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Stalling Cars Via OnStar
Lauren Weinstein writes to tell us that GM will be installing OnStar systems on almost 1.7 million 2009-model cars that will allow law enforcement (or anyone who cracks the system) to remotely shut down vehicles. Here is the AP's writeup, which like most MSM coverage doesn't mention any privacy implications.
We had a state rep here in CA named Mike Honda who proposed mandating a similar system for all cars here in CA 7 or 8 years ago. The privacy implications are horrendous. The idea never took root but he was rewarded by being elected to the US House.
Now I know I can bank on the stupidity of the american people - we are embracing the invasion of our privacy as a service.
all hope is lost.
Tinfoil hat on the antenna.
Onstar uses the cellular network, so stop the cellphone signal from getting to the electronics and they can't turn off the car.
"It is completely technically feasible for this system to need to be enabled in order for it to work. For example, with BMW Assist, BMW's OnStat-like service, equipment is physically disabled in the car if the user does not subscribe to a service.
This argument appears predicated on the belief that even if a customer doesn't voluntarily and willingly "opt in", that it can still somehow be used by police or hackers. I'm sorry, but that's simply not how it works."
Sure about that? Because such a feature is most easily enabled in software. For instance, the OnStar module sends a signal over the CANBus to the engine computer, telling it to go into the preprogrammed "stop, thief" mode. Now, what is there to "physically disable"? You can't simply "cut the connection" between OnStar and the ECM - it's only 2 wires (or 4?) and it carries all sorts of data. Sure, one could set a bit in the ECM that says "STOP_THIEF=disabled", but that bit is set via - wait for it - the CANBus. So the OnStar module could easily have a "suspected superbadguy" mode, where first the signal is sent to reset the bit - DESPITE the Owner's wishes - and then the "stop, thief" mode is activated.
Yes, it is possible to program hard protocols, or physical disconnects, and TFA is a candidate for a tin foil hat, but saying "it just can't happen" is naive at best.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
It is completely technically feasible for this system to need to be enabled in order for it to work. For example, with BMW Assist, BMW's OnStat-like service, equipment is physically disabled in the car if the user does not subscribe to a service.
That is not the case with OnStar. Unless you break it yourself, it is always on. Even if you don't subscribe, the functionality is left on and operational. That way, you can just give them a call and they'll turn it on and bill you, no need to take it in to a dealership to take your money from you.
This is no different than Lojack, which can also, in theory, be "activated" when a user chooses to have the service, in the same way this could be.
That's an item that someone pays extra for to have their vehicle be able to be tracked. It isn't an included feature on many (most?) of the cars of one of the largest car makers on the planet. It's installed on very few cars by people that chose to have it installed.
And if you don't believe GM's clearly stated privacy policies, which state, in short, that "OnStar will release information about a vehicle only for marketing research, to protect the rights, property, of safety of any person, in exigent circumstances, to prevent misuse of their service, when legally required to do so or when subject to a valid court order, or in various other circumstances", then you probably shouldn't buy a GM vehicle.
You do know that GM may make OnStar, but OnStar is available on non-GM vehicles, right? How about the privacy policy on those? What if the law enforcement agencies like this and it becomes a "safety" requirement in the case of kidnappings and such and must be installed on all cars? Hey, they mandated airbags that killed infants in the name of safety, so why not this?
Learn to love Alaska
OK, just to clear up a few things because I can. Why, because I work there.
There seems to be a lot of Oh My God!! It's Big Brother!! going on around on this one. But seeing as I'm one of the system engineers who has worked on this stuff for most of OnStars life... Get over yourself and go worry about something more problematic like DMCA...
You can also call OnStar and ask that you have your unit disabled. Just as effective but it does more to retain your vehicles resale value. Once disabled, it won't work until you call back into OnStar and ask for them to reactivate the unit.
As for removing the GPS antenna, that was dumb. The only thing the GPS it tied into is the OnStar unit and once that's disabled, there's nothing else to do.
It just leaves a more passive means of removing the functionality of OnStar without wrapping foil around your head.
Similarly with this stop button. Instead of a driver speeding away from the police, potentially killing himself or a family in the opposite lane, the chase can come to a quick and safe (for everyone) halt. If someone hacks the system (and remember there's a human operator in the loop there, so the operator can perhaps only take instructions from the police station), then the worst that can happen is that cars start slowing down on the road. Whoopte-doo, privacy violations ahoy!
Or perhaps the police would abuse the system. For
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Here ya go...
- The lamps were most effective in the early years. In 1987, CHMSL reduced rear impact crashes by 8.5 percent (confidence bounds 6.1 to 10.9 percent).
- Effectiveness declined in 1988 and 1989, but then leveled off. During 1989-95, CHMSL reduced rear impact crashes by 4.3 percent (confidence bounds 2.9 to 5.8 percent). This is the long-term effectiveness of the lamps.
- The effectiveness of CHMSL in light trucks is about the same as in passenger cars.
- At the long-term effectiveness level of 4.3 percent, when all cars and light trucks on the road have CHMSL, the lamps will prevent 92,000-137,000 police-reported crashes, 58,000-70,000 nonfatal injuries, and $655,000,000 (in 1994 dollars) in property damage per year.
- The annual consumer cost of CHMSL in cars and light trucks sold in the United States is close to $206,000,000 (in 1994 dollars).
- Even though the effectiveness of CHMSL has declined from its initial levels, the lamps are and will continue to be highly cost-effective safety devices.
Are you sure about that? I just bought a new BMW about 10 days ago. Today I pressed the BMW Assist button, to see if it was working. The nice lady who answered said that I wasn't enrolled in the service, and they couldn't sign me up until I went to the dealer and signed a subscription form. This conversation took place over hardware that, if you're right, was physically disabled because I never signed the subscription form.
Not quite there... It's on when you purchase the vehicle. But if you call and request that it be disabled then it is physically disabled and cannot be remotely enabled.
The FBI has already used a court order to do this in at least one criminal case but Onstar responded with a suit that recently was ruled on in appeal:
"The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday that the FBI is not legally entitled to remotely activate the system and secretly use it to snoop on passengers, because doing so would render it inoperable during an emergency."
http://www.news.com/2100-1029_3-5109435.html
This only applies in California, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Hawaii, and other states that fall within the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction so I presume the FBI can still do this in other areas. If the FBI can avoid interfering with the service itself when using it for interception then the order blocking this activity may not matter.
As long as its not illegal to completely disable these devices I wouldn't have a problem with it in my car
As a former Engineer for OnStar's 4th, 5th, and 6th Generation Models (it is presently on 7th Gen) I feel I should let the community know that there has always been a particular PIN on the device that logically toggles between Application Mode and Test/Debug Mode. So while I don't have a schematic for the 2009 model, I'm pretty damn sure that if you can find that PIN and switch to Debug Mode, there's no way anyone will be able to do anything remotely to your vehicle. Although, there is always the possibility that if you force the Test Pin you'll get a warning light or something...
Happy tweaking...
--
X's and O's for... oh, crap Anonymous...
I was going to mod in the thread, but had to post a response to this.
This is video of Georgia cops tasering a man to death.
The guy was having a problem with his epilepsy medication, so his wife called the cops for help. They proceeded to medicate him - first with billy clubs, then with tasers - repeatedly.
Because the wife also called the FBI afterwards, the local DA got pissy and softballed the case before the grand jury, which didn't even bother to watch this video before finding the police blameless.
The man's last words?
"Don't kill me."
Here's the link to the video
The link to the (minimal) media coverage
And the link to the discussion over at Digg
When you're the guy in this video, then you can whine about people "screeching about tasers being overused."
P.S. When one's POV is that everyone is a person "who would kill or maime them in the blink of an eye," then naturally one "wouldn't hesitate to tase someone who i thought was going to turn violent on me."
But that's not seeing the truth of each situation, that's being caught in one's own psychosis and fear.
(Since consciousness is self-similar, of course we'll see this same behavior at the level of the person (in this case the poster, it seems, and the police) as well as the level of the nation (for example, our war in Iraq) ).
We don't get to hurt or kill other people just because we're afraid.
And the solution isn't to keep hurting or killing people until we're not afraid. Since the fear is an internal condition, and one that blinds us to the external reality, no amount of external violence and killing will ever stop it.
The solution is to stop, admit that we're afraid, breathe, and then notice we're still OK. And that takes a lot more balls than just beating or shooting or tasering or bombing everything that scares us.
Actually, the moral of the story is that health-conscious doesn't always mean smart.
Asbestos isn't radioactive. It doesn't magically give you cancer from looking at it on the street or even touching it a few times.
Unless your friend planned to spend the next few years living under a tarp on top of the pile of asbestos in the street he had nothing to worry about. Your friend should read a book before he assumes he's smarter than everyone else and that the world is going to kill him but it's not his fault.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
Their cars are expensive, inefficient, underpowered, and poorly-made compared to the competition.
That's not entirely true, especially on the quality portion. Take a look at the JD Power 2007 Brand Quality Ratings. Surprisingly, Lincoln did better than BMW, and Ford and GM are in the middle of the pack.
Interestingly enough, the words you spat out in the above quote seem to be some sort of weird side effect of some proto-viral marketing that came about in the early 90s.
The video of that ID-less kid refusing to leave the library at UCLA was pretty bad. And those WERE definitely cops. Really the problem with the taser is nothing to do with its lethality, it's simply that some cops haven't been trained that the taser is not a good method of difusing a situation and preventing a scene. In fact, because it hurts like a bitch and tends to make people scream, it's good at doing pretty much the opposite.
So you can argue about whether that guy at the recent John Kerry rally deserved to be tased, but either way the police involved should have known that the route of a quick and professional resolution to the incident was probably more along the lines of carrying him out, rather than giving him 20000 volts. And by they way of course, they WERE definitely cops. Browse youtube more often or something.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
-"Police spokeswoman Tammy Ewin initially said no pepper spray was used on protesters, but Sgt. Clint Winkler, a supervisor on duty, told The Associated Press he tried to use pepper spray on one woman who would not leave, but it hit her glasses. She was then subdued with a Taser, Winkler said."
- "Winkler said campus police tried to quell the march, and at one point protesters grabbed the camera of a freelance media photographer and broke it. City police tried to help and said some protesters fought the effort to break up the march.
- "That's when they were told, due to the violence, that this was no longer a lawful protest," Winkler said. "They were told to disperse, peacefully disperse, and failed to do so we started down the sidewalk _ officers in front, K-9's behind us, and started pushing the crowd down the sidewalk.""
- ""The response was way over the top," Meieran said. "Why in the (expletive) were they using Tasers on these nonviolent protesters in the first place? I heard no dispersal order. What they're saying is total (expletive).""
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0821-01.htm
- "I was taken to the ground by a police officer during that time
I was pepper sprayed the officer picked up my glasses sprayed my face
with the pepper spray. Once I got to the ground I was then tasered in
the thigh for what felt like an eternity. It was the most excruciating
pain I have ever felt. I felt like I was burning. My hand reached
down to feel what was on my leg and I felt an electrical shock running
through my entire body. I could not stop myself from screaming. It was
horrifying. I could not believe that after I had already been sprayed
and on the ground they would then proceed to taser me."
http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2005/08/20117.php
"McNeilly said the officers' use of pepper spray and Tasers
at the protest was justified because protestors had turned
from peaceful conduct to active resistance that became an assault on officers.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_374322.html
Hmmm, I'm not saying I support the use of a TASER in this case, but it's not exactly a clear cut case of police brutality. A peaceful protest turned violent and she was at the front of the line, wrong place and wrong time?
Hmm, a little more digging gets this:
"And a breakdown of events (from a local man posting on Digg, corroborated by the news):
1. A man, Edris Robinson, strikes a cameraman covering the event (later charged with assault)
2. The cameraman runs to get police
3. Robinson runs to the crowd
4. Police find Robinson, try to apprehend him
5. His girlfriend, Deanna Caliguiri, tries to pull him away (later plead guilty to disorderly conduct and resisting arrest)
6. The cops use pepper spray on Deanna, she continues to resist
7. The cops warn Deanna a few times that they will taser her
8. The cops taser her"
That site also states some of the action happens offscreen on the youtube video
http://ronpaul.meetup.com/342/boards/view/viewthread?thread=3559981
Make your own conclusions I suppose
Oh wait, another oped piece here with a longer youtube video tha pushes "tasers are bad":
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/19/14057/0584
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVdH1G0KQt4 (again whatever happens that makes the cops taser the girl happens offscreen, but the video goes for 10 minutes)
Can't we all just get along
They're not killing the engine, just the drivers ability to control the throttle. Basically, they're just cutting the accelerator pedal wire.
Its already done.
On a leased car, if your payment does not go out to the bank on time, your car is automatically "bricked".
That is why leased cars come with OnStar: Not because the banks care about you [they like you dead after you stash 100,000 in your account], but because they can brick the car.
NYC outlaws it....
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
I doubt that would happen. Since OnStar also knows the make of your vehicle and where it is, if that information didn't match the information provided by the police then obviously they wouldn't shutdown the vehicle.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
No it wouldn't because there is a check and balance in the system. The cops don't shutdown the vehicle - OnStar does. If the information provided doesn't match or they don't provide all the information required then the shutdown doesn't happen. With a properly setup check and balance the possibility of abuse drops to near zero.
And I'm not sure of the situation that you're describing, but it's not the same.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
That's about the stupidest thing i ever heard. Locking your brakes won't help stop you.. pumping them will, which is exactly what ABS does. That said, the BEST way to stop in snowy conditions is to let your car coast to a stop, if possible. Braking can cause your car to skid out of control.
And yes, I do almost live in Canada.
Sorry but static friction beats sliding friction. Once your wheels are locked you have less friction between them and the road. Your maximum braking power is on the verge of locking but still rolling. This is far past the point where ABS chimes in.