Author Topic: China spying using common car battery monitor?  (Read 4365 times)

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Online SiliconWizard

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Re: China spying using common car battery monitor?
« Reply #25 on: June 03, 2023, 07:57:18 pm »
I think it would be good to add a feature to send tracking with fake data to really show them how much the users hate tracking, of course have it disabled by default so it would be opt in. (What should it be called? I vote "chaffing" after the aerial combat device.)

I think you can do that if you enable the developer mode in Android and select a fake location app. You can have a look there: https://www.howtogeek.com/795277/how-to-spoof-your-location-on-android/
But it's system-wise as far as I can tell, so of course it'll affect everything you do and say goodbye to when you actually need your location. Maybe you can manage to make it application-specific.

But otherwise I strongly suggest not to use any product that requires a mobile app to function at all. It's like constantly giving away your house keys and expecting that no one will ever enter.

I don't see a definitive way around it though. It's just going to get worse. There are too many interests at stake. It's a gold mine. No amount of individual choice or public regulation will be able to curb that.

 

Offline vk6zgo

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Re: China spying using common car battery monitor?
« Reply #26 on: June 04, 2023, 01:05:28 am »
The PRC government would have to spend all their intelligence budget tracking where people of no conceivable interest to them are going, creating a "perfect storm" of noise, & handicapping their more useful intelligence gathering efforts, so a lot of this is paranoia as far as State action is concerned.

Private sector efforts are maybe of more interest, as if somebody, somewhere, can make money out of your information it may be worth doing.

Not China, but various people in another very populous country seem to have an old scam going on several levels, along the lines of people ringing up & saying "I am from Windows/ Telstra/ the Tax Department" or whatever.

One level sells phone number databases to the second level of suckers who think they have bought into a "nice little earner", only to find that they get told off or abused most of the time, with only a few of the most gullible "sucked in".
Level one still keeps going, selling the scam to the large number of level two participants blinded by greed.
 
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Offline Shonky

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Re: China spying using common car battery monitor?
« Reply #27 on: June 04, 2023, 02:52:24 am »
I'll also be tackling the firmware for the SoC at some point. Waiting for the debugger for the Texas Instruments CC2541 to arrive. In the post linked above, I provide a way to pull firmware it uses for OTA updates from their cloud servers. It's bundled in a proprietary format so there is some further reversing work to be done here.

FYI I have reported my findings to Jaycar and and have responded promptly - immediately initiating an investigation on their side.
Presumably the firmware here can only be fairly harmless since it only has the BLE connection and is essentially a data logger of voltage only. Presumably it's basically using TI's SDK so most of the code is actually TI. The packaging doesn't look overly complex to figure out. I'd guess again it's largely using whatever TI provide for a firmware upgrade process.

I've grabbed a copy with your instructions, thanks.

What did Jaycar respond with? Just that they'd investigate.
 

Offline RJSV

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Re: China spying using common car battery monitor?
« Reply #28 on: June 05, 2023, 07:20:06 am »
Having mentioned, here recently, some things noted that make (radio show) podcasts lame or deliberately crippled, when an APP is not used, here is a couple measures that I noted today:
   Radio talk show went in and out of advertising time, as the hour progressed.  The show got to :52 meaning 9:52, and started the 'Top of the Hour' which is (supposed) to mean time for some news coverage.  But, nope; all advertisements, and they ran until 10:17 !
That's 25 minutes, of pure advertisements, a really unbelievable stretch of time, (until I measured) !

   So, if that is a dumbing down of listener quality, to force the subscription to an APP then a bit despicable, really.  But the substance of that, 25 minute program break is clearly relating to the old-school regulation of TV and RADIO media, maybe put in 1980 terms, where such a long stretch of ADs would get the attention of FCC (or Federal Communications Commission).
   Now, my speculation being, the advertiser has differing interests, from the casual user / (listener) and typically potentially could face some complaint process.  I mean, a stretch of 25 minutes is obviously abusive.
   The regulatory environment is perhaps lacking in the older style monitoring, or maybe just lazy in contempory matters...I don't know what specific laws apply.  But seemingly a 'bypass' of the spirit of regulation from a consumer standpoint.

   Plus, the audio result seems more like a 'chopped up' audio chunk of some program that, originally, had decent continuity.  Right now (tonight's show) the audio streamed cuts into and out, mid-sentence often, which doesn't really reflect any decent quality, for the listener, without the APP loaded and running.
The various screen items also, now, have inserts for various 'google play' offers, for purchase, very near and easily confused with the usual click-on targets on-screen.
 

Online amyk

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Re: China spying using common car battery monitor?
« Reply #29 on: September 22, 2023, 02:47:08 am »
I think it would be good to add a feature to send tracking with fake data to really show them how much the users hate tracking, of course have it disabled by default so it would be opt in. (What should it be called? I vote "chaffing" after the aerial combat device.)
Null Island has a nonzero population from many who send fake tracking data.
 

Offline soldar

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Re: China spying using common car battery monitor?
« Reply #30 on: September 22, 2023, 08:33:47 am »
This essay is well worth reading and pondering.

Us vs. Them: Why Our Society and the World Are Becoming Increasingly Divided
https://www.juliakolodko.com/us-vs-them

Summary: whoever we are, it does not matter, we are good, they are bad.

= = = = = =

All good people agree,
    And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
    And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
    Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
    As only a sort of They !

Rudyard Kipling
https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_wethey.htm

« Last Edit: September 22, 2023, 08:40:34 am by soldar »
All my posts are made with 100% recycled electrons and bare traces of grey matter.
 

Offline VK3DRBTopic starter

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Re: China spying using common car battery monitor?
« Reply #31 on: September 25, 2023, 12:09:47 am »
...Summary: whoever we are, it does not matter, we are good, they are bad. ...

I observed an interesting phenomenon at IBM in the 90's. The day shift workers tending to blame the evening shift workers and vice versa when something wasn't quite right. Which was the "them and us" phenomena. This was not helped by the questionable leadership of IBM senior management creating an environment of distrust. In fact, they literally put up a wall between us office staff (mostly engineers) and the manufacturing staff. We had access to the manufacturing areas, but manufacturing staff could not access our office areas except for a few selected people.

So it is with countries spying on each other, even so-called allies (eg: the CIA spying on Angela Merkel). The wall exists. Good dialogue and good ethical leadership will help remove it. Some Chinese companies and their government secretly collecting data on foreigners and stealing intellectual property does nothing to create trust. They need a paradigm shift if they are ever going to be trusted.
 


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