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Comment by JohnFen | Hacker News Reader

> As far as I know, there is no (legal) way to deactivate OnStar or similar GPS trackers built into cars.

I'm not aware of any law (in the US) that prohibits you from disabling these things in a vehicle you own. Is it actually illegal?

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It's not illegal, it's just that it doesn't allow it in the UI. Who do you call to have that service disabled? No one knows. The best you can do is talk to someone and have the auto renewal turned off. That doesn't turn off the existing service until the renewal period hits though.

Surely you can find the GPS antenna and disconnect it?

Better to replace it with an equivalent resistor so the ECU can't tell the difference between no-antenna and no-signal.

Or maybe just desolder the one capacitor between the physical antenna and LNA. Provided it's not in a can.

Is the GPS two way or one way? I had the impression that the GPS signals went from satellite to earth, but the receivers did not send a signal to the GPS satellite. I thought onstar connected the cellular network. If I have the wrong information and somebody has more specifics about this, I would really like to know. From reading the wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnStar Looks like the cellular network is used. Is the cellular antenna and the GPS antenna the same or are there two physical antenna? If so, then I assume one can just disconnect it. Since according to the article it says 4g. Normally cellular providers discontinue old network, 2G and 3G network have been taken down in recent years. Does anybody know when 4g network will be removed/disabled? I did find: https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/c8-general-discussion/4... https://www.silveradosierra.com/threads/disable-on-star.7196... If the 4g network is taken down at some point, then whatever functionality that uses it will be disabled as well. So, one would think that perhaps that part of the system should be able to be replaced. If so, can't one just remove that part of the system? It is probably hard to remove, because if it is easy, then theft system is not as good.

One more thought, in California one can request a copy of one's data and also request that it be deleted. Has anybody in CA requested a copy of all the data that has been collected? How much data per month or day does it collected? Has anybody requested that their data be deleted? Would this make it difficult the manufacturer to train the driving assistance AI if enough people requested that their data be deleted?

If you disconnect the GPS antenna the car won’t be able to get a GPS position to report via OnStar.

GPS is receive-only for civilians.

The sharkfin style antenna pod is typically a PCB with several different antennas on it: https://p.globalsources.com/IMAGES/PDT/B1188507781/Shark-fin...

But for most cars today, removing the antenna would require removing the dash and radio, possibly voiding the warranty or a lease agreement if you have one.

Interesting comment about AI training data... surely that would violate GDPR.

There's got to be a fuse to pull.

IIRC in some vehicles it is part of the ECM and can't be disabled without also effectively disabling the entire engine.

There still has to be an antenna somewhere in a location where it can avoid all the EM interference. It seems like disconnecting that would be sufficient.

On my truck there is, but disabling the module also disables the whole infotainment. You could probably just go aftermarket but seems like a lot of work.

Unplug the GPS or the cellular network antenna. You might get an antenna error but it should keep working.

It doesn't matter what the UI allows, I'm talking about physically disabling it. I wouldn't trust a software setting about this.

> Who do you call to have that service disabled? No one knows.

If you're not too squeamish about this sort of thing, you could likely find out how to disable this yourself in your vehicle with a web search.

If you aren't comfortable with that, I'd bet that any serious motorhead would likely be able to help, as would any independent auto shop.

You own the hardware. But in the modern world we do not own the software that allows us to make use of the hardware. If deactivating OnStar requires a modification to the car's software, I can definitely see how it could effectively be illegal to deactivate. In the world of modern tech, the concept of ownership is practically dead.

But I don't know if a modification to the software is actually necessary or if that's what OP was getting at. Just speculating.

But if you own the hardware there's nothing to legally prevent you from severing the power to whatever sensors/hardware onstar is using, no?

the car may not even start, or may disable virtually all functionality until the problem is fixed if you do that

Sure. As long as the software continues to work despite whatever you broke or disabled. It all depends on how forgiving the software is and how integrated the hardware is.

If manufacturers really want to collect this data, they currently have the power to stop you.

No need to mess with the software to deactivate these things. Just yank a fuse, disconnect the antenna, or -- worst case -- physically break the support circuitry.

the issue is that eventually they'll just make the car not start without it. it's like your inkjet printer refusing to print black and white because it's run out of yellow.

That sounds like it would have profound safety implications.

How so?

Turn off the car in a place without service, can't turn it back on?

for just $100 per month, you can have a dedicated server connection over starlink to fetch an authorisation token start your car anywhere supported. terms and conditions apply.

Pretty hard to get into a vehicle collision if you can't start the vehicle.

Pretty easy to suffer some sort of injury if you're stranded and your car won't turn on.

Gotta be pretty low odds that an OnStar module breaks while someone is in a remote location, leaving them stranded - then they make it back, diagnose the issue, take the manufacturer to court, the court finds the manufacturer guilty, and the punishment is substantial enough to outweigh the benefit of requiring the module in the first place.

Even if you could hold the manufacturers liable, I'm guessing most of them would still take that risk.

Eventually isn't now, though. We'll have to cross that bridge when it happens.

Personally, the inclusion of surveillance as a standard feature in cars means that I won't buy cars made so recently. It's easier to do that than to worry about disabling stuff. If that becomes impossible for some reason, I suppose that my driving days are over.

"just" is often quite complicated and expensive to do these days.

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