Researchers drove a NIO ES8 electric SUV deep into a Norwegian underground mine specifically to sever its external connections. The car kept attempting to reach servers, most of them located in China. These findings echo broader concerns about hidden data collection, similar to how a surveillance app was built to covertly target users without their knowledge.
That finding sits at the center of Project Lion Cage, a multi-year study initiated in 2022 by Tor Indstøy, a risk management and threat intelligence executive at Telenor Group. Indstøy purchased the NIO ES8 as a dedicated research platform.
The project arrives as Chinese EV brands expand across European markets with assurances about local data processing. Observed network behavior appears to contradict those assurances.
If I take my cellphone into a cave it too will keep calling home.
Am I the only one in this thread that feels like a vehicle here shouldn’t even have any form of internet connection regardless what nation it is from? The fact that this is from China doesn’t matter. Why does a vehicle even need network equipment (other than a FM radio at most)?
The car kept attempting to reach servers
To the surprise of whom?
ANY device that relies on radio signal communication for any of its functionality, taken anywhere (underground mine, parking garage, Antarctica, Santa’s workshop, etc), and it’ll try to maintain it’s connections. That’s just what they do.
Okay, but China Bad
It would be extremely noteworthy if it stopped once it was out of range, because how would it know?
With all our formidable intelligence and NSA capability and massive massive funding, no one can tell whats in those communications after all this time huh. We even have physcial access to the devices and we still cant figure it out. Next time we are told the government needs to remove citizens constitional rights to privacy or needs us to use insecure encryption keys, we should all question what the hell for. And next time I hear “Israel helps us with our intelligence” I want to hear what they came up with in understyanding what chinese devices are sending home, or they can shut the hell up. So far all we seem capable of is spying on our own citizens, IF we all use insecure communications and allow our every movement in public to be videoed. I am not impressed.
Step 1: make a PiHole
Step 2: examine every thing the PiHole blocks from calling home
Step 3: research small holdings
Step 4: throw it all out and go farm Llamas
Why on Earth wouldn’t it keep trying? That’s how signals work. If my router goes down my computer is going to keep trying to connect to it even though it’s off. That’s not fucking news.
Yeah, I had the same thought when reading this
What a weird article
My assumption would be that they drove the car into the mine to see what would (or wouldn’t) work if the vehicle was cut off from the mothership. My hunch is they didn’t really find anything of interest so this is what gets reported.
Also all us cars do the same thing and I would much rather have my data in China than the US.
If I’m reading correctly, they specifically tried to stop it from doing so and even in what is essentially a faraday cage it keeps trying to link with Beijing to spill the tea, not exactly what you want if you “own” a product
Yeah, and that’s how connections work.
It doesn’t specify in the article if they toggled the WiFi switch off in the OS, one would assume they did before driving it into a mountain.
If so, not cool to keep calling home. If not, PEBKAC error
You really think a car tries to “call home” using WiFi?
Somebody smarter than I will definitely delve into the guts of incoming Chinese EVs and figure out what part(s) to strip to stop this…
And if you’re in America and you have an EV, it’s statistically likely to be a Tesla. Tesla has starlink compatibility baked into their cars too and you’d better believe that sweet juicy data is being shared around.
If I was stuck with a Tesla against my will, I’d at least try the same thing for it, too.
I would recycle all the CCP/PLA made buses until West Taiwan is Free.
Ni hao
Chinese ev bus behaves like every John Deere tractor, Tesla, amazon ring doorbell, windows pc, mac, smart tv, iphone and android device , and probably every other car made since 2020.
“But China bad” is getting pretty old and frail in comparison to the domestic and international predations and privacy invasions of US tech businesses and government
Yeah, I was just going to say, I honestly don’t really care if the Chinese government knows where my car is.
Assuming you are in a western nation, There is a degree of legitimacy to be taken with the fact that China are far less capable of weaponising that data against you personally, than the US
What about other things, like remotely stopping your car from operating?
To what end?
Mass disruption to transport during conflict with cascading effects. Or worse, mass casualties from remote control.
And again I ask… To what end?
the classic “Why should I care about my privacy, I’m not doing anything wrong” attitude.
No. The Chinese government has no power over me. It has nothing to do with "doing anything wrong, "
I couldn’t care less if the Chinese government sees my car “doing something wrong” (whatever the fuck that even means in this context. Parking somewhere I’m not supposed to?). I’m not Chinese and have never been to China.
I’ll worry more about my own government’s very real creation of a dystopic surveillance state right here at home.
Have you ever heard about selling things, or data being leaked?
But his perfect, wonderful china would never do that! Its only the vile, evil, western countries that do such vile evil things!
Yeah dude that’s exactly what I said. Well done.
A couple things, you are absolutely correct about the hypocrisy. All modern major manufacturers are doing the same thing. Calling out China without mentioning this is definitely a disservice.
On the invasion of privacy through spying, China is undoubtedly the worst followed by the US and Russia.
When it comes international predations I think you are correct. The US is the worst. Russia next then Israel and China. France and Germany probably fit in here somewhere as well with the selling of arms around the world.
A couple things, you are absolutely correct about the hypocrisy. All modern major manufacturers are doing the same thing.
and theres been tons of coverage about that, and how it can be used against you.
To pretend theres radio silence on it, and this is all just being big mean to china is the real hypocrisy.
I’m sorry but there’s no way china is worse that the US’s big tech.
It is a matter of opinion of course, but the amount of surveillance, firewalls, and censorship combined with the fact that it is mostly state sponsored really puts China in its own category.
Certainly the US has caused much more overall harm on a global scale though.
They are, but only if you’re using their products and live there. China has a bigger hold on China.
USA has a bigger hold globally, but spying to a slightly lesser degree.
USA wants to catch up to China on the local level though, and are definitely trying hard. But they didn’t set up the camera infrastructure in time.
Your ranking is missing the top spot. Here is the revised list
- US corporations
- Chinese government
- US government …
I think the damage US corporations have done is truly unparalleled. When it comes to big tech China still pales in comparison in the Western world. That is until you consider Tik Tok, which is the most influential of social media for the under 30 market. Is Tik Tok really a bad influence or better or worse than something like Facebook is very debatable as well.
That is until you consider Tik Tok
Wasn’t the big concern with TikTok entirely around how people were talking about the Palestine Genocide while US controlled social media had effectively blacked it out?
Lol probably, Tik Tok is also a lot different for the American audience. Things that would never be allowed in China, especially for young adults, are permitted in the US. Of course you could argue they are just doing what US companies do in the free for all that is social media.
I would argue that Tiktok would not have such an outsized effect if US corporations had not turned people into wage slaves.
China is undoubtedly the worst followed by the US and Russia.
I doubt it. Russia doesn’t have the infrastructure or the manpower to compete with a modern surveillance state. And the US doesn’t operate alone, it’s part of the Five Eyes network, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Nevermind NISRF.
Part of what makes the US network horrifying is how many other countries are blithely along for the ride.
What they lack in technology they make up for in brutality. Also, they aren’t that far behind building out their dystopian surveillance state.
https://therecord.media/russia-upgrades-rules-for-digital-spy-system-sorm
What they lack in technology they make up for in brutality.
That’s how surveillance works
I’m a lot more worried about what domestic companies are doing with my data than Chinese ones.
“But China bad” is getting pretty old and frail in comparison to the domestic and international predations and privacy invasions of US tech businesses and government
ah, the “DON’T CRITICIZE CHINA” is getting even fucking older and frailer in comparison.
Especially when it says right in the article that its doing the exact opposite of what was promised.
Which, if any other countries product was doing that, you’d have a fit over it and not be sitting there going having a big whinge fest about the unfair persecution.
Never said they were doung the right thing, just pointing out that if the behaviour warrants complaint, then complaint shoud be levied agaisnt everyone behaving that way.
But hey, you keep on with your black and white opinions.
Yes, exactly.
And theres been extensive coverage of western cars spying and doing nasty stuff.
But we get a news story about Chinese cars, who promised local data processing, still trying to connect back to chinese servers, and suddenly the tankie hands start wringing about people being so mean to poor poor china.
because we can be big mean to western states, but we can’t be factual about poor poor china. thats just racist.
Your arguments would carry more weight and might even be worth debating if you could make them objectively without attempts at petty insults, and pretentions of victimhood. As it stands, you’re just kinda predictable and boring. Moving on…
DON’T CRITICIZE CHINA
We put a machine with a radio in a room and the radio continued to try and function.
This is why we cannot import low priced, high quality foreign made electric engines.
if any other countries product was doing that, you’d have a fit
Why? It’s the same tired story, used to scare people who know nothing about communications technology. It’s all about making “Buy American” a national security issue.
If Brazil or Italy or even the dreaded Russia was being accused of this, why wouldn’t we stare sideways?
its doing the exact opposite of what was promised
I mean, remind me again why I’m trusting autos.yahoo.com on their reporting? Isn’t Yahoo a subsidiary of Apollo Global Management, a company with deep ties to the Epstein human trafficking cartel?
We put a machine with a radio in a room and the radio continued to try and function.
This is why we cannot import low priced, high quality foreign made electric engines.
In a way that they promised it wouldnt.
Which is kind of the important thing all you tankies seem to be willfully overlooking.
Why? It’s the same tired story, used to scare people who know nothing about communications technology. It’s all about making “Buy American” a national security issue.
If Brazil or Italy or even the dreaded Russia was being accused of this, why wouldn’t we stare sideways?
If anyone else was promising device would do X, and did Y instead, it would also be a cause for concern. Regardless of who did it.
If it was brazil, or Italy, you wouldnt be having this same tantrum over calling them out, as you are over calling out Dear China.
I mean, remind me again why I’m trusting autos.yahoo.com on their reporting? Isn’t Yahoo a subsidiary of Apollo Global Management, a company with deep ties to the Epstein human trafficking cartel?
he says, while having a tantrum over no one taking china, a notorious angel state that totally doesnt do horrific shit, at its word of being a good boy.
having a tantrum
Is reminding you of the questionable history of Apollo Global a tantrum?
No,thats just a poor attempt to shift the narrative away from your tantruming and away from China so you can shut down critical discussion.
Yeah I’d be more interested in what it’s sending. Go into a mine with your smartphone (or just an LG TV) and it’ll be continually reaching out as well… but WHAT it’s trying to receive or transmit is important.
It’s all about making “Buy American” a national security issue.
It absolutely is a national security issue!
It’s not exclusive to the US, either. It’s even worse when you use American digital services outside the US. I live in Europe and it is especially bad because we have very strong privacy laws and require companies which offer digital services to have their servers in Europe.
It absolutely is a national security issue!
Tell it to Volkswagen
My Chev calls the US!
The car kept attempting to reach servers, most of them located in China
Now try the same experiment with cars from other countries.
And then let’s hear from someone who can tell the world how to disable this anti-feature without breaking the car that we bought and paid for.
And this is exactly why runor has it military installations in my country don’t allow EVs to enter at all.
This article is so stupid with the dumbest fearmongering clickbait title -
Anything that calls home will try to call home. Connection or not. You put an removed in a faraday cage and it will try to phone home. There’s no reason it would suddenly stop doing that because there’s no point to adding another line of code to get it to stop when it doesn’t need to.
Not to mention that the important part is this:
The critical caveat: the traffic was encrypted. Researchers could document destinations and data volumes, but not the content of the packets themselves. No evidence of specific personal data exfiltration was found, and the tests do not prove that NIO is transmitting sensitive information to Chinese authorities.
Now compare that to a plethora of other car manufacturers that don’t even bother to encrypt your data and explicitly say that you will be tracked by them and have your data sold.
https://cybernews.com/privacy/mozilla-cars-track-sexual-activity-sell-data/
cars track even sexual activity, sell user data to third parties
this. I seen people try to just use hostnames to block the LG telemetry, and the result is it just phone home harder, the logs just show it spams thousands of requests per second. Only way to stop it is to relay it to a fake server to return a fake response.
just found out that when LG and TV are put together without a space, it gets censored?
Iirc LG TV is a derogatory slang for LGBT, so maybe CA have the term censored.
Today I learnt! Thanks
What? Really? I thought you were joking. For context, why is calling people LG TV a slur?
News to me, but I could easily see someone using LG TV to refer to the LGBT as a way to demean the use of LGBT.
My takeaway was that this was the important bit
The project arrives as Chinese EV brands expand across European markets with assurances about local data processing. Observed network behavior appears to contradict those assurances.
It’s weird that they didn’t use a Faraday cage which should have been way cheaper.
Do you think they mined out a mountain just for this project?
How is that weird? Do you know how much metal costs these days? The man hours to build a bus sized faraday cage and make sure it’s 100% secure? What do you do with your massive cage when you’re done, how much effort to scrap or resell it or store it?
They just had to spend a few bucks on petrol with this solution. It’s elegant, cheap, wastes almost nothing. Repeatable. Works with any size vehicle. It’s perfect.
Few bucks of petrol eh
Oh right it’s an EV lol 🤦♀️
No, but how did they get it into the underground space? Elevator? Or there’s a way to drive in which still prevents all signals getting out?
Yes, mining tunnels tend to have ways to drive in.
Also, they are inside mountains.
It’s Norway, we love tunnels and tunnel accessories. I’d not be surprised if they had to turn down offers of places to do it.
There are doors in mines to seal off areas(and keep balrogs from disturbing crews), so drive it deep, close to the doors and you got signal isolation
What do you do with your massive cage when you’re done
I’ve seen big Faraday cages in large companies when I was young. It’s never a one-shot project and it doesn’t cost that much.
Telenor ASA (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈtêːlənuːr] or [tɛləˈnuːr])[2] is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company
Net income is multiple billions. Hence my question.
it doesn’t cost that much.
It does not cost much, but it costs many times more than just driving a bus into a mine.
They could probably just drape the whole bus with a bunch of chicken wire (or wrap it) for a makeshift Faraday cage. I doubt that would take more than an hour or so.
Certainly cheaper and easier than building up a bus-sized Ferriday cage.
Faraday cage has to be designed with the wavelength in mind. Chicken wire makes a remarkably shitty faraday cage.
Petrol you say? Is this not an EV bus?
Petrol is for the driver
Fair. I’m not gonna “yuck” someone else’s “yum”.
I highly suspect they used and already existing mine. Which is cheaper still. Unless it said somewhere in the story about them digging the mine specifically for this.
Cheaper than driving it into a mine?
