Slashdot Mirror
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.
Now along with hardened thugs, we'll have half of the /. community hijacking cars!
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
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.
I remember being told 'that will never take place, we are a passive monitoring service' early on when i asked about 'can you shut my car down remtotely'.
Next step is discounts on car insurance if you have one. Then you get penalized by higher rates, then it just becomes required by law, ' for your protection' of course.
Anyone remember how the seat belt laws did the same thing? "They are for your safety".. " cant build a car without one".. "you gotta wear one or you violate the law"..."well, we can only charge you if we stop you for something else nad notice it".. Now they have roadblocks..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yuppies?? Welcome, strange traveller from 1987
Pulling the "INFO" fuse in my GMC Sierra renders OnStar entirely inert. The fuse is located in the underhood fuse box. I have had this fuse removed since I purchased the truck 3 years ago and have found no ill effects from its removal. Having reasonable knowledge of network security, I've never liked the idea of my truck being connected to a network.
Removing this fuse should work on 2000-2007 Chevy/GMC pickups and full size SUVs (built on the "GMT 800" platform). I believe the procedure is similar for all other GM vehicles.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
OnStar will release information about a vehicle only for marketing research
Automated email from the Onstar Market-Track Service
Dear On Star customer,
Our automated system noticed that your vehicle was parked on the 3500 block of AnyStreet and SomeAvenue. Our marketing info shows that this area of town is populated by the gay community. Please click on the following links if you would like to:
See a list of gay bars in your area.
Subscribe to Gay Porn weekly.
Meet gay men near you.
Browse our OnStar Market site for other gay related items.
Thank you for choosing On Star! We value you as a customer.
This is an automatic message, please do not reply.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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
Our old friend daveschroeder, a completely unbiased source studying 'intelligence' at the American Military University, is there to tell us not to be afraid of our government.
He implies that this system will be under the owner's control, and that police will only activate the system when they can see the car, and know it can stop safely. Because the police always operate in such a safe and sane manner. And our government has never taken voluntary safety devices like seat belts or air bags and made them mandatory. And the government has never, ever lied to us.
Thanks again, dave! Without you, we wouldn't know what to be scared of (terrists) and what not to be scared of (the status quo).
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
LoJack, which has a very good track record in stolen car recovery, is better designed from a privacy standpoint. LoJack hides a box somewhere in the car. It normally doesn't transmit anything. The box just listens to a subcarrier on broadcast stations for a signal that tells the LoJack boxes to turn on. When the box turns on, it starts sending out a signal, which suitably equipped police cars can pick up and home in on by radio direction finding.
It's reasonably easy to monitor LoJack for abuse. The broadcast control signal can be listened to by anybody, and the signal from a LoJack box isn't a much of a secret either. When it's triggered, every police car with LoJack gear in range lights up, so there's considerable visibility of its use. Southern California has about 500 LoJack activations a month. LAPD has their helicopters equipped with LoJack receivers, so stealing a LoJack-equipped car is likely to result in being spotlighted from the air within minutes.
Thank you! I made this same point back in the discussion about the "don't tase me bro!" kid. The problem is tasers isn't the 1 person out of 10,000,000 that's going to die as a result of being tased. The problem is that the taser has lowered the standard of when to use force.
Forgot about the gun v. taser debate. Would a cop have been willing to use his nightstick on that kid? Yes, he was being a jerk and didn't go prone for them. But would they really have whipped out nightsticks and used them? Not likely. The image of four cops beating up a single college kid with nightsticks wouldn't play very well, now would it?
Ah! But the taser! We can use the taser. It's lowered the standard for when force can be used. And that's a bad thing, imho.
Another taser story that sticks out in my mind was a judge out in California ordering his court officers to tase a defendant who refused to stop speaking when ordered to. Yeah, throw him back in jail for contempt of court, but TASE someone for speaking? Not even screaming and yelling. Speaking! That's bullshit. If I walk up to Dick Cheney and tell him to go "fuck yourself" in a normal tone of voice is that really grounds for his USSS guards to tase you?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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.
Governments, by nature, take as much power as they can get their grubby hands on. Things like this are dangerously close to living in a police state. Police states do not exist to serve their citizens, but only to collect and consolidate power for some select few.
People putting their foot down and saying "No" is the oversight of the police that you were asking for.