. I could totally fry the main computer that connects to the ODB-II port, and I'd still have traction control. And if the vehicle is in gear and moving, I'd still have power assist to the brakes even if the engine had stopped firing because of a computer problem.

        Your car may not be as vulnerable as other cars but that doesn't mean that we should open up the car's network to the whole world for no reason. Let's look at your argument about door locks. Let's consider the fact that the network is NOT on the internet to be one of the locks securing it. Are you suggesting we should just remove this lock because someone could

        • And as I mentioned before it has already been established that ABS systems are vulnerable to tampering

          You're just waving assertions in the air. Was there a slashdot story a couple months ago, yeah, and it actually talked about a non-OBD thing, some new remote exploit tool that the some automakers are putting in. Who knows what it does, or what computers it hooks into. I didn't, and wouldn't, make any claims about what some car functions a non-OBD access method provides. That also goes for your CarPlay and Android Auto crap.

          Hybrids are a special case, and I'll grant that hybrid systems can often have the bra

          • And as I mentioned before it has already been established that ABS systems are vulnerable to tampering

            You're just waving assertions in the air. Was there a slashdot story a couple months ago, yeah, and it actually talked about a non-OBD thing, some new remote exploit tool that the some automakers are putting in. Who knows what it does, or what computers it hooks into. I didn't, and wouldn't, make any claims about what some car functions a non-OBD access method provides. That also goes for your CarPlay and Android Auto crap.

            Hybrids are a special case, and I'll grant that hybrid systems can often have the brakes affected by hacks. The reason is that they use regenerative braking. The main computer has to be able to switch between the real brakes and the regenerative engine braking. The NTSB has yet to wise up to the fact that the brake computer should still be in charge of the brakes 100% of the time, and should be raising a flag to the powertrain module to tell it when to engage the engine brake.

            The biggest danger I can see from these dongles is that they might get hacked and start playing advertising, distracting drivers and killing people. And yeah, a malicious hacker could kill somebody while they're driving without altering the vehicle safety systems. I think people are mostly arguing against something totally different than what I actually said, because I didn't align my specific statements with the conclusions people are coming to, and they're wanting to work backwards to say I'm wrong about everything, because I'm not supporting (or contradicting, for that matter) their conclusions about the safety of plugging random dongles into their car. If it helps people resolve their cognitive dissonance I'll point out that plugging shit into your car is stupid. Hell, connecting your cell phone to the bluetooth car stereo is probably stupid if it is a stock stereo. If it is an aftermarket stereo it is most likely safe. But that said, unless you have a hybrid there is no way to turn off your brakes from your stereo.

            Preemptively, the Chrysler brake hack was done using a manufacturer remote access tool, not an OBD tool.

            And do you know why they didn't bother using an OBD dongle for this hack? Because they didn't need to! The car manufacturer was already putting the CANBus. They didn't bother with an OBD dongle because the surface area is larger on the manufacturer provided access point. The OBD port puts you on the CANBus. Anything you can do from the Infotainment system on the CANBus you can do from the OBD port. Will you have to have knowledge about the specific vehicle you're attacking from OBD? Almost certainly.

      • You're wrong on pretty much every account. If you'd ready any fairly recent slash.

        Also, the only part of the "life-safety" system you can access is the airbag status.

        Sure, because you just don't know the proprietary ODB codes the manufacture uses to control devices for test purposes. Other people do, you can buy them from the manufacture.

        Those both have their own isolated subsystems.

        Sure, but they are connected and communicate, and due to the lack of decent coders who think about these things, we've repeatedly seen how exploitable these networks are, unless you live under a rock.

        You cannot mess up the "life-safety" systems in the car through the ODB-II port, you can only read the status.

        A simple Google search will show many demonstrations o

        • Asserting I don't know things is an argument you lost as soon as you made it. You don't know what I do or don't know.

          Presume I do know about proprietary codes. Could my statements still be true? Yes. Indeed. As a programmer who has works with these codes, I know it is complete hogwash to just wave your hands like that. Could a malicious person screw up your car through the OBD port? Yes. Can they screw with the safety systems? No. I'm sure there are ways they could cause you lots of problems, but your brake

    • The OBD-II port allows access to the life-safety systems of the car. It is a private unsecured network that performs no authentication.

      These dongles allow arbitrary access to the car bus, limited only by their buggy software. They shouldn't even be manufactured.

      I'm sure that car manufacturers would agree with you as this would then make third party products (including diagnostic tools), 'unlicensed' (by the manufacturer) mechanic work (including do it yourself) and so forth difficult to impossible resulting in even higher manufacturer prices for the same thing.

      So no, I'll keep that open port open, thanks just the same.

      • The OBD-II port allows access to the life-safety systems of the car. It is a private unsecured network that performs no authentication.

        These dongles allow arbitrary access to the car bus, limited only by their buggy software. They shouldn't even be manufactured.

        I'm sure that car manufacturers would agree with you as this would then make third party products (including diagnostic tools), 'unlicensed' (by the manufacturer) mechanic work (including do it yourself) and so forth difficult to impossible resulting in even higher manufacturer prices for the same thing.

        So no, I'll keep that open port open, thanks just the same.

        No one is trying to suggest that the OBD port should go away. In fact, US law requires its existence. Go try and hook a 1995 or older car to a diagnostic code reader. You'll find you need manufacturer specific info and hardware to get anywhere. The GP is saying that we should not be putting these devices on the internet. We shouldn't be creating devices whose sole purpose is to track and monitor everyday citizens as they go about their lives./P.

  • ODB II isn't concerned with computer security, DRM etc. I believe?
    I expect it was done in the era or mindset of micro-controllers that don't run an operating system and free-for-all bit banging like you're running DOS, Win9x or an 8bit computer.

    So, put a dongle on a dongle and cap the readings i.e. you might go at 4000 rpm but the stupid thing is told you never go above 3000 rpm.
    Only problem is with speeds calculated using GPS positions. Well perhaps jam it and stop jamming after you've been stopped for a l

    • Well ODB-II requires physical access, if I am physically in your car, I can do a lot more than hack your ODB-II port.

      • Precisely, the person that is targeted by the surveillance apparatus does have physical access, being they're alone in the car at some distance of many kilometers.
        So it could be messed with. If only, install a switch to cut electrical power to it.

        What would be interesting is if there are consequences for doing so. Parent and child (adult and major child, to drive a car!), that wouldn't need to involve the law or contracts etc. : a heated argument and keys confiscated (or not lent anymore) at most.
        If it's a

    • It would be very difficult to do without detection. A common thing with these sorts of readings is to display them on a graph. If there are flat tops it isn't going to be believable. Another thing is that expected fuel economy is often calculated based on the engine data; if you're reporting low RPMs for the same distance traveled then it will be claiming you get some really high fuel economy that the vehicle isn't capable of. And if the GPS and car are reporting vastly different max speeds, the low RPMs is

  • heh, heh. he said dongle.

  • Helicopter Parents (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Look at the Millennials at how screwed up they are. Helicopter parenting did that. Don't do it.

  • OR (Score:2)

    by Chrisq ( 894406 )
    "You'r always late coming to see me. Put your foot down, I can see you're only doing 70".

  • He must hate his parents (Score:3)

    by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Thursday October 08, 2015 @02:36AM (#50684359) Homepage

    Rookie Dongle Warns Parents When Their Kids Are Driving Too Fast

    Poor guy. I mean, bad enough that your parents are Mr and Mrs Dongle, but then they name you "Rookie"? He should sue.

  • "connects to the vehicle's on-board diagnostics (OBD II) port, internal GPS and mobile technologies to push real-time data to the cloud and send notifications to car owners via email or text when the driver is speeding, suddenly accelerates, brakes hard or has high RPM levels."

    I would add a "the damn kid pulled the dongle' event to the list.

  • Funny how Helicopter Parents are so concerned about nearly every facet of their snowflakes' lives... but don't give a flying fuck about their rights and privacies.

    Kudos for leaping forward a more pervasive police state, you twisted egomaniacs.

  • What we really want to know...

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