Slashdot Mirror
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."
this makes front page of slashdot, why?
Because it makes the idiots who claim this kind of backdoor would never be misused look bad. Why are you protesting so much, anyway?
Sure. You don't qualify for a car loan, but they'll sell you a car, with a 5% per month interest rate, all sorts of fees, and a "you pass by the office by such-and-such a date with the cash or we kill your car" deal. Lots of cash income, much of it undeclared by the dealer, since the financing is not reported to credit rating agencies (it's called "in house financing" for a reason :-)
The car analogy? It's like getting a sh*tty deal on a sh*tty car.
If you're going to play around with your ex-employer's systems like that, you don't do it from your own home. You go interstate, to a 'net cafe, and do it from there! Sheesh. Kids these days.
It is a back door. It's a back door installed by the dealer into your car with the assurance that it won't be misused.
The "front door" would be for them to send you a letter when you miss a payment, and send someone over to repossess the car if you continue to miss them, but I guess they feel that the tiny number of people who would try to steal the car justifies inflicting this system on all of their customers.
Yet those things have their place too, and they allow the worst of the deadbeats to somehow get a car. After all, it's not like getting a regular car loan from a reputable dealer is particularly difficult. I have a friend who works part time in a $12/hr job, has terrible credit history and no assets worth mentioning and she just got financing for a small used car from Carmax with an interest rate of 16%. People who have to get the deals like you mentioned are the ones that nobody in their right mind would loan money to except under those conditions. If they are being harsher than necessary on their customers then somebody (why not you?) will step in and be a slightly less harsh and take all the business.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
...is the perfect example (and with car analogy indeed) of why DRM and remote product (de)activation is doomed to failure.
If she "hit a rough patch", she was already overextended when she hit it.
That's false. For one, about half of all bankruptcies in the US are caused by people with medical insurance who can't pay their medical bills. And another, if you want to get a divorce, just start an account and tell your partner "that's the divorce account so that I won't be overextended in case of divorce." That's only slightly worse than hiding money away without telling them what it's for.
Learn to love Alaska
For one, about half of all bankruptcies in the US are caused by people with medical insurance who can't pay their medical bills.
I used that fact on another forum, and someone countered that the amount of $$$ that the bankruptcies were for was in the order of $1000 or so. My first thought was - "bastard, shoot my argument down why don't you". Then my second thought was "Jeez, is that how little money separates the majority of people from bankruptcy. Thats really sad".
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
My sister is like that... Willing to remove all risk from her life and put control in the hands of other people for the safety of her kids. That's all well and good, but I don't need someone having the ability to remotely disable my automobile regardless of my distance from the person with their finger on the button. Sure, responsibility for my family is is important, but I don't need the specter of a nanny snooping in and judging me because I want to listen to some Middle Eastern music.
Life is risk. When you shed risk, it's usually at a price.
Sig not found.
Or you can just set up automatic payments for everything.
This works well up until there is a problem or billing dispute. For example, I know of someone who had automatic payments being made from their account to the electric company. The utility decided that some damage that he didn't think he was responsible for was, in fact, his responsibility so they withdrew $7500 from his bank account. He discovered this when his other cheques and whatnot started bouncing.
I have nothing set up for automatic payments. It doesn't take that long to write someone a cheque and put it in the mail, and I retain control of my own bank account and know that money won't be magically disappearing.
When it comes to a billing dispute, I would prefer to have them coming after me for money rather than be in a position where I am trying to get my money back from them.
I pay my bills but I want to know exactly how much I'm paying and what I got for my money. Then I'll write you a cheque.
In that order.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
And yet you folks still seem to honestly believe the "socialized medicine" would leave you WORSE off than you are ?
*shakes head sadly*
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *