this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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Privacy
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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.
Sounds a lot like a smartphone where one SoC chip does pretty much everything... CPU, cell modem, WiFi, USB host/device switching, quick charge, the whole lot 😢
Black box tracking device. Just like Intel Management Engine, AMT and Microsoft Pluton! Proprietary Blobs. You don't own your device.
Unless you get an expensive car, I think they do that to reduce expenses. Expensive cars have dedicated CPU for that, but they still communicate with the head unit for online data.
Maybe you could build a faraday cage around it or something. Wrap it in foil.
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.
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.