[saagarjha]

Wow, everything in this article is horrifying:

> the rising deployment of remote engine cutoffs and GPS locators in cars

Wait, so people can remotely track my car or turn it off? This doesn't sound like a hack away from disaster at all.

> The companyʼs goal is to capture every plate in Ohio and use that information to reveal patterns…“Itʼs kind of scary, but itʼs amazing,” said Alana Ferrante, chief executive of Relentless.

No, it's just scary.

> Repo agents are responsible for the majority of the billions of license plate scans produced nationwide. But they donʼt control the information. Most of that data is owned by Digital Recognition Network (DRN), a Fort Worth company that is the largest provider of license-plate-recognition systems. And DRN sells the information to insurance companies, private investigators — even other repo agents.

As if you couldn't make a bad situation worse: let's give all the information to a private company that has every reason to resell all that data.

[gruez]

>Wait, so people can remotely track my car or turn it off? This doesn't sound like a hack away from disaster at all.

you think that's bad? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17094213

[Eric_WVGG]

> This doesn't sound like a hack away from disaster at all.

It's been done. https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig...

[StanislavPetrov]

As Michael Hastings well knows.

>Hastings, an acclaimed war correspondent and vocal critic of government mass surveillance, died in the early hours of Tuesday, June 18, 2013, when his Mercedes C250 Coupe apparently lost control and burst into flames before slamming into a palm tree.

>Witnesses to the accident, which occurred around 4:25am in the leafy Hancock Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles, said the car appeared to be travelling at top speed and was creating “sparks and flames” before it went off the road.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzWHZngfONo

[jessaustin]

If one has that sort of enemy, one should drive a manual transmission.

[perl4ever]

It has been argued that pretty much all cars have brakes that are more powerful than the engine, and thus there ought to be no way for a car to truly run away.

On the other hand, it has been claimed, and seems reasonable, that in some cases, applying the brakes moderately against a car running at full throttle leads them to overheat and fail, and then there's no way to stop.

I feel like a manual transmission could be a safety device in another way - if you can pass the threshold of shifting for yourself, it may limit how impaired, by drugs/alcohol or dementia etc, you can be while still driving.

[codeCatalyst]

> the rising deployment of remote engine cutoffs and GPS locators in cars

How is this legal? Cutting off the engine at a bad time could cause horrific accidents, putting the car owner and occupants of surrounding cars in lethal harm.

Where is the class action law suit for this?

[rpcope1]

These sort of devices seem to show up a lot on cars from "Buy Here, Pay Here" lots (for buyers at risk of default), and have been for a while now. This is one the ways those sorts of lots make a lot of money; an couple of acquaintances run some of these lots and I'm told some cars may be repossessed many times, often paying themselves off many times over. This is another mode of fleecing the poor like payday loan vendors, and it's real lucrative (but pretty morally pungent).

It's sort of funny that a lot of people in the comments here had no idea that this stuff exists; it highlights the lack of demographic overlap between people posting on HN and the sort of person that would wind up getting a device like this installed (or need to use a buy here pay here lot).

[ceejayoz]

I'd expect they prevent starting the car, rather than shutting off in the middle of the highway.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/09/car_lenders_u...

> "We can disable the ignition but not while you're driving," Melanie Boudreau, a spokesperson at IMETRIK, a Canadian maker of starter interrupt devices that run around $100 each, told Fortune. "We don't want to kill you."

[Bluestrike2]

That's slightly better I guess (though at driver in the article claimed otherwise), but the driver is still under the expectation that their vehicle will start when they turn the key. What happens when the car won't turn on in an emergency?

[jpatokal]

Is that any different from the car not being there because it's been repossessed?

[bouke]

Or you shut it off at a train crossing by accident, a trains is oncoming and you cannot get the car started again? With all your children in the back seats and no time to get them all out?

[im3w1l]

It may obstruct something by remaining standing when the driver wanted to just make a quick stop.

[X-Istence]

You stall in the middle of the highway and need to get it going again?

[vertexFarm]

One of many reasons all my vehicles are old-fashioned, analog, non-computerized motors. They're easiest to work on, too. Which sucks, because a computer system in a car or motorcycle could have really been an opportunity, but it's one that has been used almost exclusively to fuck things up for the user.

[PhantomGremlin]

Wait, so people can remotely track my car or turn it off?

Under those circumstances it's not really "your" car.

Yes, you might have put down 5% of the total purchase price. So you have a title, and legally you own the car. But 95% of the "skin in the game" is the lender's. The car belongs mostly to the lender.

Don't like that? Easy solution, don't be a deadbeat. Or save up and pay cash.

I agree with the rest of your post. The privacy implications are quite scary.

[nradov]

In most states you don't actually receive the vehicle title on a new car until you finish paying off the loan. Lenders hold on to the title so that buyers can't resell or export the car.

[forapurpose]

Even lessees should and do have rights. For example, landlords can't just do whatever they want if a renter misses a payment.

[saagarjha]

When I pay off the car, does the device get removed, or do I just come to an agreement with the dealer that they won't remotely disable my car or track me? Actually, when I buy a new car with cash, do they remove the device, or are they just lazy and install one in every car?

[joering2]

For the very expensive cars they will send agent to remove ot at their expense.

Its funny but most contracts wont tell you you have this kind of device on you. Its mostly for expensive cars that havent been paid in month. My brother worked as mechanic and people constantly came to remove it off the car. He used to do that for a fee because its not his responsibility to check who owns the car. He assumes whomever shows up at the shop with keys and money to pay for his work, hes ready to go.

I always wondered how much it pissed them off. One time out of curiosity they left device hooked to batter for some time. It took agent three weeks to show up (i bet you once you stop driving that where they send someone to try to pick it up). The agent was rude and angry to give out the car cause he seen device pinging from said location. Altho he didnt have warrant they let him in the lot out of shits and giggles just to waste his time in Georgia 103 degrees summer daylight to walk around the lot size of a football stadium in search for a grey Audi lol ;)

[gruez]

why is this post getting downvoted? clearly these devices work, otherwise lenders won't be using them. if the devices are banned/never existed, lenders will either not lend in risky cases they would have otherwise lent or charge higher interest rates.

[matte_black]

People seem to take offense with being called “deadbeats”.

I think though the term is warranted. It is despicable to enter an agreement to lease a car from a lender and then not make payments.

[fjsolwmv]

It's nothing compared to the despicable ways "car dealerships" (really finance scams) steal from poor people.

https://youtu.be/4U2eDJnwz_s

Or how the National Association of Mortgage Financers or whatever it's called defaulted in their mortgage.

Or how companies declare bankruptcy.

Default is a part of finance. Good faith bankruptcy is not ethically challenged. Both parties to a contract are responsible for counterparty risk.

[sullyj3]

It doesn't suddenly become possible when you start missing payments.

[qop]

Following your logic there, I would be able to pay 5,001 on a 10,000 car and be able to lay claim to it.

Lending finance is a bit more ethereal than that, in practice.