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?"

Comments

Is the process so complex....

[amodm]

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.

Warranty claims?

[ThreeGigs]

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?

Padding the profits

[barista]

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.

Re:I know this is a bit off-topic, but..

[ContemporaryInsanity]

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.

Airbags

[MichaelSmith]

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.

Re:Airbags

[Miamicanes]

Yeah, but having your airbags triggered by a thief is several orders of magnitude worse than having a window broken. By law, the car commits electronic suicide the moment the airbags deploy and can't be driven, period, until a few thousand dollars worth of repair work has been done. Not just the ECU and airbags... the wires and sensors need to be replaced too. And then there's the matter of legal liability... any repair shop has to buy an insurance policy against someone who tries to sue in the future claiming the recertified airbag system deployed unnecessarily or failed to deploy when necessary due to some fault of theirs.

For all intents and purposes (in America, at least), a car whose airbags have deployed is effectively "totaled" because, from the insurance company's perspective, it's cheaper to pay the claim as a total loss and sell the car to a broker for export to some third-world country where the car can legally be repaired without the airbags and recertification than it is to pay to have it repaired, recertified, and liability-insured for use in the US.