Is big brother watching?

I am confused about this.So your saying the gas tax is a mileage tax as well? I thought a gas tax was the amount you pay when you buy gas? A mileage tax is the amount of miles you drive on top of the gas tax. Va is trying to do this now on top of out property tax on the vehicle that on average will work out to be about an extra $200 per yr for about an average 14,000 mile per yr of driving.

 

They are reporting it to your insurance company too so they can adjust your rates according to your mileage driven per year.

 

This is getting to be bullshit! I went round and round with a insurance company a few years back because I took the EDR out of my truck after I was in a accident. They (the other guys insurance adjuster) went to the tow yard and tried to pull the data off the truck and found it gone. They called me and told me they wanted it I told them to get a subpoena.

 

I was being facetious. Gas tax is technically a mileage tax. The more you drive the more you pay.

I think states are going to have a hard time passing such a law while adhering to privacy laws and most people will be severely resistent to it.

Its kind of like states with vehicle inspections. It costs a shit load of money and really doesn’t acheive much. It will be a complicated tax to regulate which would negate much of the revenue.

I can see a law like this working when we have much more electric and hybrid vehicles. Because gas tax revenues would drop off substantially.

 

Cell phone

 

It’s all about money.

Gas tax
Highway usage tax
Yearly Inspections
Mileage tax
Toll roads
Emissions testing

Just to get more of your hard earned monies.

 

theres no privacy in the worid if you have a cell phone all state local and federal law knows where your at 24 7

 

Stick it to the Man!

 

What section of the owners manual is this under? I'm curious to check out the owners manual in my 2011 to see if there is any similar technology in my truck.

 

Thank You

 

I don't have fuelly app, so I don't know if you entered in your VIN number so that carfax can link the data to your vehicle, or other identifying information, but fuelly clearly says they make the data you put into their app public.

http://www.fuelly.com/index.php/faq/2/Can-my-data-be-private

If you're going to get paranoid about big brother, it might be wise to not make it so easy for them and not use apps that publish your data.

 

Funny to come across this thread after this past weekend. Myself and a few guys were at a hunting cabin in the very remote part of PA. nearest town if you call it one is about 30min away and by town were talking a store and bar maybe 2,000 for a population. A guy at camp has a Chevy truck with on-star. Him and another guy took a ride into town and were heading back to the cabin when they slid off the road and had a very minor impact with a tree on the passenger front bumper. When I say minor I mean there's no sign of damage to the bumper or tree. Once they got back he said what happened and warned us about the icy road. About 2.5 hours later we get a knock on the door 2 PA state troopers. They were there because they had been notified of a possible accident in that truck.

 

Proof?

 

How did you remove it?

 

I looked and found it per a wiring diagram it was located under the drivers side dash and I took out 2 screws and a wire harness

 

Im going to look into this further.

 

https://rimkus.com/media/pdfs/Event_Data_Recorder.pdf

Here is a link to supported vehicles

 

Locations are different per make and model mine was a 2010 Ford Ranger

 

Getting Black Box Data
Black box data is difficult and expensive to get to, and interpreting it takes special training. Extracting the data after an accident involves using a data-retrieval tool kit that consists of hardware, software and a cable that plugs into a car's onboard diagnostics port. That's the same port mechanics use to identify engine problems and insurance companies tap as the basis for use-based insurance policies. Crash data retrieval tool kits aren't cheap, running $2,000-$10,000 and up, not including training costs.

It follows that since drivers own their cars or trucks, they own data the vehicles generate, including black box data. But because it's so difficult and costly to extract, it's virtually impossible for average car owners to do it on their own — assuming that they even want to.

Who else can access the information is a point of contention. Automakers would like the right to access the information for numerous reasons including safety, to make sure systems work the way they should and to check for defects. Other parties that want a black box's car crash data can include police and other law enforcement agencies that are investigating an accident, insurance companies looking into a claim, lawyers representing parties in car-crash lawsuits and accident reconstruction consultants working for any of the above.

In states with no black box laws on the books, "state troopers could get the data without a subpoena if there was a fatality," says Tom Kowalick, a self-taught black box expert who chairs an event data recorder standards working group that's part of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Kowalick also wrote some of the black box information on the NHTSA Web site. "If they want to grab it, there's nobody saying they can't."

To rectify that situation, 15 states have passed EDR regulation over the past decade. Under the theory that car owners have privacy rights, many of the state laws require automakers to notify new-car buyers that vehicles contain black boxes, such as in the owner's manual. State laws also spell out the conditions under which police or other parties can obtain EDR information without an owner's consent, such as with a court order; for dispatching emergency personnel; diagnosing, servicing or repairing the vehicle; or probable cause in an accident. The National Council of State Legislatures maintains an updated list of state EDR laws.

Black boxes have become a battleground in states such as California, where earlier this year, insurance companies and automakers lined up on opposite sides of a black box data protection billthat would have required automakers to let car owners block or opt out of recording vehicle information. The bill didn't make it out of the state Senate Transportation Committee after heavyweights including the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers opposed it.

Earlier in 2014, two U.S. senators introduced a bipartisan bill that would provide some of the same protections on a national level. The Driver Privacy Act explicitly states that a black box's data can't be retrieved by anyone other than vehicle owners without their consent and protects any personally identifiable information. By April 2014, the bill had collected 23 co-sponsors and been approved by the Senate Commerce Committee. As of July 2014, however, no further action had been taken.

Black Boxes, Privacy and Security
Meanwhile, electronic privacy advocates worry about a related car-data security issue: that a car's diagnostic port, through which black box data streams, isn't secure enough to withstand hacking, and therefore poses a danger. Security experts and "white-hat" hackers already are testing how to break into the ports to show how vulnerable they are. They are publicly sharing the results, as in a video called "How to Hack a Car."

Kowalick, a longtime black box data privacy advocate, started a company to sell a diagnostic port lock that he invented. The $30 AutoCyb lock, which he markets on his company Web site, is inserted into the diagnostics port to turn off access and prevent unwelcome parties from getting to the data or interfering with car systems. "Every car in America can be hacked," he says. "The diagnostic link connector is unsecure. All you have to do is set up access to the vehicle and have the right tool."

However, Ruth, the EDR consultant and former Ford executive, maintains a physical lock couldn't stop a black box expert or mechanic from bypassing the diagnostics port and obtaining the data another way. He also dismisses the notion that hackers would be interested in information.

"What would the incentive be?" he asks. "I think it's an over-reaction. For all practical purposes, the owner controls physical access. There's no Internet port on the car that's live, especially when the car's turned off. No one can hack into something without Internet access." Even if someone could break in, specifically in an effort to get data from an event data recorder, the devices have access codes that need authorized commands to work, he says.

In addition, car companies use threat modeling and simulated attacks to test security and to help design controls that protect data, says Wade Newton, communications director for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an auto industry trade group that represents 12 large car companies. "From bumper to bumper, automakers use proven security techniques to help prevent unauthorized access to software," he says.

Suing Over Black Box Data
Security concerns aside, black boxes are quickly becoming a factor in lawsuits filed by families of people killed in accidents in GM vehicles, allegedly due to faulty ignition switches that are part of a national recall.

One of those suits was brought by a lawyer for the family of Ben Hair, a 20-year-old Eagle Scout from Virginia who died in a 2009 crash in a GM vehicle with an ignition switch that's part of the recall. The suit alleges the 2007 Pontiac G5 that Hair was driving had a black box that could have produced evidence showing he wasn't to blame for the accident.

AAM spokesman Newton also would not comment on the lawsuit. However, as a rule, when automakers sell vehicles with event data recorders, they disclose the information in an owner's manual, he says. "But where it appears in the owner's manual may vary from one automaker to another."

GM and lawyers representing other plaintiffs in lawsuits related to defective parts also are looking to get black box data to help prove their cases, according to news reports.

It's too early to tell whether black boxes will become the backbone of every car-crash lawsuit, or if they'll end up posing significant privacy and security risks. But one thing is certain: Federal mandates or not, black boxes are here to stay, and the more informed drivers are about them, the better off they'll be.

 

Good info above.

Another note, the black box in older vehicles is a separate box that can be removed by the owner, like my car, it’s under the driver seat. But now in newer vehicles, as was revealed in another thread earlier, the black box info is part of the computer control module for the vehicles thus unable to be removed physically.