Tuesday, April 27, 2021
Episode 175: Car(Un)Jacked!
Play Now!Those who make our cars today have figured out ways to make our behavior pay. Shoshana Zuboff gave us this lesson in her book; but I may have stumbled on a perfect example at work. I'll fill you in on my theory in this Episode 175: Car(Un)Jacked!In this episode, I recount from memory a NOVA documentary and some seemingly random anecdata. (Oops! I said in the episode the car company fixed their security flaw. I guess took longer!) I open with Shoshana Zuboff backed by KMFDM warning about the hidden nature of surveillance capitalism. I close the show with Mistle Thrush.
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I think you may be onto something. I had a somewhat similar experience. The following is my personal experience, I cannot corroborate and find the old articles on the Internet anymore.
ReplyDeleteI have an app on my phone which produces distorted voices for fun. It can make me sound like a Cylon robot, (as you might remember), or change my male voice to sound somewhat like a woman's, or deepen it like some kind of ogre or monster. The free version does not let the user save a recording of the distorted voice, nor use it during a phone call. The free version will simply replay your distorted voice quote, on command, until you record another quote. The on-board recorder on my phone won't record the distorted voice.
On rare occasions I wanted to create a personal podcast with the distorted voice, but I didn't want to pay for the deluxe version. (I was very, very, very poor at the time.) So I used to get around this problem by connecting a 3.5mm Aux cable between my phone's audio jack, versus my laptop's "mic in" port. Then I could record the distorted voice on my laptop, which is where I wanted it anyway in order to edit the personal podcast.
At some point around 2014, this workaround ceased to work. I got static through the Aux cable, no matter what arrangement I set up. At that time I looked up on the Internet, and somebody said that phone manufacturers had introduced a distortion so that you couldn't stream copyrighted music on your phone and then record the audio to your laptop. According to this 2014 article, the technology was somewhat similar to the way -- millennia ago, in the Dark Ages -- we were prevented from hooking one VCR up to another one, and thus make a copy of a copyrighted movie. The player (in 2014, my phone) knew whether the audio had proper copyright licensing or not, and if permission to record was not given, it introduced a distortion that was not audible to the human ear (if listening through headphones) -- but could be picked up and amplified by a waiting laptop, the laptop which knew to look for that specific distortion and then render any recording unlistenable. So the technology exists for audio devices to discriminate and block certain audio and not others.
I verified this with a handheld professional digital recorder called a TASCAM, which I bought later when I had money. The TASCAM DR-05, manufactured in 2013, could record to and from my laptop nicely when connected with an Aux cable. The TASCAM DR-05, manufactured in 2013, apparently lacked this distortion signal technology.
DeleteAt one point I borrowed (if I remember right) a TASCAM DR-10 manufactured in 2018, from a musician friend. Like my phone, the DR-10 didn't seem to allow recording from the device to the laptop via Aux, no matter how I set it up.
As I said, this is just my recollection -- articles on the Internet today claim that you can record audio from your phone jack to your laptop. I haven't actually tried in many years, for several reasons. First I haven't actually needed the Cylon voice in many years. Second, the TASCAMs record to an SD memory card, which I can easily remove and then plug into my computer, so I don't need to record analog-to-analog anymore.
So, since new cars these days typically feature high-end digital audio in their speaker systems, I wouldn't be surprised if a new car's stereo system rejected any audio input that didn't originate from some paid, licensed streaming service like Sloppify, or Spamdora, or the like. That's just my speculation, but my past experience seems to support you.
Eenteresting. I wonder if the [involved manufacturer] took a page from the consumer recorders.
DeleteNB: Yesterday I started thoroughly recording those cars what did and those what didn't. No matter what I find, I'll share; but I choose to withhold the name of the manufacturer if I don't find 100% fail.
I also reserve the right to change my mind later, 'cause content.
Thanks, Kevin!
—Jim
^ Exactly! Ill look forward to it!
DeleteMake sure you don't forget to verify that it's not just your device that has a busted audio jack, or the cable that's worn out. You know, just to be sure.
ReplyDeleteI test the jack daily on another car… my own!
Delete—Jim
In other news, I found an article that you're gonna be interested in. It's by the people who make a certain messaging application.
ReplyDeletehttps://signal.org/blog/the-instagram-ads-you-will-never-see/
Also, what's your opinion on Fbook's so-called "oversight board"?
Pim, that is brilliant! I'm so using it in an episode. Thanks!
DeleteAs to the Oversight Board, a few things:
1) Should a board "of 40 members" really have jurisdiction over "more than 2 billion people"!? I don't care if their "content decisions will be binding", or if "members are being carefully chosen for the diversity of their expertise and the quality of their judgment." In no universe should 40 people have that kind of discretion!
2) Since this smells of a showcase for "transparency," how about we simplify their condundrum for them and outlaw FuckBook in certain jurisdictions just to see what might happen? It's merely a private company. There's no law that it should be universally available.
If it seems we must endure this farce without democratic oversight of the very FuckBookian entity it purports to board over, the first decision they had better fucking overturn is that ad format you showed me in your first paragraph!
Grrr,
—Jim
I did it, Pim! I did it! Check out #178!
Delete—Jim