[285] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] Stalling Cars Via OnStar: A Hacker's Dream Come
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (privacy@vortex.com)
Tue Oct 9 15:41:51 2007
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Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 12:07:02 -0700
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Stalling Cars Via OnStar: A Hacker's Dream Come True?
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000313.html
Greetings. Ready to turn over the keys of your vehicle to the
cops, or that clever hacker in the next lane? How about that
creepy guy following you on a lonely country road?
GM apparently plans to perhaps make this all possible. It's been
announced that they'll be equipping nearly two million of their 2009
model vehicles (that have OnStar installed), with the capability to be
remotely shut down to idle via OnStar commands at the request of law
enforcement ( http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Autos/story?id=3706113 ).
The claim is that owners will have to give permission first for this
capability to be enabled. Bull. I don't care what OnStar's privacy
policy says, if the technical capability for this function is
present, OnStar will have no practical choice but to comply when
faced with a law enforcement demand or court order, whether or
not owner "permission" was ever granted.
This new capability will also create an irresistible challenge to the
hacker community -- and perhaps criminal organizations -- to try find
ways into the OnStar system for triggering this fun -- one way or
another. It's impossible to hack OnStar? Would you bet your life
on that?
Unfortunately, this is yet another laudable idea that's being
"driven" into the marketplace before all of the negative
ramifications have been thought through or fully understood. And how
long will it be before such systems are mandated, one might wonder?
OnStar has long been the subject of various privacy concerns. This
new capability appears to be the most serious privacy-related issue
for OnStar to date.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com or lauren@pfir.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
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