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Comment by CivBase | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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