I don’t want to be monitored 24/7. I don’t want some faceless body to always know where I am, and what I’m doing. I don’t want to pay my taxes online with my bank account, and have the government have access to it (like they couldn’t get the info anyway, if they really wanted it). I don’t want the CPU chip in my computer reporting back to home base. I don’t want every place that I shop at putting my personal information into a database. I don’t want the computers in my car ratting me out. I don’t want to have to get a computer-chipped identity card because everyone in the world is so damned scared.
People think I’m paranoid and all that, but I still have the sinking feeling that I’m not paranoid enough. Glad to see I’m not the only one.
Very cool! Thanks for the link, Mynn. My BIL very rarely uses the cell phone, mostly because it’s so difficult for him. You’ve given me a great idea for a gift for him! (He’s also very difficult to buy for. He’s one of those bone-deep sweet, amiable people who likes anything whether he really likes it or not, if you can follow that tangled reasoning.) This would give both he and my sister a lot more peace of mind.
Dopers come through again!
Not OnStar, but there are aftermarket ignition interlock kits that can be disabled with a cellphone call and a code. It’s popular with the “BAD CREDIT? NO CREDIT? NO PROBLEM! SPECIAL RATES FOR ACTIVE MILITARY!” car dealerships around here. Optional GPS.
Basically it saves them some of the hassle that comes from selling the same car over and over to different people who can’t afford it and repossessing it on the first missed payment. Just disable the starter with a quick phone call from the repo tow truck as you’re on the way to the GPS coordinates.
One of the main advantages of OnStar over a hand-held cell phone is that in case of an accident, I have no guarantee I’ll be able to find my cell phone (rattling around loose in the car), whereas that OnStar button will presumably be exactly where the manufacturer put it. That said, I don’t have the service.
With the exception of your first point the answer to your bullets are uhmm no. If you are parked in an underground parking garage, and have no cell service, on-stars remote unlock won’t work. (or broken down in BFE for that matter)
That technology is called an odometer. No fancy GPS unit required. And speaking as a guy who has told people that something wasn’t going to be covered, 10 miles or a thousand isn’t an issue. The problem children are the ones that have not bothered to change their oil for oh say 25,000 miles
due to privacy laws here in the US, this would require your permission. Actually crash data would most likely be stored in the SRS (airbag) control unit NOT the On-star unit.
To the best of my knowledge this technology is not being used by any car company anywhere. On-star does not fianance cars, so why should they care if your payment is late? Cite please.
Way to skim my post there, Rick. I said that if there’s no cell service, OnStar won’t work, either. As for the storage of the crash unit, that can be found in the trunk of cars like the Corvette. Where it’s used in the monitoring of your driving habits. Given that many cars can now “phone home” when they’re having mechanical problems, and that car makers have placed the black boxes in cars because they want “real world data on people’s driving habits,” do you really think that car makers wouldn’t use the technology to void someone’s warranty? Remember, you’re talking about the industry which gave us the Ford Pinto, a car known to be unsafe before it ever left the factory. I never said that OnStar financed cars, but their parent company, GM, does. Nor did I say that OnStar did this, only that it was technologically possible for them to do so. Given that GM is trying to get their competitors to provide the OnStar service, I can see this as a powerful inducement to get the other car makers to sign up.
Read my post Rick. OnStar isn’t doing it, but it is being done.
I don’t think it’s necessarily even OnStar specifically that people dislike, its the entire idea of OnStar type systems. It will be cheaper to install the relatively inexpensive electronics in all cars than to have two relatively expensive assembly lines. Eventually all cars will be “OnStar ready”. Some of them just won’t have the little button. Or the little button won’t do anything, unless you pay.
If we’re lucky, the system won’t do anything, either, unless you pay… but there are too many “advantages” for that to be likely.
Well, you’re partially right, we don’t like the idea of OnStar systems, and as long as they keep running those shitty ads with people hysterically screaming, we’re going hate them specifically.
My SIL just bought a new car and got the OnStar service for this very reason. She constantly locks herself out of her car, and wanted it so she could be let in without having to call anyone to bring her a key. Yeah, she’s a freakin’ idiot.
She’s also a worry-wart and a sucker and was completely taken in by the ads. She was afraid of running off the road into brush and not being found or being in an accident and needing to Push The Big Blue Button. The fact that she could use her cell phone to do the same thing never occured to her.
My sister has OnStar and was in an accident going on a year or so ago. Her and her son (about a year old) were hit by some truck bad enough to total her car. So my sister, with baby screaming in the backseat (luckily unharmed but she didn’t know) and airbag in her face hit the button for OnStar…
…and was read the riot act by the woman on the other end because my sister was careless enough to hit the blue services button instead of the red emergancy one next to it.
I’m sorry but if someone hits the wrong button in an emergancy, you patch the damn call through to the emergancy people immediately. You don’t lecture a woman in a wrecked car about how she hit the wrong button and the one she hit is really only for telling you how to get to the movie theatre or ordering flowers.
Was enough to convince me never to own the system anyway. Funnily enough, I doubt they’ll put that call into their heroic commercials
Ooooh! For the really paranoid folks out there, I recommend that you pick up the January issue of Popular Mechanics! It has a neat article about those folks who’re spying on you (it even discusses OnStar)! First off, there’s AirIQ, these guys put black boxes in rentals so that you can be dinged if you exceed the speedlimit or drive the car someplace the rental company doesn’t want you to. Next up is ULocate. These folks offer a service so that you can track folks movements via their cellphone. One guy got busted for duct taping a cell phone to his ex’s car and using that to follow her around. (And for you Brits, there’s Followus, which provides the same service!) Then there’s Vetronix who build the black boxes that car makers install in their vehicles. Finally, according to the article, Progressive is testing a service whereby they monitor your driving habits and if they decide that you’re a “safe driver,” they’ll give you a break on your rates.
Now, about 4 years ago, I worked for a company that sold vehicle monitoring equipment, and I found the stuff to be really wonky and unreliable. It had vehicles in places they couldn’t possibly have been, traveling at speeds they couldn’t have been, and in general, just giving shitty data all around. And while there’s no doubt been a whole host of improvements in the technology since then, I still doubt that it’s even better than 75% reliable.
Are you guys trying to attract them to this thread or something? At least try to keep it down, or for Og’s sake, just use the hand signals we agreed to! Don’t you know they can hear everything you type???
:eek:
Cite please.