Imagine buying a car that requires activation from the manufacturer, and they could permanently disable it at any time if someone stole it.
This place would be in hysterics, but since we're talking about HN's favorite computer company it's a different story.
> Imagine buying a car that requires activation from the manufacturer, and they could permanently disable it at any time if someone stole it.
This has been standard on GM vehicles for decades.
https://experience.gm.com/support/onstar-connected-services/...
OnStar's anti-theft feature requires it to be initiated by the police. Not some rando who stole it and signed in with his own Apple ID... It is a premium service that requires you pay a monthly fee.
Nor does it permanently brick it; it can be unlocked by any dealer, or more likely once the police recover the car. In fact you could probably just remove the OnStar box and the car would be drivable.... it's designed to stop a theft in progress.
Most importantly, if you don't pay for the service it does nothing at all.
Basically the opposite of everything that went wrong in this article.
Until someone gets in to onstar's systems and activates this for every device at once.
It's user hostile but owner friendly.
> Imagine buying a car that requires activation from the manufacturer, and they could permanently disable it at any time if someone stole it.
I would absolutely buy that car. If you want it now, you can purchase OnStar [0] which proves that enough people want it. "Once law enforcement confirms your vehicle has been stolen, our Advisors use GPS to help authorities find your vehicle. But that’s just the beginning. When it’s safe, we’ll work with authorities to remotely slow it down.* And with Remote Ignition Block™,* we can also remotely prevent a thief from restarting your vehicle."
Tech geeks tend to assume everybody wants to live in anarchy. I absolutely think every car should have a remote slower to eliminate the risk of most car chases.
[0]: https://www.onstar.com/services/stolen-vehicle-assistance
example: https://vandogtraveller.com/cheap-gps-tracker-installation-a...
obviously it would depend which product you pick to define the interface (SMS is not ideal, fair enough) and capabilities
I can't wait to be pulled over literally by an angry cop who doesn't care about where they choose to stop my vehicle, and if it's safe for me or not, or deliberately chooses to do stop in a concealed spot for reasons that won't be good me.
The tone I get here is that tech geeks assume we want to live in a civil society, where one can plead their case and see Apple unlock the device when one has shown they have legal ownership and possession of it.
But, if the story is telling the whole story, anarchy is what we are living in. Apple just goes off and does its own thing without recourse.
That's not even remotely true, as evidenced by many other comments on this submission.
A lot of people seem to think that HN has a consensus on various subjects, but I'd say a defining feature of HN is argumentation and lack of consensus.
You beloved Porsche is this way as a theft prevention, when you bought the right options.
IRC Renault doesn't sell you the battery for your electric car. You need to rent it. Then it is in the contract, that if you miss your payment that they can lock down the battery and as such the car.