I can see how this may be useful to emergency vehicles that want to get through when someone is being a dickbag.

But otherwise: yowza.

In a few years, it will be standard practice for the police to remotely slow down and then shut off a vehicle which is the subject of a pursuit. This practice will be welcomed as a means of eliminating the public dangers commonly associated with protracted high-speed pursuits.

Meanwhile, insurance companies will quietly begin purchasing telemetric data from the OEMs concerning their customers' vehicle usage. OnStar already archives data from all vehicles, which contains GPS position and time, vehicle speed, seat-belt use, etc, and has begun selling this data in what they call "anonymized" form. Obviously, anonymized GPS data is pretty easy to de-anonymize simply by looking at where the vehicle is parked at night and then cross-referencing that against your own customer database. This data-collection occurs for all vehicles equipped with OnStar hardware, whether or not the owner subscribes to the service. It's all right their in the OnStar privacy statement.



Further, the FBI has already attempted to gain the ability to access the built-in microphone of OnStar-equipped vehicle for the purpose of conducting surveillance on the occupants of the vehicle. The court denied them this privilege (for now), based not on privacy grounds, but on the concern that when the system was used for this purpose, certain safety features were interfered with. It should be noted that this is a purely technical problem which can easily be corrected in a future release of the system:

Court to FBI: No spying on in-car computers - CNET

^^ SO my immediate question is whether or not I can disable those communications without A) damaging the system in any way, B) voiding my factory warranty, C) violation copyrights, D) violating/voiding my insurance policy. My point is, there ought to be some means of opting out, be it by hardware or software means (of course I'd trust the hardware method more). If not, then I may just have to just stick with "unconnected" era cars forever.

Disclaimer: everything I'm about to write is based on less than 5 minutes of Googling. I have never even seen an OnStar module IRL.

There are numerous tutorials on the web for doing this. On the older units, you can apparently just unplug the whole box (generally in the trunk) and no harm will come. Apparently some newer models integrate some additional functionality with the box (eg: bluetooth, radio, etc), requiring that the box, which is now up under the dash, be taken apart and the connection between the main board and the radio board (containing the cellular transceiver) be severed.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if, in future revisions, the radio board is integrated into the main board- this would reduce manufacturing cost. And, of course, I'd posit that less than 1% of the entire car-owning community is comfortable performing even the basic task of unplugging the box externally. We're an edge-case.




Also, I learned the word "stentorian" today. So that's cool.

https://www.onstar.com/us/en/get-ons...-vehicles.html

disabled easily by avoiding cars bearing the logos shown on that page.

How (and why) to Ramble On your domestic partner
 

So, you can't just clip the antenna?

Or just, you know, avoid GM in general. I have virtually no love for domestics at this point, Ford is the only one I'm even halfway interested in and even that's slipping.

I was going to say, they can integrate it to kingdom come, I can still wrap it in brass mesh or short the antenna to ground, right?

Or I could wire a neon sign transformer to the antenna, that makes things not function, right?

Not that I have any desire to own a car made in the last decade or two...

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1437675457

+

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1437675457

= about the same thing.

Interesting broadcast segment about GM and Toyota NUMMI. NUMMI | This American Life

In all seriousness, I wonder how long it will be until some combination of the EPA, USDOT and the NHTSA creates a rule which standardizes vehicle performance telemetrics and requires that the system be included in all new cars.

Much as is the case in the present day with regard to anti-lock brakes, traction control, electronic stability control, OBD-II, etc.

<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p></p><p>I thought all new cars sold in the US had to have xx seconds of &quot;data&quot; on board for &quot;accident&quot; investigation @Joe Perez.&nbsp; Or maybe this was in some pending legislation?&nbsp; Off to Google land...</p><p>Edit:&nbsp; NPR link from 2013; http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechc...the-off-switch.&nbsp; Easy enough to just add more memory.</p><p>Edit 2: http://www.motorists.org/black-boxes/check-your-vehicle</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

Forgot about that.

I'm just wondering how long it is until a standardized system is implemented to allow realtime data to be collected, and realtime commands sent, wirelessly. Such a ruling would no doubt be supported both by law enforcement and by insurance companies.

In theory, most of us are already carrying around a device which enables remote location and speed sensing, although the courts have generally been hostile towards the gathering and dissemination of data, without consent, from cell phones. Automobiles, by comparison, have generally been held to a fairly loose standard with regards to privacy.

Find the microphone, sever the cord.

Alternatively, sever one of the conductors on the microphone cord and reroute it through a switch. In the on position, the mic works. In the off position, it's disconnected. Seems simple enough? Might have to involve multiple switches for noise cancelling systems.

For us 1%ers, modifications such as this are fairly simple, given sufficient data as to know what to look for.

The vast majority of the motoring public, however, will fall into two groups:

1: Those who rant and rave about privacy, and make Facebook posts about how egregious a violation this it, but lack either the motivation or the technical skill to do actually anything about it, or

2: Those who are either uninformed or (much more likely) have simply become so accustomed to having every waking moment of their life documented for all the internet to see that they simply don't care.

I really hate hate my job. Transferred again. Thanks assholes! Way to motivate your supposed best person in the area.

End rant

<p>It's been so long I'd forgotten about the old &quot;blue screen of death&quot; in any Windows versions...&nbsp; Today Windows 10 decides I need to see one again; CRITICAL_PROCESS_END but at least they were nice enough to tell me I can &quot;find more information on the internet&quot; in&nbsp;the screen just befor it dies....</p><p>Whoever writes the explanations needs to be hung up and whipped...</p><p>I'll quote: &quot;If you have received a blue screen&nbsp;error, or stop code, the computer has shut down abruptly to protect itself from data loss.&quot;</p><p>Oh really?&nbsp; That's a big help. <img alt="Biggthumpup" src="https://www.miataturbo.net/images/smilies/biggthumpup.gif" style="height:15px; width:33px" title="Biggthumpup" />&nbsp;</p>

You're doing it wrong, I can usually pin down a bluescreen off that string alone, and if I don't know it already google will.

Tunerstudio is written in java, and I'm still (stupidly) using a usb to rs232 adapter of dubious origins. I am all too familiar with bluescreens.

Critical process end seems like a critical program might have crashed, but that's a bit obvious. I'd look in the event viewer to see what actually crashed, see if a 3rd party driver or program is throwing errors, 99.9% that's what it is.

GM antennas have 4-5 antennas(gps,cell,fm,etc) integrated into one unit. Iirc some share circuits but the signals are split further down the line. I think it is possible to disable only the one you want but it been awhile since I took the class on them or had a problem with one.

I had a pontiac G5 that had XM and onstar both, they were separate modules under the felt wrapped cardboard that was the package deck. That was 07, I don't know about anything newer.

As often as GM likes to integrate things into other things I wouldn't be surprised if they're all one now. Everybody's integrating everything though, which is why I don't want new car, at least not for a long while.