Hacker Disables More Than 100 Cars Remotely

[f1reverb]

Full story . . .

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/hacker-bricks-cars/

"Hacker Disables More Than 100 Cars Remotely

* By Kevin Poulsen

* March 17, 2010

* 1:52 pm

More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments." . . .

[scestes]

This whole scenario sounds absurd to begin with. I'm not sure that would never fly in California. It's akin to a story I heard about a guy holding a customer hostage for their data because he hadn't been paid for his DB work. He had slipped in some routines that would change passwords if a timer ran out of time because he had heard the customer was notorious for not paying their bills when they should. I find it surprising that these dealerships, and this company, are able to do this to their customers. To think that a finance company/dealership has the ability to disable a car at their whim because of a late payment. Frightening.

[williamggruff]

I think this explains what happened to my 2002 last summer. I bought it from a person in Austin. I drove it 1300+ miles toward my home in Virginia. 5 miles from home the motor died. I suspect someone hacked into a used car database and triggered the rod bearing self destruct mechanism. It was either that or the NSA, which students of the unknown can tell you stands for NASA sans A. It's a French organization that exploits alien technology discovered by NASA on the dark side of the moon.

Does this tinfoil make me look fat? Be honest.

[penth2o]

Happens all the time here.

Inland we have major migrant villages that work the fields. The local car sales places have these boxes they put in the cars they sell. I kept delivering these boxes and asked what are they remote starters.

They explained it to me and I couldn't believe it either. That’s ballsy I told them & they told me the clientele they have is shifty. They said you would not want to finance a car through them as the interest rates are above absorbant.

I asked how often they have to shut the car down and their reply was every other month.

I told them wait till they make the payment and the following month your shits in Mexico getting the box ripped out.

Hell of a way to make a living…