Porsche Cars in Russia Shut Down After Satellite System Failure

Not only due (or probably not even because of) Satellite system failure.

In order to fight drones flying over the border from Ukraine, Russia implemented new restrictions to cellular connections. From like last 2 weeks they made so that when a sim card that enters russian border, it will be denied cellular connection for 24 hours. This also include russian sim cards that have been not connected to russian cellular network for over 72 hours.

Almost every modern car today has a sim that communicates with servers all the time. It is just that Porsche also has this feature that can track car remotely and immobilize on demand. It utilizes this type of sim card. Porsche itself has nothing to do with why they are bricked. It is a byproduct of russian attempts at preventing drone attacks which backfires spectacularly.

I wish people (especially journalists) would get it through their skulls already:

Vehicles don't communicate with satellites.
GNSS (like GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, or BeiDou) do not use two way communication.
The satellite can therefore not know the position of a GNSS receiver.
Instead the satellites send timestamps and their positions, the receiver uses that information to calculate its own position. If the system with the receiver needs to report its position to someone they typically use some form of terrestrial communication, like mobile phone networks.

With that knowledge the comment by /u/imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com makes a lot more sense than whatever the article is trying to imply about satellite failures.

First: It's funny, because it is happening to Russians

Second: It's fucking scary, because it can happen everywhere. Fuck cars that rely on digital services.

What's up with hating every person born in Russia? Will never get it. I mean, a car shutting down sounds like life-threatening.
- This isn't happening to every person in Russia, it's happening to every person in Russia with a modern Porsche.
  Assumptions can be made about the sample set.
- The little thing called "invading ukraine" and those that drive porsches are not your average citicens but the upper crust buddys of putin who are as guilty as putin
- The six miles of vacuum tubing under the hood will absorb most of the crash energy.
- I have a 2014 and a 2017 with no required connections. Your point?

first they disabled Russian porsches and I didn't care because I am not a russian owner of a porsche.

then they came for Ukrainian tractors and I didn't care because I am not an Ukrainian owner of a tractor.

then step by step everything was digitally locked and I owned nothing and I was not really happy.

Just got a dishwasher and it doesn't even have an app. How can that be?
- Just got a toilet and it doesn’t even have an app. How can that be?
- are you from the past?
and I owned nothing
Companies love that, until everybody is completely in debt and they learn you can't seize property from people that don't own anything.
- I think you are too nice.
  they are actively trying to own everything.
  And then they don't need to seize anything, because you are forced to work to the bone (even more than you are right now) to just afford your own house rent/property tax.
  Companies love to become like old Lord and counts and own the land/products and you just rent and work for them.
- Not as much of a stop as you would think. Historically speaking Ford motor company already tried basically enslaving indigenous people on the Amazon for rubber production. Most of the cotton in the US (and many other industries) was done by black slaves. Current fishing in south east Asia (and other places I'm sure) can have slaving with extra steps on a boat. Apple/Nike and other big brand factories in chine have had nets installed to prevent suicides, etc. There is no stopping the horrible disease that is wealth hoarding and human exploration it seems.
- By then they will already own all the property.

[...] and what owners can do next.

Sell their Porsche and buy a car that can't be locked remotely?

In 2025? Is that even a thing?
- There might be some old Ladas around.
- You can disable the modem on new Toyotas and they run fine. The dealership will bitch and moan but they can be disabled.
- One way to tell: disable the cellular modem in your car and see if it still operates.
- There's the upcoming Slate trucks, but those are scheduled for Q4 2026. And... also probably going to be US exclusive for a bit. Oof.
- I took the question initially in jest, then sat back and thought about it. fuck.
sell to who?
- Yeah has a bit of those Ben Shapiro vibes.
  Don't you think people would sell their houses on the coastline and move?
Sell them to whom?
- Recycling companies?
It's even worse than that. Porsches are locked by default, and can only be enabled remotely.

I feel like I got my car at the perfect time:

It has Android Auto and CarPlay, and it's a manual so there's no way for it to turn on or off remotely.

Now I just have to make sure it survives until I die.

It's a voluntary anti-theft measure I believe. Prevents it from being started without the owner's consent. Which immobilizers are also supposed to do, but we all know how well those work.
If I owned a Porsche in Russia, I would also get something like that tbh. Luckily I don't live in Russia, nor do I have a Porsche anymore and mine was too old for this kinda shit anyway
- Feature is based on the same tech implementation as these SOS/Service call buttons almost every modern car has. It uses IoT sim.
  People who have SOS/Service call button in their cars are also falling under this issue except it would only affect cars that has been outside of russian cellular towers for over 72h.
  Also, maybe this is happening due to Porsche not willing to extend IoT sim subscriptions for russian citizens making their sims essentially to be disabled. But I am not sure how car manufacturer IoT sim contracts work. For a typical company/private person IoT sim contract is for 10 years with typically 1gb of data for the same timeframe. If car manufacturer contract is similar to that, this may be the reason why their cars are bricking.
- Living in Russia in Moscow/Petersburg is actually really nice these days.

I doubt most owners of recent-model luxury-brand cars in Russia are average joes for which this is their only transport. I therefore find my sympathy to be somewhat limited.

You mean the 'M' word don't you
- The "O" word, actually: oligarchs (or their relatives or best buddies). Chances are that at least some of them are under sanction in more civilized countries.

Vehicle Tracking System (VTS) — a security module designed to prevent theft but now shutting down cars unexpectedly.

Also, what a strangely written article.

Remember when they started this with games? It would phone home every time you started it up and make sure your license was valid.
And then companies stopped supporting the game or went out of business. And all of a sudden no one could play those games anymore.
Now they're doing it with cars. How long until that expensive car you bought is no longer supported and you have to upgrade to the new model?
Owners welcomed theft deterrent like that. OnStar is probably the main original US service, found in GM cars. I think Subaru picked them up at some point, but basically all new cars have the option to have manufacturer tracking and app-based vehicle connections for remote start, tracking, service alerts, diagnostic uploads, etc
- But who steals a Porsche? 1 in 4 Lexus SUVs are stolen because where they end up in eastern europe and Africa, people want reliable vehicles. Top two stolen vehicles by far are Civics and Accords for that reason. No one steals Land Rovers.

Maybe Russia started jamming satellite signals and did this to themselves.

Well, it's because Russia is jamming GPS signal, it affects planes, cars, everything relying on GPS.

That's a huge leap to assume GPS blocking was also blanketing other 2 way satellite communication frequencies.
None of these things need GPS to function. Even planes. A compass, a map and a clock go a long way.
- For planes maybe it's not strictly necessary but makes things way safer

Good thing this is a completely optional "feature" that I'd never pay for

"smart" cars

Why not do cars need internet access in order to start?

I understand having auxiliary services the network connected but surely the failure mode should just be an error on the screen but otherwise the car should still function. It's not like operating without internet access is dangerous or anything.

Also, why don't we just do that, cut Russias internet access, it seems like it would cause utter chaos.

It's the reason why no one steals Teslas. Easy to brick, impossible to charge on their system if stolen.
- I'm sure there's plenty of other reasons to not steal a tesla. It being a mobile surveillance device being one of them. Also, if I was going to steal a car, I'd pick one with better build quality and one that doesn't have a different fire exit than the normal way to exit that I'd probably be going for if my car was suddenly on fire.
As for “cut russias internet”, I imagine they have a lot of services hosted on their own infrastructure within Russia.
Of course probably a lot of people use western services like social media and e-commerce. Which would piss off a lot of Russian people. So you could have western governments require sanctions on services to reject Russian traffic.
One of the downsides though is there are probably a lot of people who disagree with the regime and want to get info in and out. You push them closer to isolation like North Korea. So called “winning of hearts and minds” might be better served by keeping things open.
But what do I know.
Because it was the anti theft system and immobilizer.
It would be pretty useless if it could be defeated by putting some foil on the antenna so that it loses network connection and defaulted to allowing you to drive.
- How does it validate that you are a valid driver? Do you enter a PIN or something?

Where are the accident videos? Russian drivers are shit and a Porsche losing power turns into a target.