{"id":18902,"date":"2026-09-26T09:42:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T16:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=18902"},"modified":"2026-09-26T09:42:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T16:42:26","slug":"meet-the-pardoned-delete-mechanic-who-wants-to-stop-your-car-from-spying-on-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2026\/09\/26\/meet-the-pardoned-delete-mechanic-who-wants-to-stop-your-car-from-spying-on-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet The Pardoned Delete Mechanic Who Wants To Stop Your Car From Spying On You"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A pretty interesting story on vehicle tracking by law enforcement just needing a modern vehicle with no need to install a GPS tracker. I’d prefer just removing the hardware myself or the sim card if able, though some manufacturers are voiding warranties if you take your vehicle offline and it can’t receive firmware updates. And manufacturers have ways of opting out of the tracking, but can you trust them? Also, many dealerships install their own hardware devices off the OBD2 port for GPS tracking, and if you watch repo videos they can track the cars location. Also, some of these devices can be wired in anywhere else in the vehicle too. Of note, California was doing a research program for installing GPS tracking on vehicles for charging taxes per mile driven for a move away from the fuel tax, as cars get increasingly better fuel mileage with hybrids and electric vehicles that don’t “pay their fair share”…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/cowboystatedaily.com\/2026\/09\/25\/meet-the-pardoned-delete-mechanic-who-wants-to-stop-your-car-from-spying-on-you\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Pardoned mechanic Matt Geouge has built a device that blocks vehicles from spying on their drivers, because in 2018 his fianc\u00e9e realized investigators were following her. Now he braces for steep opposition from manufacturers as he unveils his new product.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

By Clair McFarland<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Matt
Matt Geouge diagnoses an electrical sensor problem with a truck. (Matt Geouge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Matt Geouge is building a device that blocks vehicles from spying on their drivers, because in 2018 his fianc\u00e9e noticed grey Toyota Tacomas were following her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geouge had started a smalltime diesel operation in his mother\u2019s garage in Hendersonville, North Carolina, his senior year of high school. As emissions systems on diesel trucks grew more constraining throughout the early 2000s, Geouge started writing \u201cdelete\u201d software tunes that let trucks disobey the systems and regain their horsepower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That got farmers\u2019 and truckers\u2019 rigs out of the emissions handicap, or \u201climp\u201d mode. It also snowballed into a multi-million-dollar business and earned widespread renown for Geouge, at least in Ford aftermarket circles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Geouge\u2019s work also landed him in the federal government\u2019s crosshairs because deleting runs afoul of federal emissions laws.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hit Geouge with a $4 million civil penalty in 2018, court documents say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was about when the grey SUVs started following Caroline Jackson, Geouge\u2019s fianc\u00e9e, the couple told Cowboy State Daily in separate interviews Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one believed Jackson for three months, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She climbed the Blue Ridge Parkway until cellphone service vanished. She drove to rock quarries and deep into the Cherokee Indian reservation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even when she could ditch the tails, they always found her again, Jackson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along for the ride, her 7-year-old son thought they were going on an \u201cadventure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Matt
Matt Geouge replaces a transmission in an F-750 flyback wrecker. (Matt Geouge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

‘State Of Denial’<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But Jackson was haunted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Presbyterian-raised North Carolinian and holder of a master\u2019s degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro was not the type who\u2019d spent her life looking over her shoulder for cops, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was horrifying,\u201d said Jackson. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t\u2019 consider myself overly paranoid. Especially as a person who wasn\u2019t doing anything wrong. I\u2019d just be going to the grocery store or the hardware store.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She wondered if Geouge\u2019s competitors were tailing her to glean trade secrets.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geouge doubted Jackson\u2019s claims at first. But soon he also saw the grey SUVs. He struggled to rationalize that they were following him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of those things, you\u2019re in a state of denial until it becomes so obvious, you can\u2019t reject the idea anymore,\u201d he told Cowboy State Daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pair started leaving their cellphones at home, but the grey Toyotas still found them, Geouge said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In late autumn 2019, Geouge spent 20 hours of garage time dismantling and scouring his 2017 F350 for a GPS tracking device.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He found none.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he found the \u201cblack box\u201d telematics modem \u2013 standard in newer-model vehicles \u2013 the satellite radio antenna, and the GPS hardware. He ripped them out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jackson said she was able to ditch the grey SUVs after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geouge stripped telematics devices from another of their couple\u2019s vehicles, and the grey Toyotas fell away from that one too, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geouge reasoned that investigators were using his own vehicles\u2019 data-transmitting hardware to track him and Jackson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to say that\u2019s total empirical evidence, but it\u2019s pretty damn strong circumstantial evidence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Matt
Matt Geouge is building a device that blocks vehicles from spying on their drivers because in 2018, his fianc\u00e9e insisted grey Toyota Tacomas were following her. (Matt Geouge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Withering<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Geouge didn\u2019t have the mental energy to fight all that. He\u2019d halted his tuning work and shuttered his business Spartan Diesel after the EPA\u2019s civil case.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around late 2020 and early 2021, the federal government shifted from pursuing merely civil actions against delete techs to charging felony-level prosecutions \u2013 a use of the Clean Air Act some environmental-law attorneys still dispute as unlawful<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second Trump administration later agreed, telling the public<\/a> early this year that it would stop prosecuting delete techs in criminal court.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But first, the U.S. Department of Justice sent one letter each to Jackson and Geouge, alleging each had violated the Clean Air Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jackson said she\u2019s still unaware how she violated the Clean Air Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how to tune a truck,\u201d she said. \u201cReally, they were just using me as leverage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office of North Carolina charged Geouge in 2021 with two felonies: Conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act and tax evasion, punishable by a collective seven years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geouge spent roughly $4 million on legal fees, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pleaded guilty to both felony charges in January 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jackson said she believes Geouge settled the case to repel the threat of criminal prosecution the prosecutor had made against her.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geouge still maintains publicly he did not commit tax evasion, calling the heavier charge a lever prosecutors pulled to make him plead guilty to the environmental crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the discovery phase of that criminal case, Geouge and Jackson said, they learned their tails had been state police agents. Geouge said the federal government \u201cgoat roped\u201d the agents into following them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While awaiting his sentencing hearing, Geouge learned that Jackson was pregnant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was sentenced in June 2022 to one year and one day in prison, and ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution, which he said the government accepted as a substitute for the earlier civil fine of $4 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He checked into prison at USP Lee, Virginia, on July 28, 2022, and prepared to miss his baby\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But due to serious medical incidents, Geouge was released to home confinement that December. Forty-three days later, his son was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He prepared to rebuild his life as a convicted felon. A gunmaker of several years, he\u2019d lost his federal firearms license, and the trust of the business and banking community.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jackson cast Geouge\u2019s reputational damage as heartbreaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know people have been through much worse. But I look at it like if you live through a war; except the war was only in our household, and everyone around us didn\u2019t experience this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She started pushing for a presidential pardon. She wrote 70 different letters and received \u201cmostly rude responses.\u201d She eventually connected with Wyoming-based lobbyist Jeff Daugherty and Colorado-based attorney Stewart Cables, who have helped multiple delete artists win pardons. They took on Geouge\u2019s case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On July 3 of this year, President Donald Trump pardoned Geouge<\/a> and eight other diesel techs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Matt
Matt Geouge is building a device that blocks vehicles from spying on their drivers because in 2018, his fianc\u00e9e insisted grey Toyota Tacomas were following her. (Matt Geouge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Modern Cars Are Spying On You<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To Geouge, another injustice remained: Modern cars spy on their drivers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newer model vehicles contain black box telematics devices, GPS tracking, smartphone integration systems, and other infotainment systems that lift users\u2019 data.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, cars can watch their drivers with cameras, including for fatigue and distraction<\/a>. Numerous newer models have in-cabin microphones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Audi\u2019s privacy statement<\/a> for model years 2019 and newer says the car system can disclose the driver\u2019s data \u201cto third parties for their own marketing purposes.\u201d  The company may disclose \u201cinformation about you and your vehicle\u201d to law enforcement or others when it has reason to believe someone is being harmed, the agreement says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A privacy notice by FCA US<\/a>, the parent company to Jeep, Dodge, Ram, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, and Fiat, says the company may collect information from mobile devices and may track the driver \u201cto provide tailored services.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also may collect telematics information through the vehicle itself \u201cthat concern your vehicle and driving patterns,\u201d and under a broad definition of user consent, share that data with third parties or insurance companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Satellite radio company Sirius XM\u2019s privacy agreement<\/a> says it will, as the law and user allow, sell or share sensitive personal data, precise geolocation and other data to targeted advertising entities and analytics providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These realities superimposed on the Geouge couple\u2019s own experiences put them in survival mode, Jackson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then that dawned into the realization others are facing the same dystopia, she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geouge has now launched a new business, Spartan Countermeasures,<\/a> and is in the beta-testing phase of his new telematics and data router. He cast the project as a welcome reset: this product is legal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe built it because we realized that if an advanced technical mind like Matt\u2019s didn\u2019t engineer a physical firewall to stop the tracking, nobody would or even could,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that\u2019s a lofty view of Geouge, his former employer Roger Shiflett, who gave him a job during the criminal case, isn\u2019t going to cut it down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a freaking genius,\u201d said Shiflett, who told Cowboy State Daily that he has lost touch with Geouge since the man\u2019s prison stint. \u201cIf he\u2019s inventing something, it wouldn\u2019t surprise me one bit. He\u2019s one of those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The federal government\u2019s 2021 indictment also inadvertently corroborates Geouge\u2019s ability to invent a telematics re-router. It says he loaded, sold, marketed and wrote vehicle software tunes starting as early as age 22 for a business that amassed at least $10 million gross revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But millions of dollars in legal fees, several hundred thousand dollars gone to restitution and multiple business closures later, Geouge is back where he started: Working out of his mother\u2019s garage in Hendersonville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s simultaneously hilarious and makes me want to rip my hair out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geouge filed for a patent in March 2025, to build and market a hardware device that acts like a train track directional switch. Wired on one end through the auxiliary switch, the device\u2019s other end links to the black box and other data-transmitting devices and lets them operate as normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when the user switches the device to \u201coff,\u201d it reroutes the radio frequency signals into a ground plane on a circuit board instead, said Geouge. It grounds the antenna circuit to his circuit board instead of the atmosphere from which it\u2019s trying to read the circuit, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Battlefield<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Geouge believes he\u2019ll face immense opposition as he unveils his new product, first to aftermarket vendors and car dealerships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure, the government will bristle, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he theorizes that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will erupt, and that they make massive revenues selling people\u2019s data to third parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geouge doesn\u2019t have hard proof of that. But he pointed to a controversy this year in which the car industry threatened to pull its products<\/a> from the entire state of California over a proposed anti-stalking law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The law sought to make companies provide an \u201coff switch\u201d option for data-tracking in vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lobby group representing General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen and other lawmakers successfully pushed an alternate bill that punts the deadline to July 2027 instead of July 2026. They called the earlier deadline unrealistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

California is the most restrictive state in the U.S. regarding vehicle emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, said Geouge, \u201cyou never see these OEMs moan and complain about the cost of development in complying with California\u2019s emissions laws,\u201d even though compliance costs billions of dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo me that\u2019s a pretty damning piece of evidence,\u201d said Geouge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beta Tester<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Isaac Jones is a flower farmer who lives on the other side of the county from Geouge, and knows him from Geouge\u2019s old diesel-wrenching days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones agreed to let Geouge beta test the routing device in his 2013 F350.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy truck isn\u2019t quite as complex as the newer ones,\u201d said Jones. \u201cYou\u2019ve got like the satellite radio, because that tracks you, then you\u2019ve got the GPS.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones said he\u2019s hopeful that Geouge\u2019s product will have a much broader consumer base than the delete business. That\u2019s because privacy concerns affect the political left and right, the white collar as well as blue collar workers, and especially \u2013 added Jones \u2013 victims of stalking and other crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a product that will appeal to a little miss in her Ford Festiva or Subaru who, her ex-boyfriend is just a freaking creep and works at the police station,\u201d said Jones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hardest part for Geouge, said Jones, is to design and craft tiny connecting devices for each different vehicle model, and all the vehicle\u2019s little modems, antennae, and systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Jones switches off everything, using the switch Geouge put in his truck, the truck is as dumb and disconnected as its 1980s ancestors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the AM\/FM radio still works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose don\u2019t track you,\u201d Jones said with a laugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pretty interesting story on vehicle tracking by law enforcement just needing a modern vehicle with no need to install a GPS tracker. I’d prefer just removing the hardware myself or the sim card if able, though some manufacturers are voiding warranties if you take your vehicle offline and it can’t receive firmware updates. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18903,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18902\/revisions\/18903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}