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OnStar Considered Harmful
Frisky070802 writes "A few weeks ago Slashdot ran an article on the privacy issues in EzPass. Some of the comments referred to other things Big Brother could do with GPS in cars, and now the New York Times has run a column on what else your car is saying about you (free registration req'd). From the article: 'Aviel D. Rubin, the technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said that every new technology with the potential to invade privacy was introduced with pledges that it would be used responsibly.
But over time, he said, the desire of law enforcement and business to use the data overtook the early promises. "The only way to get real privacy," he said, "is not to collect the information in the first place."'"
Google link here
This Car Can Talk. What It Says May Cause Concern. By JOHN SCHWARTZ Published: December 29, 2003 Last year, Curt Dunnam bought a Chevrolet Blazer with one of the most popular new features in high-end cars: the OnStar personal security system. The heavily advertised communications and tracking feature is used nationwide by more than two million drivers, who simply push a button to connect, via a built-in cellphone, to a member of the OnStar staff. A Global Positioning System, or G.P.S., helps the employee give verbal directions to the driver or locate the car after an accident. The company can even send a signal to unlock car doors for locked-out owners, or blink the car's lights and honk the horn to help people find their cars in an endless plain of parking spaces. A big selling point for the system is its use in thwarting car thieves. Once an owner reports to the police that a car has been stolen, the company, which was started by General Motors, can track it to help intercept the thieves, a service it performs about 400 times each month. But for Mr. Dunnam, the more he learned about his car's security features, the less secure he felt. A research support specialist at Cornell University, he is concerned about privacy. He has enough technical knowledge to worry that someone else - say, law enforcement officers, or even hackers - could listen in on his phone calls, or gain control over his automotive systems without his knowledge or consent. Any gadget that can track a carjacker, he reasons, can just as readily be used to track him. "While I don't believe G.M. intentionally designed this system to facilitate Orwellian activities, they sure have made it easy," he said. OnStar is one of a growing number of automated eyes and ears that enhance driving safety and convenience but that also increase the potential for surveillance. Privacy advocates say that the rise of the automotive technologies, including electronic toll areas, location-tracking devices, "black box" data recorders like those found on airplanes and even tiny radio ID tags in tires, are changing the nature of Americans' relationship with their cars. Beth Givens, founder of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, said the car had long been a symbol of Kerouac-flavored freedom, and a haven. "You can talk to yourself in your car, you can scream at yourself in your car, you can go there to be alone, you can ponder the heavens, you can think deep thoughts all alone, you can sing," she said. With the growing number of monitoring systems, she said, "Now, the car is Big Brother." James E. Hall, a transportation lawyer and former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the monitoring systems presented a subtle blend of benefit and risk. "We are moving toward a kind of automobile that nobody's ever known," he said. "It's mostly good news, but there are negative things that we will have to work through." Mr. Dunnam said he had become even more concerned because of a federal appeals court case involving a criminal investigation in Nevada, in which federal authorities had demanded that a company attach a wiretap to tracking services like those installed in his car. The suit did not reveal which company was involved. A three-judge panel in San Francisco rejected the request, but not on privacy grounds; the panel said the wiretap would interfere with the operation of the safety services. OnStar has said that its equipment was not involved in that case. An OnStar spokeswoman, Geri Lama, suggested that Mr. Dunnam's worries were overblown. The signals that the company sends to unlock car doors or track location-based information can be triggered only with a secure exchange of specific identifying data, which ought to deter all but the most determined hackers, she said. As for law enforcement, the company said it released location data about customers only under a court order. "We have no choice but to be responsive to court orders," Ms. Lama said. Other information systems being added to cars can be used for tracking as well. Electronic toll systems ar
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
I think that's a general rule with information that's often not taken very seriously.
When I look at my (non-US) government and a large number (not all) of organisations that I give personal information to, I generally trust them. Within certain bounds, it's not very likely that most people will abuse the trust that you put in them. They ask for information because they think it might be useful for what they're doing for you, and that's initially its primary use. There are obviously some exceptions with marketing motivations -- I don't trust spammers with my email address and never gave them permission to use it. Partly that's where privacy policies and legislation should come in where possible.
The problem, though, is that times change, organisations change, the people running them change, societial views change, and ethics change. Data that you've given to an organisation, on the other hand, doesn't change on its own. It stays right there to be interpreted and used in whichever ways the current powers see fit.
Consider how many organisations and governments have changed over the last 50 years. Then consider that most of the information collected 50 years ago is probably still on record. Just because you trusted the people heading an organisation or a committee or a council or a government at a particular time does not mean that those people won't change later on.
Information collected today will almost certainly be on record 50 years from now. In fact, it's likely that much more of it will remain on record than from the past 50 years until now, because digital information is so easy and cheap to manage and manipulate compared with paper.
For the same reasons when I was a membership secretary for a small-medium organisation I felt an ethical obligation to destroy at least the digital membership records of former members a year after they left, unless there was a good reason to keep them. I wasn't going to do anything deceptive with them, but I couldn't guarantee who would be on the committee in five or ten years' time. This isn't the norm with most organisations, though.
Realistically I do trust the majority of people and organisations when they tell me that they wouldn't abuse information that I give them. It means a lot more to me though if they'll commit to destroying it after they no longer need it.
I don't know if this is a problem that can easily be fixed. Realistically information about people is what the world runs on -- it's a fuzzy boundary and matter of opinion that determines how much is too much or what constitutes misuse. If it suits you then you could get all paranoid and not give out any personal information to anyone, but that's not an option for most people and in some situations it's not legal for arguably reasonable reasons.
I just don't want to get pulles over for an expired inspection or a busted tail light and have the cops pull up a GPS "how's my driving" record for the last few days. Or worse yet, have onstar send my ticket in the mail becasue they detected my speeding. So yeah, as long as the information is not used against me I really don't catre.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
You only pay to use the services - AFAIK all GM cars that have the option have the hardware installed.
There is a way round this. In the UK the Data Protection Act (Here) Specifies that data is kept no longer than required.
I'm not sure how enforcable this is, but the legislation is there.
Slightly off-topic, but it's interesting to note that when Google News or other links send me to "registration required" sites, the username/password of password/password usually works.
;)
I first learned of that for the NYT links here on slashdot, but it seems to be everywhere.
It'd be pretty interesting to see the stats on this "password" person.
$0.02 (CDN)
Folks - this isn't about speeding. OnStar is everything : GPS, location tracking, speed, locking and unlocking your car doors, disabling the engine, knowing how many people are in the car (determined by how many seat belts are latched), and the real kicker : real time audio surveillance.
You read that right - they can open the phone connection on your in-dash phone and listen to everything said and done in the vehicle. In theory they should announce themselves, but don't kid yourself.
Think you are being entirely too cool taking your secretary out in your new Mercedes Benz for a ride in the country and a romp in the back seat? Not only do they know where you picked her up, where you went, where you stopped in the country to tap a little ass, they can listen in on the juicy parts.
If you think they are not already doing it, think again. Watch the movie Enemy of the State and remember it is about 5 years old. That's about 28 in computer years.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Wrong, natural Aspiration means no turbo or supercharger -- or in some purists belief's N2O.
All Diesels are injected, most are turbo charged (not N/A). Be it mechanical or electronic injection, it's still injection -- without the above mentioned forced air inducers though, it's a N/A vehicle.
I was in Lincoln, NE when it happened. Listened to it all on the radio. What actually happened was that after the killers (they took no money) hijacked the car (took the keys from the owner at gunpoint). The police were tracking them using the onstar system when the radio/TV companies started broadcasting their theories and asking the police if they were using the onstar to track them. The police, of course, were 'no comment'. This caused the killers to ditch the SUV and the police finally caught them in an stolen old pickup some distance away from the abandoned SUV.
Many people were upset with the media there because they felt that the killers heard about the onstar on the radio and ditched the SUV because of it.
I don't read AC A human right
Subaru has offered OnStar since 2001
Clear, Dark Skies