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Auto Black-Box Data Being Used In Court
DrEnter writes "Yahoo! is running this USAToday article about automobile electronic data recorder (EDR or "black-box") data being used in civil and criminal court cases. Most owners of cars so equipped don't know they have them, or that they can be used against them. The NHTSA has been investigating EDRs and is collecting public comments to determine if and how these devices should be regulated."
here
I'm not Seth.
depends on the company that build them. most manufacturers started adding them in the '90
The rental car company has no such restriction to accessing the data, and it can be used in interesting ways. Some unscroupulous rental car companies have added clauses that allow them to charge substancial ammounts more if the car is taken out of state without notifying the renter, and then do so when this happens, because they can, and can track it...
So always look at the little print on those car rental contracts....
Relax.. RKE (Remote Keyless Entry) Module.
He wasn't BS'ing you.
Here's a response to a lot of questions people will have:
Which cars have it?
How long have cars had it?
Here's a lengthy explanation:
All cars released in the United States are OBDII compatible. This has been a federal mandate since 1998, although some carmakers decided to support OBDII in 1997 and some(including Toyota) had limited compliance in 1996. OBDII is an extension of OBDI, an earlier version of the standard. Carmakers were well aware that this law was coming, many thought ahead.
What is OBDII
It stands for Onboard Diagnostics, version two. It is a requirement for all cars mass produced(exemptions are issued, but it is for specialty manufacturers). It is a standard describing the diagnostics, logging, and interface to the Engine and Powertrain Controller Unit present in all fuel injected cars. Some of the parameters are always monitored, such as vehicle speed, air/fuel ratio, injector pulse lengths, rpm, gear(for automatics mostly), air flow meter/absolute manifold pressure meter, throttle/accelerator pedal position, and measured oxygen sensor output. There were minimums set for what a car had to monitor, but it is an extensible protocol and carmakers were free to extend it as much as they liked. Once the framework was there, extending it to include things like steering wheel position and brake pedal position/brake system pressure were easy. One of the minimums though, was that all cars had to maintain a 30 second rolling-log of all sensors and that as a minimum, the required sensor inputs had to be saved at the moment a sensor fault is detected. Hell, with the price of Flash memory these days, 30 minutes of logging was feasible. Many cars maintain a very detailed log of your driving activity.
So, in response, all new cars sold today have some form of limited logging, and many have very detailed logging. The only differences being what is logged, and for how long.
If you have any questions, just ask. Believe me, I know. It is my job to know.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
The article says some kind of stupid things like this one.
"They were installed on newer-model cars to trigger air bags."
That is absolutely stoopid statement. Its a sensationalist word bending cart_before_the_horse statement. A black box does not trigger an airbag. But all airbag modules record data in order to carry out their business.
In any event, an airbag module does indeed record a little data like if your seatbelt is on so it can adjust the blow of the bag accordingly. But yes, I would be surprised if it were legal to use *your* airbag module against you. That would be personal data. and should require a search warrant for something specific.
Nevertheless if you claim you were wearing your seatbelt at the time of the accident, then can check it out...
From reading the link to ODBIII these lines scare me the most...
"The system is reportedly capable of retrieving information from 8 lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic whizzing by at speeds up to 100 mph!"
"...a stationary or portable roadside transmitter, it transmits back an answer in the form of the vehicle's 17-digit VIN number"
In other words they know exactly where you are, what's preventing someone from building a transponder on 915Mhz and tracking cars as they go by?
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"And may your days be long upon the earth."