[riiii]

GPS car data was used to find a crossbow killer in the UK few years ago.

The killer torched the car but the car had already uploaded GPS and black box data.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65985341

I recommend the referenced podcast there, the whole story is crazy.

[mattigames]

To avoid such tracking would have been enough use a gps scrambler? Or maybe wrap the in-car GPS with tinfoil?

[michaelt]

In the Anglesea crossbow case, there were only 17 people on the island who'd brought crossbows. So presumably the police were going through his digital footprint with a fine toothed comb.

If you're one of 17 suspects; a car only you have the keys to gets stolen and burned on the night of the murder, with the car's GPS mysteriously failing during the theft; your Amazon purchase history shows you ordering a crossbow, the type of bolt used in the murder and a GPS jammer; the crossbow bolts you ordered have disappeared; your alibi is you were with someone who denies having been with you; and the phone network says your phone was in the area the murder happened?

You're probably still going to jail.

[Gigachad]

Seems like the best option is to escape by bicycle.

[mattlondon]

I am guessing but I suspect there is an "easily accessible" SIM slot somewhere. Might be somewhere convenient like behind a panel in the glovebox, or might be in the bowels of the engine bay along with the other ECU things.

I would be surprised if it was not "easily" removable though ... Unless they are using esims now?

(Nothing in modern cars is "easy" to do - everything is a bitch to access and tighten/untighten etc - even oil filters etc which in theory should be able to be changed regularly are sometimes in incredibly inaccessible locations)

[numpad0]

A car is not like a computer but a rack full with cables running across. To disable telemetry, the telematics module needs to be located and removed.

That touchscreen in the center of dashboard is just a self contained smoke and mirrors for occupant distraction. It does influence purchase decisions for a lot of people, but architecturally it's nearly purely decorative(especially in "legacy big auto" cars).

[stavros]

I don't know much about car tracking specifically, but I really doubt they have anything more than a simple GPS module. If you disable that, you lose fine-grained tracking. You'd still have the phone company triangulating your radio's location, which is lower-resolution, but you may want to disable that as well.

Really, disabling the radio entirely would be your best bet.

[cjrp]

Buy a 2005 Honda Civic and avoid the tracking issue entirely