Like it or not, Mozilla is among the last bastions of sound, honest software.
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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Privacy
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I have friends there and have sold to their infosec team before. It's real as fuck. The people are about it. I love them.
If we are talking major software making companies/groups, then I'll happily agree pretty much 100% with that statement because there are definitely plenty of small groups following their footsteps in one way or another.
They spoke to the international press and wrote to the United States Congress, claiming that their car companies are “committed to protecting consumer privacy” and even called for regulation themselves.
“Gee whizz we awe vewy sowwy fow doing a pwivacy invasion” 👉👈🥺
I’m beyond sick of corporations knowing they can do whatever they want as long as they run to congress and flagrantly lie.
To be a fair here even though I dislike corporations just as much. In the past I have seen big corporations call for regulations in their own shady tactics. In those cases they felt like they needed those malicious practices to stay competetive with the other companies doing the same shit. Basically they want to stop but feel like they can't since the competition is doing it too.
I'm not sure this is the case here. But that stuff sometimes happens.
Yeah but those supposed companies that "needed those malicious practices to stay competitive" also could have done the thing Mozilla is now doing. Could even use direct knowledge and proof of those practices in a big ad campaign about how they actively don't want all your info. This "doing it because everyone is doing it" headspace is one of the many corpo versions of "just following orders." I understand the point you are making, but it isn't like any of these companies are too small to fight back. Allowing this kind of thing (beyond just this specific instance) just further gaslights us at a consumer level into continued abuse being normalized and okay. Which makes it even harder to do anything about it.
Just like with how we see that a major amount of voters literally just give up and see everything as pointless in doing anything (and that is assuming that they even know about any information at all). Or how we are trained to only see one or two day polite marches in protest of something as being the whole "fight" and just go home. But when people don't just go home or "stay out of normal people's ways" it is seen as those protesters being "unrealistic" or even "assholes in the way." The whole point of protests is to literally be as in the way of "normal life" as possible to push whatever change they are fighting for.
I actually agree with all your points.
I just think regulation which outlaws the problematic or unethical behavior is one possible way to improve the situation. And I am not against a company calling for these kinds of regulations.
Even with Mozilla as an example. Banning or limiting data collection or web standard warping practices would strengthen Mozilla against their competition.
[...] vewy sowwy fow being cawt doing [...] *
Actually it wouldn't be outrageous for them to call for regulation. Right now they are almost forced to do what everyone else is doing to stay competitive. It there were more regulations they could all compete on a better level.
Every time a corporation or group of corporations ask for regulations to be placed on themselves, that's a massive red flag that they are going to lobby to cut the legs off of that regulation, or they will make the regulation give them more power.
An optimistic interpretation is that they feel like they can't stop data collection without being hurt in the marketplace by competitors who will make more money by continuing to collect data, so they want governmentregulations to level the playing field.
That's being really charitable though...
It's all about dat $$$ for the shareholders. Not a bad interpretation, though.
how do cars transmit the data they collect if they don't have a wifi connection?
Cellular modems.
And of course disabling these modems cause the cars to throw up warnings and potentially put the car in limp mode, so you can't even turn the damn things off without potentially bricking the car.
Depends on the car. IIRC in newer GM cars you can just pull the fuse for the cellular modem and generally just lose the connected features.
But it is also likely that the car companies have a separate system in the car's computer that acts independently of the main infotainment system for sending data. Even if you aren't paying for any of the "extras/add-ons", it could still get information from your phone just being used with Bluetooth or ping your WiFi if it is on and your phone visible. Also given how much more actively these companies are all trying to get passive income from our data. I wouldn't be shocked if the other commenter's point about getting all kinds of "errors" popping up if disabled (especially if a fuse is pulled/modified). We already see that non-car companies like John Deere go to some big levels to remove your control over something you bought and DRM shit that has zero reason outside of forcing us to pay only them for repairs. We as people aren't allowed to control both our physical devices or our data, and big corps are just allowed to skim everything and sell it to any other parties that pay for it. Hell even our legal system and enforcement are allowed to bypass our rights that prevent search and seizure by just going to these companies instead of us.
I just sent a request to get all info they had on me and my car. Will be interesting