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The Tesla Motors Inc. Model X sport utility vehicle (SUV).

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A Tesla Model X totaled in the U.S. late last year suddenly came back online and started sending notifications to the phone of its former owner, CNBC executive editor Jay Yarow, months later.

The car or its computer was suddenly online in a Southern region of war-torn Ukraine, he found by opening up his Tesla app and using a geolocation feature. The new owners in Ukraine were tapping into his still-connected Spotify app to listen to Drake radio playlists, he also discovered.

When Yarow posted about this to the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, his post went viral, and followers wanted to know why this this happening and whether it was a security risk.

According to the CTO of automotive security firm Canis Labs, Ken Tindell, there can indeed be a security risk with totaled cars that are restored.

He explained in an e-mail to CNBC, “The credentials to internet services are clearly left in the vehicle electronics and then can be used by whoever gets hold of the electronics.” He added, “In general it’s possible to get data out of working electronics — it’s merely a question of how much effort that takes.” 

This is far from a Tesla-specific issue, he said. Cars, like laptops, smartphones, and even refrigerators and TVs, are now internet-connected devices that can store personal data.

“I think it needs to be more widely understood by dealers and owners that there is this issue of private data within the vehicle,” Tindell said.

Overseas demand for totaled Teslas

How did the vehicle end up in Ukraine?

CNBC found that after the car was totaled, online auction site Copart listed it for sale, according to website listings. The company, which currently has more than 1,600 Tesla vehicles listed for sale, is connected to salvage yards across the U.S., including one in New Jersey where the car ended up.

Copart specializes in damaged or totaled vehicles that have what’s called a “salvage title,” issued when an insurance company declares it a total loss, warning future buyers that there was a significant problem. Copart sells more than 2 million vehicles a year, with operations in 11 countries, according to the company’s website.

Such vehicles cannot legally drive on U.S. roadways, but some countries aren’t as stringent.

“Cars go to the repair shop or junk yard then find their way to a second market and then are suddenly being shipped overseas,” said Mike Dunne, a former General Motors international executive who now serves as CEO of auto consulting firm ZoZoGo.

The practice has been going on for decades and accelerated with the rise of digital auctions, according to Steven Lang, an auctioneer and founder of used car marketplace 48 Hours And A Used Car.

“Starting in the Y2K era, the digital auction site took over. So now you can have someone in Ukraine bidding on it. And then someone else from Norway bidding on it … and you haven’t even touched an American border or an American bidder,” said Lang, who has been in the vehicle auction business for more than 24 years.

“Virtually all of the vehicles that are totaled will end up at a salvage auction,” he said.

One online auction website that specializes in such sales estimated the winning bid for the vehicle would be between $27,400 and $29,400. A final sale price was not immediately known. Neither the salvage yard nor Copart immediately responded for comment about the vehicle and who bought it.

What owners can do after the fact

Tesla support staff told Yarow he should disconnect his car from his account, offering the following instructions via email:

1. Open the Tesla app Tap profile icon in top-right corner

2. Tap ‘Add/Remove Products’ > ‘Remove’ > ‘Vehicle’

3. Select the VIN, then tap ‘Get Started’

4. Enter the vehicle and sale details, then tap ‘Next’

5. Enter the new owner information, then tap ‘Next’

6. Enter security code from e-mail, then tap ‘Confirm’

7.Submit the request by clicking on ‘Remove Vehicle’

Reminder: If it asks if you sold the vehicle say yes.”

Tesla didn’t tell him how he was supposed to obtain the new owner information as he hadn’t sold the car.

According to Canis Labs CTO Ken Tindell, disconnecting one’s account from a totaled vehicle can help stop others from using apps that had been connected, such as Spotify in Yarow’s case. However, data could still be extracted from the totaled vehicle’s electronics.

“What would the trip history and phone book of a celebrity be worth to a blackmailer or a kidnapper?” Tintell asked.

He and other security experts compared the situation having an Apple laptop stolen. In some cases, Apple can wipe the laptop or device clean remotely when it comes online. But “a malign repair shop can take out the hard drive and copy all the data off it before scrapping a broken laptop.”

This is why Apple routinely encrypts its hard drives, the CTO noted. “It’s the only way to prevent the data being stolen by someone with physical access to an offline device.”

An automotive cybersecurity veteran and the founder of RightHook, Warren Ahner, said that ideally a company like Tesla would “Have a portal where a user can sign in with online credentials and say ‘remove all my info, then disconnect my vehicle from the account,’ and would be able issue a remote-wipe command to the car when it comes online, deleting it all including GPS, saved locations and the rest.”

However, he said, owners can be their own “personal risk police,” and avoid giving their vehicles or rental cars that they use lots of personal info.

“Always purge your data after you are done with the vehicle and try not to share more info with the car than you absolutely need to share,” Ahner recommended. “If I pair my phone with the car I’m renting or owning I don’t allow it to synch location and contacts. I only give it Bluetooth access to talk over the top of my music and so I can us whatever music streaming app I like.”

An automotive white hat hacker who uses the handle Green the Only has been sounding the alarm about data on cars for years. “All the phone directory and calendar stuff might be valuable,” he said.

Once a car or car computer has changed possession is back online, he says that the previous owners “can’t do much.” One problem is that an old owner can “accrue charges for Supercharging,” and other items Tesla — or other vehicle makers — may sell on a subscription or pay-per-charge basis. They can always submit a request to Tesla to remove the car from their account, but that’s it.

Green the Only agreed with Tindell and Ahner — Tesla “probably can add a ‘remote wipe and then remove from my account’ in addition to the ‘remove from my account’ option they have now. They probably should have added that long ago.”

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Nintendo profit plunges 69% as it cuts forecast for sales of ageing Switch console

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Nintendo profit plunges 69% as it cuts forecast for sales of ageing Switch console

Mario poses at the “SUPER NINTENDO WORLD” welcome celebration at Universal Studios Hollywood on February 16, 2023 in Universal City, California.

Rodin Eckenroth | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Nintendo on Tuesday cut forecast for Switch sales for its fiscal year ending March 2025 as demand wanes for its ageing console.

The Japanese gaming giant said it now expects to sell 12.5 million units of the Switch over the course of the period. That’s down from a previous forecast of 13.5 million units.

Nintendo has been contending with fading demand for its flagship Switch console, which is now more than seven years old.

Investors are waiting for news surrounding a successor to the Switch, which they hope will re-energize Nintendo’s gaming business. In the past, the company said that the Switch successor will be announced in its current fiscal year, which ends in March 2025.

Nintendo also cut full fiscal year forecasts for sales and operating profit. The company said it now expects sales of 1.28 trillion yen versus a previous forecast of 1.35 trillion yen. The operating profit outlook for the period was slashed from 400 billion yen to 360 billion yen.

Here’s how Nintendo did in its fiscal second quarter ended Sept. 30 versus LSEG estimates:

  • Revenue: 276.7 billion Japanese yen ($1.8 billion), compared with 273.34 billion yen expected.
  • Net profit: 27.7 billion yen, versus 48.06 billion yen expected.

Revenue fell 17% year-on-year. Net profit plunged just over 69% versus the same period last year.

Super Mario, Zelda boost fading

The Switch is Nintendo’s second best-selling console in history, behind the Nintendo DS. Despite the recent fall in sales, Nintendo has prolonged the console’s appeal for an extended period of time since its launch in 2017 by relying on its recognizable characters.

In its last fiscal year, Nintendo managed to reinvigorate sales of the Switch thanks to the the success of the “Super Mario Bros. Movie” and the highly anticipated release of the “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” game, which underscored the appeal of its iconic characters.

But that effect is fading.

On Tuesday, Nintendo noted the boost that the company received in the first half of its last fiscal year, but said “there were no such special factors in the first half of this fiscal year, and with Nintendo Switch now in its eighth year since launch, unit sales of both hardware and software decreased significantly year-on-year.”

Sales of the Switch totaled 4.72 units in the six months ended Sept. 30, compared with 6.84 million units in the same period of last year.

In the face of falling sales, Nintendo has tried to license out its intellectual property for use everywhere, from movies to theme parks. A new Super Mario movie is slated for release in 2026.

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Meta extends ban on new political ads past Election Day

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Meta extends ban on new political ads past Election Day

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg plans to visit South Korea, scheduling key meetings during the trip, according to a statement by Meta on Wednesday, which did not provide further details. Reportedly, Zuckerberg is anticipated to meet with Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee later this month to discuss AI chip supply and other generative AI issues, as per the South Korean newspaper Seoul Economic Daily, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Meta extended its ban on new political ads on Facebook and Instagram past Election Day in the U.S.

The social media giant announced the political ads policy update on Monday, extending its ban on new political ads past Tuesday, the original end date for the restriction period.

Meta did not specify the day it will lift the restriction, saying only that the ad blocking will continue “until later this week.” The company did not say why it extended the political advertising restriction period.

The company announced in August that any political ads that ran at least once before Oct. 29 would still be allowed to run on Meta’s services in the final week before Election Day. Other political ads will not be allowed to run.

Organization with eligible ads will have “limited editing capabilities” while the restriction is still in place, Meta said. Those advertisers will be allowed to make scheduling, budgeting and bidding-related changes to their political ads, Meta said.

Meta enacted the same policy in 2020. The company said the policy is in place because “we recognize there may not be enough time to contest new claims made in ads.”

Google-parent Alphabet announced a similar ad policy update last month, saying it would pause ads relating to U.S. elections from running in the U.S. after the last polls close on Tuesday. Alphabet said it would notify advertisers when it lifts the pause.

Nearly $1 billion has been spent on political ads over the last week, with the bulk of the money spent on down-ballot races throughout the U.S., according to data from advertising analytics firm AdImpact.

Watch: Tech still investing big in AI development despite few breakout products.

Tech still investing big in AI development despite few breakout products

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Jeff Bezos and OpenAI invest in robot startup Physical Intelligence at $2.4 billion valuation

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Jeff Bezos and OpenAI invest in robot startup Physical Intelligence at .4 billion valuation

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, January 18, 2024 (L), and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 2, 2021.

Reuters

Physical Intelligence, a robot startup based in San Francisco, has raised $400 million at a $2.4 billion post-money valuation, the company confirmed Monday to CNBC.

Investors included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Thrive Capital and Lux Capital, a Physical Intelligence spokesperson said. Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital are also listed as investors on the company’s website.

Physical Intelligence’s new valuation is about six times that of its March seed round, which reportedly came in at $70 million with a $400 million valuation. Its current roster of employees includes alumni of Tesla, Google DeepMind and X.

The startup focuses on “bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world,” per its website, and it aims to do this by developing large-scale artificial intelligence models and algorithms to power robots. The startup spent the past eight months developing a “general-purpose” AI model for robots, the company wrote in a blog post. Physical Intelligence hopes that model will be the first step toward its ultimate goal of developing artificial general intelligence. AGI is a term used to describe AI technology that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks.

The news comes days after OpenAI launched a search feature within ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, that positions the AI startup to better compete with search engines like GoogleMicrosoft‘s Bing and Perplexity. Last month, OpenAI also closed its latest funding round at a valuation of $157 billion.

Physical Intelligence’s vision is that one day users can “simply ask robots to perform any task they want, just like they can ask large language models (LLMs) and chatbot assistants,” the startup wrote in the blog post. In case studies, Physical Intelligence details how its tech could allow a robot to do laundry, bus tables or assemble a box.

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