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Disgruntled Ex-Employee Remotely Disables 100 Cars
hansamurai writes "Over one hundred cars equipped with a Webtech Plus blackbox were remotely disabled when a former employee of dealership Texas Auto Center got hold of his employer's database of users. Webtech Plus is repossession software that allows the dealership to disable a car's ignition or trigger the horn to honk when a payment is due. Owners had to remove the battery to stop the incessant honking. After the dealership began fielding an unusually high number of calls from upset car owners, they changed the passwords to the Webtech Plus software and then traced the IP address used to access the client to its former employee."
They already are. See the latest OnStar commercials. If they're chasing you and you don't stop, they can either slow your car down, kill it, and/or make it start honking and flashing lights. And they can keep you locked in your car.
They've also been caught using it to spy on people by activating the voice channel.
Never buy a vehicle with OnStar.
Here, let me fix that for you:
"To be fair, there are plenty of used car dealers who overcharge when they sell not-terribly-reliable cars to not-terribly-reliable clients. They need a way to get their vehicle back when those clients quit paying so they can flip them to the next sucker."
40% or more a year interest, extra fees, inflated "deposits" that are inevitably forfeited as soon as the sucker is one day late, the car repoed and the customer STILL owes the full amount as damages, "it's not a sale, it's a lease - at the end you can buy it for $100.00" - when at the end it's $100 + fees.
It's the auto equivalent of pay-day loans.
They don't ask for it, the bank makes it a requirement of the loan. This way if a payment isn't on time, they can turn the car off to force the issue. You aren't going to find it on a car from a dealer, financed by a normal bank. It is for high risk situations.
The real question is, why is there *one* password for all the cars? Shouldn't it be one password for each employee who has access to log into the "car disabling" server which then sends the lockdown signal using a trusted certificate?
They shouldn't have to change the passwords at all, just delete the employee's user account.
No. That's not the real question. It's a stupid ass question because it was answered in article.
Each employee does have an account. His account was even disabled. He used another employee's account.
Man, you got a +5 for "I didn't read the article" - I can understand no one bothering to mod you down, but +5 stupid? Come on...
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
And do you have any evidence that those things have been used when the owner is driving the car (even if wanted by the police) or only when the car is reported stolen?
Sure. Case in Las Vegas. Note that the FBI's use was not deemed illegal/inappropriate, but rather that it denied the user/owner of use during that time.
I suppose you are trolling but I'll answer your question: it is because there is a higher risk they will never see their money back. If you lend money to 100 people and 10% of them will not repay you, you cannot expect to gain anything if the loan rate is under 10% do you ? If you take an other set of 100 people where you expect only 1% of non payment then you can give them a much better rate.
It just happen that people with large disposable income are less likely to default on a loan.
When I submitted it I made a particular point to remove the references to "hacking".
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
They were pulling numbers out of their asses. The Harvard study says it's a lot worse. http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.w5.63/DC1
and
Just look at the "out-of-pocket" expenses - and keep in mind that this doesn't include having to continue to pay insurance premiums while losing revenue because you're ill ,,, url:http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/vol0/issue2005/images/data/hlthaff.w5.63/DC1/Himmelstein_Ex5.gif?