Vehicle Data Transmission

Sure, laugh while you can. When the sh*t hits the fan I'll be the one laughing. Though you won't be able to hear me, cause I'll be down here in my bunker with a thousand MREs and my 4Runner securely wrapped in tinfoil... (Now, if I can only figure out how to drive it with all that tinfoil covering the windshield...)

 

Tinfoil caps for the shark fin antenna.

 

Perfect! Or maybe one of those mylar type bags that electronic toll transponders come with, so you can prevent them from being read by accident. Could just slip that thing over the sharkfin like a condom. Both are prophylactics!

 

I wonder if Toyota offers these connected, hackable, services in other countries with less “robust” civil liberties protections than the US has.

I dont know about you, but having these “services” available to “me” in (insert tin pot dictatorship) would have me feeling in constant danger.

For those that rest easy on the civil protections we enjoy in the US (by natural right, not granted by government), it is worth reminding everyone how quickly tides can change politically. No matter how solid you think something can be, politics can change on a dime, and in pretty unexpected ways. Politicians might not be able to change the constitution or bill of rights, but they dont need to follow it either.

 

Despite the idiot salesman trying to get me to accept and activate, I immediately declined all those privacy-destroying "services" Toyota pedals.

 

In case you haven’t seen this, there a long thread on transmitting data to Toyota. Based on your model year and trim your shark fin may be just for receiving XM radio.
@Old Red breaks it down well in post #95

https://www.4runners.com/threads/ho...telemetry-on-the-5th-gen-4runner.20628/page-4

 

I'm not sure what exactly it did, but I pulled the Mayday fuse in the engine compartment from my 2019 Limited. I can hope that has disabled a lot or all of the tracking. I have the SOS button, and I believe that is now disactivated. In newer 4runners, there’s a DCM fuse under the dash to the left of the steering wheel and that also disables the mic for hands free calling according to the other thread. I rarely bring my phone with me and have no need of hands free calling (haven’t paired my phone with my truck) so I don’t know if the Mayday fuse does the same. I'm perfectly ok with disabling the mic, something else that can be hacked. If anyone has any other easy things to do to disable as much information as possible, let me know. I'm not up to dismantling the fin, AV unit, etc.