From Wired Magazine:

"It used to be that just the entertainment industries wanted to control your computers -- and televisions and iPods and everything else -- to ensure that you didn't violate any copyright rules. But now everyone else wants to get their hooks into your gear.

OnStar will soon include the ability for the police to shut off your engine remotely. Buses are getting the same capability, in case terrorists want to re-enact the movie Speed. The Pentagon wants a kill switch installed on airplanes, and is worried about potential enemies installing kill switches on their own equipment.

Microsoft is doing some of the most creative thinking along these lines, with something it's calling "Digital Manners Policies."..."

W4B:

I've always wondered how Microsoft managed to squirm out of the bind it was in with United States v. Microsoft, I've also always had a hunch that they recieved the slap on the hand by delivering their customers to the government by sharing access to the covert spyware that they built into their OS, ( which is supposedly there to make your computer 'better' some how)

From The United States Microsoft Anti-Trust Case on Wikipedia:

"Andrew Chin, an antitrust law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who assisted Judge Jackson in drafting the findings of fact, wrote that the settlement gave Microsoft "a special antitrust immunity to license Windows and other 'platform software' under contractual terms that destroy freedom of competition."

W4B:

What did MS give the government in return?

My guess is that just like the telcoms that coughed up everything they had on us, Mr. Gates gave them anything they wanted.

And they call that creative thinking?

i dont personally feel threatened by having on-star cut off the fuel to my engine, as i do not contemplate becoming involved in a high speed pursuit. in fact, it might be a welcome thing, if i own an on-star equipped vehicle, and its stolen or carjacked with me in it as a kidnap victim.

however, i also read that insurance companies plan to use on-star to set auto insurance rates. it works like this:

• you receive a "discount" if you allow your insurer to access on-star data regarding how many miles you drive, your acceleration and braking habits, etc.
• excessive speed or "hard braking" will result in penalty surcharges to your insurance premium, even if you've never had an accident, because the insurers will increase your rates as long as they can get away with it (remember the caper where they jacked up your rates for having a bankruptcy or late payments on your credit score?)
• the next logical step will be for the insurance companies and on-star to forward data to the local police department, in realtime, so that you can be ticketed electronically for going 75 mph on I-95.

don't laugh - it could happen. in florida they already ticket you electronically on toll roads if your "entry time" and "exit time" on the toll road show that you significantly exceeded the speed limit between those entrance/exit points.

for real

the crash of Fight 669 from Seattle (SEA) to New York (JFK) states that the aircraft fell out of the sky as a result of an accidental trigger of the remote engine cutoff system, which was deigned by the Microsoft Corp. The airplane's black box recorder logged a "blue screen of death" message received from the cutoff sytem 500 ms before the engines shutdown.

... from Gregory Slabodkin GCN Staff (Government Computer News 1998)

"The Navy's Smart Ship technology may not be as smart as the service contends.

Although PCs have reduced workloads for sailors aboard the Aegis missile cruiser USS Yorktown, software glitches resulted in system failures and crippled ship operations, according to Navy officials.

Navy brass have called the Yorktown Smart Ship pilot a success in reducing manpower, maintenance and costs. The Navy began running shipboard applications under Microsoft Windows NT so that fewer sailors would be needed to control key ship functions.

But the Navy last fall learned a difficult lesson about automation: The very information technology on which the ships depend also makes them vulnerable. The Yorktown last September suffered a systems failure when bad data was fed into its computers during maneuvers off the coast of Cape Charles, Va.

The ship had to be towed into the Naval base at Norfolk, Va., because a database overflow caused its propulsion system to fail, according to Anthony DiGiorgio, a civilian engineer with the Atlantic Fleet Technical Support Center in Norfolk.

W4B:

A warship dead in the water is dead, that's all that has to be said.

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Why does this scare me?!

"Because of politics, some things are being forced on us that without political pressure we might not do, like Windows NT," Redman said.

Maybe like V-22 Osprey, too.

If a system can be remotely controlled by authorities, then it can be hacked and remotely controlled by someone else. Not a pleasant prospect.

When did we stop assuming that people will do fine without direct supervision?

"When did we stop assuming that people will do fine without direct supervision?"

The moment we noticed them talking amongst themselves when we were out of earshot.