We live in a surveillance society. Almost all our activities, whether digital or physical is being watched. Our watches and phones track us. It is impossible to go anywhere without something or someone watching us. In fact, our new cars are monitoring us as well. And a test conducted by white hat hackers at cyber-security
We live in a surveillance society. Almost all our activities, whether digital or physical is being watched. Our watches and phones track us. It is impossible to go anywhere without something or someone watching us.
In fact, our new cars are monitoring us as well. And a test conducted by white hat hackers at cyber-security firm Quarkslab shows that our every move can be retraced well after the car has become junk.
The reason is because almost every new car in the market today comes with something called a data logger or otherwise referred to as a telematics unit. Think of it as a black box of an airplane, except for cars. And the thing about a telematics unit is, they track everything over the lifetime of a car.
This telematics box is about the size of an external hard disk, or even a pencil case if I may, and it manages everything that is related to connectivity such as GPS locations, software updates, etc.
And the test conducted by Quarkslab proved that almost anyone with the know how can obtain data of a car (and it’s owner) from the telematics box.
To prove this, the group obtained such a unit from a BYD Seal that had been written off after an accident.