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Yeah, I'd HAPPILY report every single truck rolling coal around me if there was a place to report that information.

Hell, I've seen a truck roll coal around cop cars and, obviously, nothing happened.

This is just gross privacy intrusion masquerading as "protecting the environment". We don't need 100% compliance to the law and simple prosecution/ticketing of obvious violations would go a long way towards solving the problem outright. Much like we didn't need our cars emailing prosecutors every time someone drove without a seat belt on. Cops giving out tickets for not wearing a seatbelt was enough.

> Sounds to me they're saying they don't have this already, but why is this investigation happening in the first place then?

They probably have tons of data and testimony from witnesses who use the product illegally. You can find hundreds of threads online of people telling you how to defeat emissions controls using their products.

The case prosecutors want to make is that EZ Lynk knowingly enables this behavior. If they can show that the majority of users are committing crimes with the app, that's a much stronger case than just rounding up a handful of witnesses.

Why stop there? Why not request the PII of every person who could have plausibly downloaded the app at any point in time?

My guess: they want to make the case that illegitimate use cases are indeed the primary use case. Their approach is to randomly sample all users and show that the vast majority use it to defeat emissions, undermining the app maker’s defence.

I don’t think that justifies the overreach. As you said, if they don’t have a case already, they shouldn’t be allowed to violate user privacy on speculation that some statistical evidence might hypothetically fall out of the data. But the legal system may disagree.

If you've ever seen any body cam footage on YouTube I'd wager that about half of them have a moment where the cop is asking someone for information they're not legally required to provide, and it's framed as "I have to investigate." The smart ones reply with some flavor of "ok, I'm not required to help you investigate."

This seems like a much more invasive, much more expensive version of that. "We have [potentially spurious] evidence that this application is used in way we deem a Bad Thing. We need to violate the privacy of this company and thousands of individuals to gather evidence that we should be required to get before bringing this suit in the first place, but we're the government so we don't have to do that."

It's called "parallel construction".

I've learned never to believe the reasoning provided in DOJ filings. Realize it is written as a calculated manipulative tool to get a particular result. Whether they want it for the purpose stated is almost immaterial. The only thing you can really glean is they want the result is of whatever they're asking for, but no one knows if it is for the reason they state.

  The DOJ first sued EZ Lynk in 2021, accusing the Cayman Islands-based company of violating the Clean Air Act by marketing and selling “defeat devices.” These tools allegedly allow users to bypass factory emissions controls on diesel vehicles, primarily through the EZ Lynk Auto Agent app paired with an onboard diagnostic (OBD) hardware dongle.

That's not a a valid argument. That's just an opinion.

The DOJ obtained a lawful subpoena through the legal system to request this information. The legal case is against EZ Lynk and by interviewing users (how will they know who to interview if they can't get the data? duh!) they can build their case against EZ Lynk and their product if the main usage is violating the Clean Air Act.

How else would the DOJ obtain evidence if they don't know who is buying the product?

Then go after the people that modify their console, fridge or your phone.

Slippery slope is fully lubed

They want testimonies to use against the app. The solution they're trying to pursue is to outlaw the app, not investigate its users.

Periodic vehicle inspection for emissions and safety compliance. Many jurisdictions already have this for gas engine emissions, a handful of states already have safety inspections. Done right, it can be low burden and low cost, and basically put an end to Def deletion. Done poorly it's grift to the shops that do the inspections, and an economically external annoyance to vehicle owners, and unnecessarily limits the ability of people to tinker with their own vehicles.

Any device with Google services installed has all apps scanned at least once per day.

>Real-time protections for non-Play installs Google Play Protect offers protection for apps that are installed from sources outside of Google Play. When a user tries to install an app, Play Protect conducts a real-time check of the app against known harmful or malicious samples that Google Play Protect has cataloged.

https://developers.google.com/android/play-protect/client-pr...

They will also go further for apks with novel signatures - take a copy, upload it to google to decompile and scan, and then if you have their express permission, allow you to install it.

99% sure Google would still know the app was run associated with other identifiers, but probably won't be turned over with the list of users downloading from the Play Store.

For sure. Another demonstration of why "side loading" software is better.

That's why F-Droid eventually won't work on new Android phones.

Certain car mods have already been illegal for a long time

Alternatively, given who was running the show, lawsuits against ICE cars (non-EVs) might have just been outside the bounds of what they cared about.

> Defenders will say "they have to comply with the law" but there's compliance and then there's compliance.

More importantly, there's not spying on the user in the first place. The law doesn't force Google to spy, nor does it force Apple to lock consumers (for sure not "owners") out of their phones, so that they're left helpless when the CCP bans VPN and protest apps [1] (not to imply spying from Google alone isn't bad, before any other actors get involved).

[1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/apple-pulls-mapping-app-used-by-h...

If you start tuning, then make sure you turn it off before bringing your car to the dealership.

It'll void any warranty.

I wish that article wasn't extremely ai written

The saddest part is, most people simply do not care, my parents constantly echo the sentiment that if I have nothing to hide, I have nothing to fear. I would argue this slippery slope came about 20+ years ago during the initial Patriot Act. They normalize the behavior, take a few more freedoms, and keep on trucking. I used to be proud to be American. Now I am just worried.

How is this, in principle, any different from the DOJ using a subpoena to get customer records from an adult store that was allegedly selling illegal explicit material?

Just because you use the internet to commit the crime doesn't make it not a crime.

Tyranny comes and goes, and sometimes just changes shape and serves some more than others, and that gives the illusion to those it serves that it's gone. It's always been around in some form or another.

Democratic governments can be held accountable, corporations cannot.

That's the narrative. In reality, you don't need a list of every user to find a handful of witnesses. This is very clearly a power play - the feds can't make their case so they're making distributing the app a major PR headache for the platforms distributing the app. Apple and google will quietly change their user agreements to not permit these sorts of apps on their stores. The company's leadership will likely escape prosecution but their business will be crippled if not destroyed despite not being proved guilty of violating any law.

> I think people should have the freedom to do what they want; if you want to have a truck that has horrible exhaust, fine, but we'll have it piped back into your cab for you to breathe instead of the people behind you, and if you want a car that sounds like a thousand go-carts racing down the street fine, but it'll be through headphones destroying your hearing every time you hit the gas.

Hey congrats, you discovered Society! This is what all those rules and shit are all about - your impact on other people, and their impact on you! It turns out that just saying “people should be able to do what they want” doesn’t actually solve anything, because other people also exist, and some of them are you!

Yeah

I also absolutely loath the coal-rollers and everything about what they do, and if I could snap my fingers and have them lose both their trucks and their licenses to drive with no other consequences beyond their frustration, I'd do it.

Nevertheless, we cannot allow this good reason for which be both agree to be used as a wedge to let the state just wholesale collect data for whatever reason they want.

Very soon, the reason the state wants to wholesale collect data will be for a reason we entirely disagree. That is not an "IF", it is a "WHEN".

So, no, this isn't a justification.

Very soon, that ca

I don't buy that those are actually clean. EU has always had majority high-MPG non-diesel cars that you also don't see here as often, simply because gas is cheap in the US. People complain that it's expensive but then 2/3 times go buy a truck or SUV anyway.

It’s not about this administration. The lawsuit was filed in 2021.

US Attorneys aren't forced to toe the party line on every issue.

This issue is just not directly politically important enough to get the "don't touch" treatment.

Donors and party power brokers aren't rolling coal.

Also strange as it would disproportionately affect modified diesel trucks, who are overwhelmingly Trump supporters.