Yes, I would. I haven’t used any anti-virus in seven years, and I’ve never been infected because I don’t visit sketchy sites or run sketchy programs. My files are backed up on an external hard drive and on a second computer. If the only thing you rely on to protect your files is an anti-virus program, you probably don’t know how common hard drive failure is.

I was once on the receiving end of a severe collision. It took three hours from the time of the accident for them to arrive, cut me out of the vehicle, and get me to the hospital. Despite that, I would not buy a vehicle with OnStar.

Along the same line, computer security guru Bruce Schneier states, “Security is a process, not a product.”

Pch101:
But many cars, GM and otherwise, now have black box type recorders that are being used for similar reasons.

Given their proprietary nature, black box security is an unknown.

Worse, if these boxes are going to be used against people, they had better be properly secured against tampering. (And before this is dismissed as paranoia, consider the incentive for speeders to hack these boxes as a tool for proving innocence once the state start using them to prove guilt.)

And good luck preventing hacks to wiping the data completely… Will it be a crime to wipe the data on a vehicle you own???

Problem solved.

Personally, I’m not nuts about it, but I don’t think it’s overbearing either.

And you can bet that I won’t buy one.

But many cars, GM and otherwise, now have black box type recorders that are being used for similar reasons. These systems are being expanded at a steady pace, as we speak. This is becoming nearly impossible to avoid.

Surely the whole article was an attempt at comedy?

No response from EidolWay a.k.a. Onstar salesman will be necessary.

You, sir, have a career in politics awaiting you. You have mastered the ad hominem.

You need to accept that some of us may not want to live their lives as an open book. I don’t want your low expectations for privacy applied to my life. If you want to live your life in public, go right ahead, but don’t drag me into it.

And this is where the lot of us arguing “no big deal” take issue.

No one is dragging you into it. No one. Some of us don’t mind the technology, so we don’t mind having GM cars that have it. We find the guidance convenient, the emergency notification a confidence-booster, and the ease of reaching a real person a godsend. The directional assistance is why I opted to pay the fee for a year’s service. Meanwhile, if you find the technology intrusive and don’t want to worry about it peering over your shoulder, divest yourself of your GM car or avoid purchasing one that has OnStar onboard. Vote with your wallet, as always.

No one is being forced to purchase OnStar-equipped vehicles.

If you complain about OnStar’s ability to “Watch you” even as you purchase a GM vehicle, then the price you pay for OnStar is obviously not too high for you to avoid the vehicle. So stop your belly-aching! If you don’t want a car with OnStar, you don’t have to buy one. So stop your belly-aching!

Perhaps you didn’t notice, but a lot of us don’t like traffic cameras for the very reasons that don’t concern you.

I have a hard time understanding what the big negative is.

As it turns out, there already are incidents when OnStar has reported actions by GM vehicle owners to the police, which has resulted in those owners being prosecuted. Similarly, the same technology used with OnStar would be readily compatible with some plans, such as those in Oregon, to tax vehicles based upon mileage as determined by GPS systems. The technology clearly has a lot of room for abuse.

Just so long as we have had some consciousness of a right to privacy, we have always had those who don’t understand privacy, don’t think that anyone else needs privacy protection, and are even suspicious of anyone who would prefer to have their privacy.

You need to accept that some of us may not want to live their lives as an open book. I don’t want your low expectations for privacy applied to my life. If you want to live your life in public, go right ahead, but don’t drag me into it.

Talk about lunacy and paranoia…

“Web TV of GPS systems”. That’s good. And funny because it’s so true.

More GM electronic crap to go wrong down the road.

Onstar: [like the Avalanche and Buick mini van] another answer to a question nobody asked.

While I can understand the inconveniences, I can also see the priceless benefit in the worst-case scenario.

An analogy:
Would you disable your anti-virus because it slows down your computer or takes a long time to scan? Maybe protecting yourself against that one really nasty virus that wipes out all of your family photos and business documents is worth that 1300hrs of scan time (assuming 1 full scan takes 5 hrs, scanning once per week, for 5 years).

Addressing the original comment, I don’t think driving into a utility pole (or being broadsided by a delivery truck) is really considered “conking out.”

On*Star has always been marketed for safety and convenience, not product support when the car inevitably fails.

Besides, GM cars are perfect, remember? Howie Long told me.

Its called practicality.

I also got in an accident once and immediately someone was on the line, asking if I or anyone else was hurt, and they called the police and got them there so I didn’t have to worry about finding wherever my cell phone had launched itself to, leaving me free to worry about myself and the other folks involved in the accident.

Other than the accident, I have never had Onstar do something intrusive. Never been driving along and gotten a call from them asking how I’m doing or how my prostate exam turned out.

I have a hard time understanding what the big negative is. As others have noted, this isn’t the only system of it’s kind, it’s just the first and best one. Of course it’s from GM, so lets all line up and find SOMETHING to complain about.

The big brother stuff is simply crap. I’m sorry, but unless you live in a cabin in the woods without electricity, most of the actions you take are trackable. Got a phone? Someone knows who you’re talking to. Got a cell phone? Someone knows who you’re texting and what you said. Got a cell phone with GPS? Someone knows where you are. Drive past a traffic camera? Someone knows.
Use a credit card? Someone knows. On a website? Someone knows. Use Google? Someone knows what you want to know.

And guess what…nobody cares. Unless you’re scheming some kind of terrorist activity or have such an inflated ego that you really think anyone is taking the time to see what YOU as an individual are doing, I don’t really understand the concern.

If you’re worried and paranoid enough that because of Onstar your insurance company is gonna find out that you stopped at Wendy’s to get a Triple with cheese and large fries, hey…guess what…they already know because you had your cell phone in your pcoket when you showed up. And you used the ATM across the street to get the cash to buy it. And the traffic camera caught you. Plus the satellite in the sky is trained on you. Plus the surveillance cameras are watching.

Can we move along now?

It’s like WebTV of GPS. I can’t think of any good reasons it’s survived.

I’ve never had nor driven an OnStar vehicle, but my understanding is that it comes enabled, and there is no way to totally disable it short of removing the parts. And GM has tacitly admitted to using data collected from drivers to model possible usage of the Volt. But beyond that, surrendering basic control of your actions (Which way should I turn?), even when voluntary, is the beginning of the end of personal liberty.

I had the temptation to let the driver know and advise him to call OnStar.”
That’s funny. Just the other day I passed a brand new Hyundai by the side of the road with hood up and flashers on. And I used my Onstar to call hyundai roadside for the young lady!

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that this quote was raised. I have one enormous issue with its use.

You have NOT surrendered your rights to a governing authority, never to receive them back again.

You have instead contracted – of your own free will – with a private firm – of their own free will – to provide you with a service in return for payment. This does not constitute an abrogation or surrender of your rights or liberty. It is in fact a beneficial, freely chosen exchange between private parties.

-Benjamin Franklin

I’m sure they eventually got it working…

Back then I actually thought that it didn’t take much time for a product to show up in the cars that people could buy. At that time we were testing the second generation of the radar-based adaptive cruise control system for a European manufacturer that preferred not to let anyone know they were hiring an American company to do some engineering work (this was pretty common – Delphi made a lot of electronics components without their name stamped on it – and there were interns in our office that spent their whole time translating testing documents from Japanese, German and French into English…)