Hey FitFreakers,

I recently attended a statistics conference, where a fellow was giving a talk about automotive stats, and how the information is now much more updated and accurate. Because the auto people can spy on us.

The talk given was actually referring to Onstar, which is a GM device usually with one year of free service. Most people who have it, love it. But what they do not know is that through this service GM is tracking the number of miles you drive per month, and per year. They claim they now have better stats on warranty claims, and also general repairs. And that is true....but you might not want this info to be out there.

Can Honda be far behind in retrieving info through the Nav system? Something to think about.

 

If Honda wants to upgrade me to a VSA/Nav Fit for free to collect some basic statistical information on my driving, they are more than welcome to.

 

i believe most newer vehicles nowadays are fitted with a "black box" that, while not sophisticated enough to play the role of big brother, can provide manufacturers with details such as how many times you've bounced off the rev limiter.

 

It's a matter of time before everyone's actions and locations can be traced every single moment. That's mostly good news. In that all the crappy things that happen, where other people do things, like stealing of wheels or the hit-and-run, those people will be able to be tracked down.

I recently discovered TV online. I haven't watched any TV shows at all in years. I've been watching all the crime shows. All the CSI ones and the NCIS ones. And Numb3rs.

In the shows they tap into ATM cameras and Traffic cameras and all sorts of neat stuff. Combined with cell phones and GPS and magical computer programs, they always get their criminal.

Some folks would be upset with the thought of being "monitored". Probably mostly big city people. Because if you've ever lived in a small town, where most everyone knows everyone else, and the people are a community, you know (or can find out) who did what when. There are no "anonymous" people that you pass by, everyone knows everyone.

Privacy is an illusion.

So I guess I'd rather have them get on with it, track everyone everywhere and have the decency not to broadcast our photos when we're having bad hair days. Although it's so sad, standing in line at Walgreen's or Target and seeing my image on a TV. I look awful. LOL!

I just would like to see the criminals get caught, like in the TV shows. Make it a lot harder for people to do bad things to each other, without everyone KNOWING who did it.

Like the hit-and-run accident posted on the forums here...what if all cars could be tracked to locations? All they'd need to do is pull up what cars were at the accident location at/about the time it occurred, and then find out where the car is now.

I'm pretty sure that those wheel thieves don't carry off the wheels and run for miles. They probably have some kind of transportation nearby. Well, if the wheels are stolen overnight, what cars were in the area overnight? People who live in the area won't be driving in and out all night. Look for the car(s) that were only in the area a short time.

The scariest part on a TV show was when the criminal hacked the car computer system and made it so the car wouldn't start. And talked to the victim via the OnStar type device. I'm kind of hoping THAT isn't possible. But what do I know? It's TV!!!

 

I have all sorts of problems with the post, but this is fitfreak.net and I would just like to talk about cars here.

Privacy should never be an illusion. What I do, is none of anyone else's business unless I want it to be.

 

ditto!!!!!

 

1984? As much as I would like criminals to be caught, invading tons of innocent person's privacy is no way to go about it.

 

Oops. My bad. Sorry guys.

Look at it this way, OK?

You could, right now, with no more technology than whatever is on your body, find out a whole lot about whatever is going on in your area. You could sit out front and watch what goes on, while a drinking a glass of Arizona iced tea.

You could go on a walk, looking and listening. You can smell things, feel things. Without actually violating any laws.

You can hear arguments without pressing your ear against someone's door. I've called the police on that alone. Not because I'm invading their privacy with sophisticated electronics, but because they are YELLING with the WINDOWS/DOORS open.

I've also called the police on babies crying in a motor home, repeatedly, with seemingly no adult around. I don't have to go into the motor home. I don't have to see the baby.

There are a few people in the apartment complex that have the best weed. Not because I see them smoking it. But I smell it. I don't even know who lives in some of the apartments.

Any store I go into, I'm probably on TV. And I may be watched by security. Just like anyone else. Not to ruin my privacy to scratch my crotch in an empty aisle, but because it's their job. Because other people steal stuff.

If the kinds of technology become available as I have mentioned, it's just a broader application of cameras and security people in a store.

NOBODY CARES what you do!!!

Unless you're on a reality show or cause celebre of the week, nobody pays a whole lot of attention to what you do. And they won't.

In the hit-and-run examples, if you didn't cause the accident, and didn't fail to stop to assist or call for help for the accident victim(s), and weren't even in the area, NOBODY CARES.

Your data won't show anywhere, will it? Your "privacy" isn't invaded.

In my area, there was a sign up on the freeway to call 911 if we spot someone who appears to be drunk driving. It's a lot less costly to have "average citizens" looking out for themselves and each other, using their own technology, to solve problems that can affect (or even kill) some of us.

Would you call in drunk driver?

I would and I have been part of TWO drunk driver arrests. Pre cell phone in one case, and I didn't have a cell phone in the second case. But both times I got the police and both times the people were busted for drunk driving.

Another time I called it in, the person was driving very erratically.

Are you a "get involved" person?

Or do you "ignore it and hope it will go away" person?

edit add-on: Yes, drunk drivers or erratic driving or hit-and-run accidents are definitely part of any auto forum. It's a problem, it's a danger, for all of us. Likewise, car theft, vandalism, parts-theft, those are part of a problem we all face too.

I've been hit-and-run in my old car, never did find out who did that. I've been rear ended more than once. The second rear ending, the guy didn't want to go through his insurance company, and I did. His insurance company went out of business or something, never got a dime from them, or from him.

 

The first thing you have to do is let them know every facet of your life and you just have given up your freedoms. I'm as liberal as the next person but I still don't want to government up in my regular day to day business, knowing if I've done something "immoral" or etc. It's a slippery slope giving anyone that much access into your life. You can sure as hell let them, but I like having my right to have sex without someone else knowing because they're the government. Humans are fallible and to be honest giving someone the power to spy on you, they will blackmail you if they could. You don't understand the very concept of freedom, it is my freedom that allows me not to be filmed so I could be stung for who knows what. How would you like cameras watching you every moment of your day, all the fucking time, without your consent. Better yet how about someone following you wherever you go, it's the same shit.

 

Yes. My dad works for Honda and has mentioned that people with S2ks in particular that come in with exploded trannies are not given warranty repairs because Honda techs can pull up their RPM history. What is this you shifted to first at 70 and grenaded your tranny? Sorry.....

 

There's a big difference between observant neighbors and massive nation-wide/global wholesale corporate or government-sponsored monitoring programs.

TaffetaWhite says no one cares what you do. And that's right. But the value of the stolen data rarely comes from knowing that Joe Smith likes to look at bondage porn.

It comes from backtracing enough information to steal an identity. The more centralized the information is, the less backtracing is required.

Example: Someone steals an OnStar database containing the driving histories of 500k GMs. You've now got a half a million targets that you can dig further...it would not be too hard to trace them back to actual people. People that you can pump for information so that you can steal their identity, or perhaps you might just try some old fashioned fraud in the form of selling them a bogus extended warranty.

This is where the data is valuable, and this is where it stands to cause you a lot of headache.

 

Very true. Because so much depends on technology that people aren't even seeing PEOPLE anymore in their business exchanges. ATMs, banks without staff. Self-serve checkouts, stores without staff. Pay by cash or card at the gas pump, stations without staff.

I suppose it's supposed to make things "easier" and "more accurate". If everything works perfectly and no one tries to do anything wrong/illegal, it does help.

But parts break down, things go wrong. The wrong price is put in the computer for your groceries or your parts or your landscaping plants, and it's a pain to get them to give YOU the right price, let alone redo the price in the computer (which they generally can't do right there on the spot). How many other people pay the wrong price?

I bought some stuff at the grocery store way back, discovered when I got home that the honey did not show up on the receipt. I was not paying that much attention while at the store, and I guess the clerk wasn't either. I did my card-in-machine thing, while the clerk did there slide-on-scanner thing.

It bugged me. I went back the next day. Went and got another honey, took it to the service center. I told them what happened. I said one of two possible things are happening here. Either it was somehow missed during checkout. OR it's not registering/ringing up any price at all, so that the honey is being given away. Which is not good.

All their stores, combined with many honey containers being given away, that's a lot of money. So they checked, it did ring properly, and I paid for the container I had them check but then put it back on the shelf. It was probably people-error, not machine error.

Another time at a different store, I bought five of something, noticed it only showed two on my receipt. Went back to pay for the other three, and the man confused me by not letting me pay for it. He was just so thrilled that there were honest out there in the world. I figured it out, by looking at my keyboard, the 5 is above the 2 and I bet the clerk missed the 5 and got the 2 when doing a "@" multi-price thing. People error.

Best one was being handed a twenty with my receipt. I forget a lot of stuff. So I had to check the receipt myself because I didn't remember asking for money back, but I usually did. No cash back showing on the receipt. I asked the guy if it was bonus day. He looked perplexed. Showed him my receipt and gave him back the twenty. People error.

Things CAN go terribly wrong with systems, leaving data unrecoverable:
AppleInsider | Microsoft's Danger Sidekick data loss casts dark on cloud computing

And when that happens, everything screeches to a halt. All that technology is virtually useless if it is the ONLY way to do a certain task and that system fails.

There's a difference between passive monitoring and active control. Huge difference. But they can be used together.

Passive monitoring is like cameras watching the store, or the store parking lot. Active control is when the store security or the police physically take control of you, for a theft or suspected activity like car vandalism or drug dealing in the parking lot.

It happens in business, whereby computers are monitored. What and where an employee goes and does during their working day. I remember this guy, it was hilarious, complaining at a social networking site, about the service. That he was being blocked and was really upset that the service was trying to block him.

It wasn't the service. It was his employer. He worked for a city or county, and I looked up their rules, whereby they state they can monitor employees, can fire employees for using the computer for non-work-related tasks, and reserve the right to block any sites deemed not work-related.

That's passive monitoring changing to active control. You'd think it would be common sense not to spend an hour each morning doing personal stuff on the company computer and on company time. Duh. The ultimate active control would be to let the guy go. Probably should have. What a doofus.

Why is that kind of monitoring important? Because there are many doofuses. The same kinds of people who wreck their cars by abusing them, and then expect a free ride from the warranty.

Here's a good example (my, I'm chatty today, I'll shut up eventually). Make the things talked about above personal. Consider them an investment.

Ten of us all contribute to a fund that will cover us if something goes wrong with our car. Nine of us take really good care of our cars. We don't abuse them. The tenth person fully abuses their car. Then they want all of us to pay for their abuse when they wreck the transmission. Uh, NO.

NO!

That fund was for legitimate problems. Problems we didn't exacerbate. Problems we didn't cause.

That passive monitoring can be in a black box or seeing the person race around or hearing them brag about it. Store cameras, automated traffic tickets, fast-track toll payment devices, atm cards, those things they put in library books to make alarms go off.

Most of that is not to be personal butt-in-skis, but to protect their interests. The same way we would want to protect our interest if we had that fund for repairs.

Whether or not you realize it, we really are all together in funds...

Honesty in a grocery store or black boxes or traffic cameras. We all end up paying for that annoying tenth person. We do. In store prices, in city, county, state, federal taxes. We're paying for those cameras. We're paying for store security. We're paying for police forces. We're paying for black boxes. We're paying for the employer to watch their employees.

Because of that darn tenth person.

Don't be the tenth person.

You can't even imagine how much money would be available and how low prices could be if there was no tenth person.

 

You are right on the mark there sister As a whole we the individuals pay out soooo much to the 10th person. I would go to health care system, but I know this is a car blog and not What Happened to This County?? blog
BUT.........WAKE UP AMERICA!!
Do what you know is honest and Right not : well everybody eles does it so why not me too. That's why there are sooo many checks in this society to try to keep us honest. Just think were we as a country would be if you and I were honest in what we do and righteous in what we think?
just a thought ..................

 

Recently a Fordham University law professor used Justice Scalia as a class assignment for his students, who came up with a 15-page dossier, which included his home address, the value of his home, his home phone number, the movies he likes, his food preferences, his wife's personal e-mail address, and "photos of his lovely grandchildren."

Concurring Opinions Justice Scalia’s Dossier: Interesting Issues about Privacy and Ethics

Back in the antediluvian days of the Internet (before the WWW) there was a monthly internet treasure hunt. One month the object of the hunt was a mid-level CIA officer -- about whom a dossier of similar size was compiled (including his SSN and unlisted telephone number).

 

I have a problem with taking things literally, and when someone challenged me to find out who they were online, they got really upset when I did indeed figure out who they were.

That, coupled with my odd memory (no, it's not photographic/eidetic), I was able to recall and compile much better. What I read and where I read it.

Several other people wanted to know who that person was also, and I did not tell them. I said that the information was freely available, but that it was not up to me to give it to them.

Whether it's you, me, Scalia, or a CIA officer, we are free to look up whatever we want. But in MY opinion, we are not necessarily free to pass on that information to others.

On products, obviously we can, and I do that FREQUENTLY on this forum. As do other people. Sharing what we know, have read, our sources for parts and service and dealerships and options.

There is no privacy to invade, the car's feelings won't be hurt or embarrassed nor it's job at stake if it is revealed that the body style changed in 2009. It's the same actions, looking things up online, but objects don't have feelings.

If there is a good reason to share "people" info, that protects other people from harm, then it would seem to be the right thing to do. Except we're people interpreting the information. We can get it wrong. We can not only misunderstand the information we find, but we can be conned by someone else who is looking to gain something about that person from us. All dangerous.

What does tracking my shopping do at the grocery store? Coupons. It gives me coupons on either products I use or have used, or competitors products. That tracking isn't to find out how healthy I eat, but to make sales.

I get service offers for the Fit. Not because they are following me around, but because on average, people drive a certain amount and because that amount is when various service might be necessary, like oil changes.

Can we compile information on each other? Yes. Do we have to? No.

If it's something that is harmful or someone who is threatening, then it might be useful for us to find out what we can to turn it over to authorities. Right?

Like calling in a drunk driver and having the license plate number ready to give them. That's important information necessary to get that person off the road.

If there appears to be a crime taking place, or just suspicious activity, the more information you can provide, the more likely it can be taken care of with the proper people being addressed.

I'm browsing an old pdf of the Mayor's proposed budget from earlier this year (you can read it and download here:
SF News: Mayor Newsom Releases 2009-10 Budget

Where does the money go in your city or county?

Proposed amounts to fund areas for 2009-2010...

ADULT PROBATION 12,682,870
DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 45,851,797
DISTRICT ATTORNEY 38,872,182
FIRE DEPARTMENT 285,694,369
JUVENILE PROBATION 36,077,480
POLICE 449,146,410
PUBLIC DEFENDER 22,506,409
SHERIFF 168,426,660
SUPERIOR COURT 37,184,322
__________

Total: 1,096,442,499

That's crime and emergencies. Some of the emergencies come from crime, like arson.

ONE BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR

What if the police and fire only had to respond to natural disasters, health emergencies, and planned events? Because there was no tenth person anymore?

Every single business in the city is also paying for their own security. Cameras or special tags that set off alarms at the doors or security staff to monitor the floor. Locks and gadgets.

How low could their prices be if they didn't have to pay for all that security stuff?

We'd ALL have better prices, better services, lower costs, if there wasn't that tenth person.

Many of you, especially the CARS/Clunkers program participants, knows what happens when there is a savings over what used to be required expenses.

Going from an unreliable, costly to maintain gas guzzler to a Fit makes a HUGE change in your life.

It's rewards far exceed just gas cost.

On a city/county level, to get the cash, you have to trade in your clunker behavior.

And it will come in tiny amounts. Might not come in cash at all, but the roads might be better, because they can finally afford to pay for the roads. People might be happier, not having to work required long hours/overtime. Better wages might be available if companies don't have to pay for costly security devices.

Want more privacy? Don't be a tenth person.

As far as Honda "spying", I certainly do want them to be able to pull up info that might save other people's lives, if something goes terribly wrong in my car that causes my death. If they can do that with a black box, more power to them!

 

Why is it that I keep finding diatribes in posts? I despise it when forums start to trend more towards people ranting rather than providing useful information to one another.

 

If I ever bought a Chevy, which I only would if I could afford to put thousands of dollars a year into them after the first two years, the first thing I would do is disable the OnStar. I don't like it, I don't trust it. I don't do anything illegal, or anything that I wouldn't want people to know about, it's just a matter of principle for me.

If Honda did the same thing, I'd certainly disable that as well. I might be making payments on the car, so I don't technically own it, but it's none of their business. I know that many car's ECUs and PCMs do record what happens, and that is fine for me because people don't have wireless, remote access to that information. But when someone can see in real time where I am and what I'm doing, that's not cool. It's hard enough for me to carry a cell phone, knowing what can be done with that.

 

I'm all for the good, but I don't like the potential for them pulling information when they want.

Think of all the stuff that gets looked at by the "keepers" of that information when it shouldn't be. Tax returns, hospital records, etc. Maybe if something horrible happened to me I'd like to think my wife would want to turn over the information, but i wouldn't want it to automatically be available w/o her consent.

Yea....and I'm just as paranoid with my phone. I actually went w/o a cell phone for close to 8 months and everyone thought i'd lost my mind.

 

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

C. S. Lewis

Sound familiar?

 

People do what they think is right, or what they think is not so wrong as to prevent them from doing, or to do what they can get away with for whatever reason. So most, if not all, people are operating with the approval of their own conscience.

Add in a bit more of the C. S. Lewis...
Source: C.S. Lewis on Tyranny “for the Good” of Its Victims | The Beacon

People will often look for advantages. It makes sense to do so, as a survival mechanism. But it very often infringes on or depletes the resources of others.

What would your solution consist of?