How is this concept any different then the ADT and other systems in homes? People praise burglary systems all the time.

If you have nothing to hide and are not street racing what are they going to do to you? When lojack first came out there was a huge speculation the popo are going to track you down, follow you, etc. etc. yet it was a proven system that was used only when the car was stolen.

All I can say is check out OnStar's terms of service.

http://www.onstar.com/web/portal/termsconditions

specifically #11 and #33. Yes they monitor many things about your car while you are using their service... How could they provide such advanced service if they didn't? However if you terminate their service... they are a company trying to make money... they aren't going to monitor you if you aren't paying.

As for monitoring phone calls.... OnStar uses the cellular networks. If you have a normal cell phone you are at risk just as much as your cellular provider monitoring you phone calls. If you are paranoid about that then use a pay phone or CB radio... or cans and string

If you don't want OnStar then cancel the service and forget about the blue button. Only worry about breaking off the shark antenna when you hear the government bailing out OnStar.

 

Okay...fine, I will say it..

I have done 140+ in my 2010 Camaro. I got no phone call, no text message, and no e-mail from anyone. The car did not shut itself off and guide me to the side of the road and lock the doors so I could not escape while the gestapo arrived to take me to the gas chamber.

I have reprogrammed the ECM, added a blower, removed the cats, changed the camshaft. I just had it in the dealership for a small issue less than two weeks ago (license plate lamps not working), and they had no problems referencing the car by the VIN, and looking into the issue. In fact, the manager of the service department was impressed with the car and wanted to chat about it extensively while his guy fixed it. There was no warning on the service writer's screen that said to void the warranty, even though I had tapped into some of the fuses for a PLX device.

With all due respect, I don't want whatever Kool-Aid you are drinking. I simply cannot see how the government could possibly be interested in a guy like me based on what he does with his vehicle. There is no reason for them to track me, even if they do. I think they have bigger issues and larger fish to catch than a guy who removed his cats (for off-road use only, of course ).

If they want to know when I ate a Snickers bar or rented Twilight for the wife, I hope it is entertaining for them.

1984 was written in 1948. It is fantasy. Yes, there are coincidences, but no, we are not there. If we were, we wouldn't be having this conversion.

And I when some lowlife drinks too much and slides into an innocent family after running a red light, the vehicle data collected can be for the benefit of the victim, just as much as being used as the downfall of the criminal.

If I get to the point where I am that concerned about it, I will leave the grid entirely...including posting on the Internet.

But I digress...Onstar is not an enemy, it is a product whose features can be marketed to some people. If it ever comes to a point where it becomes a serious privacy issue, people will stop buying the cars that have Onstar installed...and you know they don't need that.

 

Jason,

I understand one of the new parameters to be tracked (maybe they are already are) is the average speed of the vehicle. Can you think of a reason to need this info other than using it to adjust you insurance premium? Are you ok with that?

New York City and Philly are already trying to pass laws to tax sugar drinks like soda. Are you OK with your health insurance company knowing what you purchase from a vending machine and using that info to adjust your premiums?

1984 is closer to reality than you realize. I happen to have worked in the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) industry for the last 20 years. I sometimes forget how ignorant the public is about the intrusions into their privacy that only those of us in the industry know about.

For years we have been putting tags in clothing, shoes, electronics, etc. under the premise that they are used for checkout purposes. Those same tags can be read to track your movement. The speedpass tags used at gas stations and RFID tags in the new credit cards can be read remotely when you pass by the approriate sensors.

In one case, we installed a system in Circuit City stores that was used to catch dishonest warehouse employees. By the time the employee got home with his stolen TV, the police had arrived armed with video of the theft, and detailed info about the stolen product including complete description and serial number. All of this was fully automated using RFID. While this is a good use of the technology, it could easily be used in a harmful way.

While these devices all have useful purposes, they all are serious threats to our privacy and can easily be misused in ways I am sure you would not agree with.

The whole point of my original post was to respond to the request for feedback about the new Camaro and I expressed my desire to make OnStar and EDR memory optional. As you said, "OnStar can be marketed to some people". So why is GM forcing the rest of us to purchase something we don't want?

I am with you regarding "unplugging". And for me, that includes OnStar. But how do you do that if all cars eventually have a similar system to OnStar. They already do all have the EDR memory.

 

I gotta say, you definitely make some valid points on what could happen. Others I cannot agree with so much. I myself choose not to read quite that far into it just yet but at least I have an idea of some things. Thanks for the warnings anyway!

 

Any GPS can do that already. There have been speculation where people where saying police can confiscate your cell phone or GPS device to prove you where speeding... All I can say is that would take a lot of time and red tape to prove very little.

My only question is how would they know what you buy from a vending machine? Would you have to swipe your driver's license or something

about the credit card type RFID you must be a short distance to read them (something like less then 4 inches) People complained that just by walking near a checkout the register would pull their CC info and they would end up paying for someone else's stuff. It was another myth. If you are concerned then by placing 2 similar RFID chips together (I.E. 2 RFID enabled credit cards) the information is unreadable for either.

sadly yes they can be used for bad things... I understand asset tracking RFID and unfortunately it is almost necessary now a days. Somewhere I read at a store the employees stole more then customers.

The only thing is asset tracking RFID can't be passive... it needs a transmitter to track more then a few feet. Not saying it isn't possible but it would not likely fit in a key chain tag or credit card.

I only know this because working at a hospital equipment tends to wander off... we checked into RFID systems. The active systems required replacement after a certain time. The passive systems (like the sticker/stamp styles) only read when they passed within 24" of a sensor.

Agreed on all parts I would hate paying for something I didn't want

Honestly for the person that wanted to "live off the grid" an on-star or any new car might not be a good option. I am not really all that concerned with an inactive installed system. Your points are valid, I'm not saying you are wrong however you are talking about something you don't HAVE to use. Now if the government mandated that we all subscribe to OnStar.... yeah that would concern me

 

I agree with you, guionM. If you are living right, then no problem at all... I, too have shut er down at 140, and uhh... no gestapo showed up. I was forced into one of those orange and white construction pylons screwing up my passenger side mirror. Its going in the shop Monday to be fixed. Onstar either doesn't know, or they don't care. And frankly, neither do I. As for the fact that OnStar will even track the vehicle for repossesion. Well, make your payments and there won't be any problem. I dont see OnStar as an enemy, I see it as a tremendous help and when my trial subscription runs out, I will renew. I WANT to know if anything is wrong with my girl... and OnStar is emailing me every month a "checkup" on her. I have, in the past lived a life where hiding from the authorities was imperative to my physical freedom. Today I live my life in freedom and with purpose. I try to do the right thing for the right reason. Yes, sometimes accidents happen. Sometimes they are my fault. Well, then part of living right is taking responsibilities for my actions. Im by no means perfect, but I am willing to take my share of punishment if needed.
There may be something to the "theories" that are floating around... but if I have flipped upside down in a river, still strapped to my seatbelt and cannot find my cellphone...(This DID happen to me) OnStar helping me right then and there as opposed to the only alternative I had that night, which was to bust out my passenger side window with a broken leg, crawl about 100 yards to the nearest blacktop road for help... AWESOME. Took me about an hour to get to the blacktop. I had to wait cold, scared, bleeding for over 15 minutes until someone did pass me... And that was only because I WAS at the road... you couldn't see the car nor the wreck site from the roadway. I COULD have been killed. I COULD have been unconscious... By this time I had lost a lot of blood, and lost consciousness on the way to the hospital and, BTW... they found the car approximately 1/2 mile down the river, finally hung on a bridge... My bad. Driving too fast on a gravel road, Lost the car. Liability only. Just now got the hospital bills paid off at $75 a month for the last 4 years. But took responsibility. Learned a lesson that night. If you make a mistake, and you learn from it, then maybe it was a good thing. That fast. Your life can change forever.

 

Regarding the RFID systems, As a product support engineer, I have personally installed & tuned systems that read passive tags upwards of 20 feet. Sometimes you can get reads (not reliably) up to 35 feet. Depends on tag to antenna orientation, mounting surface (metal, liquid, etc.). Also floor antennas can be used to extend the effective distance of portal (doorway antennas). The challenge is not reading everything in the room when you jack up the distance that much.

Many companies are reliably reading all the tags on merchandise stacked on pallets as fork trucks pass by at a distance as wide as a lane of traffic. That is one of the challenges in using these systems, not reading items too far away. Distance is also determined by the tag size. Hospital systems usually have this limitation because the tag needs to fit on a pill bottle for example. This same limitation applies to credit cards and speed passes although the technology is getting better all the time. All you need to do is force the person to walk through a narrow doorway or turnstile and their pockets are only inches from the reader.

Many of my customers are hospitals. Generally what limits success in those environments is the refusal of hospital staff to adopt a new inventory control system. Many healthcare workers feel inventory control is not their responsibility. The technology is being used sucessfully in many hospitals. Its all about change management.

You are correct in that the employees steal more than customers. Fortunately they are easier to catch.

For the vending machines, you will need to register your thumb print or retinal scan and it is linked to your credit card. That is how they will be able to track your purchasing habits. Now they will have everyone's biometric info that chooses to use that system.

Can you feel the noose?

 

i agree with sweetzrag, all of these things may not be a huge deal now. but they will have their purpose in the future. im not hiding anything, yet, i dont want the government to know everything i do all the time. your rights will start to be taken from you 1 at a time. look at how much things have changed in the last 20 years. imagine how it may be 20 years from now. its kinda scary. i like my privacy. i never even liked when my sisters would be on the phone listening to my conversations, when i was little. i sure as hell dont want the govt. listening to my conversations in my car on my blutooth.

 

The hospital uses RFID for badges. Effective read range is limited to less then 2" The garage pass is also RFID. We learned you can't have the 2 near each other or you get no access.

For things like speedpass and RFID on credit cars, understand that the chip in these devices are as difficult to read from afar as the magnetic strip on the card. The chip isn't designed to be read more then a few inches from a reader... The chances of someone stealing the info from afar is remote.

The asset tracking was for medical equipment. The passive systems didn't work at the distances we wanted. The other options looked like the security devices you would see at an electronics store with the security cables wrapped around the box. They could hold more info then an identification number but had an expiration date on them.



there are very few machines I have seen that take a credit card and no credit card companies I know of that require thumb prints or retinal scans...
What you are talking about sounds like a dim, boring, bleak future where soda pop and junk food would have been banned anyway.

 

You are describing mutual coupling. The same problem also exists with EAC (Electronic Article Surveillance) systems (the shoplifting tags). When the 2 tuned circuits are placed near each other, the resulting combined antenna is less sensitive at the desired frequency resulting in reduced or no performance.

A few years ago this was a big industry problem with carrying rental VCR tapes into another store with an EAC system. In that case the opposute was true. 2 tags operating on a different frequency than the store system interacted to become sensitive to the store's frequency. Lot's of false alarms from that one.

There are other systems that detect at 20 - 30 feet. Depends on the tag and antenna and the orientation of each.

This limitation is arbitrary based on the application. Other antennas can be used to extend this range to cover a doorway so that your devices can be read. It's all the same technology.

These are active tags. Most just contain an EPC code (like a UPC barcode only for RFID tags) that link to a database where the information is actually stored. Some tags are coupled to sensors that read environmental information (like temperature) or can be programmed with a little bit of data. This can be used to determine that your seafood shipment never thawed out enroute for example.

These vending machines are currently being field tested in the NorthEast right now. See the article: http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/your_mone...e-20100807-lgf

Big brother is closer than you think. I know, I work in the industry.

 

Well...find a different job! You are only contributing to the downfall of the free human!!

 

I hear you I want to open a slot car race track. Problem is today kids don't even know how to solder 2 wires togther let alone build an electric race car. They would rather drive a video simulator than the real thing. Go figure

 

It sounds like the college systems that use the student ID for vending transactions. You can still use cash though.

 

Ah...slot car tracks. I remember Tyco Nite-Glow tracks, Big Detour, Super Duper Double Looper...AFX tracks, slotless tracks...man, those where the days...

I have a couple of slot tracks I picked up 15 years or so ago...LifeLike Camaro Challenge and Musclecar Challenge. I almost forgot about them.

Anyway...

 

slot car whats?! Is that for PS3 or 360?