If only all these tracking functions were easy to deactivate (or better, opt-in) then there would not be a need for jammers
They should 100% be opt in. If I want to use GPS I’ll use my phone. I don’t know a single person that uses the one built into the car.
But obviously they want all that juicy data. It’s not enough that they charge insane rates on the vehicles themselves, they must also add microtransactions and track when we have sex, and with who too.
everything like this should be Opt-In.
It should be a violation of our basic civil and human rights for this shit to be opt-out, especially in such a way that you are not even aware of it, or the ability to opt out.
I would say depends. For company owned cars thats justified as it should purely meant for business trip only. For duel use vehicle, that there should absolutely have switch to turn it on or off.
So they should also make it legal to rip that shit out or force the automakers to give customers that option.
The article is talking about lorry drivers making trips for work though. I am not sure I understand the need for the drivers to conceal their location while they work?
But otherwise I agree.
Isn’t the man calling to ask where they are, when they need to know, good enough? Unless it’s been stolen what’s to be gained by spooky spying?
When you have a fleet of 500 vehicles all over the place at various stages work. Calling each one isn’t really practical.
Managing fleets of vehicles is greatly helped by knowing where the vehicles are.
I don’t see how it’s “greatly” helps at all in practice.
Worst case you have routes which drastically fluctuate in driver demand and you’re sending drivers to cover multiple routes a day, and hiring more drivers is probably the better solution.
Calling drivers seemed to be really practical before GPS existed, at best you can argue it’s more efficient for the boss.
You need less workers to track other workers. Instead you have devices that you pay for one time instead of a salary in theory. I’d guess the bean counters have looked at it and figured it saves money in salary and also in other ways.
I know that UPS was (and I assume still is but I have not l been with the company in about 15 years) big into telematics. I remember one of their biggest safety concerns was backing and they knew how many times you did it and if you did it before or after you parked. If you backed over a certain amount of times per day or if you did it once after parking and turning off your package car, you’d be in with management being questioned about it.
Vehicle telematics is the next frontier of the cyberpunk privacy dystopia. I hope more people start using these things.
I would use one for privacy but there would be black vans following me around and probably land a felony. It is really easy to track these things. All they have to do is look for big blob of gps unavailable bubble moving around and they can also triangulate the signal with fairly cheap tools. Jamming is just spamming noise after all.
Never fuck with the FCC (or relevant agency in your country)
Unless you’re a big corp, then fuck with impunity but make sure to pay the “cost of doing business” tax.
If the tax is too high, just buy some lobbyists or political system equivalent.
You know what feels wrong? You can easily buy GPS tracking devices on Amazon, but it is illegal to use a GPS jammer in USA, Canada and many other countries.
So companies spying you is fine, but blocking a GPS signal to prevent them from spying can get you a $16,000 fine.
Edit: my thought experiment is not about truck drivers being monitored but more about those fancy new EVs that sell your GPS based data to data brokers… You usually can’t turn off the GPS in those EVs.
The reason this needs to be illegal is because jamming the signal is not specific to you. You block your signal but you probably will also be blocking it for anyone else in the vicinity. Plus the way these things work they can create interference for other types of signals as well. It isn’t the blocking itself that’s illegal, but the interference that you’re causing.
I totally understand this and I agree when it comes to jammers this powerful.
My comment was about the low power models which only works for few feet, just enough for to cover your own car. Those are still illegal.
My comment was about the low power models which only works for few feet
There’s no such thing.
Active jamming is illegal but passive is not. You can block yourself but not others. FYI.
Tape some foil over the GPS antenna.
Yes ,but it could also be that there are multiple gps antenna in your new car.😬
Just wait until your smart toilet can tell the insurance companies what chemical substances you’ve consumed so that the can raise your rates, deny your claims, or sell the info to your boss so the company can fire you with cause.
We already live in hell and there’s no upper limit on the thermostat.
We already live in hell and there’s no upper limit on the thermostat.
Well actually there is because the smart thermostats are getting remotely limited by power companies sometimes.
I mean, I knew it was bad already, but please for the love of god stop giving them ideas that they may or may not have yet thought of…
It’s not just EVs - most new cars have these tracking devices where they sell your data to your insurance company to be used against you.
I’m no GPSjamologist, but if a jammer was running in your car, wouldn’t the signal reach other nearby cars while in traffic or does it do it all within the confines of your automobile?
That is exactly why this is illegal. These things can have a range of up to hundreds of meters and thus you’re affecting other people aswell and not just yourself.
From the low power models I’ve seen (which are still very much illegal, same as the most powerful ones) only work between 5 to 10 feet at the very most.
It’s like when the companies place trackers in cars, we have to assume they have the best intentions in mind (it is definitely for the customers security right?!)
But if we, the customers, block them from tracking us by jamming the GPS signal, they assume we have the worst intentions in mind (surely we are dirty criminals right?!)
This is why I said it “feels” wrong.
It doesn’t work like that.
They broadcast a powerful radio signal on the GPS frequency. You might have to be within 10 feet for it to completely drown out the real GPS frequency, but the waves don’t stop they just spread out and get “thinner” with distance. If it completely blocks the signal at 10 feet, it will severely reduce accuracy further out than that. Likely everyone within line of sight of your car will lose accuracy on their GPS.
And that would include airplanes, line of sight is a really long distance up above your car. Airplanes use GPS for critical functions including making sure they don’t crash into the ground when they’re flying through clouds / rain / fog so you could potentially cause serious problems. Most likely force the airplane to land in a different city — because they will not land if their altitude equipment isn’t working… yes they have other ways of measuring altitude but all of them are unreliable, which is why they have GPS. You’re taking away one layer of their patchwork system of landing safely and if too many layers are gone then they abandon the landing and fly elsewhere - happened to a friend of mine recently, turned a quick 2 hour flight home into an 18 hour trip.
