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GMC to Begin Remotely Scanning Cars for Trouble
Momoru writes "GMC, in an effort to give their vehicles more appeal to consumers, will begin offering an "OnStar Vehicle Diagnostics" program for free, where GM will remotely scan your vehicle for problems once a month via it's OnStar system. GM has had this ability for a while, however it was always "On Request". OnStar is already automatically notified in the event of an airbag deployment, and can remotely unlock your vehicle. While this seems handy, I am interested if anyone here fears the security implications of the OnStar system's power?"
that it needs to be done remotely ?
If not, couldn't they put in a mechanism in the car itself, where at the press of a button, all the diagnostics would be run, and a report generated and shown in a panel or something like that.
How does On Star send back the data?
E.g. oil needs changing....
I understand that On Star can send to the car, perhaps via a satellite connection. But how does the car talk back? Or can it not talk back? Is the car really broadcasting anything?
That could get ugly -- e.g. car has mic, and On Star personnel use the mic to listen in on you.
This is something I don't get about satellite radio -- how do they figure out what folks are listening to? E.g. is my satellite receiver talking back to the satellite? (no way!) Or is it broadcasting on some other frequencies, and the satellite radio company has receivers all over the place to pick up those signals (some of them, at least?)
As it is, how does a satellite radio company know what channels are popular/unpopular?
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I wonder if GM might *not* tell you if they detect something amiss if it's covered under warranty. After all, if *you* didn't notice anything wrong, why should *they* spend money (and lower corporate earnings) to fix it? Can you imagine the earnings hit if 10% of OnStar vehicles were called back for an out-of-spec fuel injector? The driver wouldn't notice something like that, aside from a small hit on fuel economy. But will GM bother to tell you your injector on cylinder #3 is spitting out 10% more fuel than it should be?
I'm not really worried about the security implications (don't own a car, don't drive), but I imagine they would tell people to get service (oil changes, brake repairs, etc) they might not necessarily need - like printers that tell you to change the cartridge, even though they're not empty.
What's worse is if the owner doesn't get the service, then the company might imply it would void the warranty.
It happens. I was recently involved in a project where commercial kitchen equipment monitors itself and reports performance and any potential problems via wifi to a central PC which will automatically inform the manufacturers of performance, maintenance issues and call out an engineer or manager if required via email, SMS etc. An big freezer full of food that dies in the middle of the night could be very expensive, one that rings you up so you can get it fixed as soon as possible can save a fortune.
That could get ugly -- e.g. car has mic, and On Star personnel use the mic to listen in on you.
Several years ago Heather Locklear was on Letterman or Leno, can't remember which, and was telling a story of driving with her friend and chatting away in her car, and all of a sudden a voice spoke to them and asked if it was really her, and she realized that the OnStar folk had been listening in and recognized her voice. She hadn't realized that they could/would do that. Neither had I, until she told that story.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
A friend of mine has a Toyota MR2. Recently he returned to his car from a walk and found that somebody had triggered the airbags (probably) by fiddling with an accelerometer.
Funny thing is, all the doors were unlocked. It turns out that when the airbags fire the doors unlock, and you can fire airbags by physically hitting the accelerometer, and possibly by shorting a contact.
So is this an easy way of unlocking the doors of a car? Sounds a bit insecure to me.
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I wonder who's schedule they will go by. If you buy a car, your dealer sends you "maintenance" reminders all the time. Funny thing is, if you actually RTFM for the car, the schedule is much different. For example, I received a notice for my dealer for 20,000, 30,000, and 50,000 mile "maintenance" along with reminders to change my oil every 3,000 miles. Checked the manual, there are no scheduled maintenance events (other than fluids) until 100,000 miles. nada. Oil, every 5,000-10,000 miles (the car actually computes it based on driving habits and conditions and a little light comes on).
So I have to wonder if they will use the real schedule, or the dealer needs a new boat schedule.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
OnStar was originally envisioned to use something other than cellular to handle the communications (I think it was microwave towers or something like that). It was proposed by some aerospace/telecom company that GM bought. Early in the design process it was switched over to a cellular system, but, at least in the generations that I worked with, it had a lot of limitations. (And not just bad cellular reception.)
The first and second generation systems (the latest I worked with), could not get information from the car and speak to the customer at the same time (most likely this is still true, since there's only one cell phone per vehicle). Basically, when a call is connected, while the nifty little message is playing in the car saying that it is connecting, it connects to the call center in data mode (just a modem installed with the phone) and lets the center know the state of the vehicle, which for a normal customer call is the location of the car, whether your lights are on, state of the locks, etc. Then the phone switches over to voice mode (which is a line transfer at the call center) and the "This is Bob at OnStar, how may I help you?" speel starts. If the airbag deploys, the car calls by itself and Bob's message is different, but otherwise things stay the same technically.
Of course, this means that anytime you need something done in the car while the OnStar agent is speaking to you through the car, you get put on hold. Generally, this isn't a problem, since if you need your car unlocked or something, you're probably outside of your car (I think you do get put on hold anyway as the data call is placed). The problem comes in when you're trying to get directions to somewhere. The car can only transfer your location when in data mode. So if you're driving down the highway at 75 mph and you missed the exit you were told to turn at by Bob, Bob still only knows your location when the call was first made, not where you are at that moment.
Though the using the cell phone to actually make voice calls was just being tested when I left (at least through a voice recognition system so you wouldn't have to talk to an agent), basically all the calls go through the same call center and are then connected to the requested number. You'll notice that GM vehicles don't have a numeric keypad in them; the cell phone in the car can only call one place, so it would be pretty easy (as another post spoke about) for a OnStar agent to listen in.
Also, the hardware in the car has hooks really, really deep into the system. An OnStar agent has a special demo mode they can go into to show it off at dealships where they honk the horn, flash the lights, unlock the doors, etc. What they don't tell you is that the hardware also has hooks into the ignition system. When I worked there, there wasn't any way for the desktop software to actually start or stop the engine, but the hardware is there. I'm not really fond of the thought of some call center employee shutting off my engine while I'm on the highway, but the potential is there.
As other people have suspected, when the call center connects to your car, there isn't any warning. I think this was originally intended to get the cars location, etc. if the car was stolen, but there's no reason that it's limited to that alone. In fact, I heard stories from the call center about a guy calling OnStar to locate his car and finding it in the middle of a corn field with his wife and her lover in it.
Be glad life is unfair, otherwise we'd deserve all this.