Disable The Cellular Radio

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Travis

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 23, 2014
Messages
78
Location
Tampa, Florida
I would like to disable the cellular radio in my car. I've never used carwings and have no intention of ever using it. I don't even have an account and didn't sign anything at the dealership related to carwings. It isn't enough for me to click decline when I start the car. I don't want the cellular radio to even register with the towers. I don't really care if the clock keeps the correct time (the only thing I can see that would be lost). Honestly the timers suck so bad in the car it doesn't matter if the time is wrong as the timers are totally unusable for me and my schedule.

What can I do to disable it in such a way that it could be re-enabled in the future if I decide to sell the vehicle (assuming 2g even exists then). If there isn't a temporary way to do it I'm willing to do something permanent if that is what it takes.

There has been too much in the news about it lately (especially GSM technology) and I just want rid of it. Police departments, governments, private citizens, everyone is getting into the game. http://openbts.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Anyone can set themselves up a "cell tower" for $999 that my car will register to. I don't like that thought. I can think of some evil things that could be done and tracking is only the start of it. This technology is a criminals wet dream.

So who has the way to disable this crap?

Edit: FYI before anyone asks... YES I did shut off my cellphone service also. I keep the phone in airplane mode so that it cannot register with the towers and I use WiFI only on it with VoIP. It saves a TON of money every year and I can still do everything I did before including texting (when around WiFI). Its also had the side effect of making my life much happier. Remember life before being at everyones beck and call? I'm living it and you can leave a message after the beep. *BEEP*
 
The cellular radio in the Leaf uses AT&T 2G technology to send and receive SMS messages as its communication protocoL. It is behind the glove box so you can simply unplug it if you want... Or just wait until the end of 2016 when it will stop working anyway... :)
 
TomT said:
The cellular radio in the Leaf uses AT&T 2G technology to send and receive SMS messages as its communication protocol, so there is not likely that much tracking that could be done with it...
That isn't true at all. Any cellular device that is powered up send a "I'm here" signal out to the carrier so they know which tower is able to contact it. For carwings to work the cellular system has to always know where to reach it. Just the act of this registering with the network makes it totally trackable.

As far as SMS messaging being its protocol that really only makes it easier to do nasty things. For instance you could force the car to register with one of those OpenBTS cell sites. Once its registered if you know the format for those messages to instruct the car to do things (like turn on climate control) it would be trivial to do so. At the very least this could be annoying. At the worst there could be hidden "features" we don't even know about.

Edit: AT&T has a CRAPPY record of being for the people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Anyone who even thinks of trusting them needs to read more. That is only the tip of the iceberg. The potential for abuse is clearly there. The police have an interface with all wireless carriers that allows them to log in and find the location of any cellular device at any time. This is a self serve system with no oversight or court orders.

"By the New York Times’ count, cellphone companies responded to 1.3 million demands for subscribers’ information last year from law enforcement. Many of the records, such as location data, don’t require search warrants or much court oversight."

TomT said:
That said, it is behind the glove box so you could likely simply unplug it if you wanted...
If I unplug it will it cause the car to throw a code? If it won't throw a code I would simply unplug it. If it does throw a code I may have to do some surgery on it to ensure it cannot transmit.
 
As I tell anyone who starts down the tin foil path, stop and think about this for a second.

It is TRUE that you are usually registered to no less than 3 towers at any given time driving around a normal area. This then means the cell receiver is easily triangulated.

three-towers.jpg


If you connect to 1 pirate tower, the pirate only has a good guess based off of the signal strength your relative distance away from that single tower point. You would need to be very unlucky and connect to many of the same pirate network towers in a single area.

But anyways, the next question would be why are you worried about this? Do you not carry a cell phone? Do you not have an internet connection? Do you never use credit cards? Do you not visit places that have security cameras, most with automatic license plate recognition? Do you avoid traffic intersections with smart cameras?

And if some criminal mastermind was tracking everyone he could, again why would you care? What makes YOU so important? If you were a high powered exec or political figure, then you have a cause for concern. If nobody knows who you are or cares who you are, then why would they care? Your car doesn't contain your bank login passwords. Is it really that menacing for a criminal to know what your current state of charge is?

If you want to disconnect it, you can either just wait 2 years for AT&T to disable all 2G com on their network or unplug the telematics unit.
 
If you're using open wifi you are opening yourself up to a whole lot of other privacy concerns.

Tracking of your car is more likely either law enforcement's wet dream or a defence lawyers depending on if you are a bad guy or not. If you as a good old honest citizen are valuable enough for a criminal to want to track you and for them to use sophisticated equipment to do so they could simply break into your car and turn it back on, add thier own tracker or figure out a way to track when your cell phone connects to wifi and ping your location. If you're really that big of a target wouldn't you want an ice car for high speed long distance getaways?

If you're worried about being a random criminals target because of this don't bother. Criminals who pick targets at random aren't as sophisticated or are looking for financial info, not your location.
 
unplug the telematics unit

Easy. Remove the glove box (something like 6 screws on top, 5 on bottom), then it's right on the right hand side. Should have one big and two small connectors. You should be able to unplug them and be good to go! Note it's NOT the one that is straight back on the firewall, that's the VCM (main computer).

TCU.jpg

#17 is the TCU module itself.

TCU2.jpg
 
Unplug the antenna, from the cellular module if it is separate, that would do it.
 
FYI just disassembled the dash, the antenna can indeed just be unplugged at the back of the TCU. It will generate a DTC, but shouldn't cause any real issues. You might be able to reach up in there after just removing the lower cover, otherwise removing the glove box gives clear access as previously mentioned.

Rob
 
I thought you could turn off the cellular radio in the menu? At least it will disable all the carwings related stuff, don't know if the radio stays on in standby or not.
 
TomT said:
Clearly there is no lack of paranoia among Leaf owners... :lol:

Watch this:

https://www.aclu.org/feature/you-are-being-tracked

...the problem isn't leaf owners, it is our government and its blatant disregard for our constitution. Not only that, recent hacking leaf control developments strongly suggest that you should disable this 'feature'.

You will still be tracked - by all the other things that are there to 'protect' us: license plate readers, cell stingers, etc... but why should we aid this violation of our civil rights.

Now for my question, have those who have disconnected the antenna successfully stopped the alerts?

It would be a handy mod to have a switch to kill the power to the TCU but be able to turn it on for essential patch downloads.

And finally to share a little paranoia, My brother who was an avid cell phone user died of a brain tumor. Should we really have yet another EM emitter in our proximity? Not that I expect that to impact anybody with a phone glued to their ear. Thankfully, we have limited range to reduce our exposure.
 
The rf emissions are out side the vehicle body so it is a non issue, using the cell phone inside the car would be the largest source. I do not use wireless at home and I have a 5minute rule for my cell, if you can't give me the 6 W's within 5 minutes I am hanging up. it is amazing how much pleasant that has made life!

As for the Tin foil hatism case, unless you are living off grid up the mountain with a hidden hydro system you are tracked 78 ways to sunday and back Welcome to the modern world you will be assimilated resistance is awkward and some what futile.

But you got the info, have fun with it, perhaps as you learn more you'll get the pointlessness of it or learn to do it proper. being you have a DL, a Phone, fixed address you simply are not serious about it or not ready to do it.
 
knightmb said:
I thought you could turn off the cellular radio in the menu? At least it will disable all the carwings related stuff, don't know if the radio stays on in standby or not.

I believe so (Page 5-19 of the Nav manual). However, I'm not sure that would be sufficient for the truly paranoid! :lol:
 
I spent time in the military in the 1960's collecting information from the radio waves for NSA. There were one hell of a lot of radio broadcasts of which we were interested in a minuscule number. We did have an overreach (Chicago 1968 - Democratic Convention - SDS, Police, etc.) but this was investigated by Congress and that sort of operation was made illegal except under very unusual circumstances and under a special court sanctions and contol.

Translating this to the world of today, we are bombarded with all manner of radio/electronic signals to the point where there are not even the resources to find that proverbial needle in the haystack even with the current computer capacities much less review the information found. So things are highly prioritized and some Leaf owner in the Bay Area is unlikely to have any government following unless they are a Bin Laden type figure.

Still, in our minds we are unique and important. Our problems and interests are so important from our individual viewpoints that we post on this blog in hope to obtain anonymity from the Government out of paranoia, while being blind to the fact that such an inquiry could raise unwarranted suspicions in itself. :lol:

Until, a Leaf can easily travel to a remote wildlife refuge, this is a non-issue. :?
 
Thank you for the replies. I have pasted the following from the manual:

Note, turning off “Vehicle
Information Sharing with NISSAN” will only
disable the automatic sharing of information at
vehicle start-up. Certain categories of data may5. NissanConnect SM EV
still be transmitted if vehicle telematics features


Now I am sure that the first thing I did when I read the previous paragraph was turn this off - but I'm pretty sure this was prior to getting weather alerts, which indicates to me that:
1) The device is still on.
2) My position is being tracked (as the helpful alert was regional - I also don't need this in a car I only drive 50 miles from home).



The TCU antenna is installed inside
the upper central part of the instru-
ment panel. An occupant should not
get any closer to the antenna than
specified by the pacemaker manu-5. NissanConnect SM EV
facturer. The radio waves from the
TCU antenna may adversely affect the
operation of the pacemaker while
using the NissanConnect SM EV.
..
Radio waves could adversely affect
electric medical equipment. Those
who use a pacemaker should contact
the electric medical equipment man-
ufacturer regarding the possible in-
fluences before use.

The previous block is also from the manual. This tells me that EM is not restricted to outside the vehicle. It also woke another thought and that is those who have disconnected the antenna (which is designed to radiate more in certain directions than other - upward?) may be subjecting themselves to more EM inside the cabin.

Anyway I agree that eliminating this spying is next to impossible - but there are lots of reason's to oppose it. Foremost, is it wrong - or perhaps your wife works as a police analyst and is now able track you to your girlfriend's house. I admit this is a bad example, because you are going to get caught anyway - but should your leaf be the one who screws you over?
 
Turnover said:
Still, in our minds we are unique and important. Our problems and interests are so important from our individual viewpoints that we post on this blog in hope to obtain anonymity from the Government out of paranoia, while being blind to the fact that such an inquiry could raise unwarranted suspicions in itself

I am glad a professional like yourself stated this. It does make the point rather succinctly...
 
To continue, I would think the most useful feature of the cellular is to unlock the car when you lose the fob - I would be rather surprised if this is not functional. Just for laughs I'll put that idea together with the recent hack. The best thing that could happen is that they steal the cellular radio - but maybe they would leave that and take the car. The real question is does the vulnerability expose any functions critical to the operation of the car?

I don't know what features are accessible through this system - but I doubt it is limited to simply controlling the heat. In light of the lax security in this implementation, until these questions are answered, there are a lot more reasons for me to completely disable this 'feature'.

Is that being paranoid - or practical?
 
jmh said:
Thank you for the replies. I have pasted the following from the manual:

Radio waves could adversely affect
electric medical equipment. Those
who use a pacemaker should contact
the electric medical equipment man-
ufacturer regarding the possible in-
fluences before use.

The previous block is also from the manual. This tells me that EM is not restricted to outside the vehicle. It also woke another thought and that is those who have disconnected the antenna (which is designed to radiate more in certain directions than other - upward?) may be subjecting themselves to more EM inside the cabin.

What this does is cuase stress on the final stage of the transmitter due to high swr, where little energy is actualy sent out rather just wanders around cooking the transmitter transistor. With the Antenna connected properly over 99% of the radiated RF will be out side the vehicle


Anyway I agree that eliminating this spying is next to impossible - but there are lots of reason's to oppose it. Foremost, is it wrong - or perhaps your wife works as a police analyst and is now able track you to your girlfriend's house. I admit this is a bad example, because you are going to get caught anyway - but should your leaf be the one who screws you over?

How you fight it is via legislation, killing the patriot act and so on, electing out the neocons with people who will listen to the public which hey are supposed to serve rather then lobbyists and corporations
 
jmh said:
To continue, I would think the most useful feature of the cellular is to unlock the car when you lose the fob - I would be rather surprised if this is not functional. Just for laughs I'll put that idea together with the recent hack. The best thing that could happen is that they steal the cellular radio - but maybe they would leave that and take the car. The real question is does the vulnerability expose any functions critical to the operation of the car?

I don't know what features are accessible through this system - but I doubt it is limited to simply controlling the heat. In light of the lax security in this implementation, until these questions are answered, there are a lot more reasons for me to completely disable this 'feature'.

Is that being paranoid - or practical?

Paranoid, theifs are after fast easy money, they are not usualy inteligent either, the ones who are inteligent don't waste time boosting easy to trace vehicles.

It is a simple risk reward system for them, doors locked, security system on board, parked near high traffic area, risk is greater then the reward so they move on.

No one is out to get you, unless you make your self stand out in some interesting way, or violaqting some pretty high up laws!
 
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