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Comment by lusr | Hacker News Reader

What's wrong a simple "Okay sir, before you can drive away with your new car you need to pick a password. And before anybody can service the car they'll need your password so please don't forget it, but if you do you can always provide proof of ownership to your nearest dealer and they'll help you reset your password."? That way non-franchise garages can still do repairs, as well.

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That's a great idea, but IANAL, so I can't say if it passes muster for EU anti-anti-competition laws. I'm going to go out on a limb and venture two guesses:

1) Any mechanism that requires manufacturer intervention is going to draw the eye of these legislators, which would likely mean some means of resetting that password for third-parties, which significantly diminishes the security utility.

2) If you've ever worked with consumers and "passwords", you know that they don't remember them. I think this bolsters support for regulations that require the reset procedure to be accessible by third-parties.

They'd have to provide the 'password restore' functionality to non-franchise garages as well, I guess. Otherwise they could do this except without the password: 'Okay sir, here's your key. Anybody can service the car, but they'll need the key. If you lose it, provide proof of ownership to nearest dealer and they'll make you a new one'.

Good point; a physical key is just as good as a password and has the benefit that people will treat it properly.

Thieves will help themselves to reset the password too, and they naturally waive the proof of ownership clause.

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