Some of you may know, that modern cars can be as much of a security threat as a smartphone. If not, you can check out this forbes article , or this techdirt article to learn how modern cars share your location, and can be used as a listening device. OnStar, SirusXM etc. Have been used by the feds/LE against criminals. Of course I’m not a criminal, but I’d definitely like to disable this feature. To keep my conversations, and location within my car private. In one case in the above articles, a driver didn’t even pay for OnStar/SirusXM. However the feds were still able to listen remotely by the in car microphone.
Disabling these features
Few ways come to mind to accomplish this. Physically removing, or disconnecting the microphone, and OnStar etc from my car comes first. So, of course I’m not a mechanic. So I started to think of other ways to do it. I was reading my car’s manual, and stumbled on the fuses page. I found OnStar/SirusXM, located my fuse box, and simply removed the fuse. I tested a OnStar/SirusXM feature, and it didn’t work. Success! However, there are a few down sides of disabling OnStar/SirusXM. Such as the USB ports in my car no longer work, so I can’t charge my phone or listen to local media. Convenience, or privacy I suppose.
Notes/End
I’ve actually disabled this in my car multiple years ago, just got around to writing this. Of course I would like to physically remove the microphone etc. from my car. However, like I said, I’m not a mechanic. I don’t want to brick my car either lol. The simplicity of plugging the fuse back in to re-enable such features is nice as well.