Ellyllions
08-25-2006, 07:58 AM
Had a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday that gave me pause. She's a conspiracy theorist in the best sense of the word. Great friend, I have no qualms with the way she thinks...she's entitled.
But the conversation yesterday was particularly interesting because of how excited she was....She'd just bought a new car. Forget the type, she was excited about her OnStar....
OnStar is a great service if you need it. I find it particularly interesting in all of it's mentioned features, but even moreso for it's features that aren't mentioned. See, it's standard on some vehicles now and you're not obliged to buy into the service. And while the rest of the country is up in arms over wire-tapping and recording of bank transactions....all of those people are forgetting that if you're receiving a signal...................you have to be transmitting one as well. And it doesn't have to be subscribed to in order to transmit your location to the central office, or anyone else who happens to monitor the satellite that houses OnStar. Yeah, your cell phone does it too.
So she raved on and on about how wonderful her OnStar was and while she might not submit to the service after her trial period, she was glad that she had it until I mentioned the "Did you know?"
A while back I was having a chat with a Police Officer friend of mine who'd recently worked an accident that resulted in a fatality. He was a little miffed that he couldn't get a magistrate to grant him a warrant to seize the transmitter box for the offending vehicle. He wanted to have the recording checked to see how fast the vehicle was going when it hit the other car...According to him, the transmitter box inside new vehicles record the details of 45 days of travel at a time.
It's all just kinda funny to me I guess... The things the news reports upset us and get us up in arms. But everyday technology that we're excited about having can be used against even the most squeaky clean Americans....
But the conversation yesterday was particularly interesting because of how excited she was....She'd just bought a new car. Forget the type, she was excited about her OnStar....
OnStar is a great service if you need it. I find it particularly interesting in all of it's mentioned features, but even moreso for it's features that aren't mentioned. See, it's standard on some vehicles now and you're not obliged to buy into the service. And while the rest of the country is up in arms over wire-tapping and recording of bank transactions....all of those people are forgetting that if you're receiving a signal...................you have to be transmitting one as well. And it doesn't have to be subscribed to in order to transmit your location to the central office, or anyone else who happens to monitor the satellite that houses OnStar. Yeah, your cell phone does it too.
So she raved on and on about how wonderful her OnStar was and while she might not submit to the service after her trial period, she was glad that she had it until I mentioned the "Did you know?"
A while back I was having a chat with a Police Officer friend of mine who'd recently worked an accident that resulted in a fatality. He was a little miffed that he couldn't get a magistrate to grant him a warrant to seize the transmitter box for the offending vehicle. He wanted to have the recording checked to see how fast the vehicle was going when it hit the other car...According to him, the transmitter box inside new vehicles record the details of 45 days of travel at a time.
It's all just kinda funny to me I guess... The things the news reports upset us and get us up in arms. But everyday technology that we're excited about having can be used against even the most squeaky clean Americans....