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How to disable and REMOVE Onstar---> because it is spying on you whether its on or o

202K views 167 replies 78 participants last post by  Steverino 
#1 ·
How to disable and REMOVE Onstar---> because it is spying on you whether its on or o

Hi there, recently there have been very disturbing things in the news about OnStar, like
1. they will collect data about you including vehicle tracking -->even if you do not use the service.

2.Even if you do not use the service, by court order it can be turned on and track you.

3.I do not want someone to be able through electronic methods to disable my car. Because this power can be misused. Yes if my car is stolen I want the cops to shoot out the robber, but if I am in a rural Texas town, where the sheriff is working with teh Texas Chainsaw killer, then I don't want anyone hacker or cop to be able to disable onstar.

So CAN I REMOVE IT FROM A CHEVY VOLT?

Please see the following videos before making opinions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGqH5cbYYeM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXvkCFwXweU
 
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#130 ·
My comments were not about who has a *right* to privacy. It is about who might care more about privacy. Everyone has the same rights. For instance, just because I carry a cell phone with location services turned on doesn't mean I do not have a right to privacy. I have the right to choose to turn it off if I want, and that is the important thing. If they locked it to my ankle, that would be a totally different situation. That would take away my right to choose. I also drive an OnStar vehicle purely by choice. If I ever think it is being used improperly, I have the right to pull the fuse or drive a different car. The option is what is important (to me). Meanwhile, I prefer the convenience of these devices to the other option of being certain that the mundane details of my suburban life are inaccessible to others. I really don't care who knows I was at x location at 2:55pm. I like knowing I could control that information if I wanted to, but I don't want to yet.
 
#131 ·
"If you don't have anything to hide then what are you worried about"

Ugh. I worked for the DOJ for many years. It doesn't matter one whittle if YOU think you aren't doing anything wrong, what matters is does the Government think you are doing something wrong, or additionally does the Government think someone you know is doing something wrong (guilt by association).

but related, thinking that you are being tracked and data-mined constantly is truth not paranoia in the US of A. I know, I (sadly) helped build and support some of the systems in question.
 
#135 ·
While I don't like commercial data gathering, I actually do like knowing that our government is collecting intelligence for the purpose of preventing terrorist attacks and other national security objectives that help me and all Americans. I would be pretty concerned if they were not doing that.

But I also think this debate has gotten pretty far off topic. It started as a question about disabling OnStar in a Volt (on-topic for this forum).
 
#136 · (Edited)
While I don't like commercial data gathering, I actually do like knowing that our government is collecting intelligence for the purpose of preventing terrorist attacks and other national security objectives that help me and all Americans. I would be pretty concerned if they were not doing that...
How did you feel about government data mining before 9/11? It probably sounded a lot less attractive before the attack. We're letting our fears (unreasoned or otherwise) get the better of us when we trade all of this personal intrusion for a false sense of security. And that's assuming that everyone who's collecting and using the data is on the up and up. No doubt some nasty plots have been foiled but, even with all of these impingements on our privacy, there will always be some lone yahoo(s) who will get through anyway. Additionally, much has been made here about why we should all throw in the towel on our privacy because "The Government" knows all about all of us through our smart phones anyway, but if the government is already so all-knowing, why do they need Apple's help to crack an iPhone's security. It may not be quite time to give up on this yet. Look, fighting for our freedoms is hard. In spite of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it's always under attack, from without and within. That's why we have to make a stand whenever we recognize what's going on. Otherwise, we'll all wake up one morning and there'll be government cameras in every room in all of our houses...and we'll each have to try to rationalize it to ourselves by saying "I've got nothing to hide..."

...But I also think this debate has gotten pretty far off topic. It started as a question about disabling OnStar in a Volt (on-topic for this forum).
I agree, but I do think his question has been answered. I'm curious to see, when I take delivery of my '17 in a couple of weeks, if there will be any negate side effects to pulling fuse 23.
 
#137 ·
OK Doc,

Let's say you have a special lady friend in you life, and just once you let her borrow your Volt because Aunt Flo needs some immediate help one dark and stormy night.

So she's driving down that dark country road and a drunk crosses the center line and a head-on collision happens.
Wouldn't YOU want the authorities notified and dispatched to the exact scene almost immediately?

Or is it OK to wait for another car to drive down this dark road sometime later and find this mess, make the call and try to describe where this collision is located?

How's that for a "side effect to pulling fuse 23" ?

Now,, if it's just you and your Volt at the remote bunker,,, carry on. I see your point about security issues and Onstar.
 
#139 · (Edited)
If anyone ever attempts to test out this Fuse 23 business, you may wish to first disconnect the OnStar back-up battery.
Otherwise it will automatically be connected to the VCIM and eventually be drained requiring replacement should anyone ever wish to reinstate the system. I think most will be disappointed with the loss of functionality that comes with the elimination of the telecommunication/GPS system but hey, to each his/her own.

WOT
 
#140 ·
IIRC, once you access the module, the antenna lead unscrews.

Sidebar - Wait until they find out their cell phone company tracks them! And their computer! And the biggest surprise is when they find out what the airbag computer stores in it.
 
#141 ·
And what the power company knows -just- from your electricity use, and Maker forbid they have a "smart" TV or a home security system with cameras and offsite storage, and don't even get me started on email.
(P.S. TinFoil hats for sale, cheaper in bulk! <grin>)
 
#142 ·
Well, when autonomous vehicles become the only option...all of the paranoid people in the world will not be able to get around in a personal vehicle without being tracked...:rolleyes:
 
#144 · (Edited)
Characterizing anyone who cares about their civil rights as simply being paranoid is pretty much akin to characterizing everyone who isn't concerned with their civil rights as a complete imbecile, or a sheep, or maybe even the product of both. So, for all those here so blithely making comments about paranoia and tin foil hats, I say "Which one are you?"
 
#145 · (Edited)
I'm the guy who helped build and maintain the goddamn systems you all think you can hide from. I will live the rest of my life with the weight of what I participated in creating. I didn't know what my "block" was helping to create but that isn't really any excuse.

I can say any damn thing I want about it all because it's TOO LATE TO HIDE and unplugging onstar or pulling the batteries from your phone aren't going to cover you, it's all tin foil hattery because people think "oh if I just pull the onstar fuse nobody can monitor me"....nope. Many, MANY other data farming paths still open and it's NOT GOING TO WORK!

I'm the third category (the one you ignore), the guy who actually knows some of the system and realized that the horses are GONE, there is no point in closing the barn door now.

There, is that enough of a rant for ya?!?
 
#150 · (Edited)
Just to be clear, I have not, nor do I intend to eradicate OnStar from the Volt. I am not the least paranoid, nor do I wear foil in any form of outerwear (i.e. undies are still fair game), but that does not mean I accept the "all is lost, so why resist further" notion. For God's sake, as a matter of propriety if nothing else! As such, I appreciate those who share the indignation of the loss we have ALL suffered, and I certainly don't think that it constitutes declaring them nuts.

For those that are clueless to what's happened, maybe ignorance is bliss, and for those that do have an inkling, but choose to throw in the towel without so much as a protest- shame on you, and for those that are completely aware because they actually did it, how do you live with yourself** ? . . . and how could you wish the coming world on your children?


** Edit: I apologize, in retrospect, this is overly harsh for those who may have been a "pawn in the machine". I guess it was intended for those who you would call the designers.
 
#151 · (Edited)
Just to be clear, I have not, nor do I intend to eradicate OnStar from the Volt. I am not the least paranoid, nor do I wear foil in any form of outerwear (i.e. undies are still fair game), but that does not mean I accept the "all is lost, so why resist further" notion. For God's sake, as a matter of propriety if nothing else! As such, I appreciate those who share the indignation of the loss we have ALL suffered, and I certainly don't think that it constitutes declaring them nuts.

For those that are clueless to what's happened, maybe ignorance is bliss, and for those that do have an inkling, but choose to throw in the towel without so much as a protest- shame on you, and for those that are completely aware because they actually did it, how do you live with yourself? . . . and how could you wish the coming world on your children?
OnStar and Children. Right now, I know where my 17 year old daughter's car is at, thanks to OnStar. I know if she's in an accident, help will arrive no matter what her condition is. I know if she loses her cellphone, she can make a phone call from the car without it. I know that if she is lost, or needs any other help, OnStar will be there.

It's one of the reasons I buy Chevrolets for my kids.

I fear her internet use and cell phone far more than OnStar harming her.

OnStar is a bogeyman because it's from GM. If it was in BMW's it would be the most important technology ever put in a car.
 
#159 ·
Other companies have their own version of onstar... Personally your cell phone is way worse about 'spying' on you than OnStar... I like OnStar for the same reasons you do. And you can even be selfish about it and say, I like it because if I was alone and had an accident emergency responders could find me.
 
#161 ·
Other companies have their own version of onstar... Personally your cell phone is way worse about 'spying' on you than OnStar... I like OnStar for the same reasons you do. And you can even be selfish about it and say, I like it because if I was alone and had an accident emergency responders could find me.
"Selfish" !?! SAY WHAT?? Nanny state... Thanks Obama..... Real 'Tough Guys' die in a ditch. That's the way it has always has been.
A NO ONSTAR incident...

http://articles.latimes.com/2000/aug/19/news/mn-7138

Feisty Grandma, 83, Is True Survivor
Ordeal: She tells of screaming and cursing and praying while trapped in her car for days. Police seek the person who caused the accident.
August 19, 2000|MIKE CLARY | TIMES STAFF WRITER
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MIAMI — Who nearly killed Tillie Tooter? That's the question state police officials sought to answer as they hunted Friday for the driver who rear-ended the 83-year-old grandmother, sending her car somersaulting over a highway guardrail and into a swampy ravine.

There, pinned in the wreckage and hidden from passers-by, the feisty Tooter spent three days--catching rainwater to stay alive and preparing, finally, to face death.

"I screamed and I blew my horn and I did everything that I possibly could to attract attention," she said Friday from the hospital where she is being treated for minor injuries. "I prayed, I screamed, I raged, I cursed, waiting to get a little help, hoping somebody would hear me screaming."

Ultimately, Tooter said, "I made my peace with God"--and wrote a farewell note to her granddaughter, Lori Simms. "You feel like there's nothing left for you in the world," she said, near tears. "I made my peace . . . and told myself I was dying."


But Tooter was spared on Tuesday when a teenager picking up litter along the roadside spotted her car lodged in a thicket of mangrove trees about 40 feet beneath an interstate overpass. She had left her home in a Pembroke Pines retirement village just before 3 a.m. Saturday for the 15-mile drive to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to pick up Simms and her boyfriend, who were flying in from New Jersey.

When Tooter did not arrive, Simms reported her missing, and police launched a search.

But for three days, Tooter lay trapped in her mangled car, not seriously injured but unable to crawl out. "It was quite maddening," she said of her frustration and the waves of hunger and stinging insects that tormented her. "It was painful. I was bitten all over my body."

For nourishment, Tooter said, she had one cough drop, one piece of peppermint candy and a stick of gum--which she broke into pieces and rationed. "And when I ran out of the few things I had, I sucked on a button to produce saliva in my mouth," the retired bookkeeper explained. "I had heard that many years ago."

To collect rainwater, Tooter stuck a steering wheel cover out the window. She sopped up the water with a pair of golf socks that she kept over the gear-shift knob, and then she sucked on the socks.

To pass the time, the red-haired grandmother said she belted out musical Golden Oldies. "I sang songs from the '40s and '50s, the good ones," she said.

After two days, with hopes fading, Tooter said she also tried mental telepathy to contact her daughter and a sister in California. "I have this connection with my sister. I was saying, 'Think, concentrate, come back, come here,' " Tooter said. "I knew they were looking for me.

"But my biggest regret was that I could not see my family again," she said.

Tooter was hauled up from the ravine by Fort Lauderdale fire rescue emergency teams using a basket and a crane.

Also pulled from the swamp was her totaled Toyota, which police said showed signs of having been hit from behind.

Florida Highway Patrol officers said they planned to question a 21-year-old Hollywood, Fla., man who reported that he had smashed into the retaining wall about the same time that Tooter's car plunged into the ravine. A black Camaro with extensive front-end damage was found on the highway about a mile from where Tooter's car left the road. It has been impounded.

Tooter is expected to be released within a day or two from Broward General Medical Center, where she was being treated for dehydration, insect bites and facial bruises.

She will then return to her home and neighbors at Century Village, where she is known as "a wonderful, gutsy person," according to close friend Charlotte Zusmer, 79.


And Tooter has no plans to quit driving, especially after being given a new $16,500 Toyota by a Deerfield Beach distributorship.

"I am a survivor," Tooter said Friday. "I have been fighting for 83 years. I come from Brooklyn, N.Y. And if you don't learn to survive there, you are not going to make it anyplace."
 
#154 · (Edited)
OnStar might have licensed patents to other brands, but the name OnStar is specific to GM products. IIRC, our first OnStar vehicle was 2004, and it was an option. Then they changed the broadcast technology, and I had to take the vehicle in for new hardware. I know our 2002 GM's did not have it.

If other brands are using similar technology, I'd fear them more than OnStar. 12 years with no indications of misuse by OnStar beats any other brand.

It's funny that I get junk calls on my cellphone but not OnStar. I don't give out my cellphone number. I log under 20 minutes a month, it's only for emergencies. Somebody is giving out my cellphone number, and it's not me.

The OnStar Sucks rumors have been going on since it was first released. You'd think if there were substance to them, somebody would have proof by now. 12 years in technology is a long time. To put it in perspective, the iPhone is at least 3 years newer, and there has been cases where Apple and their registered developers were caught misusing data for marketing. And remember they forced you into ATT to get kickbacks on each phone.

If OnStar is perceived to be a privacy threat requires one to assume they are violating your privacy. There are no indications of that. It's not a generic data vending machine. They offer subscriptions for phone and navigation, but aren't splashing the latest Music Promotion into your car. They could, and it would boost profits, but they choose not to.

IIRC, the government is aiming at mandatory broadcast telemetry in cars by 2021? It's still in flux, but it's coming. That I would worry about since it's the NHTSA pushing it. They are some serious big brothers working there and share data with other federal agencies freely. They will first claim it's to collect data to make cars safer, and it will progress from there.
 
#157 ·
>....The OnStar Sucks rumors have been going on since it was first released. You'd think if there were substance to them, somebody would have proof by now.

>>...IIRC, the government is aiming at mandatory broadcast telemetry in cars by 2021? ....
>I was wondering where all this started and came from. Did Rushorielity talk about how bad it was, and that settled it for many?

>>This would be similar to the ADS-B 2020 mandate for aircraft.
All in the name of making the airspace a safer place to operate. This is keeping me busy at work. Do some people not like safety?

Guess who is saying now that they won't be ready by 2020? The military. They are asking for an extension.
They "don't have enough money or time to install this system." Right, like the military budget is not big enough now.
Just buy the hardware, hire the people and make it happen. We need safety. Not brand new shiny nuclear bombs.

ps, we're all on a watch list now,, sorry everyone.....
 
#158 ·
 
#162 ·
I understand that this is an old thread but I got to tell you that it is all true. That onstar, your phone, and your car stereo (now) do track you. There is no question of that. Location services is the prominent reason. So the question today seems not so much how to disable these devices but really how to block or jam them. For now I am disconnecting.
 
#163 ·
.. got to tell you that it is all true. That onstar, your phone, and your car stereo (now) do track you. ...
For now I am disconnecting.
It's too late. We know what you did last summer.:cool:
Look over there, no, behind you, no, above you.
There's a good reason you want to hide all of these things you have done.....;)
 
#165 ·
Now all 'THEY' have to do is monetize all this tracking info.
Sort of a legal blackmail thing!

"That onstar, your phone, and your car stereo (now) do track you."
OK, so how much would you pay to 'OPT OUT' ?

Curious there, White,
exactly how does my 'car stereo' upload all my listening secrets? :unsure:
 
#168 ·
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