Not only due (or probably not even because of) Satellite system failure.
In order to fight drones flying over the border from Ukraine, Russia implemented new restrictions to cellular connections. From like last 2 weeks they made so that when a sim card that enters russian border, it will be denied cellular connection for 24 hours. This also include russian sim cards that have been not connected to russian cellular network for over 72 hours.
Almost every modern car today has a sim that communicates with servers all the time. It is just that Porsche also has this feature that can track car remotely and immobilize on demand. It utilizes this type of sim card. Porsche itself has nothing to do with why they are bricked. It is a byproduct of russian attempts at preventing drone attacks which backfires spectacularly.
I wish people (especially journalists) would get it through their skulls already:
- Vehicles don’t communicate with satellites.
- GNSS (like GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, or BeiDou) do not use two way communication.
- The satellite can therefore not know the position of a GNSS receiver.
- Instead the satellites send timestamps and their positions, the receiver uses that information to calculate its own position. If the system with the receiver needs to report its position to someone they typically use some form of terrestrial communication, like mobile phone networks.
With that knowledge the comment by /u/imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com makes a lot more sense than whatever the article is trying to imply about satellite failures.
And this is why I will never own a vehicle manufactured after 2006.
I have just too little control with newer vehicles, be it having to auth with the mothership with every repair I do at home just to get it to start up, or even failing to start up in the first place when the mothership could not be contacted.
I’m seeing a lot of sudden unexpected failures in Russia these days, I wonder if they’re pulling out the old cold war style subterfuge/sabotage playbooks from the CIA.
First: It’s funny, because it is happening to Russians
Second: It’s fucking scary, because it can happen everywhere. Fuck cars that rely on digital services.
What’s up with hating every person born in Russia? Will never get it. I mean, a car shutting down sounds like life-threatening.
This isn’t happening to every person in Russia, it’s happening to every person in Russia with a modern Porsche.
Assumptions can be made about the sample set.
Those are not poor people, but still Porsche is one of the most affordable luxury car brands. I just can’t picture a russian oligarch with just a porsche.
Next will shut BMW, then Volkswagen and we will still be laughing about it.
Yes
The little thing called “invading ukraine” and those that drive porsches are not your average citicens but the upper crust buddys of putin who are as guilty as putin
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The six miles of vacuum tubing under the hood will absorb most of the crash energy.
I’ll keep my unkillable Gen 2 Prius. 281,000 miles on the odometer, original engine, replaced the hybrid battery a few years back with a brand new one from Toyota (that I installed myself after convincing a dealership to just sell one to me) and knock on wood, but that’s the last maintenance item I’ve even had to spend any money on.
Too bad quality dropped off after the Gen 2 years.
I had a gen 2. I only got rid of it because I had kids and needed a bit more space. That thing was reliable asf. I did the struts on it once which was a bit of a pain in the ass (you have to disassemble a lot of the interior to get to the top nut) other than that, the only thing I ever did was oil and brakes and had 0 issues. Thankfully I avoided catalytic converter theft which is a huge problem with those in CA. My next car (Lexus Rx hybrid) I wasn’t so lucky.
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I have a 2014 and a 2017 with no required connections. Your point?
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Saying you bought a 79 because it isn’t connected is idiotic.
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Good for you, now let us see you do it again with a '25
Sounds like a real business opportunity for aftermarket electronics to circumvent the connection need.
From “EV conversion kits” to “offline conversion kits”.
first they disabled Russian porsches and I didn’t care because I am not a russian owner of a porsche.
then they came for Ukrainian tractors and I didn’t care because I am not an Ukrainian owner of a tractor.
then step by step everything was digitally locked and I owned nothing and I was not really happy.
Just got a dishwasher and it doesn’t even have an app. How can that be?
Just got a toilet and it doesn’t even have an app. How can that be?
Just got a car and it is driven by bear. How can this be?
You may be Russian, or Alaskan.
Korean, actually
are you from the past?
and I owned nothing
Companies love that, until everybody is completely in debt and they learn you can’t seize property from people that don’t own anything.
Not as much of a stop as you would think. Historically speaking Ford motor company already tried basically enslaving indigenous people on the Amazon for rubber production. Most of the cotton in the US (and many other industries) was done by black slaves. Current fishing in south east Asia (and other places I’m sure) can have slaving with extra steps on a boat. Apple/Nike and other big brand factories in chine have had nets installed to prevent suicides, etc. There is no stopping the horrible disease that is wealth hoarding and human exploration it seems.
I think you are too nice.
they are actively trying to own everything.
And then they don’t need to seize anything, because you are forced to work to the bone (even more than you are right now) to just afford your own house rent/property tax.Companies love to become like old Lord and counts and own the land/products and you just rent and work for them.
By then they will already own all the property.
Yes. They’re busy buying everything already. They just need a financial crisis to get the rest for pennies on the dollar. After that it’s time for neo-feudalism.
I feel like I got my car at the perfect time:
It has Android Auto and CarPlay, and it’s a manual so there’s no way for it to turn on or off remotely.
Now I just have to make sure it survives until I die.
It’s a voluntary anti-theft measure I believe. Prevents it from being started without the owner’s consent. Which immobilizers are also supposed to do, but we all know how well those work.
If I owned a Porsche in Russia, I would also get something like that tbh. Luckily I don’t live in Russia, nor do I have a Porsche anymore and mine was too old for this kinda shit anyway
Feature is based on the same tech implementation as these SOS/Service call buttons almost every modern car has. It uses IoT sim.
People who have SOS/Service call button in their cars are also falling under this issue except it would only affect cars that has been outside of russian cellular towers for over 72h.
Also, maybe this is happening due to Porsche not willing to extend IoT sim subscriptions for russian citizens making their sims essentially to be disabled. But I am not sure how car manufacturer IoT sim contracts work. For a typical company/private person IoT sim contract is for 10 years with typically 1gb of data for the same timeframe. If car manufacturer contract is similar to that, this may be the reason why their cars are bricking.
Living in Russia in Moscow/Petersburg is actually really nice these days.
I mean if I was a rich ethnic Russian in either of those cities, I’d probably love it.
I’m Estonian though, don’t speak any more Russian than yes, no, please, thank you and go fuck yourself. Of course I also understand when being asked for a cigarette - an absolute necessity in Estonia (though these days you’re very unlikely to get attacked for not providing said cigarettes - 20-30 years ago was different, but I wasn’t exactly old enough to smoke then)
But overall I’m glad I don’t live in Russia because I don’t agree with the politics. Even before the current war, I’m sure I would’ve been seen as a dissident. I’m sure the people of Russia are actually mostly very nice. It’s also cheaper than a lot of western countries so working remotely, I’m sure I would’ve been able to live very comfortably before the war. I just wouldn’t ever want to live under Putin rule and I wouldn’t really want to live in a country with so many nationalists (US, if I ever moved there, would be a bit easier, because it’s more about race than nationality and I’m white)
If you’re relatively rich that is.
Living in Petersburg being nice? I dunno
The one in Florida certainly sucks.
I was thinking more about all the dismemberment and depression jokes about the one on Neva with the Aurora cruiser docker yadda-yadda
It’s the weather, probably. Something for the natives, and Finns maybe.
Yeah, but at the same time - the weather in Vyborg is fine by me, and the weather in Narva\Ivangorod. But the place between them (one the coast) is somehow far more depressive.
And I don’t think I’ve heard Helsinki being called depressive.
It’s something about planning, perhaps? Streets are laid out so that you feel as if you were in a military location. People live in those historical beautiful buildings as if they were birds making nests under the roof, as if people were not the main thing there.
And places around SPb, like Strelna, are also not depressive at all. At least in my perception. That air flavored with Baltic salt, every sea smells differently, the Baltic water smell is nice, in some way similar to Coca-Cola.
It’s the city itself.
[…] and what owners can do next.
Sell their Porsche and buy a car that can’t be locked remotely?
sell to who?
Yeah has a bit of those Ben Shapiro vibes.
Don’t you think people would sell their houses on the coastline and move?
In 2025? Is that even a thing?
You can disable the modem on new Toyotas and they run fine. The dealership will bitch and moan but they can be disabled.
You can also steal new toyotas in a matter of minutes because they absolutely fucked up the can bus security.
There might be some old Ladas around.
They will be taken by the army shortly, just wait.
One way to tell: disable the cellular modem in your car and see if it still operates.
This assumes there’s a user accessible option to disable it.
I assumed it’s not a option, so I took the suggestion to mean “physically disable” the device. Modern cars have a number of integrated computers and they rarely serve individual purposes, but there’s a good chance there’s an external antenna near/in a window. Granted, I don’t have any vehicles with cell service, so I could be wrong. I do own a drill though
Just wrap your car in tinfoil. Bonus is that it stops the government from reading you mind while inside.
Shill for big foil…thanks for the advice MR REYNOLDS.
Probably can’t do this unless you’ve already bought it.
That’s the question, isn’t it?
Can you actually buy a (new) car in 2025?
There’s the upcoming Slate trucks, but those are scheduled for Q4 2026. And… also probably going to be US exclusive for a bit. Oof.
The Slate truck is simple for YOU. It doesn’t have lots of bells and whistles, but is still and electric vehicle that runs on computers. I haven’t heard if it has a remote connection yet, but I bet it does. Also, Jeff Bezos is an investor and I am pretty sure it is not some new altruistic streak for Amazon to launch a consumer product that they can’t monetize forever.
My guy, the motor type matters not one iota to those trying to make money off your data.
Gas, diesel, all manner of hybrids, and EVs all track the ever loving crap out of you (by default, and often not on a defeatable level.)
Slate will have no OTA capabilities. How they will monatize forever is by selling parts to users and educating them how to service themselves.
You have to do your own updates over USB.
I took the question initially in jest, then sat back and thought about it. fuck.
To be fair though… I came out to my old car without digital nonsense yesterday and it didn’t start either.
Sorry you had to find out your car is homophobic like that.
Sell them to whom?
Recycling companies?
It’s even worse than that. Porsches are locked by default, and can only be enabled remotely.
I doubt most owners of recent-model luxury-brand cars in Russia are average joes for which this is their only transport. I therefore find my sympathy to be somewhat limited.
You mean the ‘M’ word don’t you
The “O” word, actually: oligarchs (or their relatives or best buddies). Chances are that at least some of them are under sanction in more civilized countries.
Maybe Russia started jamming satellite signals and did this to themselves.
Vehicle Tracking System (VTS) — a security module designed to prevent theft but now shutting down cars unexpectedly.
Also, what a strangely written article.
Remember when they started this with games? It would phone home every time you started it up and make sure your license was valid.
And then companies stopped supporting the game or went out of business. And all of a sudden no one could play those games anymore.
Now they’re doing it with cars. How long until that expensive car you bought is no longer supported and you have to upgrade to the new model?
Owners welcomed theft deterrent like that. OnStar is probably the main original US service, found in GM cars. I think Subaru picked them up at some point, but basically all new cars have the option to have manufacturer tracking and app-based vehicle connections for remote start, tracking, service alerts, diagnostic uploads, etc
But who steals a Porsche? 1 in 4 Lexus SUVs are stolen because where they end up in eastern europe and Africa, people want reliable vehicles. Top two stolen vehicles by far are Civics and Accords for that reason. No one steals Land Rovers.
I don’t know about Russian thefts, but US Theives will absolutely go for a Porsche. Not every theft is shipped overseas. Fast, flashy cars are stolen to thrash for a couple days and then wreck them. So, sure, by raw numbers, I’m sure honda and Toyota top the list. That doesn’t mean Porsche is off the list - the stat is higher per capita. I mean, Kias are top of the list in the US Midwest and they are NOT being shipped. Even those are just stolen for joyride. The 3rd category is stripping them for parts. No hotwiring/fob spoofing, no complicated theft. Winch it up on a flatbed faster than the owner can respond.
Ask any Porsche owner if they’re afraid of theft. I promise, every one of them will say yes
Good thing this is a completely optional “feature” that I’d never pay for
Why not do cars need internet access in order to start?
I understand having auxiliary services the network connected but surely the failure mode should just be an error on the screen but otherwise the car should still function. It’s not like operating without internet access is dangerous or anything.
Also, why don’t we just do that, cut Russias internet access, it seems like it would cause of chaos.
It’s the reason why no one steals Teslas. Easy to brick, impossible to charge on their system if stolen.
I’m sure there’s plenty of other reasons to not steal a tesla. It being a mobile surveillance device being one of them. Also, if I was going to steal a car, I’d pick one with better build quality and one that doesn’t have a different fire exit than the normal way to exit that I’d probably be going for if my car was suddenly on fire.
As for “cut russias internet”, I imagine they have a lot of services hosted on their own infrastructure within Russia.
Of course probably a lot of people use western services like social media and e-commerce. Which would piss off a lot of Russian people. So you could have western governments require sanctions on services to reject Russian traffic.
One of the downsides though is there are probably a lot of people who disagree with the regime and want to get info in and out. You push them closer to isolation like North Korea. So called “winning of hearts and minds” might be better served by keeping things open.
But what do I know.
Because it was the anti theft system and immobilizer.
It would be pretty useless if it could be defeated by putting some foil on the antenna so that it loses network connection and defaulted to allowing you to drive.How does it validate that you are a valid driver? Do you enter a PIN or something?
With your personal vehicle access device, aka, the car key. Immobilizers with transponders in the key have been a thing (and in some places a legal requirement) for like three decades.
They’ve just gotten more aggressive now with “keyless” entry and being able to use your phone as your key, so some validate that info in real time - no network, no access. (Up to a point. They won’t immediately strand you just because you ran out of cell coverage obviously, but apparently Porsche did enforce some part of their system to that point)Yeah, I’ve seen videos of Porsches needing to be towed out of parking garages because there is no cell signal underground.
Well, it’s because Russia is jamming GPS signal, it affects planes, cars, everything relying on GPS.
That’s a huge leap to assume GPS blocking was also blanketing other 2 way satellite communication frequencies.
None of these things need GPS to function. Even planes. A compass, a map and a clock go a long way.
For planes maybe it’s not strictly necessary but makes things way safer
“smart” cars
