General Motors and its subsidiary OnStar have demonstrated a new prototype technology called Stolen Vehicle Slowdown that is designed to gradually reduce available engine power in a vehicle if it is reported stolen. The idea is not only to increase the recoverability of stolen vehicles, but also to reduce property damage, injuries, and fatalities which sometimes result from high speed police chases.
“From its inception, the motivation behind OnStar has been the safety and security of our subscribers and others on the road,” said OnStar president Chet Huber, in a release. “Every service we add builds on this original promise. The Stolen Vehicle Slowdown service will allow our subscribers added peace of mind by possibly preventing their vehicle from being used as an instrument of harm if it happens to be stolen.”
GM plans to introduce the technology on Generation 8 OnStar units in about 1.7 million 2009 model year vehicles; the service will be included with the one-year OnStar service included with new vehicles.. GM’s Chevrolet division will initially account for more than 60 percent of the vehicles to feature the technology. GM says its research finds that 95 percent of OnStar subscribers would want the Stolen Vehicle Slowdown service on their vehicles.
The basic idea is that once a vehicle has been reported as stolen, a subscriber can call OnStar and request Stolen Vehicle Location Assistance. If the OnStar user has subscribed to the Stolen Vehicle Slowdown service, OnStar will access the system’s integrated GPS technology to locate the vehicle, and pass that data on to law enforcement. Once law enforcement has established a line of sight on the vehicle, they may request that OnStar remotely trigger a slowdown: the system will then gradually reduce engine power available to the vehicle, so that it slows down gradually and is unable to attempt a high-speed getaway.
Of course, the existence of remote-control slowdown capabilities in new vehicles opens all sorts of opportunities for questionable and outright criminal behavior: law enforcement might pressure OnStar to trigger the feature in circumstances other than a vehicle theft, and it’s always possible attackers could find a way into the service and (say) trigger slowdown features without any consent from the owner. Similar concerns have been raised about OnStar’s remote unlocking service—which may be subject to both from technical and social engineering attacks&mdahs;although no reports of widespread problems have surfaced.
