GMC to Begin Remotely Scanning Cars for Trouble 620
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?"
New And Old Cars (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Pretty soon, this generation learning to drive won't be able to get behind the wheel of an older car (read pre-1990). If it does not have ABS...How do i stop?? Whats that? I can't tailgate and wham the brakes at the last second?!?!?!?!
I beleive in the older cars being better. Easy to fix, built more soild, and you had to acutally drive them. Put down the cell phone and built in computer entertainment center and DRIVE!!!
This OnStar is not only a bad idea for future drivers...but its a MONEY MAKER for the auto makers. Hmmm...looks like you got a problem... better take it to the dealership and get that fixed.
Ten to one... it'll never be a warrenty part either.
This is all pointless BS that will jack the price of the car up 2000 bucks, distract drivers more, and cause a loss of skill in driving. Not to mention garage bills will be 5x that of a non-OnStar checking car.
I'll now put away the tinfoil hat...
-Digital-Madman (sticking with his 78' and 87' Firebirds)
more $$ on repairs. (Score:2, Insightful)
No substitute (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, there is no suggestion in the article that physical inspections stop or reduce in frequency, and in the UK at least there is a legal requirement for an annual safety check of vehicles. However, I am concerned that people blindly trust such electronic systems to an ever increasing degree - how many people already think that because there is no red light on the dashboard there is absolutely nothing wrong?
Cars still need to go into garages and be physically inspected, so the plus point for me was the line "The e-mails will also include reminders about when a vehicle is due for oil changes or other scheduled service, when customers actually have to pay a visit their local dealership" - I personally could do with a little more proactive reminding from my car as I always forget...
Re:Is the process so complex.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't make GM any money. You can't charge a subscription fee for it if you do it that way.
GM sees OnStar as a mongo profit center - they would like to be able to charge a yearly fee to each and every GM owner. That's why they've announced that they will push OnStar into the default configuration of even their cheapest north-american vehicles within just a couple of years.
For me, that alone will keep me from considering a purchase from GM (not like they don't have a lot of other problems too). I'm just not enough of a consumerist to pay subscription feess for my car and the FBI has already made use of similar systems to "bug" a vehicle without having to touch it.
Mercedes took the FBI to court where the court ruled that it is OK to spy on car owners through a system like OnStar as long as it doesn't interfere with the safety functions of the system. I'll bet my bippy the FBI has leaned on GM and others to enable remote snooping without having to worry about those pesky safety functions. Doubly so if you haven't paid the subscription fee but haven't physically disabled the unit.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/20/court_lim
Not that I'm worried about the FBI spying on me, or even joe random hacker abusing the system and spying on me. It is the fact that the system facilitates spying, possibly on "important" people like political dissendents, whistle-blowers, etc that bothers me enough to make me boycott it. I don't want to encourage such systems to become so common-place that everyone takes them for granted and accepts that much further an encroachment into our rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.
Re:New And Old Cars (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
But GMCs quality is still wanting...! (Score:4, Insightful)
Who wants to have this feature if the vehicle will keep on breaking down? And of late, getting GMC to "own" problems with its vehicles has not been easy at all! Contrast that with Toyota, who say [juat like the Samba Team], something to the effect that..."A disfunctional Toyota is their responsibility..."
I guess you must be rich... (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is that all this fancy crap is likely never going to be standard equipment on all cars. The reason GM is putting Onstar onto all its cars is simply that Onstar is an added revenue stream for them. They figure they can make another $200 a year for each car a year and all they have to do is put a cheap computer and cell phone hooked in to the onboard diagnostics that already has to exist.
I beleive in the older cars being better. Easy to fix, built more soild, and you had to acutally drive them.
And you had to fix them a hell of a lot more often. It's a documented fact that in general cars made today are far more reliable than the cars made in the 70s and 80s.
Re:But GMCs quality is still wanting...! (Score:4, Insightful)
The best judge on this i.e. the American public does not agree with you...sorry. GM and *all* cough...*all* American based auto companies have been losing market share at the hands of the Japanese and especially Toyota for some time now. In fact decades.
The best selling car in the US is the Camry...again a Japanese brand. It beats the next best selling American brand almost four to one! And these is no indication that things will change soon. Heck, the best selling and known hybrid is (you guessed it), - Japanese and that is the Prius.
Dou you drive a BUICK?
The ever going march of technology.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Take for example ink monitoring and re-ordering. These services have been successfully used by many computer users, especially IT professionals, but only as long as the service remains mutually beneficial to consumer and vendor. As soon as the Lexmark mentality emerges, and people become aware that the "service" is nothing more than an extention of the manufacturer's power over the consumer, the service will be rejected as a whole.
The key here is for OnStar to walk a fine balance. Unlike many other vendors, who can force terms of service at will (a la Paypal), OnStar can easily be eliminated by consumers as soon as it becomes problematic, without the consumer losing much (after all, losing a service that is more trouble than it is worth is hardly a loss)
OnStar/GM stand to win big if they can put forth a clear TOS and privacy policy which is in consumers' best interests. They need to be explicit about what OnStar is and isn't allowed to do, and how they are permitted to use your data.
In the world of optional luxury value-added services, a "screw the customer" mentality won't last long. OnStar's success so far can be attributed to novel approaches to vehicular problems, and since they have the captive market of GM customers to work with, they stand to make an enormous amount of money by treating people right.
There is subscription income to be made, and lots of it, as long as OnStar can pre-empt problems, and save consumers from wasted time. If it shifts to warranty enforcement, frivolous service trips, or corporate big-brotherism, then look for many people to just pull the fuse.
or if your worried about it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So long as you can turn it off... (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when is it okay for there to be an opt-out? What happened to OPTING IN!?
Next people will be saying "as long as the fee for opting out is reasonable I'm not going to be critical."
I'd personally much prefer opt-ins to opt-outs. Especially when my privacy is an issue. However this certainly won't be an issue for me, as I'm not planning on buying a brand new car anytime soon.
Re:So long as you can turn it off... (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you bother to think about this at all?
Other kind of security... (Score:5, Insightful)
Scenario 2: (continuing) The air bag protected my head and torso, but both my legs were broken. The car was still locked when the truck hit me. People on the street are trying to get me out of the car as fast as they can.
Yes, those are worse-case scenarios, but the risk of car theft is less important than the risk of loss-of-life.
Re:Airbags (Score:4, Insightful)
You think that's insecure, check this out: The only thing between a thief and your stereo is a pane of glass! All they need is a rock or something heavy, and they can easily get into your car and take anything they want! And get this: This works on ANY MODEL OF CAR! No car is immune to this kind of attack!
Can you believe such an easy-to-bypass security system exists in every single car model on the road?
</SARCASM>
My point: If people are willing to damage the vehicle they are attacking, then no system will completely protect you. The safety afforded by having the airbag active all the time is no more of a security "loophole" than relying on glass to deter thieves.
Re:Airbags (Score:2, Insightful)
Your Toyota was probably in a collision previously but you just don't know it. Those used-car quickie auto-body makeovers are hard to spot sometimes.
heh
Re:So long as you can turn it off... (Score:3, Insightful)
While it's true that they won't provide you service for free (after the first year), that doesn't mean that they won't continue to monitor your car for their own, or others, purposes. Seems like unless you physically disable it, it will still be available for abuse.
Re:So long as you can turn it off... (Score:4, Insightful)
That would be buying the optional subscription service.
I'd personally much prefer opt-ins to opt-outs.
In general I tend to agree. However, there are definite times and places where opt-outs are more appropriate. For example, long, long time ago I was once a resident advisor in college - I was responsible for helping out the other students on the floor, that people followed the community rules, and providing information. My first year, I established an email list to facilitate with communication. That year the email list was opt-in and only a small handfull of individuals signed up (~5 or so out of 100). Everyone kept saying that they'd sign up and several asked why they didn't get emails, it's just that they kept forgetting to actually sign up. The following years I automatically signed everyone up and offered an opt-out option. Only one person opted out, and he rejoined after a month. The listserv was one of the best things that ever happened to the floor as it greatly enhanced communication between the members of the floor.
I vastly prefer opt-in options as I think many businesses abuse (and ignore) their opt-out clause. Sometimes, however, the opt-out philosophy is the way to go.
Re:New And Old Cars (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Warranty claims? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So long as you can turn it off... (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, the "opt-in" must be limited to the vehicle's owner, not some third party. It would be so easy for law enforcement, or other "interested" parties, to leap on this as a me-too kind of thing. That must not happen.
If law enforcement has a legitimate need to stop drivers from doing 85 MPH on a residential street, then let them catch such drivers on-site, not by remote control. While catching such speeders serves a legitimate public need, taking the next step invariably leads to the eventual erosion of the right to be secure in your own home and property.
Law enforcement, particularly under the current set of national government attitudes in the U.S., always comes back with "Yes, we have the power, but we will never misuse it. Trust us". Quite frankly, if the power is there, it will at some time be abused, and purposefully so.
Re:So long as you can turn it off... (Score:1, Insightful)
Every night at 11pm for the next week, every OnStar-equipped vehicle unlocks itself.
Actually a big stunt like that would seal the system's coffin in a heck of a hurry! No consumer would EVER buy any similar system, after an incident like that.
So long as it's voluntary...and "off" by default. (Score:2, Insightful)
Same thing applies to telemarketers, spammers and government.
but is there an On-Star 'do no harm clause'? (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, if you have to go in for surgery, you are asking the surgeon to cut you. Normally a cut as deep as your internal organs, which surgeons routinely make, is a bad thing. A very bad thing. However, the doctors oath says "do no harm", so you trust that he/she is always doing what is in your best interests (OK, I am assuming they are legally bound by that oath). But what limits companies (and others) who have access to what you are doing in what you previously thought was privacy to "do no harm"?
Voice recognition software exists today... maybe not as sophisticated as in Star Trek yet, but it still exists. Once they realize there might be money in it, will On-Star (or others) eventually start listening in and start target marketing to you based on what they hear you talking about? Granted this might sound foil hat paranoid, but what stops the government from randomly listening in to On-Star users? Especially now that the 9/11 laws allow the government to force companies to allow them to look in on you without a warrant. Or maybe someone at On-Star has agreed to look/listen in on someone for a friend to see if they are having an affair. Or maybe they are stocking someone.
At one time you would be a kook to think that anyone was listing in on your private conversations. But with technology like this, it really is possible. So I think the original poster's questions are legitimate. If care to think about it for a while, you can come up with a bunch of ways someone might abuse a system like On-Star. So what is preventing possible abuse of this technology (including significant legal consequences if caught)? And not just for On-Star, but for any service like it.
Re:Bah! (Score:2, Insightful)
They most certainly do have the ability to kill the engine. Dude, they've *advertised* that ability in the past.
As for the possible danger, well, I don't expect they'd kill the engine while the car thief is doing 75 on the highway..
You know nothing of what you are talking about.
I work in the automotive industry. I've programmed systems designed specifically to talk to the modules on the cars. Half of US made cars in the last 6 years have gone through systems I wrote. I've also disassembled my own OnStar system and hacked in a serial port to access the GPS data directly. I most certainly do know what I'm talking about.
Re:Airbags (Score:3, Insightful)
By which law?
I know that in my Ford (1999) if the airbags go off, the reset for the fuel pump may automatically shut off, but all I'd have to do is pop the trunk and hit the big red button....
One of the myths I've heard about the cow crushers on police cruisers is to not trip the airbags and render the cop car useless in case of a collision.. but again, it'd probably just be that pesky fuel pump reset....