Researchers drove a NIO ES8 electric SUV deep into a Norwegian underground mine specifically to sever its external connections. The car kept attempting to reach servers, most of them located in China. These findings echo broader concerns about hidden data collection, similar to how a surveillance app was built to covertly target users without their knowledge.
That finding sits at the center of Project Lion Cage, a multi-year study initiated in 2022 by Tor Indstøy, a risk management and threat intelligence executive at Telenor Group. Indstøy purchased the NIO ES8 as a dedicated research platform.
The project arrives as Chinese EV brands expand across European markets with assurances about local data processing. Observed network behavior appears to contradict those assurances.
It’s weird that they didn’t use a Faraday cage which should have been way cheaper.
How is that weird? Do you know how much metal costs these days? The man hours to build a bus sized faraday cage and make sure it’s 100% secure? What do you do with your massive cage when you’re done, how much effort to scrap or resell it or store it?
They just had to spend a few bucks on petrol with this solution. It’s elegant, cheap, wastes almost nothing. Repeatable. Works with any size vehicle. It’s perfect.
Few bucks of petrol eh
Oh right it’s an EV lol 🤦♀️
No, but how did they get it into the underground space? Elevator? Or there’s a way to drive in which still prevents all signals getting out?
There are doors in mines to seal off areas(and keep balrogs from disturbing crews), so drive it deep, close to the doors and you got signal isolation
Yes, mining tunnels tend to have ways to drive in.
Also, they are inside mountains.
It’s Norway, we love tunnels and tunnel accessories. I’d not be surprised if they had to turn down offers of places to do it.
Petrol you say? Is this not an EV bus?
They could probably just drape the whole bus with a bunch of chicken wire (or wrap it) for a makeshift Faraday cage. I doubt that would take more than an hour or so.
Certainly cheaper and easier than building up a bus-sized Ferriday cage.
Faraday cage has to be designed with the wavelength in mind. Chicken wire makes a remarkably shitty faraday cage.
I’ve seen big Faraday cages in large companies when I was young. It’s never a one-shot project and it doesn’t cost that much.
Net income is multiple billions. Hence my question.
It does not cost much, but it costs many times more than just driving a bus into a mine.
Cheaper than driving it into a mine?
Do you think they mined out a mountain just for this project?
I highly suspect they used and already existing mine. Which is cheaper still. Unless it said somewhere in the story about them digging the mine specifically for this.