Remove Modem/SimCard from a Car
Remove Modem/SimCard from a Car
I want to buy a new car, but it needs to be privacy friendly. Sadly you cannot really buy any new Car that is.
Has anybody any experience on making your modern car not phone home to its company, by removing the hardware it uses to do?
While this seems like a great plan; I wouldn't put it past manufacturers to throw an error message and disable the vehicle for 'safety' when it detects a missing network connection for an extended period and/or disabled hardware during self-test.
I hate this dystopian hellscape :(
The car would likely inform the owner to visit a service center and disable features that rely on network connection, but would not disable the car. The warning would be crying wolf, so a warning of actual concern may be ignored as part of the known connectivity error; which may lead to bigger problems.
Given recent examples of cars doing exactly this (disabling drive due to perceived hardware/software errors), namely BMW: I'm not very hopeful.
When I was last working in the automotive industry about two decades ago, a lot of effort was being put into protecting BIOS on diagnostic laptops, so that only "authentic" manufacturer diagnostic tools could be used to service the vehicles.
Pretty sure that development has continued.
It's entirely dependent on what car you buy, they're all different. On some cars it's integral to the ECU or some other component. On other cars like my Subaru it's a box you just remove, then you'll need a custom harness to make the speaker audio work again.
Without saying what car it is nobody can help you without saying "just unplug it".
Looks like you should start a guide because you know a lot more than me
I thought about a Hyundai i20N. If it is not possible i am just buying a BMW e36 or e46
I know nothing about the i20 since we don't get it here, but looks like on Hyundais you'll most likely have to pull the entire factory radio and replace it with an aftermarket one. I believe on my friends Veloster it was a distinct module, but that one was 2g only and since 2g is dead it's not really doing much.
Maybe if you're lucky and it's like my Subaru you can pull the radio, find that BlueLink is it's own distinct module and just remove it. You'll most likely have the same issue as me where your speakers and mic won't work unless you build a custom adapter. I didn't build my own adapter I found a guy online who does radio harnesses for aftermarket radios and he made a basic adapter for like $20, and a fancy one that lets my mic work for like $100.
And some cars have it built into things like the head unit/heater control/mapping, does everything box.
I am never buying a new car again. It will be hard, but I'm only buying old cars and repairing them. Not sure what to do about fuel when that stops. I Not sure about how to deal with a lot in the future, but I'm going to keep trying.
There will be simple conversion kits available I should hope.
I thought I read about Chevy doing a electric differential, but I did find this:
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/03/16/magna-introduces-ebeam-electric-rear-axle-for-pickup-trucks/
You can have good luck just by buying 10 year old cars - they might have connectivity, but the it will be to a cell/network standard that no longer exists and so for practical purposes the car cannot connect to anything.
Planned obsolescence restoring our privacy through incompetence is kind of fun to think about.
3G still exists exactly for monitoring services, just not for consumer use.
Milions (billions?) of remote monitoring devices rely on it, like oil fields, water systems, gas systems, etc.
I'm not sure if the automotive systems fall into that, but I could see the manufacturers making sure they were.
I have a vehicle with 3G that always has 5 bars, even when my phone has little or none. Kind of says a lot about the QOS the automotive industry gets.
Speaking as someone who worked for a corporate auto maker, it won't be an easy task since they try to make it as difficult as possible to disable online activation if even providing the ability at all.
The only real solution is pulling the head unit and trying to find any modem and desolder it, which who knows if it would function as it had before hand since everything is integrated.
It will also hurt resale value.
When I worked on auto-maker on the head units, they were integrated on the chip, the ones that had a sim slot where you can insert and extract it were the ones for development. Recent cars, their GPS and screen media menus uses the Linux inside the modem chip.
Maybe you could build a faraday cage around it or something. Wrap it in foil.
Or just put a power test attentuator on the antenna output.
It essentially absorbs the RF from the antenna and radiates it as heat. Since cell is pretty low power (1/2 watt max, IIRC), and a cell radio will stop trying to transmit after a while (though it will try again), I don't think it would cause any problems.
But I'm not an RF engineer.
The newer cars from the company I worked for were always trying to phone home, not sure about other companies but this one was trying to lock you into the online ecosystem.
You can root some head units and disable modem that way. It can get sketch, though, and there's a risk of bricking the head unit.
I have a strong suspicion that Sirius XM is some form of government mandated mass surveillance hardware. There’s absolutely no other explanation that every car manufacturer just includes that garbage as a standard equipment that you just can not opt out of.
These auto manufacturers will nickel and dime you for smallest things like rubber mats they expect us to believe that piece of shit like Sirius XM is included out of kindness of their heart.
Sirius pays them. You're more likely to subscribe if your car already has the radio. Same reason your shitty Walmart laptop comes with McAfee.
It's becaude it's a free trial. XM either directly pays car manufacturers or subsidizes the additional hardware costs, XM gets people to try their service who never otherwise would have, car dealers get another feature to add to their list.
Rubber are a nickel and dime feature because that is one of the few areas where dealers can make money. Most people walk into the dealer knowing the cost the dealer is paying for the car, and they are determined not to pay a penny more. this leaves zero money for the dealer to pay for the lights, building, and other overhead, not to mention a fair salary for the salesman (apologies to the tiny minority of females in car sales) who sold it.
If everyone (not just you!) would go to buy a new car with the plan to get a fair win-win deal for everyone then the dealer wouldn't have to find all these ways to nickel and dime you on extras.
If everyone (not just you!) would go to buy a new car with the plan to get a fair win-win deal for everyone then the dealer wouldn't have to find all these ways to nickel and dime you on extras.
Yeah I'm going to be honest, you're not going to be finding much sympathy for car dealership owners from me. Maybe it's different around you, but around these parts they're invariably some of the richest people in town.
Buy an older car and spend the extra money on replacing and upgrading components.
We need guides on how to do this for all cars
You might want to read this
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/categories/cars/
Yeah, that'll most likely disable the car / limit it. They often have anti-tamper detection in critical ECUs as well.
Your comment makes me wonder if one could get around AT by installing faraday cages around where the chips are.
I block telemetry on my IoT devices and they still work. I’m curious if cars would be bricked if they couldn’t call home, or if you could selectively allow certain messages through.
I'm curious if cars would be bricked if they couldn’t call home, or if you could selectively allow certain messages through.
I can't speak for every car but at least Teslas do not mind being offline. You cannot control which messages they send because they connect via a VPN to the mothership. So it's an all or nothing kinda deal.
You can also pretty easily remove the SIM card on older models with just a few screws. Newer ones use eSIMs, never looked into how to get rid of that one but I assume it is more complicated.
Your comment makes me wonder if one could get around AT by installing faraday cages around where the chips are.
The antennas are usually external, mounted somewhere else in the car and can be unplugged. Never checked if it can still get a signal without the antenna though.
edit: Also, the PCB itself is mounted inside a faraday cage because the entire thing sits inside of RF shielding.
If you wrap your whole car with aluminum foil then the signal can't get out. Be sure there are NO GAPS!
Does this include the windscreen?
YES, DUH!
Signals get out extra good from the windscreen.
Your best bet is to find a car where its easiest to disable the antenna/cellular modem for, so look for a car that has a fuse for the DCM(digital communications module) you can pull, as having it be a fuse means you can readily reconnect it should you need to, try to find its schematic online, or find the repair manual for the car or use a car maintenance program,
Apparently its also possible to call the car company and ask for an opt out when serviced,
I vaguely remember some people experimenting with replacing the head unit with aftermarket ones, but no idea how well that would actually go in practice
I vaguely remember some people experimenting with replacing the head unit with aftermarket ones, but no idea how well that would actually go in practice
This varies wildly from manufacturer to manufacturer and even year to year. For example, GM cars used to route damn near everything through the entertainment unit, so that was your central computer. Cell antenna, on star control panel, every that phoned home. That was as recently as mid 2010s. It also led to hilarious problems where a relatively simple issue like an OnStar button not working well required a complete replacement of the stereo unit (which was $8k or so in parts and labor). Now that instrument clusters are doing more while also getting more diagnostic and digital, things are transitioning to a more centralized computing system somewhere else. This can make it easier OR more difficult to get around, depends on design.
For other brands it's borderline impossible to even use an aftermarket system. Mazdas for example the entire infotainment system relies on itself. There's nowhere to even put a traditional aftermarket. I'm sure it's possible, but the design of the interior is completely based around the infotainment unit.
If you plan to get a GM vehicle, from what I've seen. Most OnStar modules are right behind the infotainment screen. However, if you remove that, you lose your microphone.
Probably, but exactly what you do would depend on your exact model. I would get the technical service manual for your vehicle, find the part about replacing that module, and follow the directions to remove it.
Don't use a jamming device that'd be effective, wrong and illegal