Ford Files a Patent for System to Reposses Cars Remotely | Hacker News Reader

Ford Files a Patent for System to Reposses Cars Remotely

innotechtoday.com

22 pointsohjeez14 comments

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Previous discussion:

Ford's new patent proposes a way for banks to disable features on leased cars

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35003090

2 days ago | 42 points | 86 comments

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34962145

4 days ago | 284 points | 544 comments

This is not as stupid as it sounds. Car repossession agents are regularly victims of violence and get guns drawn at them because often times, the person being delinquent on their payments is not the friendliest person out there...

I personally would never buy a car with this "feature" but to say there is no logic or cause for this is disingenuous.

Man, Ford must have a real problem with delinquent payments or some sort of belief in a cultlike market following because this seems like a horrible idea. I’ll ride a bicycle and rent cars if the rest of the automobile industry follows suit. The words I would use to describe how stupid this is are not welcome on the internet anymore.

Did we learn nothing from Tony Soprano? First thing you do when buying a new car is disable gps, on-star, and anything else that can be used to track or control you. Thats why Big P was such a valuable member of his crew, and probably the only reason he kept supporting his wife.

All those hours of tv were not a complete waste. ;)

Saw something a few days ago where somebody asked ChatGPT to write a country-western song about a truck that repossesses itself and runs away. It was actually pretty good.

Why is this that much worse than remote ignition lock?

The one that stands out to me is disabling the AC. Hope there's no kid or dog in there when they do it while the parent is in the store or whatever. I don't like any kind of built-in backdoor in any product, but apparently we don't get a say in that anymore.

Off topic, but you should never leave a kid (or pet) by themselves in a locked vehicle. Child vehicular heatstroke kills ~50 kids every year in the US. Most of those cases are actually unintentional.

> one that stands out to me is disabling the AC

Wouldn’t this be an argument for driving the car home over disabling it? (I’m not sure, but I thought ignition lock prevents ignition. It doesn’t turn the car off if it’s already on.)

Time for my periodic lament that products the market would prefer, e.g., cars of which some external entity cannot assume control, are at risk of being unavailable.

"Oh, that's all tinfoil hat, Smitty."

Sure. Maybe commuter diesels with manual transmissions are just a personal fetish (I own two). But where can I buy newly-minted replacements?

"Oh, that's just capitalism saying you're a niche market, and the business case is absent."

Perhaps. I guess it's different than retro computing or something. However, I would contend that the same authoritarian behaviors that are being used against firearm manufacturers are repeated against car manufacturers.

A rebirth of actual, free-market capitalism is needful, IMO.

looks like Ford is done innovating

The world of humans is just not meant to be this efficient.

grey area

"sick farmer sued by Ford because he built a home system to control his machines from his bed"

great new civilization ahead!

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