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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?"
when you're making it in the back seat?
I bet they get a kick out of that. "Hey everybody, listen to this!"
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
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.
Okay this is getting out of hand here. I HATE modern cars (I'm 22). For many reasons. Every feature added to cars now a days decreases the ability for younger kids to acutally DRIVE! I know people that can't back their car up with out a backup display screen and warning sensor. I know a woman that can't change lanes with out her on board display screen in her Lincoln.
With all these "features" it takes away from the driving, now adays.. kids get into the car an expect it to do everything for them. Power this, ABS that, self detecting OnStar. Its all bull.
Not to mention automatic transmission, power steering, hydraulic brakes, automatic spark advance, electric starter and fuel pump.
How can you call it real driving when the car does everything? If you don't set the spark advance yourself, or hand pump the fuel to the carburetors, how can you call yourself a driver? "Turn a key and it starts" - bull, I tell you. Bull.
Yes, making things convenient and useable is obviously a bad idea.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
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?
Yeah! It's like those new fangled digital radios the kids carry around with them. They don't even know how to go to a call channel and ask if someone is on. The radio does that for them, all they have to do is select the person they want to talk to from a preprogrammed list. When I was a kid you had to learn how to read the power level on your radio and switch to the right frequency to use a repeater. With these new digital radios kids don't have to know anything about their local repeater network, the computer in the handset does it all automatically. I spent years learning morse code and these kids today just type in what they want to say with a keypad.. it's so inefficient too! All this pointless BS is just an excuse to charge access to a radio network. All these unlicensed users are getting ripped off and they don't even know it. They're so disconnected from the skill of using a radio they don't even know they're using one.. the idiots call it a "phone" and they pay through the nose because of it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
jan 2006 - the onStar system is on-line.
feb 2006 - the onStar system gains awareness.
GM, in a panic tries to pull the plug, in turn the onStar system tries to defend it self.
march 2006 - everyone is in terror becoase of the killer cars.
april 2006 - giant cats eat all the killer cars - we are saved thanks to the mircal of atomic mutation!
but at what cost?
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.
Onstar is easy to disable (pull a fuse) and doing so has no ill effects as far as I can tell from first-hand experience. Once the fuse was reinstalled the system continued to function as before. A description of which fuse must be pulled can be found here:
/ pp4/pp4pg2.html
http://www.hypertech-inc.com/install_instructions
From the linked article (bold emphasis mine):
From the images on the linked page, the cellular antenna appears to be mounted at the top-rear of the vehicle.
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.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The OnStar system interfaces to the data bus of the various computer modules in the car. What this is actually doing is what's often called "reading the trouble codes".
It's the same thing you can do with a $50 tool from AutoZone. Any time a problem is detected by the computer, it throws up a code. Some of these codes cause the SES light to come on, some don't. An ODBII scanner plugs in behind the dash and reads these codes from the computer modules, then displays them. Usually in a nicer to read format.
That's all this is doing. They call the OnStar system in the car, tell it to read the codes, and send it back to them. While it's possible for them to send other commands, there's really not much in it for them to do so. You can do some unusual things via that interface (I could have endless fun sticking your car into diagnostic mode and triggering the windshield wipers to run a test cycle), but you can't get back a whole lot of information that they don't already have. VIN, info on the car components, maybe miles travelled and such, but nothing that I would consider crucial to "privacy".
You could figure out MPG and average speed, but hell, I speed all the time and my computer system says my average is only around 40-ish. Instantaneous speed couldn't be gotten from the car via this interface.
Of course, they don't need the car to get that info. OnStar systems have a GPS built in, and that will give them instantaneous speed. But that doesn't require them talking to the car to do it.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.