"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
k.net...
In article ,
says...


Newer cars are full of surveillance devices, which I cordially dislike.

Yep. One of the casualties in the rush towards progress is the loss
of privacy. I'm told that this is now the "information age" which
makes little distinction between public and private information. The
loss of privacy sucks, but is survivable. Think of it like the
Japanese shoji paper curtains. There's little real privacy with
those, but if everyone pretends not to notice what's happening on the
other side, one can get the illusion of privacy. I think that's where
we're heading. Every data collecting entity knows what's happening,
but as long as they don't do anything with the data, you have the
illusion of privacy. When those entities abuse your information is
where the problems begin. I don't believe we can stop the collection
of information, but we might have a chance stopping anyone from using
what it collects.

Cheers
Phil Hobbs

From things I have read it seems that some of the onboard computers are
getting to be about like the 'black boxes' on airplanes. There was some
talk of letting the police download the data in accidents to see what
the speed of the car was and other things.


It's been that way for at least the last ten years.