I recently purchased a new Toyota which includes a built in microphone and DCM (a cell transmitter/receiver). I’m intending to pull the fuse which will disable both of those features. But as I’m reading the user manual, there was a reference to using FOSS, which surprised me. I opened the link given in the book and discovered that Toyota is actively using AGL (Automotive Grade Linux). It seems AGL has a pretty cool goal of making all of the software in new cars FOSS.
Obviously, none of these cars have received FSF certifications yet, so for that reason I will still be pulling the fuse on the microphone and DCM features. But should I be optomistic that in the near future all of these tech heavy cars will be 100% FOSS friendly?
Does anybody know anything else about this endeavor they can share with me/us?
Excellent resource. Thank you for sharing. This is why I’m still pulling the fuse on certain features.
Also, is there a way to access the terminal on ones car? Or be a sysadmin and setup passwords? Would be nice if AGL came up with a way to create a disc image of AGL linux and install it over whatever is currently running on your computer. Automotive Grade Linux with Free Software Foundation “Free Distro” certification would be awesome.
I imagine if AGL or some other distro could overwrite the software of the car’s computers, it would be possible. And if, for example, some of the hardware was not FOSS friendly, that those components could be manufactured by competeing companies that are FOSS friendly. Like, if you have a computer with a wi-fi card that isn’t FOSS friendly, you could just swap it out for one that is, then your Linux distro could recognize it.
I suspect there would be (largely uninformed) legislative rhetoric about the “security” or “safety” of allowing consumers to overwrite their vehicle software. Unfortunately.
And of course, data brokers and their corporate (and government) customers pay lots of money for our personal information and activities. They won’t want to hijack that gravy train.
I saw a Tesla driving without tablet on → it had not even a speed display outside of this tablet. “Security” at its finest. And don’t forget the kills by “self driving cars”, because AI could not decide well enough and driver was sleepy.
I think we are just at the beginning of the FOSS car journey. So who knows what might be possible in the future. Have you looked for a serial port? USB port?
The only good way to look at it is, someday they’ll switch off 4G how they did with 2G / 3G in many regions and when they do, that’ll kill the spyware in said cars. But that will be a long time in coming, not exactly too helpful for current owners of new and even now, mid life cars
There are actually multiple discreet data collection systems in late model cars, some accessible by consumers, some by car technicians, some by the car manufacturers. Different computers, different data systems, different levels of access. FOSS will never apply to most of these systems.
FOSS will never be more than a little baby bird, in a proprietary, data sucking nest.
FWIW, when you plug the phone into it, the car infotainment system tends to copy files off your phone without your explicit consent, usually with no way to effectively wipe it clean.
Naomi Brockwell has a decent primer on the current state of car data collection issues (Sorry, it’s YouTube, via NewPipe in my case).
And don’t forget the kills by “self driving cars”, because AI could not decide well enough and driver was sleepy.
