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."

Comments

I don't understand

[commodoresloat]

Can someone explain this article to me using a car analogy?

Re:I don't understand

[tomhudson]

Can someone explain this article to me using a car analogy?

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.

Re:I don't understand

[couchslug]

To be fair, there are plenty of used car dealers who don't overcharge but do sell to not-terribly-reliable clients. They need a way to get their vehicle back when those clients quit paying.

Re:I don't understand

[tomhudson]

To be fair, there are plenty of used car dealers who don't overcharge but do sell to not-terribly-reliable clients. They need a way to get their vehicle back when those clients quit paying.

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.

Re:I don't understand

[clarkkent09]

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.

Re:I don't understand

[ae1294]

This is like DRM for cars.
The real question, though, is whether removing the battery was a violation of the DMCA.

No the really real question is now that real hackers know about this system how long before the real lulz....

Re:I don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

never understood why banks expect to make money by charging higher interest rates to those who are least able to pay in the first place. what is it? some kind of poor tax?

Re:I don't understand

[adonoman]

Or you can just set up automatic payments for everything. I'm neither wealthy, nor a school teacher, but every monthly payment I make is automatically pulled out of my bank account without my interference. Car loan, student loans, phone, cell phone, internet, water / sewer, electricity / natural gas, mortgage, city taxes, car insurance, house insurance, even retirement savings, and donations all just happen. My pay-cheque is direct-deposited as well, so really the only interaction I have with the bank is when something changes. Otherwise, all I have to do is check my monthly statements to make sure everything's fine. I've never had a late payment, since in general, it's not up to me to make the payment.

Re:I don't understand

[plover]

Why? Do the "worst of the deadbeats" somehow still deserve credit? Credit isn't a basic human right. For that matter, owning a car isn't a basic human right, either.

If the deadbeats "need" a car, they really "need" to save enough money to buy one. I'm sorry about your destitute friend's situation, but I didn't extend her the credit that she defaulted on in the first place. I didn't give her the bad debt history. If she "hit a rough patch", she was already overextended when she hit it. Her creditors deserved to lose the money they never should have loaned her in the first place, but they also have the right to honestly report her repayment behavior to the credit bureaus -- it's why they keep track of such things.

Anyone stupid enough to loan money to someone who has walked away from their previous debts deserves the chance to lose any money they loan that person. Usurious loans fall under that category, too.

Re:I don't understand

[sodul]

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.

Re:I don't understand

[AK Marc]

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.

Re:I don't understand

[ooshna]

Anyone stupid enough to loan money to someone who has walked away from their previous debts deserves the chance to lose any money they loan that person. Usurious loans fall under that category, too.

Must be nice to live in a perfect little world where you are the sole person that can hurt your credit. My uncle doesn't talk to my grandmother because when he was in college she got a few credit cards in his name and destroyed his credit. When he got out of college he had student loans to take care of.

Re:I don't understand

[timeOday]

Well, the credit card companies are one step ahead of you. Some have been caught delaying the deposit of payments so they can charge late fees, or changing the due date to catch people off-guard.

Go ahead and try to fight the $39 late fee in court if you're so inclined...

Congress actually had to pass a law to stop it.

Re:I don't understand

[ePhil_One]

If the deadbeats "need" a car, they really "need" to save enough money to buy one

I've bought 3 cars in my life for under $200 each, you don't "need" to buy a car on credit.

Anyone stupid enough to loan money to someone who has walked away from their previous debts deserves the chance to lose any money they loan that person.

And if they've loaned that money on the condition they can reclaim the car/home/kidney if the debtor stops paying, they have the right to reclaim it. I'm pretty confident those dealers aren't losing money on these loans. Its a much worse deal for the consumer than it is for the dealer, you can be sure of that

Re:I don't understand

[OzPeter]

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".

Re:I don't understand

[BitZtream]

You do realize that all of it is in the contract you sign up front so you know what you are spending if you bothered to read.

Second, you won't find a contract that says you have time after the due date before they can collect the item. Every contract states clearly that the instant you are late they can start the recovery process. If you don't want them to start the recovery process, follow the rules. If you don't like the rules, don't sign the contract, its not hard.

Just because you're used to living in a world where companies realize that most of the time its easier to float you a few days than it is to start the collection process and piss you off doesn't mean you have any sort of right or expectation that you should be able to bend the rules of the contract.

Its funny, you think its okay for you to bend the rules, but not for them to make unfair ones.

Thats pretty fucked up if you really sit down and think about it.

Re:I don't understand

[Belial6]

Sounds like his mother was a bitch and a criminal to boot. His correct action should have been to report her to the police, and take all of the difficult, but doable steps necessary for identity theft. Now, I can understand that he may have made the choice to assume this criminal mother's debt to keep her out of jail, and I'm not going to say that he made the wrong choice. But, he did agree to assume her debt, so the OP's point still stands.

That being said, the same thing happened to my wife. She moved out at 16, and at 17 her mother opened a credit card under her name. We found when she was 25 when we tried to buy our first house, and the card showed up as bad debt. Her mother had run it up and then declared bankruptcy. Cleaning that was pretty easy, as the card was issued in her name when she was not legally able to get a credit card. She did offer to help the credit card company in any criminal prosecution they wanted to push on her mother. Funny thing is, as soon as they saw her age at the time the card was issued, they cleared it from her credit report, and refused to discuss the matter any further with her. They were totally uninterested in prosecuting.

Re:I don't understand

[Fishead]

My little brother (car salesman) says of these people "Couldn't finance a ham sandwich with a five dollar deposit".

Re:I don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

never understood why banks expect to make money by charging higher interest rates to those who are least able to pay in the first place.

Perhaps because you aren't very bright? Its statistics. Loan 100 people $1,000 at 30%, even if 10 don't pay you back anything, you make $17,000, a 17% return on investment. Now assume those 10 paid 25% of the loan back before defaulting, and you then succeeded in getting 8 of the cars back to resell at $1,000 each, and the two you didn't get back only cost you $200 at auction, the late fees you tacked onto the 20 who were slow paying you back, and margins go through the roof!

I have good credit, I don't understand how the bank makes money loaning me $ at 3.9% interest when I can't even get that good a rate on my mortgage

Re:I don't understand

[mcpkaaos]

>Its statistics.

No, it's just arithmetic. Stats is concerned with how likely and how often defaults may occur, not the overall gain or loss as a result.

>Perhaps because you aren't very bright?

Don't be a dick unless you are absolutely sure you are right. Even then, don't be a dick.

Re:I don't understand

[innocent_white_lamb]

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.

Re:I don't understand

[MaskedSlacker]

Funny thing is, as soon as they saw her age at the time the card was issued, they cleared it from her credit report, and refused to discuss the matter any further with her. They were totally uninterested in prosecuting.

Probably because they were as guilty of felonious conduct as the mother.

Re:I don't understand

[Tromad]

You can get a used working car on craigslist for ~$800, probably even less if you know someone that can fix it up. So if these "worst of the deadbeats" can't save up even $800, then the likelihood they can even afford to drive a car much less pay you back makes loaning them money incredibly risky. Whether it is better for these high interest loans to not even exist for these people I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if a significant portion of them defaulted.

Re:I don't understand

[tomhudson]

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

Among those whose illnesses led to bankruptcy, out-of-pocket costs averaged $11,854 since the start of illness; 75.7 percent had insurance at the onset of illness. Medical debtors were 42 percent more likely than other debtors to experience lapses in coverage. Even middle-class insured families often fall prey to financial catastrophe when sick.

and

Debtors with private insurance at the onset of their illnesses had even higher out-of-pocket costs than those with no insurance (Exhibit 5). This paradox is explained by the very high costs--$18,005--incurred by patients who initially had private insurance but lost i

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?

Re:I don't understand

[tomhudson]

Nobody's saying that people have a "right" to "bend the rules". What I am saying is that the people who fall prey to these scams need help in learning how to do basic things like make a budget, and that people in general need to get out of the "I can make the payments" mentality.

Re:I don't understand

[edjs]

The $39 late fee is just the icing on the cake. Where they really get you is by suddenly jacking up your interest rate due to the 'missed' payment. And when that shows up on your credit report, any other credit cards you may have may have their rates jump as well.

Re:I don't understand

[gknoy]

It doesn't matter if you can't make your mortgage or car payments or credit cards by $1000 or $10000. If debts exceed means, then many will be forced to declare bankruptcy.

Re:I don't understand

[Eivind]

Here's the thing. There's some people, and some situations, where the apropriate response when that person asks for more credit is, quite simply, "no".

You're assuming that overall, giving people the possibility of taking on even more very expensive debt, despite no credit-worthiness, no collateral, and generally a proven track-record of defaulting, is doing anyone a service. It is not.

If your friend has low income, and a terrible credit-history. It's quite likely that the LAST thing she needs is even more debt, at terribly expensive terms.

It's the "I can't afford to /buy/ the car at $3000, so I'll finance it on terrible terms and pay $5000 for it over 3 years instead. This doesn't, generally speaking, help your economy.

Re:I don't understand

[Eivind]

If -that- isn't an argument that your medical system is fundamentally FUBARed then I don't know what is.

It's the worlds most expensive by far, has mediocre results (compare infant mortality or any other stat you can think of to any other country that spends above half the amount you spend) AND it regularily brings families into financial ruin, families that are ALREADY facing seriuos health-problems of one of the family-members, even those who HAVE insurance. (nevermind those who don't)

It's COMPLETELY incomprehencible to me that anyone is willing to accept that crap. Seriously.

Re:I don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

I have good credit, I don't understand how the bank makes money loaning me $ at 3.9% interest when I can't even get that good a rate on my mortgage

Because they're borrowing it from the Feds at Zero, and/or using money held in checking accounts that are not accruing any interest. There are a lot of other aspects to banking beyond this, but those are the two easiest examples to illustrate.

As for all your math, it's not relevant unless you're talking about "in-house" financing which is a whole different ballgame.
Normally what happens is that you get the loan from the bank at X% interest, who promptly take that loan and sells it to another company for (let's just pull a number out of thin air here) 90% of the value of the loan. Bank makes the remainder% value of the loan immediately, the other company ends up keeping the 10% (in this case).
The actual amount it gets sold for varies widely, and is based on the credit worthiness, payment history, value of any attached assets, etc. In many cases the second company will take that loan, along with a whole bunch of other loans, roll them into one big package and sell it off to yet another company.

Usually they will take a small amount of high-risk loans and package them along with some low-risk loans to offset any potential defaults. It's this exact mechanism that we heard all about in the housing/banking/mortgage industry for the last couple years. The reason that was so bad was that the people in the financial system were pretty much lying to each other about the risk level of the loans as well as the value of the attached assets, and instead of the low-risk loans absorbing the losses of the high-risk defaults, when everything went to hell people found out the hard way that most of the loans were actually high-risk and the rest is history. But the point is that in most cases the people who originally granted the loan actually got their money back almost immediately.

Re:I don't understand

[bickerdyke]

I've bought 3 cars in my life for under $200 each, you don't "need" to buy a car on credit.

Let me guess.... Those were the last 2 weeks?? :-)

Re:I don't understand

[treeves]

Well, it does involve statistics, as he said, the probabilities that people will default, etc. but your point still stands. Even when you're right, don't be a dick.

Re:I don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

what an old fashioned way of doing financial business. It involves manual labor (writing checks, stuffing them in envelopes), costs time, is error-prone (humans are not made to be error free with repetive tasks), involves another party (the postal system. causing delays, losses) and contains several media discontinuities (computer -> paper -> computer).

I (located in germany) handle nearly everything with automatic payments or better: withdrawel permits. The difference is the following. If I make automated payments (e.g. rent) it is technically me who does the payment. This gives me some control over the payments: I can withhold it or split it if there are disputes about the amount (e.g. the flat shows a problem with the water). The downside is, that it is nearly impossible to change it afterwards - the money is gone for this month even if there are disputes.
Withdrawel permits allow others to let their bank ask my bank for the money from my account. This is very convenient and I have the security of the right to call my bank *after the withdrawel* and cancel this in cases of disputed or unwarrented withdrawels. My bank is obliged to return my money. Downside: if the withdrawel was indeed legit it costs a hefty fee. And one has to check the accounts regulary to detect illegit withdrawels (but then again: one should always check on a regular basis).

So with electronic banking I can still retain control over my accounts and avoid the hassle and errors of manual banking. And it even saves money for me: my bank rewards electronic banking with a bonus of 1EUR/month, no fees for transactions - because they save manual labor as well.

I can't believe the possibility of filling out checks in the 21st century. I wrote my last check some 20 years ago...

Re:I don't understand

[bestalexguy]

... about half of all bankruptcies in the US are caused by people with medical insurance who can't pay their medical bills.

More public aid to people with both health and financial problems is hugely needed. Not nearly as much needed is a generic positive attitude towards all who have awful credit histories.

Re:I don't understand

[Bert64]

People try to live outside of their means and are greedy.
Instead of an old beat up but functional car for $800, they want a shiny new car.

Re:I don't understand

[Bert64]

Sounds like a flaw in the banking system in your country...
In the UK we have standing orders and direct debits, standing orders are a fixed amount decided on by you and are great for loan payments and the like where the amount never changes...
For variable amounts like utility companies etc, we have direct debit which offers a guarantee similar to a credit card - you file a dispute and your meant to get the money back immediately while the dispute is sorted out... They also have to notify you a couple of weeks before taking the payment, so you have the opportunity to stop a payment that looks wrong in which case the company will come after you normally.

I don't have a cheque book, banks here often don't supply them by default and many places don't accept them at all. I hate receiving cheques because they're a hassle to deal with, i have to go to the bank during its limited opening hours (when i'm usually working), fill out a form to deposit it, stand in line and then wait 5 days to actually get the money or find out something has failed and i don't actually have the money at all.

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

And yet you folks still seem to honestly believe the "socialized medicine" would leave you WORSE off than you are ?

*shakes head sadly*

Re:I don't understand

[Bert64]

Many people are too lazy/stupid to read the whole contract, and many companies offering such contracts will go to considerable lengths to prevent you reading it all...
The contract will be long, and written in barely legible print which gives you eye strain... And as you're reading it, the salesman will be getting impatient and trying to hurry you along. Try telling them you can't sign the contract right away, but you want to take a copy away so you can show it to your lawyer.

Re:I don't understand

[Skater]

... and take all of the difficult, but doable steps necessary for identity theft.

If we're talking about the US: Now, yes. But up until fairly recently, there were no "difficult but doable steps" for identity theft. Even in the mid-90s, victims were in hell because no one would believe that they didn't run up the debts themselves, few businesses planned for the possibility, and they victims no way to resolve it.

I mention this because he said, "his uncle" - the problem could have happened long before there really was any recourse for victims of identity theft.

Re:I don't understand

[Laurence0]

My girlfriend bought a car for just under £100 when she first passed her driving test. Yes, it was a pile of crap, but it also got her from A to B with no problems for about 3 months. After those 3 months, it developed a hole in the petrol filler pipe, so she got rid of it, but still, that was £33/month for a car, which is pretty good.

I paid about £3500 for my car, for it to have the same monthly cost, I'd have to keep using it for about 10 years! (ignoring resale value, yadda yadda yadda)

Re:I don't understand

[tsstahl]

Mod Parent up!!!!

I trust me way more than I trust ANY company with MY money.

Friends of mine, he a cop, she a teacher, purchased a car with big name financing. For some inexplicable reason, they took the full car payment every two weeks instead of every month. They went round and round for MONTHS with repeated assurances that 'everything is fixed' now.

A person I work with has a mortgage with a bank that sounds like hells cargo. This person had three mortgage payments withdrawn in a single month. It happened again a month later after assurances that everything is fixed now. Oh, and they did not want to give the money back, they just wanted to credit her payments for six months. Funny thing though, the money wasn't this person's because the bank kindly let the withdrawals happen so they could fee the crap out of the account.

Re:I don't understand

[soupforare]

I can only speak for us massholes, but the state government here has made driving a, let's say, well-loved vehicle damn near impossible. Inspections are every year and more stringent than ever. There aren't any "friendly" inspection stations that make sure your lights, brakes and radio work and then send you on your way. Your inspector, inspection, title and insurance are all linked at the RMV now, as well. So, the old trick of picking up a beater with a recent sticker doesn't work. I've been in financial dire straights and driven some $50 specials in the past that simply wouldn't be allowed on the road these days.
Expensive gas and part-stripping has completely drove up the prices of 80s/90s econoboxes too. Used to be able to find beat up civics/tercels/cavs for 500-1000, I don't see them for less than ~2k anymore.

Re:I don't understand

[rayd75]

There are many adequate replies to this already, but I'll go so far as to add that the entire electronic banking system is flawed, at least in the US. There is no careful management and validation of authorizations like most people want to imagine. A party interested in withdrawing money from your account needs only your account number and your bank's routing number to do so. Misuse of this is discouraged mostly by the difficulty of doing it anonymously... Which isn't so much of a concern to a corporation you've been allowing to dip into your account already. They'll merely say "it's legitimate" and the bank will tell you to deal with them. There are no protections like those afforded to credit card users. It's been well over a decade ago now, but I once left a job in a blow-up argument and was "unpaid" through reversal of a direct deposit that occurred days earlier. When I spoke to my bank manager, she basically told me "tough luck". Sure, I could have contacted a lawyer, etc, but the point isn't that I didn't have recourse; It's that the system is broken if anyone, at any time, can cause you rack-up a series of $30 NSF charges and keep you from paying your bills for days or weeks.

Re:I don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I take it that you're a Republican. Do me a favor and look at this. The bottom section has a nice graphic that compares two Republican healthcare bills, a bi-partisan bill, and the Senate and House bills. Between the five of them, there aren't that many substantial differences.

If you truly believe the people who are telling you that the government is taking over healthcare and will be able to decide you aren't worth treating, do me a favor: ask those people which bill they would prefer. Then try to find out which one of the minor differences in the bills removes death panels. Here's a hint - there is no such thing. The major differences between Republican healthcare plan and Democrat healthcare plan involve how wide coverage will extend, where the money comes from, and how much it will cost.

You people are so far removed from reality that it isn't amusing anymore. Educate yourselves.

(Note: The figures for the bi-partisan Wyden-Bennett bill and covering the uninsured comes from a dubious source. I personally doubt this one, but the others are all quite credible.)

Re:I don't understand

[DarKnyht]

Yes I do, because anything the government does is not done well. However, I also believe that insurance agencies should be forced back into being non-profit entities. I think the fact that the insurance agencies have become more concerned with profit is a large part of the issue.

But then I also think part of it is doctors willing to test everything under the sun when not really necessary to collect fees an issue, as is those that go to the ER for aspirin. Going to socialized medicine really doesn't address those issues now does it?

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

And the counterpoints...
1) Right now America's biggest problem isn't doctors testing too much - it's too LITTLE testing. Americans don't do any preventative medicine choosing to go to the doctor only when the damage done is already severe.
Guess what - early detection and preventative care is not only better for saving lives, it generally costs a lot less to provide.

The old adage goes that "early detection of cancer means before there are serious symptoms" - how do you equate that with a system where people are afraid to go to a doctor until the symptoms are severe ?

More importantly - I didn't say medicine should always be provided by the government, there are some possible valid concerns there though it's clear to me that your "medicine market" system comes down to saying "the right to life is on the lawbooks but only for rich people". I put "socialized medicine" in quotes on purpose - specifically to point out that I am using the term as it's use by America concervatives - to mean "any medicine not supplied with the intention of maximizing corporate profits.

The point is - I think the vast majority of Americans would get better and more frequent medical care even with the kind of government run single-payer form of universal healthcare found in countries like cuba.

My own country uses multipayer universal healthcare e.g. there are both private medical facilities and public ones. Medical insurance companies (who generally take bulk contracts with employers offering you better rates) that pay for private care, while public is free-for-all.
The catch here is that we're a very poor country - so public means long waits and overworked staff. Despite that, a few years ago I got in a motorcycle crash when I was uninsured, went to a public hospital and got excellent care and thus survived without any lasting injuries.

Brazil is just a little richer than my native South Africa, I used to be a very regular traveler there. They too have multipayer system like we do, but they have a somewhat richer country. On one of my trips I got sick, simple virus infection. Here - I would save my precious medical-savings-account (insurance part only kicks in if you're hospitalized) and just heal up at home.
There I was instantly dragged to a clinic by my hosts. True I had to wait about two hours to be helped (if I went to a private one with an appointment I could skip that, but I'd literally be paying for the convenience - the care is identical).
Once I got to a doctor though, I was fully examined. I was then prescribed a course of immune-boosting vitamins, given 3 hours of pure oxygen (another immune booster) and a series of shots to prevent secondary infections... basically 5 hours of care (suddenly waiting 2 hours isn't so bad by comparison).
Whereas normally a flu virus knocks me out for up to two weeks, I was back on my feet in 3 days.

For 86 out of 100 patients - this care won't save their lives, just get them back to work a bit quicker (hmmm isn't that GOOD for the economy ?) but now what about that 14% of people in whom influenza is fatal ? This kind of treatment probably drops the fatality rate in that country to 7% or lower (I haven't checked the numbers - but it's obvious that massive preventative care in patients having a disease with a low fatality rate would lower it).

And do you know what I paid for all those shots, the oxygen treatment, the doctor's time and the huge bottle of pills they gave me ? Squat. No bill. Not even one penny. It's free - even to a foreign tourist. The form I was given to fill in had a place for my name and age, the rest of it was valid questions on my medical history. Nobody cared about my billing address.

If Brazil can afford to give high quality medical care to it's citizens for free - America has no excuse.

Do you realize that America is the ONLY industrialized nation on the PLANET with no guaranteed free healthcare option available to all citizens ? There isn't even ONE other industrialized country where poor people HAVE t

Re:I don't understand

[ChrisMaple]

Yes, charging higher interest rates to those least able to pay does exacerbate the problem. Tell you what: get together with a bunch of like-minded people, pool your money, and loan it out to deadbeats at a lower rate than banks.

Re:I don't understand

[PPalmgren]

The scariest problem about changing the US healthcare system to be similar to the rest of the developed world is that the rest of the developed world rides on the R&D spent in the US for healthcare reasons. The US develops it and implements it as early adopters, and other countries adopt it when it goes mainstream. As an anecdote, my cousin has a doctorate in the medical research field and has no major job opportunities in Europe when compared to the options in the US. They are told as they go into the higher ends of the field (he's specializing in cancer research) that they will likely have to move to the US to finish their studies or find a job. Socializing medicine in the US will destroy the incentive to innovate and slow down the rate of advancement in the field significantly, since it will change the focus from advanced techniques to mainstream commodity techniques.

In short, the US may be behind in medical care but it is vastly ahead of everywhere else in the world when it comes to medical R&D and advancement, specifically because of the way our system rewards R&D. Socializing our system will hurt medical options for people in the long run worldwide because of the reduced incentive for leading edge R&D.

Re:I don't understand

[demigod]

It's COMPLETELY incomprehencible to me that anyone is willing to accept that crap. Seriously.

It's only incomprehencible because you don't know enough average Americans.

The average American believes America is the greatest country on earth, and thus must have the greatest healthcare system on earth. They believe that should be obvious to you, since they pay the most for their healthcare, how could it be anything other than the best.

You can't swing a dead cat in America without hitting a nationalistic moron.

Re:I don't understand

[bickerdyke]

Uhmm. no. Thank you.

As I already said, lending money to people who obviously won't be able to pay it back ist stupid.

Increasing the risk of not getting your money back is only more stupid.

Re:I don't understand

[ChrisMaple]

that 14% of people in whom influenza is fatal

Funny how one blatant lie can invalidate your whole long post.

Or did I miss the news stories of millions of people dying in the most recent wave of influenza?

Re:I don't understand

[ChrisMaple]

The US medical system is in trouble because of government intervention and vicious lawyers. Giving government complete control is suicidal.

Re:I don't understand

[ZeroSumHappiness]

It's more like the people who /look/ like they won't be able to pay it back make it profitable only if you make them pay a lot. Sucks to have bad credit, sucks more if you don't want to keep bad credit.

Re:I don't understand

[ChrisMaple]

I've bought 3 cars in my life for under $200 each, you don't "need" to buy a car on credit.

I was going to make a similar point. Where I live, taxes on even such a cheap car would equal the cost of the car in 2 years. I used to live in California; taxes on such a car there would probably be $200 a year and mandatory insurance over $400 a year. The purchase price can be far exceeded by taxes and "unfunded mandates".

Re:I don't understand

[corbettw]

Just because what we have now is bad doesn't mean what the President and Congress are proposing is not bad. You can be against the monstrosity that is health-care reform without ignoring the problems that currently exist.

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

Short answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_epidemic

The long version (that applies to every year):
It's true, it just doesn't make the news because the people who die from influenza are almost exclusively in one of the following categories:
1) Those with impaired immune systems (influenza is the number 2 killer of HIV sufferers after TB)
2) The elderly
3) Infants

Basically when an old person gets the flu and it leads to a heart-attack, we don't really think of it as a flu death but since it was the flu that caused the heart attack in the first place - that's the true cause. Flu is known to damage the heart, when the heart is already weak - it is often fatal.

Note I said ALMOST exclusively - healthy 25 year olds also die from flu sometimes, especially if they don't take proper rest-care while sick or don't control the fever.

Every now and then we get a strain of influenza that is somewhat harder for our immune systems to tackle and the death rates in all three categories go much higher, while the rates among healthy adults climb to a more noticeable level and we get giant media freak-outs about the pandemic that is about to wipe us out. Usually it's given some name like "bird flu" or "swine flu" - remember those ?
And then, much more rarely we get a particularly resistant strain that actually DOES lead to a massive world wide pandemic - like the one I linked above.
Now go to your room and let the grown-ups talk.

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

And apparently you missed the bit where I CLEARLY stated: "I didn't check the numbers" ? I was demonstrating that preventative care would lower the fatality rate and I made it very clear that the numbers I used were purely examples, I made no claim that they were factual - in fact I specifically stated they weren't. As my previous post shows though - if you wanted to compare real numbers (which are utterly irelevent to the point of my post - I was writing about HEALTHCARE not the fatality rates of influenza) - they are still far higher than you seem to think - certainly high enough to validate my use of influenza as an example. I didn't bother to check exact numbers because they are completely irelevent to my point. What matters is only that influenza can have serious complications, and can be fatal and that preventative care can greatly reduce the risk of both - the exact amounts by which is something that you look at when you plan a healthcare budget, not when you decide if you need one.

Re:I don't understand

[2obvious4u]

Actually you would be. The "socialized medicine" comes in the form of taxes. When the taxes are not enough to cover this socialized care then the government must borrow the money from future generations. This is inflation. So everyone ends up poorer because of the socialized medicine. Not only that but you can't get out of paying taxes, if you refuse you are jailed, not so when not paying your debts.

Second point: As long as you pay something on a medical debt you are fine. You really can't go bankrupt from the medical debt since you can work out a payment plan and in most cases the doctors will write off the care if you really can't pay for it. Now if you are driving a Hummer and then refuse the $20,000 debt there is something wrong with you. You could sell your hummer and buy a used car for $1,200 and pay your medical debt. The doctor did save your life and you would be dead otherwise. It is not the medical debt that is driving people into bankruptcy it is all the other debts associated with the illness. Being out of work, etc. The hole correlation/causation thing. Yeah a lot of people with medical debt go into bankruptcy, but it is not because of the health care system, it is because they are out of work for their medical care and have other outstanding debts.

Re:I don't understand

[Blkdeath]

Many people are too lazy/stupid to read the whole contract, and many companies offering such contracts will go to considerable lengths to prevent you reading it all... The contract will be long, and written in barely legible print which gives you eye strain... And as you're reading it, the salesman will be getting impatient and trying to hurry you along. Try telling them you can't sign the contract right away, but you want to take a copy away so you can show it to your lawyer.

I think you'll find it can be quite the opposite, actually. In Ontario, Canada we've had new legislation implemented that's aimed at protecting consumers and forcing them to be aware of their rights and obligations under an automotive contract, yet people still brazenly autograph it as quickly as possible so as to move on with other things.

In point of fact, it is now mandated by law in Ontario that all sales contracts contain the following text, in bold-face 12 point font, with the first two words being mandated to be in 14 point font. The wording must be directly adjacent to the signature line so as to give the consumer every opportunity to read it prior to finalizing the contract. Vis;

Sales Final. Please review the entire contract, including all attached statements, before signing. This contract is final and binding once I have signed it unless the motor vehicle dealer has failed to comply with certain legal obligations. No other promises or terms have been made to me that are not part of this contract.

It's amazing how many customers come into the dealership days later asking why they can't just "forget the whole thing", or who demand other things be "thrown in" that are not part of the contract, or who don't understand the clauses on the reverse of the contract that talk about liquidation of damages from one's deposit should they fail to accept delivery or pay. "Oh, I didn't know that's what that said"

I'm not asking people to read the fine print, but it would be nice if they'd atleast read the 14 point bold face print that's 1 inch away from their signature.

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

I say it again... I LIVE in a country with a system you would call "Socialist" a country where 90% of the taxes are paid by only about 20% of the population.
WE can afford to provide free medical care for the everybody - and frankly of the many things my massively overcharged taxes are spent on the medical care is the lowest burden, fortunes on weaponry (who the hell will South Africa ever go to war with ?) is a much bigger concern (Which is why the arms deal degenerated into a corruption scandal).
Brazil can do it. France can do it, Britain can do it.
Everybody in the world does it except you and nations so poor they rely on international aid just to feed people. Yeah - you are so much better off.

Re:I don't understand

[Nethemas the Great]

You neglect to realize that the American populace is unaware of the particulars of the facts surrounding our health care system, the results their of, or largely anything involving the inner-workings of our government and especially as they relate to comparisons with other countries. Unless you specifically go out looking for this information the only thing that you will hear is that "we're the best in the world", "don't fix what isn't broken", "it would be a scary thing to place your trust in government provided/managed services, besides it's un-American", "there will be long waiting queues", "the death board will decide if you get treatment", etc., etc.. The people in our country most in need of something different are told this most frequently and most loudly.

It's fun to laugh at us and all (heck I poke fun at our rural underbelly too...) but I would appeal to your sense of humanity. Help us to know what's really going on. Tell us how your system works, what your experience is, how well does it work for your people, etc. Tell us the good, the bad, etc.. There's too much FUD being communicated and too much isolation from the facts here in the U.S..

Re:I don't understand

[therealkevinkretz]

Absolutely, 100%, yes.

Re:I don't understand

[Richy_T]

I had a counterpoint to you but really, it didn't contradict your underlying point that basically, yes, it is stupid.

With the higher interest rate, you may get a similar (or even higher) reward but your potential liabilities go high enough to wipe you out if something happens to the market (c.f. the recent housing crisis).

Re:I don't understand

[sabt-pestnu]

While I completely agree with what you've said, there are a couple of extensions I would make.

First, I prefer getting my a check from my employer vs direct deposit for much the same reason. If I want to deposit the check somewhere else, I can.

Second, you can have the best/worst of both worlds, by creating an account specifically for (some subset of) automated withdraw handling. A different account for each bill, if you want. You'd specifically want to have "automatic overdraft protection" DISABLED for any account you have automatic withdrawal *enabled* on, a) to prevent the bastards taking more than the limited amount you authorize, and b) to prevent the bank itself from dunning you for overdraft (loan) charges on the same.

Worst of both worlds, because you have to manage cash transfers INTO those accounts, losing the 'convenience' of "not having to specifically manage that bill".

Re:I don't understand

[DarKnyht]

I like your comment, including your anecdotal stories. However, here is a recent news article referring to a study that points to exactly the point I made. US Doctors over test and in turn get to bill insurance companies for things that were unnecessary. http://www.baystatebanner.com/Print?page=Health24-2010-03-18

Re:I don't understand

[autophile]

The autopayment system that I use allows you to set a rule such as "If bill is under $X then pay in full." If the bill is over, then I have to examine the bill and pay the appropriate amount myself. I set X to the average plus a sigma or so.

Of course, if some robot at a company decides to go nuts and start sending the same bill every day, the exception will never occur and my account will get emptied in a hurry. But then that hasn't actually happened in the 15+ years I've been using this same system.

Re:I don't understand

[tomhudson]

Yes, my preference is that people who have, as you said, "demonstrated that they're not to be trusted with credit not be able to get a car", rather than get themselves further into the hole, use alternatives, such as public transit, bicycles, cheaper used cars, etc. You know - BMW - Bus, Metro, Walk.

Re:I don't understand

[Frogbert]

Woah, I'm not sure how it works in different countries but when I configure automatic payments with my bank they are just automated transactions to the company from my account. They don't dip into my account and take what they want. I give them what I expect to pay.

Sure that doesn't cover bills that fluctuate but I deposit what I spend on average and pay the difference if need be.

Re:I don't understand

[Billly Gates]

People default.

Some have spouses who are dishonest, some have job losses, others have medical issues the greedy insurance companies wont pay for, and others ... well are idiots.

If you do not deserve a car then how are you going to get to work to put food on your table?

I think some debt should be given to people with a few problems. The much higher rates, down payments, and scary numbers discourage consumption. That is the point.

Do I really really truly need it if I am charged 25%! The situation then works itself in economics so people can get what they need.

Part of me feels its unfair but part me of sides with you in why should someone who gets free rides be able to borrow more?

High rates encourage those to save and if people get back on their feet again and you pay the horrible prime loan then your credit rating will go up by a large number. So it can benefit the borrow as well if he or she is willing to get his or her ass in shape.

Re:I don't understand

[ooshna]

He was born in 69 so late 80's early 90's

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

Overtesting is a relative term - in this case relative to the way your medical system works. That last useless test could end up positive, could save a life - even if it was only put in there to pad the bill. If testing was free - the doctor couldn't gain by doing more than the symptoms actually supported, and could only lose by doing less than he ought to (that WOULD be clear-cut malpractice then)

The free market concept works because it lets us use trade to create incentives for effort. But some things are far too valuable to trade. This is why we ban things like human traficking and slavery - we think human life is too precious to be sold. Technically that's a market restriction - but in this case, a good one.
I think that your version of a medical market has proven to be no different though - it makes human life a matter for trade, and that means only the wealthy can afford to have it - while human life is supposed to be a right. A right so strongly enshrined in our conscious that we won't even allow people to choose to give it up (suicide is illegal in most places) unless they are doing so to save other lives (heroism is lauded in every culture).
The thing I don't get is that for the most part - the people in the US most opposed to health-care reform in the US are the very same people most opposed to euthanasia. A terminally ill patient can't choose to end his own suffering - but a poor person doesn't get the right to survive a curable illness ? That's the worst case of cognitive dissonance I've seen in a while - and US conservative's have turned deliberate dissonance into an artform.

I think you're wrong about government doing EVERYTHING badly - that's just too much of an overgeneralisation - and frankly there are things that are better done by them than by private industry - your own history shows some examples of things that you chose to take OUT of private industry and into government control because it was a disaster when privatized.
If my house catches fire - I do NOT want the fireman to ask for my fire insurance card before they put out the blaze, I'm sure my neighbors would appreciate that too - since the fire is likely to spread to their houses if not stopped. You had private fire-fighting companies in the past... it was a disaster, that's why these days your fire departments are state run. As far as I can see - hospitals and firefighters are in exactly the same class of service here. Everything that made private firefighting a bad idea is happening to medicine now.

Re:I don't understand

[Tromad]

I can definitely see this point of view, especially with the recent cash for clunkers program taking even more drivable vehicles off the road for cars with maybe 1 or 2 mpg better mileage. Excellent program for the middle class, horrible for the poor.

Re:I don't understand

[Eivind]

True I guess. I do know many Americans, but they do tend to be above-average-clueful. I guess I should've rephrased; it's incomprehensible to me why anyone with a clue would accept it.

Re:I don't understand

[Eivind]

Here's a hint: If your map doesn't seem to correspond with the actual terrain -- the terrain is right.

Re:I don't understand

[Eivind]

Nah. That's unrelated.

It is -true- that there is a large and thriving medical-research field in USA. It is also true that this is probably the most advanced medical research-field in the world, though there's a few other countries also making significant contributions.

But that's entirely unrelated to healthcare-financing. New medicines and treatments are researched sometimes with public money, but a large part of it, with private money, hoping to make a tidy profit selling the products. If you can invent some new medicine, and patents allow you to have an exclusive monopoly on it for a period, and sell it at a price high enough to recoup more than the devlopment-costs, you've got a winner. And that's really independent of how large a fraction of the population is lacking health-coverage, for example. For that matter, it's not as if these inventions are -not- sold to countries with socialized healthcare.

Re:I don't understand

[Eivind]

I think, actually, that your main problem is being too large, in every sense of the word. You're a behemoth, and in many senses the worlds only remaining superpower. (you know something is weird when the top military spender in the world, spend more than the following 5 countries on the list COMBINED)

You're right though. It's really hard to debate alternatives when one doesn't have even rudimentary knowledge of them.

It starts at the top: you're not a democracy, you're a two-party-state. "winner-takes-all" legislation efficiently prevents smaller parties from playing a significant role at all, and in practice you're forced to vote for, not who you prefer, but instead "the lesser of the two evils".

And I don't know if Americans have generally discovered it, but, you know, the cold war is -over-. Stamping "socialist" on a policy is -not- infact a sufficient argument to reject it, indeed it's not even an argument at all. The question isn't if the policy is "socialist", the question is if the benefits of that policy outweighs the disadvantages.

Spesifically to healthcare, there are -precisely- two conditions for qualifying for healthcare-coverage here in Norway. 1: You must be legally in norway 2: The period, actual or planned, must be longer than a year. (i.e. tourists from outside-eu still need travel-insurance)

There's many advantages, including ones most wouldn't stop to consider. The first, and simplest advantage to quantify is that it is, simply, cheaper. Having a large number of insurance-companies add overhead. Lots of people work for those companies, they all want to be paid, this money needs to come from somewhere. (470K people work directly for the insurers, at an average salary of 61K, you do the math!) It's the same in reverse for doctors and hospitals: relating to a large count of insurers, many of which with subtle and often-changing differences in policy, adds to administrative overhead. Second; it entirely avoids the problem of the uninsured. Another thing I wonder if Americans generally know is that today USA is -THE- only developed western country lacking a universal-healthcare for all citizens system. 6 out of 10 personal bankruptcies in USA have atleast some medical component, and many are nessecitated ONLY or CHIEFLY by uncovered medical costs. What is the societal and personal cost of that?

oh, it's a long story... I just wish for your own sake that more people would wake up, and have a real honest look at the alternatives, rather than just knee-jerk.

Re:I don't understand

[Sally Forth]

Yeah, because having to pay $11K worth of copays and uncovered expenses isn't much less likely to lead to bankruptcy than having to pay $11K worth of actual doctor's bills, and the poor guys who find the fine more affordable than the mandate will end up with $100K worth of actual doctor's bills for the same procedure.

Note: The bill currently being considered in the U.S. is not "socialized medicine". It is more fascist than socialist, and it creates a situation in which the government controls what insurance covers, but not what doctors charge. It's a curious hybrid that has all of the uncertainties of the free market, all the heavy-handedness of communism, and all the bulk of trying to pretend that private companies actually matter.

Re:I don't understand

[Sally Forth]

"Brazil can do it."

In Brazil, 25 million people lacked access to electricity as of 2006, mostly people in rural areas, and driving barefoot is not only legal but recommended.

"France can do it."

France has started imposing copays on customers and is looking at the American system for other ideas for reform, hoping to bring down the impossible costs of healthcare that is closing much-needed hospitals.

"Britain can do it."

A recent scandal involving elderly people left without pain medication, in soiled bedclothes, without adequate food and drink is just the most recent highlight on Britain's problematic NHS. Waiting lists for procedures are still long, and a decision was only recently reversed that condemned patients with preventable macular degeneration to going blind in one eye before the other could be treated.

I'll stick with the U.S., thanks. I might be paying $25/month for a while if I get hammered with medical bills during a lapse in insurance, but at least I'll get TREATED.

Re:I don't understand

[Sally Forth]

Er, infant mortality is reported differently in the U.S. compared to most other countries. If a baby is born at 24 weeks gestation and dies despite several weeks of treatment, it is listed as an infant mortality. If that happens in many of these socialist healthcare utopias, nobody even tries to save the child and its death is listed as a "miscarriage".

I'll stick with the U.S., thanks.

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

I wasn't pushing for Obama's current bill. I'm not an American and I don't know the details - but I specifically put "socialized medicine" in quotes (as I mentioned in another post) because it's not MY choice of word - it's what republicans call it.
The current bill I agree is probably worse than what there used to be - big pharma and their republican buddies made quite sure that Obama couldn't actually change anything USEFUL.
The original reform bill he proposed - now THAT would have been a good thing.
The sad thing is... when this disaster blows up in your faces, you'll be blaming the president who proposed healthcare reform - and not the companies and pocket-politicians who took away all the good parts and left you with even less.

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

Oh right, because the systems are not perfect, that means there is no way they can be better than yours.
You HAVE 25$ a months, and you've not needed a bone-marrow transplant or similiar life-saving but horribly expensive medical procedure. The people who do can tell you - your $25/month is probably going down the drain, because insurance companies routinely find excuses not to pay for those procedures.
Yep, you will get TREATED... if you happen to be extremely lucky and rich. When hospitals are allowed to turn anybody away, EVER, that's already murder.

Re:I don't understand

[Sally Forth]

Now I have no idea what you're talking about.

"You HAVE $25 a month" Well, yes. If the people of Britain, France, and Brazil normally do not have $25 a month to spend after paying for necessities, that's yet another reason why I don't want to be like them. "Your $25 a month is going down the drain" HOW? I'm not talking about paying premiums for insurance companies. "When hospitals are allowed to turn anybody away" but they're NOT.

In the U.S., if you need help, you go to the hospital, and you WILL get treated. BY LAW. They cannot turn you away unless you do not need treatment. (I took my daughter in once because it looked as if she had black stool in her diaper. They checked the diaper. Turns out it was merely very dark green, mild diarrhea and not blood. So they sent us home, because she was alright.)

Then, if you are UNINSURED, you get the bill. If you pay $25 on that bill TO THE HOSPITAL, then they leave you alone month to month. Actually, that's just the amount I chose to pay. If you can put any amount on that bill, they have to leave you alone by law. Unpaid medical bills are not allowed to impact your credit rating, by the way.

Many people get misled into believing that they have to declare bankruptcy when faced with a medical bill of as little as $10,000. (That's the average bill of the majority who go into bankruptcy for medical bills.) The truth is that bankruptcy is easy-looking enough and gentle enough (you're allowed to keep your house, your car, and thousands of dollars in stuff... I could apply for bankruptcy right now and lose NOTHING but my credit score) and it makes your medical bills go away.

Obama recently brought up this kid to claim that his mother died as a result of having no medical insurance. The truth is that she didn't go to the doctor while she had her job and insurance for months after the symptoms started. After she lost both, she went to a clinic and got diagnosed. Then she went into the hospital and was treated for eight days. Then she refused to see a doctor, and her own mother doesn't know why. Finally, she ended up in the hospital again, in a coma, and died after a week of unconsciousness there. See? No insurance, and she was treated. Three times. She would've been treated more if she'd showed up for the visits. I can't tell you for sure why she didn't go, but considering that it took her months after the onset of symptoms to go for the diagnosis, I suspect that she was in denial.

Now did she truly die from 'having no medical insurance'? She was treated! She died of pulmonary hypertension, which has no cure. Her life could be elongated by proper treatment of symptoms, but she was going to die of it whether she had treatment or not. Her story is just one of several that the current administration is trying to use to claim that People Are Dying Because You Won't Pass My Bill. Meanwhile, he admitted that his bill would likely not cover the pacemaker implantation for a 100-year-old woman who had it done under private insurance and has lived for at least five years longer since. That woman's daughter asked him outright if his bill would allow her mother's operation to be covered and he hemmed and hawed and said that maybe she'd be better off 'taking the pill' (referring either to painkillers until death or to the suicide pill, not sure which).

How many people are uninsured? The 45mill number is thrown around a lot. If you exclude immigrants, people who qualify for Medicaid and don't apply, and the rich, you end up with 7% of the U.S. population uninsured at any one time. (The numbers are for anyone who has a lapse of insurance in a certain year, so if you lost your job in March and got hired in May and spent one month without medical insurance, you're on the list, even though you have it now.)

So basically, the worst way to read the numbers shows that 93% of Americans are medically insured. A study comparing the U.S. with Canada found that 70% of Americans who are uninsured are happy with their level of health ca

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

Yep I guess all those news stories about the person who needs a life-saving operation and gets turned down by the insurance company on a flimsy excuse because the operation costs half-a-million and they know they just have to stall long enough for him to die and the bill goes away are *all* made up right ?

Kina hard to make up dead bodies though.

Standard practise in American medical insurance companies is to deny ANY claim over 100K - regardless of merit. Standard practise of American hospitals are to refuse to perform any operation costing that much unless you have proof you can pay it or your insurance company has approved it.
When people are taking out second bonds on houses to pay for an operation - people who HAVE medical insurance- the system is corrupt.

The reality is that what you say is only true if "you're going to die today" - the problem is the person with 6 months of suffering to go, who could get another 20 years except that his bone marrow transplant is repeatedly refused and each refusal is a lie.
The problem is that medical insurance companies are ALLOWED to turn away people on the grounds of pre-existing conditions, or refuse to pay for conditions that previously existed...

But you're still ignoring the single biggest problem with the whole system. The people who need the most expensive medical care, the most often - are by definition the people LEAST capable of paying for it. The poor, infants, the chronically ill and the elderly - the people who are NOT earning a salary and can't earn one. You can only pay 25 dollars a month for so long if you DON'T HAVE AN INCOME. Not to mention - pharmacies typically won't give you your medication on those kinds of terms.

A humane medical system MUST let those who are healthy and earning subsidize those who aren't -because there simply ISN'T another way. American greed has got you believing that poor kids dying from curable diseaeses because the cure is expensive is better than paying a hundred dollars a month extra in tax - just because your own medical costs are nowhere near that... until you are also 75 years old, with plenty of organs starting to fail and suffering because you can't even afford your own pain medications and the insurance company just stopped paying a long, long time ago...
That's the reality - you are among those who don't NEED extensive medical services right now, your age-group and health-status puts you there. You aren't fighting for changes because you see so little benefit for yourself - and that is murderous greed in my book. Every society since the dawn of time has understood that those who can HAS to help those who can't, medical systems is one modern case where we can MEASURE how civilized a nation is - by seeing to what extent those who can are willing to subsidize the treatment of those who can't - if only out of the enlightened self interest of knowing that you could BE one of those who can't tomorrow, not to mention common human decency.

Re:I don't understand

[Sally Forth]

Not sure where to start.

Ok, let's see if I can explain what we have here. Just because TEH GOVERNMENTS doesn't pay for EACH AND EVERY SNIFFLE of EACH AND EVERY CITIZEN does not mean that Americans are murderously greedy bastards who don't care if the poor suffer.

To begin with, there's Medicaid. If you are below poverty level (or above, in some states) you can apply for Medicaid, which is a government-run healthcare program for the poor. Unfortunately, it is rife with problems. The denial rate is far higher than that of private insurance. Unlike private insurance, you risk losing Medicaid if you pay yourself for a denied procedure, so basically if you can't afford it and the government won't cover it, you're out of luck. Also, Medicaid reimburses doctors for pennies on the dollar, so it's harder to find a doctor who will take Medicaid patients. Greedy bastard American doctors? Those who are forced to take more patients than they can afford go out of business as they declare bankruptcy on their massive debt.

But at least there is Medicaid. So if you don't have a job, or if you're making minimum wage with no health care offered through your job, you can go on Medicaid.

Several states also have insurance that covers people up to 400% of the poverty level. Technically, I could go on my state policy and pay half the premium that I do now. I wouldn't, though. Why? It carries with it the same problems as NHS and other socialized medicine programs. It has a higher denial rate and longer lines.

Medicare (the automatic government-run health insurance program for all retirees) has created a new program, Medicare Advantage, that allows your policy to be managed through private companies rather than the government. (The government pays the premium.) It's very popular. Any senior who can get on it, does.

For those who don't qualify for Medicaid or Medicare, or any state-run program, and aren't covered by work, and aren't rich enough to pay for their care outright, there are charity-run hospitals and clinics all over the place. Walmart offers free screening for basic diseases and conditions. So does the Senior Center, the Town Hall, most elementary schools, etc. In addition, the personal charity contributions of the average American dwarf the personal charity contributions of the average European, and much of that goes for medical bills. There are several times when someone in my area has posted a need for help with medical bills, and everyone gives generously. We don't need TEH GOVERNMENTS forcing extra taxes down our throats in order to help our fellow man. We do it out of our own free will, and, more importantly, to the extent that we can afford.

You seem to have some kind of odd reset switch. You don't seem capable of fathoming how anybody can receive any care without either having TEH GOVERNMENTS pay for it or being insanely rich. Therefore, in your mind, if a country does not have socialized health insurance it means that everyone dies of preventable diseases in their youth because everyone else are so uncivilized. How did such an uncivilized nation, I ask you, end up with better survival rates for cancers, higher percentages receiving treatment for chronic diseases, higher percentages receiving preventative care, and lower-income people in better health than those civilized socialized-medicine countries like Britain, Canada, Holland, etc.? How did we end up with the average person receiving newer technologies, experiencing less wait time, and being more satisfied when polled about our level of healthcare?

Let me leave you with a couple of examples of our system in action.

My mother got pregnant when my father was out of work. She applied for state care, was accepted, and had her baby in a private hospital with the best of care, all paid by the low-income programs already in place.

My friend got into an auto accident when he was uninsured. The hospital had to do multiple surgeries and keep him there for weeks, during which they di

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

I think we just think fundamentally differently - and for the record - I'm only a socialist in some very special cases. I think clinging to any philosophy in all matters is shortsighted and idiotic. There is no "one-true-way" and EVERYTHING society faces should be individually addressed.

Very few countries actually HAVE socialized medecine, what most countries have is what is called "multipayer universal healthcare" (that's the term on concervapedia - a site intent on discrediting it). That means you get private AND public healthcare - the public healthcare generally is slower and less luxurious - but it's free. The private care is fast and efficient and usually paid by you (indirectly through insurance).
In my own country medical insurance companies are not allowed to exclude ANYBODY - under any conditions - not EVER. If you can pay the premiums, they HAVE to accept you. Plans HAVE to be standardized and government approved. If an item is on the approved-list, they can NEVER refuse payment. Most plans also include a savings account which is used to pay for all other medical expenses (until it's depleted anyway).
Our MSA's aren't the same as yours though. They get filled up at the beginning of the year, to a set amount depending on the plan you're on. And then your premiums go into filling it up, your left-overs are carried to next year - and your premiums are automatically tax-deducted as they go off your income BEFORE you are taxed.

So I pay my premiums, I have massive list of covered things - including essentially all non-elective surgery and chronic medications. Special treatment plans for high-cost diseases like HIV for example are also there.
The understanding is that the medical aid is EXPECTED to use the money that they make from healthy people's premiums and don't NEED to spend on their claims - to pay for the care of those less fortunate.

This is hardly socialism but it is a tightly regulated market - and for those who can't afford it, don't have jobs etc. there are free government run clinics and hospitals everywhere, usually run by public universities so the staff are excellent (all South African doctors do their internships at these hospitals as the universities where their medical schools are run them) - and a staff complement greatly boosted by a significant portion of doctors kindly donated to us a few years ago by Mister Castro.

It's not a perfect system - it has it's flaws (there have been problems with mis-administration at some government hospitals, doctors not receiving their salaries and not legally being allowed to quit while interning, when we first got the doctors from Cuba, nobody thought to make sure they send Doctors who didn't speak ONLY Spanish - which nobody here speaks) - but for the most part, it works really well.

Yes, I'd love to see my taxes reduced, but not at the cost of seeing people whose average earnings is about 5USD per week (a significant part of our population -about 30% or so) not be able to go to a doctor if they get sick. Especially in the country with the highest HIV infection rate on the planet.

It's true Americans tend to give more to charity than Europeans... on the other hand, Europeans spend more in taxes that are mostly used for charitable causes - and the poverty level in Europe is significantly lower than in the US. More-over those that are poor are generally far better off than their US counterparts... I don't think the reason for the discrepency is because Americans are a more charitable nation (frankly - I've been to the US and your culture is essentially the most self-centered, mediocre culture I saw anywhere in the world - not all Americans are like that, but enough to make it the defining attributes of the culture) - I think it's because quite simply - Europeans don't NEED to give as much to charity, there are just that much less to give TOO.

So - as I said before - the right way to handle a specific societal need varies. Best way to provide food is still to sell it on an open market, as long as you don't

Re:I don't understand

[Sally Forth]

I'm not sure we'd have been out sooner from a Canadian hospital. A matter of hours was from arrival to dismissal. Enter a U.S. hospital, and you go to triage in seconds. It took a few hours for them to admit him, check his vitals, get him into a room, have two doctors and a medical student look at his hand, get an ultrasound done (there was no pus so they couldn't culture it), and have someone sign off on dismissal once they'd written out the prescription for me.

The reason why it can take hours once you're admitted and through triage is because emergency rooms are not allowed to turn anyone away for any reason regardless of ability to pay, citizen status, etc. so anyone and everyone who doesn't have insurance and/or is outside doctor's hours will go to the emergency room for anything from congestive heart failure to a sliver in the finger.

See, I'm not from urban America, and I'm probably not from any of the areas you visited. I'm a rural New Englander. I live in an agricultural corridor, and most of what I've learned about the way the world works comes from my experiences in farming. The problem with health care is that everything in the world has a cost. It costs in money, or in time, or in supplies, or all three. Patch your own pants and it costs an hour. Buy a new pair and it costs $15 where I shop for pants. If you make $15 or more an hour, it makes more sense to work an extra hour and buy the pants than to patch them.

The problem comes when things are offered for a lower price than what they actually cost. It's nice to SAY that healthcare should be 'free', but you know as well as I do that if you get your medical degree, set up shop, and do not charge customers, you'll end up with nothing for supper when you're done treating the patients. You'll also be overrun with patients who could afford their own care.

People like free services and will use them more often when they don't cost. How much more do you consume at an all-you-can-eat restaurant? How much more often do you use a free service? When healthcare is free, people no longer ask themselves, "Do I really need this scraped knee bandaged by a nurse?" or "Is my cold really severe enough to warrant emergency treatment?" Why not get it done anyways, just to be sure? It's free!

Different governments handle this in different ways. Many have the government, having placed an artificial cost on the service, now place an artificial limit on the people. They decide how many times a year you can have a physical, which treatments you can receive, how much money you can cost The Society before you're not worth saving. It sounds cruel, but it's a simple fact of life... if you do not govern yourself, someone else will have to govern you.

Are you IN Europe? Your numbers don't match up. You say that 30% of the population earn $5/week. Then you say that the poverty rate is much lower in Europe than in the U.S. and the poor live better in Europe. However, $5/hour is below America's minimum wage, and only about 12% of the population is at or under the poverty level of $22K/year for a family of four, less for a smaller family, more for a larger one. The median household income in the U.S. is second only to Switzerland.

As for the way that the poor live in Europe, I only have one example, a friend of mine in Holland who lost his job during the economic downturns in 2002. I urged him to get some treatment for his chronic, congenital health condition (a form of rheumatism). He had no access to healthcare. In Holland, you must spend about $100 per year before the government kicks in and covers everything, and he did not have that first $100 to spend. There were no low-cost or no-cost charity clinics in his area, as there are in mine. I asked a couple of people also in Holland if they could help him, and got the startling reply that that's what the government is there for, they pay more than enough taxes for it. The lack of generosity startled me, because I am used to seeing someone in need and asking immediately wha

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

I'm not in Europe, though I have traveled there extensively, I have also traveled extensively in both North and South America and have visited several countries in Africa where I live.
Specifically I live in South Africa, and though we are by far the wealthiest nation on the continent we are still a poor country with a 45% unemployment rate and only 20% of the population earning a taxable income.

Nonetheless - we are able to provide free medical care to all for at least any and all life-saving treatments - even if it means that I as part of that 20% pay about 37% of my income in taxes (the richest pay around 45%). I have often heard people here complain about the high taxes but I have never heard them suggest that the academic free hospitals should close - they would rather see us cut defense spending and spend on healthcare and education. We don't argue about taking care of society, and the sheer size of that burden means that there is no conceivable way to do that with pure charity.
We have to be able to rely on the government to centrally collect funds and distribute services where they are needed.

It's also true that nobody in that 20% of taxpaying citizens ever use the free hospitals (unless you are stupid enough not to have medical insurance). So we're funding a service we never use.
For us, the reason is thus: to survive the private hospitals have to offer a higher quality service. The difference isn't in care, but in comfort. At a state hospital the qeues are long, and the halls are packed. At a private hospital, you arrive to an appointment and find a bed in an empty room with a television.
Since we all get mandatory medical insurance as part of our employment contracts - we'd be stupid not to use it.

And our insurance companies are among the most profitable businesses in our country - despite the fact that their plans are subject to government oversight (to ensure nothing lifesaving is left out of even the CHEAPEST plan), despite the fact that they can't EVER turn ANYBODY away. It's even fairly affordable - because the bulk-deals-with-employers setup means reduced rates, and the part I pay reduces my taxable income - a win.

So basically - that crap of "pre-existing condition - no insurance" and having to check for each procedure whether your insurance company will pay or not that you have there... that is just corporate greed.
One thing I see in Obama's current plan I applaud is at least to tell them they can't deny based on pre-existing conditions.

The interesting thing is - having the premiums basically capped, and the quality of cover monitored so they can't skip forced our insurance companies to get creative to make money. How do they make a profit ? Reduce how often people claim - and since there is no legal way to reduce whether people claim for valid cases ... you have to make them healthier.
So I get my yearly checkup for free including all the basic health-checks, HIV testing etc - why because the earlier they pick up a potential risk factor like high cholesterol and advise me on how to deal with it, the lower the risk that they'll be funding a heart transplant. Catch high blood sugar and they may just save themselves a future diabetes case and paying for a lifetime's worth of insulin shots. They give gym discounts and even arrange discounted vacations (to reduce stress - that being the number one disease causing factor in their customer-base) and give reduced premiums to non-smokers.
Anything they can do to motivate people to live healthier and get early preventative treatment ultimately saves them money. So they make an effort to encourage early treatment because it's usually cheaper for them.

I actually think our system works - and our economy is growing, the wealthier we get... the better it's going to work for everybody.

Re:I don't understand

[Sally Forth]

I'm glad it works for you. I gotta admit, though, one of the most amazing thing to me about countries with socialized healthcare is that they put up with hospitals that DON'T have private rooms, televisions, comfy pillows, etc. I've seen pictures of hospitals in other countries where patients line the hallways and it always seems to me that it's them, not Americans, pardon me for saying this, who are uncivilized.

Hospitals here don't check to make sure you're covered before doing a procedure. They just do the procedure and submit the claim. Whatever isn't covered, you pay later. Health insurance companies do free wellness checkups already, and clinics offer it free to people who don't have health insurance.

Basically, what you do with government funding, we do with a mixture of private insurance and charity. The richest of the rich end up using the same hospitals as the poorest of the poor, and the quality is the same for all of us.

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

So perhaps your view is a bit too local...
Because the rest of the world sees your medical system when we watch movies like John Q or hear Cutner tell Taub "when you have millions of people thousands of dollars in debt because of medical expenses, it's only a matter of time before one of them does something inexcusable" and books like "The Rainmaker".
The reality is - that in large parts of the US - that's exactly how it works. The doctors want to do a procedure - they call your insurance company to find out if it's pre-approved. If it's not pre-approved, they have to submit a claim and motivation - and if the insurance company turns it down (which they routinely do for all claims over a certain amount, some have been claimed at as low as 5000 dollars) then the procedure doesn't HAPPEN.

Now up there I just cited the fiction that gives us this view of the US as a system where doctors hands are tied and they have to watch their patients die because of greedy insurance companies.
I always take Michael Moore with a (small but not non-existent) piece of salt, but Sicko tells the same story...

In fact, up until this discussion with you - I have never heard a different story, from anybody, ever.

You say you live in a Rural part of the US. Rural communities tend to be small and very caring of one another, that's not a US thing, it's a global thing - the same is found in rural South Africa.
But the vast majority of American's (and people all over the world) don't live in rural areas, they live in big urban cities. I've lived in my appartment (which I own) for three years now - I know the name of one of my 50-something neighbours and I've had two conversations with her - ever.
That's the (sad) reality of citylife. Most people don't HAVE the kind of communities you describe to rely on. If doctors acted like you suggest - even in a city like Cape Town, the doctor would be bankrupt because people wouldn't be able to pay and nobody but their relatives would help and they aren't likely to be able to help that much either.

Either way - I have never favored fully socialized healthcare, I even agree with you that everything does have a price and Doctors put in massive time and money to become doctors and deserve to be rewarded for it.
What I do favor is universal health care. That means - anybody, and everybody can get any life-saving treatment - always.

It's a big enough burden on hospitals just to keep the E.R. doors open so they can treat accident victims and people with heart attacks. There is no way they can do something that takes months of preparation and costs more than 200 thousand US dollars (like say bone-marrow transplants) unless they can be sure of getting paid - the hospital that donates that to one patient is doing a massive disservice to all the others.

I would prefer to see a system here where the richest of the rich and go to the same hospitals as the poorest of the poor - by seeing our state hospitals improve so nobody needs private ones anymore, and the doctors are BETTER paid than the private doctors now. I want to see my nation grow to where we have near zero unemployment, and we all pay taxes - if we can do this with the taxes of only one fifth of the people... imagine what we could do if we had 80% of us paying into that fund ?

But honestly - I couldn't care less HOW the healthcare system works, I don't care what ideology drives it. I care about results.
I want to live in a country where every aids-orphan is guaranteed his anti-retrovirals. I want to live in a country where every sick old lady is guaranteed her pain meds - even in this day where many of them haven't seen their children in decades and live on a pittance of a pension. Where a leukemia patient can worry ONLY about finding a donor, not about finding money to pay for care.

I would really love to live in a world where cities are as caring and community orientated as rural towns are... but that is probably never going to happen. So we have to find other ways to care for the weakest

Re:I don't understand

[Sally Forth]

Oh please don't take Sicko as representative in any way of the U.S. medical system. I live in a rural area surrounded by urban areas. I am 2 hours' drive away from Harlem and one hour's drive away from the prestigious UMASS Medical Center where my son was treated.

In the few cases where I've heard in Sicko or touted by Obama in which people "died of lack of healthcare insurance", they were treated by doctors and in hospitals before their death. Basically, suppose we have Bob and Al, both of whom have a heart problem. Bob has medical insurance, and Al does not. Bob and Al both have a stroke. Bob and Al both go to the emergency room. Bob and Al both get treated. Despite the treatment, Bob and Al both die. Al "died of lack of healthcare insurance" according to those who support socialized medicine in this country.

Want to know what the doctors do when they treat patients who can't pay? They increase the fees of their services. Basically, pretend for a moment that someone's handing out $100 worth of widgets to 10 people, all of whom pay. Each person pays $10 per widget. Now suppose he hands out $100 worth of widgets to 10 people, 5 of whom have no money at all. The other 5 people have to pay $20 per widget.

That is at the heart of the problems with affording health care in the U.S. The higher prices rise to make up for the people who are treated and cannot pay, the more people can no longer afford to pay. That's why doctors who choose to accept no insurance at all are typically able to charge prices for their services that even poverty-level families can afford. I believe this to be at the heart of the answer to America's health care problem.

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

I specifically left sicko as the LAST item on my list... moreover it's quite clear you haven't actually SEEN it. The thing is - Sicko isn't ABOUT people without medical insurance. It's about the terrible state of healthcare for the people who DO have insurance - and STILL find that lifesaving treatments get denied.

You also ignored the entire rest of my post... which had some valid points.

Here's what American's don't understand. You don't just elect a president of the united states. You elect the De Facto most powerful man on the planet. When Bush invaded Iraq, fuel prices in South Africa more than trippled in three months. This had an immediate knock-on effect to other industries (all of which need shipment). Prices of basic foodstuffs more doubled in those first free months. The reserve bank, in a desperate bid to try and stop us from going into hyperinflation quadrupled interest rates - so bond payments went up - in my case by nearly 60% per month.
The wealthfare of everyone in my country was massively harmed by the decision of a politician we don't get to vote for, who doesn't listen to our voices - who couldn't care less that we exist.

People in China, Canada and Europe don't really care who you elect, their nations are powerful enough that they can and will require of their politicians to make policies that America may not like. The rest of us HAS to care, because our politicians will never, ever risk pissing off the US. That's about 4 billion people whose lives are in your hands every time you go vote.
America's position in the world means that your choices determine our destinies. We vote for our leaders, but we don't get to vote for the man who tells our leaders what to do, who can tank our economies at a whim... you do. So every decent person in America takes upon himself with every election- responsibility not just for himself, his family and his country - but for the effect his decision that day will have on 4 BILLION people !
You are our voice, our only little say in what kind of world we live in - comes from trying to reason with you.
No wonder when you reelected that bastard our biggest newspaper carried the story under the headline "A dark day for the entire world". That's the day we started fearing and despising your nation. The day we realize that though you are responsible for the lives of most of the world, you just don't care at all - most of you aren't even aware that we exist.

So American's have a bad rap - as a whole, your nation EARNED that rap. When you elected Bush the first time -we didn't mind, most of us reckoned he couldn't be that much worse than the usual... but that second time... we lost almost all faith in America.

Then you elected Obama. A man who spoke of a foreign policy built on compassion, and recognition of the responsibility that comes with America's power. Until that moment, none of us could believe it would happen - and when it did, we cheered you. We praised you. We said "they learned, maybe they can learn to care about what their choices mean for the rest of us". We said "they have earned a second chance"... well I read the news, and the US has basically spent every day since then trying it's best to show the world that Obama's election was nothing but a fluke... the average American still couldn't find Cape Town on a map... and still couldn't care less about us. If people starve because you choose the wrong leaders, and fill your congress and senate with idiots who will make even the good leader you managed to choose effectively incapable of doing a single good thing- even for YOURSELVES... you will still believe that this is the American way.

For the record, I'm using the plural you above, to speak about America in general, not about Sally Forth in particular. My discussion with you has led me to believe you are person who thinks a bit about things and genuinely considers things. I dissagree with your conclusions but at least I'll grant that you seem to ask questions and you've certainly forced me to think really hard

Re:I don't understand

[Sally Forth]

You might be interested to know that I daily hear a rather different viewpoint from one of your fellow countrymen who posts on a smaller forum which I frequent. He and I have had several private-message conversations about the state of his country (South Africa, yes) and mine. One thing that you and he agree on is that the U.S. has the power, to an extent, to make life easier or more difficult for your country.

He is concerned at the effect that Obama's desire to push expensive programs that will entirely bankrupt the U.S., Obama's systematic alienation of both our allies and enemies, and Obama's unwillingness or inability to promote peace in the Middle East might have on his- your- country. He is also concerned about Obama's push to use more of our corn and wheat fields to produce ethanol instead of food. He isn't the only one. Many of my friends and relatives have expressed concern about how lowering our production of food might affect the amount of food that we send as aid to parts of Africa. The liberals say, "You can afford to spend a little more on food to save the planet!" The conservatives respond, "Yes, but THEY (people in parts of Africa and Asia) can't!"

Obama's party have also advanced several plans to raise the price of oil in order to force reluctant people to "save the planet" by using less. The most recent dip in worldwide oil prices coincided with Evil Bush permitting the ban on U.S. offshore drilling to expire. In my area, gasoline dropped from $3.50/gallon to $2/gallon. (It has since risen to about $2.80/gallon.)

As for defanging the bill, I only wish! The original monstrosity was going to cost much more and allow fewer options. If it had been passed in its first incarnation, doctors would be penalized by the government for giving mammograms to women under the age of 50. (In each incarnation, doctors will be punished for doing 'unnecessary treatments' according to the government board created to decide such things, and their first decision was that mammograms were unnecessary before the age of 50 because the few women who develop it earlier in life are more expensive to treat.)

You may stick to your liberal points of view based on the idea of government-coerced redistribution of wealth in order to care for people. I'll stick to my conservative points of view based on the idea that each of us is personally responsible for caring for each other. We'll see who ends up better off in the end...

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

There are 40 million people in this country, and 40 million points of view. Most of them are extremely conservative - middle-American's would feel right at home here. There's a reason I choose to live in Cape Town - it's the most liberal city in the country. I like to describe it as South Africa's little San Francisco.
And in all your country, S.F. was the only place I felt ... welcomed. The only place where I didn't see anybody being looked down upon, scorned or mistreated. Cape Town bills itself as the "pink capital" of Africa - for it's gay-friendly culture. I'm straight but frankly who somebody else chooses to fuck is absolutely NONE of my concern - provided everyone involved is a consenting adult- it's not the governments concern EITHER.

I've seen where conservative viewpoints lead. Appartheid South Africa was as conservative as they come. One group's morality passing as law. Millions of people suffering to support the wealth of a few. Everything is a trade-off, Obama tries to prevent global warming from becoming a disaster and reduce your dependence on a rare commodity that you need to buy from some of the most volatile places on earth... you complain about the cost. The fact is - Obama said all along, the answer isn't bio-fuel or oil-replacements, it's ENERGY replacement, these are intermediary steps to try and GET there.
More expensive food is a problem... is it really a bigger problem than half the world flooded ? Because we ARE headed to that, it's a scientific consensus - and I tend to trust scientists over people with a stake in business models built on refuting it.

I could almost live with people who were conservatives economically and liberals socially. I don't agree with them - but at least... I don't think they are actively doing harm to other people. I like the fact that in my country - overturning the ban on gay marriage took just one case in the constitutional court. That case never EVER asked what a "founding father" would have thought - because the "call to tradition" is a FALACY - it's NEVER a good argument. It asked one thing "are we treating gays differently" - and found the answer to be yes. Since our constitution specifically prohibits ANY discrimination (by government or private citizens/companies) based on *anything* (and gives a list of examples SPECIFICALLY including sexual orientation) the court had the power to TELL the government to change the law - which they then did.

Here we have an equality court, specifically empowered to deal with cases of discrimination - and punish those guilty of it.

The funny thing is - I'm NOT a liberal, I'm not a conservative either. My views are my own and they are situational and specific. On each issue I hold a view - sometimes that view is liberal, sometimes that view is socialist, sometimes it's libertarian. The only group with whom I cannot find ANY common ground, on ANY issue, EVER - is conservatives.
I was not an adult when apartheid ended. I never got most of the propaganda, I was 9 years old when Nelson Mandela was pardoned. All I remember of my childhood under apartheid I find APPALLING. The government dictated that nobody may marry outside their race and sex-outside-marriage was illegal but the law could ONLY be enforced if the person was of a different race... well I married outside my race. Just 20 years earlier, my marriage would have been illegal.

I live surrounded by the poverty that conservative politics created, and I watch the beneficiaries of the wealth of it shrug of the suffering and sooth their consciences when they throw a small coin in the collection bag at their churches.

Conservatives scare me - because they are so afraid of change - and they should be because I have NEVER met a poor conservative. The conservatives here and in your country are consistently middle-class or higher, they want to preserve the unfairness of the system because it's unfair in THEIR favor. Well... I was born to be one of the lucky ones. I was born white, destined for wealth and success - ju

Re:I don't understand

[Sally Forth]

You have now met a poor conservative.

My family is technically "working class". Liberal policies in my "blue state" have elevated those who qualify for government programs to a higher standard of living, with more disposable income, than the family not on government programs until you reach upper-middle-class.

Internet is our luxury, justified because my husband needs it for some of his work. We have no cell phones. Can't afford them. I have slightly over half the money for food than a family on food stamps. I plant a vegetable garden in front of the house so that we'll have enough to eat without subsisting on bags of frozen french fries. My car is over 20 years old and literally rusting into the ground, but it has to last for another year so that we can buy another used vehicle to replace it. (Being that we live in a rural area, we can't go on public transportation, because there is none.)

The reason why we are conservatives is because the government does nothing to help us, but it taxes us anyways to give a better standard of living to people who don't work at all... and every time we start making just enough money to put some in the bank after meeting our immediate needs, some liberal comes along and puts another regulatory burden or special tax on us. You know Obama's healthcare bill? If it passes, it WILL raise our costs so high that we will be better able to afford the uninsured tax than the insurance payment and we WILL lose our insurance so that we can continue to afford to eat. If cap and trade passes too? Well... I don't know what we'll do. Honestly. We will probably lose our home. Out on the street. One of our children is still a little baby. I try not to think about it.

According to liberals, we don't exist, but I assure you that we do! Do you really think that the majority of those TEA party protesters are rich? Heh, if you only see this country through the prism of certain news agencies and visits to San Francisco where you feel right at home, you probably do. I don't know how I can convince you, if I even can.

Ok, consider this: The country is 40% conservative, 35% moderate, and 20% liberal. Only 1.5% of the population make Obama's definition of "rich", being over $200K/year. (He said $250K during campaigning, but now he says $200K. Anyways.) 20% of the population are upper-middle-class and higher. That means that even if EVERY SINGLE rich person and upper-middle-class person in the country are conservatives, half the conservative base MUST be lower-middle-class or poorer. As it happens, a poll taken in 2006 shows that 47% of people making over $100K/year voted Democrat, so all 20% of the upper-middle-and-higher couldn't POSSIBLY be conservative. (The upper-middle class starts at or slightly below six figures, depending on the state.)

But look at the result yourself. You said that you felt at home in San Francisco, highly liberal and one of the richest urban areas in the entire country. Did you know that they were one of the richest areas of the country? Did you know that they are highly liberal?

I admit I'm tired of people telling me that I don't exist, because a poor conservative struggling through liberal-imposed taxes and regulations doesn't fit into their view of Conservatives Are Horrible People.

By the way, there's some problem in terminology between South Africa and the U.S. where "conservatism" and "Republican" are concerned. Technically, "conservatism" means "keep things the way they are". Currently, the "conservatives" in the U.S. need to change so much that we're technically "liberal". Also, "Republican" refers to maintaining the part of our democratic republic that is, yes, a republic. However, the Republican Party in the U.S. was created for the primary purpose of ending Black slavery and giving Blacks equal rights. So to use the terms "conservative" and "Republican" to describe apartheid are both technically accurate when dealing with the original definitions of the word and completely useless when used to compar

Re:I don't understand

[silentcoder]

I said I felt CULTURALLY at home in San Francisco - I felt I could fit in with the "judge not" approach to other people.
I recently read about half of conservapedia because I wanted to understand what people there think. What I found sadly, only reinforced my views. The majority of the American conservatives are members of the religious right who believe in legislating morality.
I notice you didn't respond to any of the points I raised about that - you limited yourself only to economic issues, and then only because those issues are the only ones on which some conservative politics sometimes make sense (conservative could also mean to be sparing and 'conserve' resources - not a bad approach mostly).
I did however say that I have never met a poor conservative - granted, I was speaking about South Africa in that case. You'll never meet a black person in this country who is not economically liberal unless they also part of the small group of wealthy black people. Our country has an odd mixture of views. Wealthy whites are in general morally and economically in line with your conservatives. Poor whites tend to rely on church-charity rather than state and not really think about it beyond that, morally their the most conservative of all. Wealthy black people (the ones in charge at the moment) tend to be morally liberal - at least on paper, and certainly boosted by the fact that our constitution was written from that viewpoint - and economically conservative. Poor black people (the vast majority) tend to be morally conservative (though not the same morality as yours) and economically liberal - because economic liberal policies are the only thing letting them survive marginally better than they did under apartheid.

Here the most likely cause of unrest in the streets is when those poor blacks protest because the government isn't living up to the service delivery obligations it has. When the money set aside for liberal "care-for-each-other" causes don't GET where it's meant to be. They would never consider removing the POSSIBILITY of that money getting there.

While it's true that the republican party was founded to end slavery, the Lincoln republican view and the one of today have essentially nothing in common. There's a reason why black people in America vote predominantly democrat- the republicans instituted separatism in your country, it was the democrats that MLK and Rosa Parks found a voice in - the republicans shunned them. Don't you find it surprising that the old slave-states are now the red states ? The people whom the republican party declared WAR on, are now almost all republicans, what's more likely ? That a few million people changed their minds ? Or that two political parties changed their policies ?

"I might not respond to this thread further, because there's no rational arguing with someone who argues against high gas prices when it's a result of the Republican and for high gas prices when it's a result of the Democrat"
I didn't do that- I never considered WHO was doing it, but WHY and HOW they did it. Bush did it to enrich himself and his cronies, he did it by killing millions of innocent children, dumping you in an unwinnable war and making life a great deal harder for everyone else on the planet. Obama is doing it as part of a plan to solve the underlying problem of using oil in the first place, to replace it with BETTER answers - and coincidentally, give the human race a chance to save ourselves from our own stupidity.

I don't like his higher gas prices anymore than Bush's - but I agree with his motives and I didn't agree with Bush's motives. There is nothing irrational about that.

The sad irony is that there ARE no real liberals in US politics, democratic and republican policies are almost identical economically. Remember that the worst budget shortfall and the single-largest expansion of government power in your countries history was both done under the Bush administration. Bush was only conservative in his rhetoric, never in his actions. In his actions - he was a

Re:I don't understand

[Sally Forth]

"If you are as poor as you say you are, then a properly run welfare state would see your fortunes greatly improved. I don't agree that it's liberal taxes making you poor, it's conservative politics KEEPING you poor..."

Sorry, you lose...

My father's family escaped from Soviet Russia, and know all too well what happens to the poor under liberal socialism. We're tons richer than the average rural commoner in the average socialist country simply because we have electricity.

The reason why I'm starting to narrow my focus, by the way, is because at this point if I responded to every point you brought up each post would be an increasingly huge essay, and because more and more of your points at this time are starting to sound basically like the most hard-left fringe blogs I've ever seen. Right now you're just shy of the group who believe that White Men created AIDS in order to Kill The Black Man.

I could take almost every one of your points and explain exactly why and how they've been disproven. Unfortunately, at this point it would be a futile gesture, and could take weeks to complete. I'll try to explain the most egregious one, though, in terms you might understand.

If Bush's "tax cuts for the rich" are allowed to expire, then the families between poverty level and lower-middle-class will see a tax increase of about $2,400 per year for a family of four.

I have lived on the working-class edge all my life, and I have personally seen our fortunes fall with the Democrats and rise with the Republicans since Jimmy Carter. I actually might know what I'm talking about.

Re:and

[Wyatt Earp]

To get Wired more traffic.

What a dolt . . .

[Mitchell314]

He couldn't reprogram it to make all of the cars play jingle bells?

Re:What a dolt . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

or the Brown Note?

Re:What a dolt . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd bet at least one of them was playing "La Cucaracha."

Re:and

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

How long until the police/feds/intelligence/etc get to start using this on civilians?

Re:So...

[MBCook]

Well, since the devices are probably not terribly cheap, they are only installed on cars from tote-the-note car lots. Since the places are a horrible scam, it shouldn't be too surprising that other... non-fun consequences... can come of the deal.

If you get a car (new or used) from a normal dealership, they don't have this ability (unless OnStar decides to start enforcing GMAC payments).

Re:So...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Already in the field.

Even better, Onstar, unlike this service, cuts across multiple demographics. Most of the people with credit so shitty that used car vendors are installing remote kill switches are probably the sort that the police already know how to "deal with", so to speak(after all, what is some overworked public defender going to do about it if they 'slip and fall' during a little friendly questioning?). Onstar, though, is a service that gives you access to the sort of people you can't just pull over and shake down....

Re:So...

[tomhudson]

How long until the police/feds/intelligence/etc get to start using this on civilians?

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.

Re:So...

[maxume]

If the vehicle is otherwise a good deal, I think it is fairly straightforward to either pull the fuse or disconnect the antenna.

Re:So...

[nomadic]

If you get a car (new or used) from a normal dealership, they don't have this ability (unless OnStar decides to start enforcing GMAC payments).

If you get a car new or used, you should try and get a better auto loan than you can typically get from the dealer. I'm assuming that even the sketchy places that use this blackbox technology only do it if they provide the loans, otherwise it's none of their business whether you're up to date or not on them.

Re:So...

[YrWrstNtmr]

Frequently, a fuse controls more than one thing. On my 10 yr old F-150, the same fuse powers the cig lighter/power tap AND the OBDII tap. Disable 1, disable both.

Re:So...

[clarkkent09]

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? As long as the owner (but not the car thief) has a way to both completely disable and override those 'features' when they kick in, then I don't see a huge problem with it.

Re:So...

[gandhi_2]

OnStar would interpret such a move as an attack.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Sounds like something that Toyota could use for their cars...

Re:So...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

How long until the police/feds/intelligence/etc get to start using this on civilians?

The technology to do this has been around for over 10 years.

Re:So...

[Culture20]

OnStar would interpret such a move as an attack.

And launch nuclear weapons against the human race?

Re:So...

[YrWrstNtmr]

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.

Re:So...

[maxume]

On the vehicle that I have the title to, with no OnStar subscription?

Who cares what they think?

Re:So...

[bhtooefr]

On older OnStar-equipped cars, the OnStar stuff was in one or two separate boxes, and you could unplug them from the harness.

IIRC, though, on newer cars, it's integrated into the ECU. Unplug that, and your engine doesn't run.

You could probably unplug the antennae, and build a Faraday cage around the connections, though.

Re:So...

[russotto]

How long until the police/feds/intelligence/etc get to start using this on civilians?

Faster than you can say OnStar.

(what, you think Government Motors won't co-operate with the feds? You must be joking)

Re:So...

[Polo]

...or hook one of these to your not-quite-paid-for-yet pacemaker :)

Re:So...

[tomhudson]

Well, since the devices are probably not terribly cheap,

between $100 and $200.00 http://www.payteck.cc/news.html

That's pretty cheap, especially since the customer is billed extra for the system each month, as an "anti-theft device" so it not only doesn't cost the dealer anything - it's another profit center.

Re:So...

[h4rr4r]

No, you should buy cars in cash. If you cannot afford a car in cash, you cannot afford that car.

Re:So...

[gandhi_2]

oh jeebus.

Come on, man. really?

Re:So...

[h4rr4r]

Sounds like GM can forget about getting any of my money.

Re:So...

[Mr2001]

That's awfully glib. How do you propose people save up the money to buy a car with cash, if they can't get to work because they don't have transportation? This is America, after all, where public transit is between nonexistent and useless in most cities.

Re:So...

[innocent_white_lamb]

You don't need a smart meter for either of those things. If it's a police issue, they can just shut the power off to the block or something. If it's a billing issue, they can just come and take your meter out or padlock it.

Re:So...

[kimvette]

Never buy a vehicle with OnStar.

Or, disable it. Come on, geeks here can't figure that out?
Cut the antenna lead, or on other cars just disconnect the harness. Problem solved.
In other cars, it's integrated more tightly (such as some cars with the CAN bus) but even those can be deactivated with some effort.

Re:So...

[kimvette]

And don't try preaching trading freedom for security. There's no freedom to run from the police, any more than there's a freedom to discharge weapons in crowded places.

That is true in America today. Will tomorrow bring tyranny and rampant corruption, where the average citizen will have to exercise second amendment rights because the first, third through tenth, thirteenth through fifteenth, seventeenth, twenty-fourth, and twenty sixth amendments no longer apply? There is truth in the quote. One can't be so shortsighted just because today things are just peachy.

Re:So...

[mochan_s]

Never buy a vehicle with OnStar.

Or buy with tinfoil.

Re:So...

[tomhudson]

Sounds like GM can forget about getting any of my money.

they already got it - billions of it. Bail-out bux.

Re:So...

[cbope]

There are just so many things wrong here:

- What if your car is disabled as you are going through a railroad crossing? And there is a train coming...
- What if your car is disabled and you get into an car accident, and the doors are remotely locked? How do you get out of the car?
- What happens if the system itself fails or malfunctions?
- What if someone hacks the system? (TFA gives a good example here)

I could go on and on. This type of system is wide open for abuse and the risks are very high and very real. No way I would buy a car with one of these systems installed. It's literally a ticking time-bomb. Not to mention if the system is anything less than 100% reliable there could be very serious implications. Yes, even a 0.001% failure rate is far too high with this kind of system, where human lives are at stake in a moving vehicle. Even in a legitimate use case, the person pushing the disable button has no freaking clue of the environment and circumstances around the vehicle. Pedestrians, other traffic, etc. This is just such a bad idea gone wrong on so many levels...

Re:So...

[tomhudson]

They don't stop a running engine - hey just prevent the starter from engaging. Plus, most slashdotters could probably remove the system in 5 minutes, or just bypass it with a jumper cable from the positive terminal to the side of the starter solenoid leading towards the starter. At $100 to the car dealer, they're not very sophisticated.

Re:So...

[drsmithy]

No, you should buy cars in cash. If you cannot afford a car in cash, you cannot afford that car.

That you can afford the cash value of a car does not always mean that paying for it in cash is the best use of your money.

Re:So...

[hey!]

... and refuse to open the pod bay door for you.

Re:So...

[Elky Elk]

I'd piss on a spark plug if it'd help

Re:So...

[YrWrstNtmr]

And the difference is? If OnStar can remotely unlock your doors or slow/stop the car, they can just as easily turn on the mic and listen in.

Re:So...

[Lunzo]

It's pretty screwed up that you got up-modded for encouraging police brutality. I think the remote kill switch in the vehicle is the much better option.

Re:So...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm pretty sure that I wasn't encouraging police brutality(because I certainly don't), merely sardonically noting that the big "perk" of technological control measures is that they are likely to extend the state's range of coercive options substantially further into the realm of those who had previously been largely immune.

The further down the pecking order you go, the greater the degree to which state power already is, and long has been, deployed with near impunity(sure, they have to settle the occasional wrongful death suit, and individual officers get suspended for a few weeks, occasionally without pay no less; but there are basically zero consequences). My point was that these aftermarket lockout devices are just another way of controlling an already substantially vulnerable demographic. Onstar, by contrast, extends the same lockout powers to the middle and upper classes, who have historically been much less vulnerable to arbitrary exercises of power.

Re:and

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Second link to Wired today. I smell something fishy...

What a maroon.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What a maroon.

[fermion]

Just to be clear this Texas. Not only Texas, but central Texas. To get from Austin to a civilized area outside of Texas, i.e. Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and back is going to take a person several hours. In fact, it would make more sense to leave the country and go into mexico.

As another point, I hope that the dealership is prosecuted for this. If they are providing loans, they have sensitive data, and if they are not changing passwords when an employee is terminated, one can assume that they have equally ineffective control of customer data, such as social security numbers. It is a good this that this guy was only trying to be annoying, or at least we hope so.

Re:What a maroon.

[Erikderzweite]

Well, if that's Central Texas you have to drive around the block to find a neighbour who is incapable of enabling encryprion on his/her wi-fi router and do it from them.

Re:What a maroon.

[NekSnappa]

New Mexico? Civilized? Really? Have you ever driven through that state?

Re:Should have changed password right away

[MDMurphy]

Since I RTFA I know that he used someone else's password.

Re:and

[DigiShaman]

At least Slashdot got it right unlike Wired who states it was an act of "hacking". WTF Wired, it wasn't a hack. It was as simple act of intrusion without authorization. Nothing special or fancy was required to do so.

Moron

[CSHARP123]

If not that job, go find another what did he achieve doing this may be getting pounding in the ass in Federal Prison. Now he cannot get anymore job anywhere.

Re:Moron

[aztektum]

>.<

Oh man, trying to read that hurt. Punctuation is our friend.

Re:Moron

[Threni]

> Punctuation is our friend.
>
>--
>:: aztek ::
>No sig for you!!

Uh..it's easy to get carried away, however...

Re:Moron

[CSHARP123]

There are some. You cannot have too many punctuation friends either.

Re:Moron

[sixsixtysix]

getting pounding in the ass in Federal Prison

why perpetuate this? granted, it CAN happen, but nowhere near the level that pop culture seems to imply. do you also think that many guards are bribed regularly?

Re:Moron

[Nazlfrag]

Well, to be fair he did state up front he was a moron, and as far as incoherent ramblings of a moron go that wasn't too bad.

Re:Moron

[2obvious4u]

You don't need a job in Federal Prison. They provide you with 3 meals a day! You also get exercise equipment, free TV, and you get to have recess every day! Oh and then there is all that free time to read all the books you want! Talk about a care free life! Hell if you're motivated you could even get a doctorate while locked up.

I think I'm going to go rob a bank right now! If I get away with it I'll have the money to buy my own exercise equipment and pay for cable TV for life, and if I don't I get it for FREE! I sure hope my cell-mate is cute, I do hate sleeping alone...

This sounds like some great software.

[physicsphairy]

I would definitely be interested in buying a car that can be triggered to shutdown or start blaring its horn remotely! Is there anyway to buy one with a built-in bomb?

Re:This sounds like some great software.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a new Toyota would be exactly what you're looking for.

Re:This sounds like some great software.

[EkriirkE]

I believe the middle eastern models do.

Re:This sounds like some great software.

[Nidi62]

Find yourself an old Pinto?

Re:This sounds like some great software.

[drkim]

Yes... it's called a "Pinto": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y5TfgG8nm0

Re:This sounds like some great software.

[sabt-pestnu]

I think you can still get 'slightly used' Ford Pintos whose owners have not actually deployed that feature...

Another disgruntled employee

[CODiNE]

When are bosses going to learn to stop taking away their gruntles??

Re:Another disgruntled employee

[mabhatter654]

so is a gruntle a good thing or bad thing?

We know disgruntled employees are a problem... what causes grunteling in the first place?

Re:Another disgruntled employee

[KozmoStevnNaut]

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Gruntle

For some reason, it sounds vaguely dirty.

Re:Another disgruntled employee

[hey!]

"Disgruntled" is a word with very interesting origins. On the surface, it is one of those words (like "non-chalant") that appears to be a compound suggesting a non existent opposite word (like "chalant")

The OED cites P.D. Wodehouse for "gruntled", but obviously Wodehouse was playing with the language here when he suggests that it means "satisfied". "Gruntle" is actually a word, but it is an obsolete one. It is not the opposite of "gruntle". "Gruntle"/"disgruntle" is a word pair more like "flammable"/"inflammable"; the "in-" prefix in "inflammable" is not the "in-" that means "not" ; it is the "in-" prefix that means "in, into or onto". The "in-" in "inflammable" is a cognate of the prefix "en-", as in "enraged".

"Dis-" in "disgruntled" is from a much rarer and erudite Latin sense of "dis", one that means "utterly". Both the "utterly" sense of "dis" and the "not"/"lack"/"opposite of" senses come from a Proto-Indo-European root mean "to separate".

So we should take "disgruntled" to mean "utterly gruntled", not "un-gruntled". So what is "gruntle" supposed to mean? Technically, "gruntle" is the frequentive form of "grunt". A "frequentive" verb is one that indicates a continual, incessant action. The word "gruntle" originally came into English meaning the incessant sounds made by an inconsolably upset pig. Later by metonymy it came also refer to the pig's snout (the part he gruntles with), and later the word was used to describe the faces of people in an unpleasant mood. There are not so many useful Latin prefixes for amplification, and "supergruntled" does not trip off the tongue, so "disgruntled" became the word for a person whose face expressed a very unpleasant mood.

Re:Another disgruntled employee

[srobert]

The word disgruntled always sends up red flags for me. It is almost always used by employers (or those who speak from an employer's viewpoint). I infer from it that the (ex-)employee is considered unhappy because their employer wouldn't concede to unreasonable expectations. The possibility that the expectations were entirely reasonable is completely outside of the realm of thought.

Re:Another disgruntled employee

[hey!]

I think you're right. We don't want to fall into the etymological fallacy here, but I think it's true that the word has never quite lost its piggish associations. It carries the connotation of persistent, incurable grumbling.

Maroons make the news

[Spy Handler]

Non-maroons who do stuff like this, do it from net cafes using a chain of anonymous proxys, and they do not get caught.

It's just the maroons like this one that you hear about.

Re:Maroons make the news

[ae1294]

those anonymous proxies tend to be mighty slow though

Not if you use seven of them...

Re:Maroons make the news

[OzPeter]

Non-maroons who do stuff like this, do it from net cafes using a chain of anonymous proxys, and they do not get caught.

It's just the maroons like this one that you hear about.

If I was ever going to consider doing this I'd buy a cheap laptop off Craigslist for cash, and then buy a wireless card for cash from another location, and then drive to some community in the middle of nowhere and look for an open wireless AP. After which I would then pass said laptop through a shedder .. a really big shredder.

Re:Maroons make the news

[base3]

And make for fscking sure you weren't carrying a cell phone with a battery in it, driving a car with OnStar, or doing anything else that can put you anywhere near the location of the AP you're connecting to. Oh, and avoiding cameras would probably be good, too.

Re:Maroons make the news

[OzPeter]

And make for fscking sure you weren't carrying a cell phone with a battery in it, driving a car with OnStar, or doing anything else that can put you anywhere near the location of the AP you're connecting to. Oh, and avoiding cameras would probably be good, too.

The Cell phone battery - definitely. I've seen too many crime scene documentaries on TV (Forensic Files etc) to not do that. I'm not buying an OnStar equipped car. The cameras are harder to avoid, but I suppose you could steal the plates of a car that was the same make/model/color of yours and use them in place of your own (at least for a short time). And hopefully there are no cameras tracking your face in any neighborhood.

Now excuse me while I talk to the nice FBI agents at my door.

Re:Maroons make the news

[OzPeter]

Oh .. and to help cover your tracks, when you are on location spend some time asking stupid questions on forums about how to do all of this, and how you really hate the [target company]. Maybe some ID theft thrown in would help as well to help establish your marks lack of alibi.

Re:Maroons make the news

[base3]

Hmmm . . . or gen up a copy of some plates of a car of a similar make and model and put them on the car near the AP. Probably a bad idea to drive with fake plates on the highway, but in a residential area, should be fine so long as you don't run stop signs or look out of place. Not that I've thought this through or anything--oh, there's someone at the door :) . . .

Re:Maroons make the news

[OzPeter]

Hmmm . . . or gen up a copy of some plates of a car of a similar make and model and put them on the car near the AP.

+1 for original thinking! I'll have to start keeping a list of license plates for the same model car as mine! Much better than stealing them.

Re:Maroons make the news

[base3]

LOL at that--excellent! Also, probably good to make sure the cell phone you normally carry every day sees some travel or is at least turned on somewhere far away from the AP in question--maybe taped to the underside of a seat on a bus to somewhere you could say you were travelling? (Would be necessary to get another bus ticket to retrieve the phone--wouldn't want to use that alibi if the phone was retrieved by someone else.) Not that I've thought this through or anything, mind you!

Re:Maroons make the news

[shird]

Why do only "runaway slaves" make this mistake? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maroon_(people)

Re:Maroons make the news

[LuNa7ic]

Non-maroons who do stuff like this, do it from net cafes using a chain of anonymous proxys, and they do not get caught.

Sounds to me like a real smooth crimson.

Re:Maroons make the news

[Tromad]

In my life I've had 3 cases of obvious fraud where physical evidence was left behind but each time the police basically laughed it off. A fingerprint duster even said "yah, it isn't like television, we actually rarely ever catch anything." Another one was "Yes, there was video of the perpetrator but your bank will just write it off so we're not going to investigate." So this has led me to believe that unless you are actively engaged in a crime at the time the police catch you, or commit rape or murder, the chances the police will care enough to investigate anything are slim. Maybe it works differently for the rich since they have more influence than an angry letter.

Re:Maroons make the news

[porkThreeWays]

Cash isn't perfect. I remember an incident where someone did a malicious prank call with a prepaid cell phone or calling card they bought with cash. They traced it back to the store and time it was sold. They pulled the surveillance videos and were able to link the suspect with the calls made. Cash is better than credit, but you'd be amazed at the ways the law catches up. It's just like on Office Space. Geeks assume because they are smart they can outsmart the law.

Re:Maroons make the news

[z0idberg]

How are you going to contact the craigslist seller?
Maybe buy a second hand phone off craigslist. But then you have to contact that guy somehow.
You'll also need a second hand laptop to view craigslist to find the ad for the phone too.
Maybe you could get one off cragslist?
Its second hand phones and laptops all the way down.

Re:Maroons make the news

[bestalexguy]

Looks like he learned security measures from his former employer ...

Re:Maroons make the news

[ceoyoyo]

Hey, quit with the racial slurs. Skin colour has nothing to do with whether or not people hack into their employers' car control systems from their own homes.

Or did you mean "morons?"

Re:Maroons make the news

[base3]

Was the victim here a cop or a politician? I'm guessing that unless the prank call was a death threat that that's an unusual degree of investigative effort for a crank call.

Re:Maroons make the news

[Mister_Stoopid]

He's using the Bugs Bunny meaning of "maroon"

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_Kh7nLplWo

Re:Back door?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Back door?

[bunratty]

The real question is, why is there *one* password for all the cars?

Well, duh! Because it's easier to remember. And it's better than having a post-it for each car -- just one post-it with the one password will do!

Re:Demonstrates possibility of same flaw elsewhere

[headkase]

Shut off power will result in death for a few people who depend on home-oxygen equipment. But hey wiring everything up to enable a convenient cyber-attack makes sense right guys? Right?

Hmm

[ryan.onsrc]

Perhaps Toyota should review which Engineers have been fired lately.

Re:Hmm

[RAMMS EIN]

They shouldn't have to. Standard procedure _should_ be that only authenticated people have access, and authentication credentials are disabled as soon as a person's contract ends. You trust people who work for you (otherwise, don't let them work for you!), but as soon as they don't work for you anymore, they are outsiders who shouldn't have access.

Update of old sticker

[Cryacin]

Honk if you're Hacked!

Re:Update of old sticker

[Ihmhi]

Beep bee- ... NO CARRIER ... "Would you like a bigger |>3|\|15?

Re:Back door?

[Cryacin]

You can even stick it on your monitor!

It's for people with crap credit

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:It's for people with crap credit

[compro01]

Or for people who own cars from GM. Onstar has this same kind of functionality.

Re:It's for people with crap credit

[corbettw]

Yeah, but in that case it's advertised as a feature for the car owner. If your car is stolen, they can locate it and shut off the engine, making it easier to recover.

Re:Should have changed password right away

[RobertLTux]

the correct procedure is to

1 revoke the passwords/tokens for said employee
2 redact the persons desk and figure out how long of a timeout is needed (if any)
3 after the timeout escort the employee from the property

so the three words you need to know are Revoke Redact Remove this would be the only safe thing to do

And THIS, ladies and gentlemen...

[Spy der Mann]

...is the perfect example (and with car analogy indeed) of why DRM and remote product (de)activation is doomed to failure.

Re:And THIS, ladies and gentlemen...

[BitZtream]

Shrug, several people pay for these features.

LoJack and OnStar, services which cost considerably yearly fees have this feature as a selling point.

In this case its used just like LoJack. The bank requires it be installed on cars of jackasses who no one wants to finance due to their history. It in fact is something that allows the bank to feel confident that the risk of the loan is not unacceptably high for someone who indeed is an unacceptably high risk. Its really no different than the higher interest rate or larger down payment they require. Its all risk mitigation.

It is an example of what happens when a good idea gets used for bad things.

Guns intended for sport can be used to kill people.
Trucks to carry product to stores can be turned into rolling bombs.
Remote wipe on your blackberry/iPhone/Treo/Whatever can be used to protect your data or destroy it.

Lots of things with good, perfectly acceptable intentions can be fucked up by a bad person. If your entire DRM argument revolves around this single retarded point, you're going to fail.

If you want to get rid of DRM there have to be equal or better alternatives. Since these people couldn't buy a car without DRM, there are infact not only no better deals, there are no equal deals, and in fact no deals at all with that option off the table.

This isn't a case of using DRM to force people to buy multiple copies of the same thing to use it on multiple devices. This isn't DRM being used to restrict what you can do with something after you paid for it.

This is DRM being used to restrict something that has not in fact been paid for yet. If the people walked in and didn't require a loan, there would be no DRM. The cheaper alternative in fact has no DRM.

Your comment could not be more wrong. This is a shining example of DRM being used to benefit all involved, and shows how one douche bag can still fuck it up for you anyway.

Either way, you're an idiot if you think this is some shining example of how DRM is bad. Without the DRM, they wouldn't have had a car to be disabled or to be inconvenienced because it wouldn't start or the horn was honking.

Re:And THIS, ladies and gentlemen...

[FlyingBishop]

but not in the free market.

Re:And THIS, ladies and gentlemen...

[jimicus]

...is the perfect example (and with car analogy indeed) of why DRM and remote product (de)activation is doomed to failure.

Actually, this is a perfect example of why remote product deactivation is a great idea (it reduces the risk involved in selling a car on credit to people who are lousy credit risks), there are just some glitches that need ironing out. If it had been authenticated with a certificate which could be revoked as soon as the employee left (even better - build the certificate revoking process into the "remove employee from computer system" process) it'd be much less of an issue.

If you want an example of why remote product (de)activation is a lousy idea - and one with a car analogy - there was one on /. a couple of years back about a gated multi-storey car park where the developers of the car-park remotely locked the car park (locking all the cars in) when the owner refused to pay a monthly fee.

Re:And THIS, ladies and gentlemen...

[hab136]

Username and password would've been just as effective as a certificate, and much less hassle. My guess is they had one user/pass for the company. Shared passwords are bad.

Re:And THIS, ladies and gentlemen...

[jimicus]

When I posted that I thought something similar was the case, but apparently there was one password per employee but this person used another password from someone else at the same branch.

Certificates might have helped there (it's usually much harder to copy out the private key once it's installed in Windows unless you know what you're doing, and the general public's understanding of certificates is probably not very strong) but at the end of the day, if someone REALLY wants to get in they will. Though I would question why the company operating this system allows anybody to connect from anywhere on the Internet - VPNs and/or simple IP address filtering would prevent a lot of these issues.

Re:Back door?

[Trogre]

No.

The real question is what the blistering hell are remote kill switches doing on cars in the first place?

I'm sure there's an iPhone analogy somewhere here...

Re:and

[ThePengwin]

<sarcasm>
Of course its hacking! how else could someone do that???
Next you're going to say that someone guessing a Facebook password isn't hacking!!!
</sarcasm>

They shouldn't be able to listen, but more complex

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

> Never buy a vehicle with OnStar.

The system should be more or less hard-wired so that it notifies you when the microphone activates for any reason. But as a consumer, I might be willing to accept the possibility of listening in for the added level of safety. I'd be a helluvalot MORE likely to do so if they needed a warrant to listen, but even so, it's good to have an added level of redundancy in your safety systems. Keeping a cellphone, being able to get to a cell phone, the cell phone working where you are, and knowing who to call and how to report your position, are all single points of failure. You can work around some of them--e.g. calling 911 instead of the local police--but the more redundancies, the better.

This is doubly true if you have a family, in which case you're buying not for your own safety, but for that of other people. To my mind, that's a greater responsibility.

The real danger, of course, is warrantless recordings, mass recordings, and data-mining.

"Smart meters" do this for your home

[Anonymous Coward]

The new "smart meters" being installed on homes not only do power monitoring but also do remote control, often over a wireless mesh network. How long until this ability is abused or repurposed?

Re:and

[icannotthinkofaname]

This makes it to the front page of Slashdot so that you can summarize it with a car analogy.

Or maybe it's a trick and you're supposed to summarize it with a computer analogy. Could go either way.

Re:Back door?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

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...

Re:and

[v1]

it wasn't a hack. It was as simple act of intrusion without authorization.

One could argue semantics in that he was authorized, but he was incorrectly authenticated. IE he used an authentication that wasn't his, and then did what that authentication entitled him (was authorized) to do. Authorization worked perfectly. This is a case of an "authentication failure", but in the sense that the authentication process didn't do it's job, but in a way that allowed when it should have denied. (in contrast to the usual interpretation, denied when it should have allowed)

Only two replies that mention Toyota?

[dgun]

Now three.

Re:Should have changed password right away

[clarkkent09]

I don't think that goes far enough. Here is my proposal:

1. remove all clothes and perform anal cavity search - he could be taking company property with him
2. place in a straight jacket and a muzzle before escorting out - he could try attacking or biting other employees
3. install a radio controlled explosive device inside the body, to go off if he ever gets within 100 feet of the office building

It's the only way to be sure.

Repo in AZ

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Or do what Arizona does where all the dealer has to do (other than a few formalities) is ask you to return the car, OR ELSE.

Since the OR ELSE in Arizona is a class 6 felony!

Facing up to 2 1/4 years in prison and being a felon for not turning it in makes having repo woman/man kinda redundant (surprisingly they exist, even though a dealer can have the police get the car back for free).

P.S. I'd HATE that law if I was a repo company employee or owner! Less reason to be used, and people in prison don't drive cars and felons have trouble getting them, so bad for repeat business. I can see how the deadbeats were unable to stop such a law, but surprised the repo companies didn't pay someone off to have it not pass or get repealed. There's big money in that business.

Also surprised the repo companies didn't get behind lobbying to make the remote black boxes illegal (have a "consumer protection" front lobby against it). No need to hire a repo company when all you need is a remote shutoff box and a tow truck.

As far as I know AZ is the only state with the law making it a felony to not return a car, although others make it a crime to "conceal collateral" (IL felony (*), CA misdemeanor).

P.P.S.:

(*) IL is probably the state with the most things defined as felonies I have seen. Not NY or CA or UT or anywhere else you'd expect (except maybe FL, but you don't even need to be convicted of a felony - they took people off the voter rolls in 2004 for felonies "committed" in 2007 - plus that state seems to be in a race with TX to see how pro-execution they can be.)

Re:Repo in AZ

[h4rr4r]

It's not your car, you failed to pay for it. Is the security guard who protects the banks money a scumbag too?

Re:Repo in AZ

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

"You failed to pay for it"

If I repaid half of the money, I am still paying for it. I should get at least a partial refund.

Re:Repo in AZ

[coolsnowmen]

If a car loses that much value as soon as it is driven off the lot, then perhaps it is over priced?

Re:Repo in AZ

[MaskedSlacker]

No, because the brand new one will still sell for the original price. Something is only overpriced if people won't pay for it. All cars depreciate this way--and it's not something handed down by fiat, its simply just the way car buyers behave, for whatever reason.

Re:Repo in AZ

[Lord_Breetai]

and it's not something handed down by fiat

I know there's a joke in there...

Re:Repo in AZ

[jonbryce]

The reason cars drop in value so quickly after you drive them off the forecourt is because if you sell it after a month, it is usually because there is something wrong with it and that's why people would rather pay more for the brand new car than the much cheaper one month old car.

Re:Repo in AZ

[Bert64]

You paid half the money for a new car, but what you have now is a used car which is likely to be worth considerably less.
After repossessing the car, the dealer will have to sell it on and the revenue derived from doing so may not cover your outstanding debt... If it does, then sure you *should* get the difference, or at least thats how it works when property is repossessed.

Re:Repo in AZ

[Blkdeath]

If a car loses that much value as soon as it is driven off the lot, then perhaps it is over priced?

If you could convince consumers to pay 90% of the original retail price for a 1 year old car, it wouldn't depreciate so heavily now, would it?

The price and depreciation of cars is driven primarily by the consumers that purchase them second hand. When a consumer walks onto the lot and expects to pay 30-40% less for a 1 year old car than its original asking price, the car has thusly depreciated by 30-40%.

If the price of the car is reduced at source it causes accelerated depreciation, resulting in a further drop in resale value of the pre-owned vehicle.

Re:Repo in AZ

[Blkdeath]

You paid half the money for a new car, but what you have now is a used car which is likely to be worth considerably less. After repossessing the car, the dealer will have to sell it on and the revenue derived from doing so may not cover your outstanding debt... If it does, then sure you *should* get the difference, or at least thats how it works when property is repossessed.

Not only that, but in most areas the tax laws stipulate that you can't recover the taxes from a car loan. Vis;

• Original purchase price: $20000.
• Freight, fees, tarrifs: $2000.
• Sub-Total: $22000.
• PST + GST (Ontario, Canada) @ 13% combined: $2860
• Total to be financed: $24860.

To make things simple I'll use 0% APR financing on the loan. Supposing on this loan, let's make it a 60 month term, you're making payments of $414.34/month and you make the first 12 payments before your loan enters default status. So you've now paid $4972.08 towards your loan, leaving an outstanding balance of $19887.92 remaining. So now the financial institution repossesses the vehicle and needs to recover that amount of money. Using the 30% depreciation "rule of thumb" let's say the car is now worth $14000. That leaves the loan upside-down by $5887.92 that has to be collected somehow.

The beauty of the tax laws is that taxes will be paid once again by the new buyer so all in all the government wins, but we the consumers lose out because the financial institution has to jack up interest rates and service charges to make up for the shortfall of $6k that the original buyer is almost certainly not going to repay.

With the trend of ever increasing personal debt load on typical North American consumers, the trend towards longer terms, lower payments and less (or no) down payment, people are finding themselves in a negative equity situation on their car loans for longer and longer as they're paying the principal balances significantly slower than the depreciation curve of their vehicles. When financing first became commonplace it was normal to put upwards of 20-50% down and take a financing term that did not exceed 36 months. Granted, interest rates were often in the double digits, but with that much down and terms so short it wasn't really an issue. It was also quite common to pay off one's car loan before the end of the term and then {gasp!} drive it for several more years before trading it or making another purchase.

This allowed people to walk into their next loan with, again, 20-50% cash down plus equity in their trade resulting in upwards of 30-80% down on their next vehicle.

Alas, 84 month finance terms are becoming the norm, 96 month terms aren't as outrageous as they once were and consumers and banks keep talking seriously about 108 and 120 month terms. Welcome to the society where once you're in debt, you're always in debt. Buy now, pay later.

I, for one, am not on the debt treadmill, but I do take advantage of 0% finance offers wherever possible so the money I have in my savings account can earn between 3-8% while the store foots the cost of borrowing. Go on you debt whores; continue paying my way with your high interest payments.

But I digress...

Re:Repo in AZ

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

That is also true with federal student loans... those are interest free. So people take WAY MORE than what they need, up to the maximum limit allowed, and use it to finance their car stereo, pay off CC bills etc.

Re:Repo in AZ

[Billly Gates]

Not my student loans.

My wife and I's loans are about $150,000 and we expect to pay $2,500 a month for 10 years and pay something closer to $350,000 after interest is compounded back to the principle.

So yes the interest is tax deductible but the compounding part is not and it multiplies unto itself many times over. Good luck getting a refund for that?

Re:Repo in AZ

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

If you are on federal loans (not private loans) you can use Income Contingience plan which ties your payment to 10-15% of your disposable income as reported by IRS. If you can't paid that off in 25 years the loan is forgiven.

Re:Congratulations

[Farmer Tim]

...what trojan horse like hardware means.

Really crappy cars?

Re:Demonstrates possibility of same flaw elsewhere

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Shut off power will result in death for a few people who depend on home-oxygen equipment.

Already happened (not a remote turn off, just a normal deliquent shut off). I believe it was in Australia.

Person lost use of their O2 concentrator (produces O2 from the air).

They aren't supposed to do that, if one has a medical condition their account can be flagged at the power company to prevent that (in theory).

Re:Back door?

[Maestro4k]

They shouldn't have to change the passwords at all, just delete the employee's user account.

If you'd RTFA, they did delete his account, or at least deactivated it. He was using the login info of another employee to get in and cause havoc.

Re:Back door?

[Achromatic1978]

Because often times these dealers are selling to people with poor credit or a history of repossession, defaults, etc, and the kill switch is made a condition for a sale that otherwise would not have gone through, finance-wise...

Still entirely tacky...

Re:Demonstrates possibility of same flaw elsewhere

[Achromatic1978]

As an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician / Ambulance Officer) with the Fire Department, I can tell you the number of times I have gone into the house of someone who relies on home O2 for survival (usually COPD, etc) and yet doesn't have at the least a UPS, if not a generator, hooked up to said device is... zero. (That being said, during a big wind storm lately we did take someone to hospital as the power had gone out, the woman's son was not home, and her daughter-in-law had no idea how to start the generator, and we couldn't/wouldn't as it was wired up 'badly'.

Disconnect is one thing... power fails for other reasons... and for extended periods...

Re:Demonstrates possibility of same flaw elsewhere

[X0563511]

There are also supposed to be advisements on the premises (usually though to the effect of an explosive atmosphere) and - I would hope - special locks on the electrical equipment.

Re:Back door?

[frosty_tsm]

The real question is, why is there *one* password for all the cars?

Well, duh! Because it's easier to remember. And it's better than having a post-it for each car -- just one post-it with the one password will do!

One post-it to rule them all!

It Is My Sad Duty To Inform You...

[hyades1]

Dear Mr. Goosnarp:

I regret to inform you that the dealership no longer requires your services. Please don't assume that we believe you are without value as an employee and a human being, it's just that your particular skillset is not what we really need right now. Although you consistently exhibit a very high level of originality, and your computer skills easily surpass anyone else currently in our employ, we need somebody who pays more attention to the small details (cough) IP addy (cough).

We wish you well in your future endeavors, and would be delighted to supply a positive recommendation to any prospective employers who may contact us...as long as you don't do anything stupid.

Sincerely,

Your Former Boss

Re:They shouldn't be able to listen, but more comp

[dontbgay]

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.

Re:Austin newspaper story link

[mabhatter654]

it's only one count of computer invasion. Just happened to piss off a bunch of people, hell Virus writers don't even spend 200 years in prison.

At worst disabling the cars is "criminal nuisance" because they inconvenienced people, but the feature was already installed and it was easy to undo.

Re:Back door?

[Joe U]

Will you spend 2 minutes to read the fucking article. It gets removed for free after the last payment.

If you're going to comment on something you didn't read at least pretend to know the answers.

Not a basic right?

[rsilvergun]

In Europe, sure. In the US, where Auto companies have done everything in their power to kill public transportation and regulate people with out cars to the status of second or third class citizens, not so much.

Re:Demonstrates possibility of same flaw elsewhere

[NightRain]

It was New Zealand http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jul2007/newz-j05.shtml

Re:Demonstrates possibility of same flaw elsewhere

[h4rr4r]

Would you not also keep a couple bottles of O2 around just in case?

Re:Back door?

[dubbreak]

You can even stick it on your monitor!

That's no good. What if it falls off?

Even sticking a post-it under the keyboard won't do. Safest would be writing the password on the beige crt monitor bezel using a jiffy marker.

All joking aside I've seen it done. Not sure what happens if the password changes. Whiteout?

Nowhere said the system will be removed...

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

after all the payment is completed. This means they still have control of your vehicle even though the card is yours legally.

Re:Nowhere said the system will be removed...

[guruevi]

You have possession of the car - take the frackin' thing out as soon as it is legally 'yours' (whether or not it's still being financed - do not do it on lease cars).

Re:Nowhere said the system will be removed...

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

it might be not as easy as hard-jailbreaking an iphone. If it can do the honking for you, chances are it is deeply integrated into the system :-P

Re:and

[hansamurai]

When I submitted it I made a particular point to remove the references to "hacking".

Re:Back door?

[Winckle]

Tip-ex of course!

Re:Back door?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

I'm sure there's an iPhone analogy somewhere here...

Really? Is there some fact/rumour/speculation of a kill switch in the iPhone?

I hoped they tracked the IP in real time...

[pRtkL xLr8r]

...By creating a gui interface in Visual Basic...

Re:I hoped they tracked the IP in real time...

[thatskinnyguy]

It was at that moment I turned off 24 for the last time.

Re:Back door?

[KingMotley]

But what happens after the last payment is made?

What about Ford Sync?

[DarkJC]

I noticed people here talking about how OnStar has similar capabilities. What about the Ford Sync system Ford is putting in all their vehicles now. Does that have similar capabilities to OnStar, or is it more just a media player/phone system deal?

Re:and

[FatdogHaiku]

this makes front page of slashdot, why?

Well for one thing it's going to be easy for everyone to do car analogies! Then there's the whole "non-existent data security in the retail market" aspect. Next up is the question, is this a service accessible from the web? Oh also, how can I tell/find out if one of these boxes is wired into my new car? There seems to be plenty of geek mileage available, more so for anyone that's ever been late with a car payment...

Biased reporting

[FatdogHaiku]

It's always the "disgruntled ex-employee" that gets the headlines. Why oh why do we never hear of all the good being done by the many gruntled people of the workforce?

Re:Back door?

[MaskedSlacker]

Maybe he was thinking of the Kindle? Although the iPhone probably can do the same thing for apps--remotely delete ones you paid for.

Re:Demonstrates possibility of same flaw elsewhere

[Achromatic1978]

Of course. But unless you wire your house for oxygen (which is something of a fire risk), you're usually stuck with a D or E bottle being toted around or kept near you. D has a capacity of 425L, E of 680L. On a nasal cannula, consumption can be anything from 1LPM to 6LPM, though usually in the 2-4 range, which means an E bottle (which weighs around 8lb) is around 2 hours of oxygen.

In the situation I described, power was not restored for 12 hours in some of those areas - but the immediate concern was the fact that we had already responded to at least half a dozen trees across roads, and this particularly family was at the very end of a road in a heavily wooded area. We got in fine, with winds blowing. She had 8-10 hours of oxygen (we arrived at around 1am)... all good, even with continuing power outages... what if a tree had blown down during the night? Suddenly things get a lot more tenuous, and you're looking at a whole host of ugly solutions, from people hiking an hour to give her O2 bottles, through to an airlift out... we - and she - opted to go spend the night in the ER... not in a bed, just in the waiting area, where she could be assured a steady supply of oxygen til power was restored, and the generator issue resolved.

16% financing?!

[SuperBanana]

You friend is stupid, too- overpaying by almost 4x the market rate, and with an interest rate that high, it's going to be years before she pays it off. Last year I got a loan at 4.9%...

Re:16% financing?!

[squizzar]

Wow. I presume that you also earn $12/hour?

Re:16% financing?!

[Blkdeath]

You friend is stupid, too- overpaying by almost 4x the market rate, and with an interest rate that high, it's going to be years before she pays it off. Last year I got a loan at 4.9%...

I don't think you quite understand the sub-prime finance market.

Try this. Start paying half the minimum payments on all your credit cards and loans, skip every other month on everything, pick 2-3 debts that you don't like and just stop paying for them entirely. After about a year, go into your bank and ask if that 4.9% is still available.

Inaccurate comment...

[supersat]

OnStar can't keep you locked in your car -- there is ALWAYS a manual override.

You can request that the Remove Vehicle Slowdown feature is disabled. Apparently, they can disable it over the air, but to re-enable it, you need to take it into a dealership, so they can't just re-enable it if the police demand them to.

OnStar claims that their software has been modified so that the driver is ALWAYS notified when the microphone is activated remotely.

Even if this doesn't satisfy you, you can always unplug the OnStar unit without affecting the rest of the car.

Wrong: O2 concentrator installed sans power backup

[LandGator]

My g'father-in-law had his installed by a Medicare-approved provider with no battery backup and no generator. Be happy to provide specifics on request via e-mail. Is there a Medicare reg which requires a BBS or backup generator? Sure would like to know...

Re:They shouldn't be able to listen, but more comp

[tomhudson]

The system should be more or less hard-wired so that it notifies you when the microphone activates for any reason

>url:http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029_3-5109435.html>

Absolutely not true: If your car radio was on while the FBI snooped, the only indicator was a little light in the radio saying that "Car Recovery Mode" was disabled - NOT that the microphone was active. If the radio was off, it would beep - not to tell you the microphone was active, but again that "Car Recovery Mode" was disabled.

Re:Wrong: O2 concentrator installed sans power bac

[Achromatic1978]

I have no idea on the Medicare regulations, etc, etc, only that in this case power was out, the O2 concentrator was unable to provide oxygen. Our interest was in patient care, not the equipment approval process. But good to know, too.

Re:and

[mlts]

Sometimes I wonder if some system like this that can affect so many people with a bogus login, why isn't the access controlled with more than just a username/password combo?

If I were running a car dealership and knew that all it took was one password and someone could crack in, kill all my customers' cars and cause me a lot of potential lawsuits, I'd make damn sure that everyone with any access to this system would have a SecurID keyfob at the minimum, preferably an online/offline authenticator such as the Aladdin eToken NG-USB. Of course, only a few employees would have access to the kill switch, and there would be a documentation trail showing that it has been past the contracted time for nonpayment and the time has come to send in the repo man. Of course, the software would have a sanity checker that would limit the amount of cars shut down at any one time unless it was someone like the owner of the dealership doing the work. This way, a booted employee would do little to no damage unless they physically stole another employee's smartcard (which would be fairly easy to get detected, especially if the card is used for opening a door lock, or clock in and out.)

This is a sore point of mine, but why is username/password access the only thing protecting a lot of very sensitive services? It's 2010, shouldn't we have some sort of smart card standard by now, so client SSL certificates are easy to use, and widely accepted by websites? Perhaps a SIM card that holds the private key, and the cellphone acting as a trusted PINpad and screen, and this works regardless if the phone is a "dumb" phone like a RAZR, or a smartphone running Android, Windows Mobile, or OS X?

Re:and a traceable intrusion

[icebike]

This guy must be an idiot to get traced to his IP address.
Don't they have free wifi Cafes in Texas?

Any dealership I've been has a free wifi in their service waiting lounge. He's out of work, plenty of time to grow a beard, buy (ok Steal) some sunglasses, a black cowboy hat, and sit in their own waiting lounge and beat them with their own stick.

Hacker ... yeah, right

[black_lbi]

From TFA:

“Omar was pretty good with computers,” says Garcia.

You heard that? "Pretty good with computers" ... that must really mean something, especially coming from a (car dealership) manager.
Then, of course, we have this little gem:

Then police obtained access logs from Pay Technologies, and traced the saboteur’s IP address to Ramos-Lopez’s AT&T internet service

So he accessed the website (using his password, no hacking required here) from his home? Without even bothering with Tor?
"Pretty good", but not good enough.

Re:Back door?

[Trogre]

Not the iPhone hardware itself as far as I know, but the apps can all be remotely killed.

Needs clarification.

[zmollusc]

Is this in violation of the Repo Man's code?

Re:They shouldn't be able to listen, but more comp

[jimicus]

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.

You'd be amazed how many people are. "For the chillllldruuuun!!!" is one of those arguments that you just can't win because you either get painted as someone who'd understand if they had kids or someone who's sympathetic towards kiddie fiddlers, at which point any chance of a sensible discussion just goes out the window.

It's the modern-day equivalent to witch hunting.

Another Case of DRM gone bad

[clickety6]

Driving Rights Management in this case!

Usury

[Anonymous Coward]

These guys are predatory lenders. They make loans they KNOW you can't repay with the intent of leaving you with nothing but debt. I say this because they want you to default. They make money when you do. You'd have to be stupid or desperate to agree to this, but there are enough of the latter that I have little sympathy for the lenders (and that's even though I realize there are plenty of people who are both).

It's usury, pure and simple. I don't consider it an honest business. If some of their deadbeat clients are bastards, I consider it about half of what the usurers deserve.

For the record, I have never had anything repossessed, nor have I missed any payments. I did accidentally bounce a check (due to having forgotten to carry a one in my check ledger)--a small donation to charity, of all things. The $75 overdraft charge was swiftly paid off and I learned my lesson: avoid debt if at all possible, because your lenders own you. If you cross the zero net worth line, they'll multiply your debt with punitive fees and imprison you financially. I also keep cash reserves now, for just such occasions, though I've never tried to zero an account since then, nor shall I.

Re:Usury

[Blkdeath]

Disclaimer; I'm a sales manager at a car dealership.

These guys are predatory lenders. They make loans they KNOW you can't repay with the intent of leaving you with nothing but debt. I say this because they want you to default. They make money when you do.

That all depends on how much money they get up front, how many payments you make, the age/mileage of the vehicle at the outset and what condition the vehicle is in once it's repossessed.

These lenders do need to make as much money as possible on every loan to cover the losses on the others. I've seen cars repossessed with more than $10k owing on them that are in such bad shape they get stripped for parts and net the lender between $200-1000. How do you expect them to absorb that loss if they haven't been making $3000+ on other clients?

You'd have to be stupid or desperate to agree to this, but there are enough of the latter that I have little sympathy for the lenders (and that's even though I realize there are plenty of people who are both).

Both are typically correct. To get themselves into the situation where these types of loans would be an option, one would have to argue that many of these customers lack a certain level of intelligence or, at the very least financial savvy. The desperation comes into play when you consider that these people typically have no other option. We just delivered a vehicle to a client a few days ago with one of these devices installed. It was difficult to get hold of this lady because the members of her household were screening calls to avoid the creditors who are still after her for unpaid debts. Had she not taken the high risk car loan we arranged for her she'd be taking the bus. Period.

Re:Usury

[NeoSkandranon]

Sounds like she ought to be taking the bus, rather than taking on a major hunk of new debt.

Re:Usury

[Blkdeath]

Sounds like she ought to be taking the bus, rather than taking on a major hunk of new debt.

Who's arguing?

My bone of contention is with people who object to the way these flakes are treated. They've already proven that they can't handle debt responsibly, so they go to near-prime lenders. Then they prove they can't handle that responsibly, so they go to sub-prime lenders who install tracking devices in their vehicles with remote kill switches. They're lucky to have a car at their disposal in the first place. (n.b. Many of these people don't have the credit card room available to put a deposit down on a rental car, nor do they typically have the cash on hand to leave a cash deposit)

Re:Usury

[NeoSkandranon]

Sorry, I get what you're saying and I agree with it, I think my comment was mostly directed towards the "no other option" phrase.

On the other hand, I also realize that in MANY cities there IS no bus.

Pay cash...

[Bert64]

I'm happy to say i have always bought cars for cash, never had any kind of credit on them...
Although this meant that i've always had cars which were several years old rather than a new one, with careful selection this can actually bring big advantages...
I tend to buy cars which were well looked after, so aside from my first ever car (which was extremely rusty and had bits dropping off the bodywork) my cars have been very reliable, and i avoid the teething troubles that sometimes plague new cars.

Also if you buy at the right time, the car may have finished depreciating and depending on the type, might actually start to increase in value as a classic.

The only thing i miss out on, is some of the fancy features on newer cars, and even that's not always the case - if you buy a highend car from 10 years ago it might even have features not present on a lowend car from today...

Re:Pay cash...

[lemur3]

thanks for the update

No, its the how little it takes a lawyer

[Shivetya]

to convince you to file bankruptcy for.

Really, many people will file bankruptcy because for many it

1) Holds this silver bullet mythical like properties

2) Punch the reset button

3) Stick it to "the man" - whomever that may be.

One of my ex college buddies; as in I don't associate much if at all with him anymore; did the #3 route. Worse this seems to be the prevalent mindset these days among a lot of people. They don't care that other people have to foot the bill because they won't see them.

I am not sure where you came off with the 1K value, but this page http://www.bankruptcylawinformation.com/index.cfm?event=dspStats suggests differently.

Re:No, its the how little it takes a lawyer

[Da_Biz]

"Many people"? Where is the evidence for this?

Also, the link you provided is owned by an organization that provides "biblically-based" financial planning services.

http://www.daveramsey.com/company/about-dave/

Re:Should have changed password right away

[mgblst]

I though nuking them from orbit was the only way to be sure. Probably want them to be more than 100 feet from the office though.

I could probably cause some damage too

[dushkin]

I could export huge databases of all the prices, clients, profits, documents, deals etc. of my company. They don't really put limits on that somehow.

Moreover just today the admin told me his password when I asked him to help me out with some permission issue...

Well...

Too bad I'm an honest individual :( (mostly)

Overkill?

[DudeTheMath]

Pull the battery? There's this thing under the hood called the fuse box--pull the horn fuse. On my Saturn, at least, the horn has its own fuse. I know, because one night, it started honking all by itself.

Re:Overkill?

[SirWhoopass]

On my Saturn, at least, the horn has its own fuse. I know, because one night, it started honking all by itself.

That wouldn't happen if you had paid your bills.

Re:Overkill?

[DudeTheMath]

Amazing what TiVo is capable of. Miss one payment...

Re:and

[Securityemo]

This *is* hacking, in any other worldview other than a comp techies. I'm a geek heavily into comp sec, and that's one of the words I'd use to describe it to a non-tech. Or perhaps "cracked", but that still carries the risk of not being understood.

exactly

[circletimessquare]

drm turns what should be a clean exchange of goods into a means of control

it rankles anyone with a sense of the principles of liberty and freedom

it is doomed to failure, in any mode, simply because it pisses off those who are now controlled simply because they engaged in commerce: it sullies your brand image. it makes people hate any company that engages in drm

STUPID disgruntled employee

[Hurricane78]

Everyone knows, that if you pull something like that off, you do it from the computer of your most hated boss. E.g. use it as a non-logging proxy and delete the proxy software afterwards.

Re:STUPID disgruntled employee

[mlts]

Or, just don't hack from home without a proxy. Even with a proxy, don't do something that will honk off someone enough that they will drop a motion of discovery on the proxy owner, as even proxies who say they don't log likely do.

power imbalance

[circletimessquare]

whenever there is a power imbalance: little guy versus organization, things like desperation can move idiots to sign really stupid contracts. therefore, if the contract itself is abusive and usurious, it does not matter that you signed the contract, what matters is that one side of the contract, the one with more power, agreed to put someone in a financially abusive situation

i can make a contract that says "if you are a day late, i get your firstborn", and some idiot will still sign that contract. because people are idiots. but the observation does not end there: evil is worse than stupid

making abusive contracts is a form of preying on the weak and helpless and stupid. the weak and helpless and stupid must be protected by society, not because they deserve it, but because the assholes who prey on them get even more powerful, and pretty soon they're enforcing abusive terms on average intelligence folks of average means

so for a well functioning society, you need to punish the usurious, you need to punish those who make up abusive terms. they are far far worse than complete idiots

Re:power imbalance

[Billly Gates]

Why are the desperate desperate?

I understand the power game but thanks to competition this will not work with the 70% of the rest of us.

If anyone does this to you or I we say no thank you and take our business else where.

I am in debt due to some irresponsibility and unemployment. Do I deserve that nice 4.9% interest for a car? Hell no! I have shown that I can cause a potential loss.

So the 20% interest is what I would pay if I really really needed the car. I think I will repay off my debt first and wait for my credit to recover thank you.

The stupid need to pay more because they are more likely to default on other loans.

The abusive power unfortunately exists because 90% of the lenders wont do business with you. So its by the 10% of the remaining lenders terms or the high way.

Look at it this way? Would you loan me $1,000 after reading what I put down?

Now, suppose I make a deal with 25% interest over 5 years? After only 2 and half years you will break even if I default. After 5 you triple your money! Now would you loan me $1,000? That is a great return and might be worth the risk if you look at it this way instead. The argument is very different now if it was your own money. Of course you would charge me more ... assuming you would even bother to do business with me.

This is how the finance companies look at it. Credit card companies are a whole other discussion and I hate them with a passion.

Re:Back door?

[Theoboley]

with that said, couldn't said bad-credit-car-buyer just do a little research and disable the switch? or is it something that takes a lot of time and effort to do...

Re:Back door?

[sgbett]

Several handsets I have owned have kill switches, its nothing new.

not really $1000

[Uksi]

Here's a study: http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0002-9343/PIIS0002934309004045.pdf ("Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study")

"92% of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5000, or 10% of pretax family income. The rest met criteria for medical bankruptcy because they had lost significant income due to illness or mortgaged a home to pay medical bills. Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations. Three quarters had health insurance."

So while the medical debt is not necessarily sky-high, losing your job due to illness means that you are screwed on all your debts. Car, house, etc.

Also, further down: "Out-of-pocket medical costs averaged $17,943 for all medically bankrupt families" ... this means that these families successfully paid A LOT of money (~$13K) before declaring bankruptcy and ending up in an average of ~$5K of medical debt. These are not the people that ran up huge consumer debts and declared bankruptcy. These are the people that paid every bill until they just had no money left.

Re:not really $1000

[StikyPad]

Additionally, the healthcare provider's income lost through BKs is made up through higher bills for everyone else. Of course when presented with that little fact, anti-"socialized medicine" folks will fall back on the argument that they don't want the government involved in [anything of benefit], which is inevitably an opinion based on something unrelated but "applicable" nonetheless.

Anticipated firing

[phorm]

That works fine in the "surprise, you're fired!" (or not re-hired) situation. But not so much in the case where the worker knows it's coming. This can be many cases of (masculine gender used for simplicity):

The worker is the one to leave. He hates his boss/job/life and a few weeks before handing in his notice he sabotages key systems.

The worker knows his contract is almost up, and is likely to not be renewed

The worker has seen many others being "let go" in similar positions and feels the winds of unpleasant change.

The worker has already had a pre-firing "talk with the boss" and knows they're not happy with him, and that termination is likely upcoming

etc etc

There are plenty of cases where termination is foreseeable, so an unhappy work has plenty of time to do something bad. Heck, in the case of TFA he'd already stolen a co-worker's credentials, so disabling his account is useless.

Re:Back door?

[pnutjam]

It sounds like that's what there is, TFA states he used another employee's account.

Re:Back door?

[Blkdeath]

with that said, couldn't said bad-credit-car-buyer just do a little research and disable the switch? or is it something that takes a lot of time and effort to do...

If they disable the device, they also disable their car. Further, the device either sends an SOS or, failing that, the system sends an alert that the device has gone offline and the lien holder immediately dispatches somebody to collect the vehicle.

Re:and

[ubermiester]

this makes front page of slashdot, why?

because just about EVERYTHING that you buy will soon have a processor/wireless in it, and problems like this are going to increase exponentially. we must be smarter about the safeguards we require, as well as being smarter about what we accept in our products. in this case the car was simply disabled. what happens in 25 years with auto-piloted cars or whatever.

this is important.

Parsing English

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

>> The system should be more or less hard-wired so that it notifies you when the microphone activates for any reason

> Absolutely not true

"Should" need not mean "is." Should refers to things which, according to the value system of the speaker, ought to be.

Re:Parsing English

[tomhudson]

Sorry, I was tired when I replied ... I was so busy reading groklaw (it's REALLY awesome what's going on in the SCO trial finally), that I only realized my mistake after I posted. I figured I owe you a personal apology, rather than just a quick "oops."

Re:Wrong: O2 concentrator installed sans power bac

[LandGator]

Would you mind, horribly, assisting someone whose primary concern is the health of his g'father-in-law? How might I find out about getting Medicare to admit such a thing might be needed? Regret not in Washington (accustomed to finding Washington information and translating it to Orygun with our definately-not-standard state health care plan), but your advice would be appreciated.

Re:and a traceable intrusion

[JourneymanMereel]

Or even better, sit in the lobby of a competing dealership and make it look like corporate espionage :).

Re:Back door?

[Kitkoan]

I'm sure there's an iPhone analogy somewhere here...

Really? Is there some fact/rumour/speculation of a kill switch in the iPhone?

I think he means the back door put into the iPhone. While Apple claims it's only to remove 'rogue' applications, all I see is a back door is a back door. Kinda like how an engine kill switch in a car is only to be used to kill the engine of the car of unpaid accounts.

mod parent

[Billly Gates]

Why was the parent modded down?

Yes you need to pay for the car in which it is understood but repo men/women are not the good guys either.

Its a dangerous and very difficult job but they will do anything to get a car ethical, legal, or what not and they do not have sympathy with the owners.

It sucks to lose your job or be caught up in an ARm scam, which can cause you to default. But without a car the victim ... yes victim is screwed. Can't get a job without a car and you can not a car without a job.

Re:Mod Parent UP

[Insipid Trunculance]

This should be 5.This is the sort of comment which used to be seen a long time ago on /. - erudite , useful and interesting.