Just what are they doing with all that data???

BrokenYugo wrote: Based on what came out of the Toyota unintended acceleration cases, probably just lots of half assed inefficient spaghetti code. Code controlling fly by wire in an aircraft will be very well written, probably held to standards.

Got cable?
Microphones are now tiny beads smaller than matcheads.
No problem having a microphone on the 'box' (or even in the remote), that digitizes every sound and sends it back down the pipe.
They know exactly which box is in which house, subscriber name, bank, who else lives there, who visits, etc.
"Oh, but how could they possibly process all that information" you may say?
My day job is working with 'Big Data', and we passed that limitation several years ago.
Nowdays we routinely process Petabytes of data per second, and for pennies.
Capacity is more than doubling each year, and the rate is accelerating.
Do the math:
A digitized and compressed high fidelity audio stream requires perhaps 5 Kbytes/sec of bandwidth.
So 300 Million people in this country, all talking at once, would require 1.5 Terabytes/sec of bandwidth.
A Petabyte is 1000 Terabytes.

Starting to get the picture now?

(Bwahahahahahaha, Bwahahahahahaha, Bwahahahahahaha, ...)

Knurled wrote: So, my question... if these cars are theoretically all "Big Brother", how are they communicating? Think every car has a cell connection back to the Mothership? I don't think so...

Maybe not yet, but it could be on the horizon.

Systems like OnStar already do it. Loss of privacy in any respect concerns me, but I'm less concerned about "Big Brother" listening in than I am about some hacker with nefarious intentions doing it.

+1 to a LOT of aircraft stuff not being rolled up in that count. Coffee makers, ovens, trash compactors, refrigerators, IFE systems, articulating business class seats, toilets, waste systems, oxygen systems, etc. all have various levels of 'intelligent' control systems ranging from aruino-like to various linux-based systems.

alfadriver wrote: In reply to Knurled: I wish it was written via legacy programming. That was written really well and easy to follow. When memory size mattered, coding efficiency was at its best.

Long live the demoscene!

In reply to ProDarwin:

The aircraft stuff is pretty irrelevant. If every single one of those systems you mentioned used as much as the guidance system (and I doubt the coffee maker does), it would be 10X as much code. That would STILL be half of what the F-150 has.

My point in mentioning a plane had absolutely nothing to do with planes. The only point is that cars have a lot more computing power than makes sense, and I am wondering why in the world it could possibly be needed.

The obvious assumption is that this is the path to vehicle automation and autonomy, and part of that will include significant quantities of shared data. It's pretty clear that the shared data is likely to be way beyond whatever level of privacy the average user is comfortable with.

Planes don't matter much.

SVreX wrote: In reply to alfadriver: AFAIK, you may be the person in this thread with potentially the most knowledge on this subject. You are communicating quite a bit by saying very little.

Did you forget codrus is actually a very experienced Software Engineer?

SVreX wrote: It's pretty clear that the shared data is likely to be way beyond whatever level of privacy the average user is comfortable with.

I wouldn't say that. You are not comfortable with data being collected on you, but I bet you will find that many people don't care. Or they like it - and like the benefits of it.

My android phone has its data tentacles in all kinds of my data. Way more than a car would. Sure, it may tailor some ads to me, but I don't care. It feeds me news I'm more interested in and cuts through the bullE36 M3, which is nice. It often knows where I'm headed, what flight I'm about to get on, etc. and is generally helpful there as well.

ProDarwin wrote:

SVreX wrote: It's pretty clear that the shared data is likely to be way beyond whatever level of privacy the average user is comfortable with.

I wouldn't say that. You are not comfortable with data being collected on you, but I bet you will find that many people don't care. Or they like it - and like the benefits of it. My android phone has its data tentacles in all kinds of my data. Way more than a car would. Sure, it may tailor some ads to me, but I don't care. It feeds me PROPAGANDA I'm more interested in and cuts through the bullE36 M3, which is nice. It ALWAYS knows where I'm headed, what flight I'm about to get on, etc. and is generally helpful there as well.

FTFY

clshore wrote:

ProDarwin wrote:

SVreX wrote: It's pretty clear that the shared data is likely to be way beyond whatever level of privacy the average user is comfortable with.

I wouldn't say that. You are not comfortable with data being collected on you, but I bet you will find that many people don't care. Or they like it - and like the benefits of it. My android phone has its data tentacles in all kinds of my data. Way more than a car would. Sure, it may tailor some ads to me, but I don't care. It feeds me PROPAGANDA I'm more interested in and cuts through the bullE36 M3, which is nice. It ALWAYS knows where I'm headed, what flight I'm about to get on, etc. and is generally helpful there as well.

FTFY

Flounder elsewhere.

T.J. wrote: New cars all seem to have bluetooth and there are roadside gadgets that record every car that passes by it. They use these to collect the data that feeds those signs on the interstate that say things like 13 minutes to exit 273. Those are based on actual observed speeds collected by bluetooth scanners. As far as I know, the NSA doesn't collect and store this data like they do with all of our phone calls, emails, text messages and browsing history, but they could be. The GPS in our cellphones makes this fairly redundant especially if they deploy a Stingray type device.

Varies from state to state. A lot of states use cellphone tracking. Colorado doesn't, as they were concerned about privacy worries. Now they regret it, because nobody cares. I don't know what they use in its place. Could be cameras reading license plates.

Ever notice how Google Maps will show you traffic to such a fine degree that you can see the lights turning red and green?

I still don't equate the amount of computing power in a car to surveillance for the reasons given. I once had a customer car in the shop with an aftermarket stereo in it. Nothing special and this was a few years ago, so it wasn't a fold-out DVD player or anything. But still, this thing showed a little dancing dolphin animation anytime it was idle. Loads of extra code there for no reason whatsoever.

In reply to z31maniac:

How's that a flounder? Its not political, it's an observation as to where information technology is taking us.

Remember just recently the NSA mass surveillance thing being outed? Do you honestly think we got told the full extent as to what was going on? Not on your life. Just like if you think all that the data collected is used for is advertising customisation and making life easier for you, you're sadly mistaken. Mass data collection is not for the benefit of the end user end of story. It may benefit the end user at times, but it's definitely not done solely for their benefit.

Regarding the amount of computing power in new cars, I'm sure part of it will be used as the rise of autonomous vehicles occurs, where in things like Bluetooth and internet connectivity will be monitored in non autonomous vehicles and drip fed to autonomous vehicles to help identify and adjust to the non autonomous vehicles around them.

Now to go a bit further with that train of thinking, the data from a non autonomous vehicle could be used against a driver who took it upon themselves to try and bully an autonomous vehicle. Things like acceleration, braking and steering data could be used to show a driver had malicious intent. That's without even going as far as voice or video recording.

On other side of the data coin, how long till insurers begin seeking to access vehicle data? Those of our who take your daily to an autocross all of a sudden find your premiums hiked or policy cancelled all together. Sure it can be used for good, like trying to cut down on fraud, but insurers don't exactly have a great track record of operating solely in the interest of their customers...

In reply to daeman:

I'm genuinely curious, don't insurance companies already get some information from the "automotive black box"?

I might be remembering wrong, but I thought the cars computers stored accident and accident like conditions? Problems? Since like obd2 introduction. Basic information like speed, g forces, maybe throttle position. Again, I could be completely wrong there, but I thought it was an important part of figuring out accidents of found cars or that didn't have survivors.

Allowing that information to be pulled in real time or reflect rates without notifying the drivers is a touchy subject I imagine we'll be seeing more of as cars get smarter and more autonomous. Especially since most speed limits and traffic laws are still ancient already and in dire need of updating to modern capabilities, let alone our quickly approaching future. Easy button is to drive older cars, but between rust, accidents, bad modification work, and an issue I've been running into that is a difficulty finding inspection stations that can handle older vehicles, they are slowly going to fade away into a rich mans game.

Now Verizon has "Hum" that lets parents set max speeds and gps area limits and such for a fee, on top of progressive snapshot and whatever other things are out there. Sharing not only yours but your families actions, routes, and whatever else they can pick up, it's a major privacy concern from hackers, both "legal" and not. Just look at video baby monitors and video doorbells and the live streams available from them. It's not that far of a jump to say that anyone with time and motivation could do the same thing with vehicles.

I personally feel if you don't care about your right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is akin to saying you don't care about your right to free speech because you have nothing to say. I've also been noted here and other places for my distrust of giving up privacy for convenience, so I won't open that jar of worms again.

While the "lines of code" may be a benign comparison, there needs to be a public discussion about privacy and privacy standards in regards to vehicles and technology before it turns into the email laws(standards put in place by people who knew nothing of technology, in the computer age infancy, and expected to still be capable of enforcement now). Obviously no one will learn from past technology and the law mistakes, but we can at least try.

Others have already explained why lines of code is a lousy metric for measuring much of anything, but just for funsies I stopped to think about LOC on this here forum.

I can tell you there are roughly 1k lines of forum Python code, give or take a bit. But then that ties in heavily with big chunks of the rest of the site. If those were extracted so the whole thing could be bundled up and installed, you'd probably be up to 2k. And then there's the CSS to make it pretty. Probably 500 lines there, so 2500. And the JS. Probably 500 lines of custom JS... 3k Oh wait, JS libraries... Jquery, what else... 15k. Oh crap, libraries, what all python libs are we using? ouch. 50k oh yeah, and Django. Don't forget Django, which the whole thing runs on. 100k now? And since it's embedded, I guess I'll need to install python.. how much is that? Crap.

Point being, I could probably get close to a million lines of code just to embed this forum on a device. And this forum is some REALLY lean code, especially in comparison to most websites nowadays.

Insurance companies already have additional data recorders, though they are voluntary right now. They track your driving habits and adjust rates accordingly. Apparently some people really love the idea as it gives them big discounts, and don't care they are being tracked so intently.

Wasn't long ago that people went to court because rental car companies were handing out surcharges based on how people were driving, Using the data compiled by the nav systems.

daeman wrote: In reply to z31maniac: How's that a flounder? Its not political, it's an observation as to where information technology is taking us. Remember just recently the NSA mass surveillance thing being outed? Do you honestly think we got told the full extent as to what was going on? Not on your life. Just like if you think all that the data collected is used for is advertising customisation and making life easier for you, you're sadly mistaken. Mass data collection is not for the benefit of the end user end of story. It may benefit the end user at times, but it's definitely not done solely for their benefit. Regarding the amount of computing power in new cars, I'm sure part of it will be used as the rise of autonomous vehicles occurs, where in things like Bluetooth and internet connectivity will be monitored in non autonomous vehicles and drip fed to autonomous vehicles to help identify and adjust to the non autonomous vehicles around them. Now to go a bit further with that train of thinking, the data from a non autonomous vehicle could be used against a driver who took it upon themselves to try and bully an autonomous vehicle. Things like acceleration, braking and steering data could be used to show a driver had malicious intent. That's without even going as far as voice or video recording. On other side of the data coin, how long till insurers begin seeking to access vehicle data? Those of our who take your daily to an autocross all of a sudden find your premiums hiked or policy cancelled all together. Sure it can be used for good, like trying to cut down on fraud, but insurers don't exactly have a great track record of operating solely in the interest of their customers...

Propaganda - information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.

I think you'll notice a certain word in the definition and how that applies to a flounder around here.