Slashdot Mirror
Disgruntled Ex-Employee Remotely Disables 100 Cars
hansamurai writes "Over one hundred cars equipped with a Webtech Plus blackbox were remotely disabled when a former employee of dealership Texas Auto Center got hold of his employer's database of users. Webtech Plus is repossession software that allows the dealership to disable a car's ignition or trigger the horn to honk when a payment is due. Owners had to remove the battery to stop the incessant honking. After the dealership began fielding an unusually high number of calls from upset car owners, they changed the passwords to the Webtech Plus software and then traced the IP address used to access the client to its former employee."
Can someone explain this article to me using a car analogy?
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?
or the Brown Note?
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.
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.
Since I RTFA I know that he used someone else's password.
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.
Life is not for the lazy.
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?
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
When are bosses going to learn to stop taking away their gruntles??
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
>.<
Oh man, trying to read that hurt. Punctuation is our friend.
No sig for you!!
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.
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!
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Perhaps Toyota should review which Engineers have been fired lately.
Honk if you're Hacked!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
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.
...is the perfect example (and with car analogy indeed) of why DRM and remote product (de)activation is doomed to failure.
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...
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
<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>
The real question is, why is there *one* password for all the cars? Shouldn't it be one password for each employee who has access to log into the "car disabling" server which then sends the lockdown signal using a trusted certificate?
They shouldn't have to change the passwords at all, just delete the employee's user account.
No. That's not the real question. It's a stupid ass question because it was answered in article.
Each employee does have an account. His account was even disabled. He used another employee's account.
Man, you got a +5 for "I didn't read the article" - I can understand no one bothering to mod you down, but +5 stupid? Come on...
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
And do you have any evidence that those things have been used when the owner is driving the car (even if wanted by the police) or only when the car is reported stolen?
Sure. Case in Las Vegas. Note that the FBI's use was not deemed illegal/inappropriate, but rather that it denied the user/owner of use during that time.
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.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
My sister is like that... Willing to remove all risk from her life and put control in the hands of other people for the safety of her kids. That's all well and good, but I don't need someone having the ability to remotely disable my automobile regardless of my distance from the person with their finger on the button. Sure, responsibility for my family is is important, but I don't need the specter of a nanny snooping in and judging me because I want to listen to some Middle Eastern music.
Life is risk. When you shed risk, it's usually at a price.
Sig not found.
When I submitted it I made a particular point to remove the references to "hacking".
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
But what happens after the last payment is made?
they already got it - billions of it. Bail-out bux.