OnStar To Warn, Then Stop, Stolen Cars

from the wait-until-someone-hacks-the-system dept

GM continues to expand the features of its popular OnStar system with a new service that's been talked about for years, that would allow the company to automatically stop a stolen car remotely. The last time we spoke about such a concept, it was four years ago -- and there were a lot of people worried about the idea. However, that may have been because it was the police asking for the right to stop cars remotely, rather than an individual using a private service (and they were also interested in using it to control speeders). In this case, the service would first alert the car thief that it's known they're driving a stolen car (and potentially that the police are on their way), and that OnStar is about to stop the automobile. It would then slowly halt the car -- though the driver could stop the car themselves at any time. The police apparently are excited about the possibility of this ending some high speed chases (and certainly making it easier to retrieve the car), but you have to wonder what happens if the service is hacked or malfunctioned.

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