To be specific, I don't think the cities are suing over the car thefts. If I understand correctly, they're suing because the availability of easily hacked Kia cars enabled a wave of other crimes, because the criminals knew they had easy access to a getaway vehicle that couldn't be traced back to them.

WHAT?

I don’t have my wallet on a chain, do I have some responsibility if I get pickpocketed?

These criminals are breaking the law, it is ENTIRELY their fault. Any other interpretation has way, way too many logic holes and strange consequences that says it’s our fault when a criminal willingly breaks the law.

Locking 1,000 people up for a decade costs ~1 billion dollars. So even slightly more aggressive policies get expensive fast, and a surprising number of people “age out” of these kinds of crimes. It’s not clear if it’s hormones or what but you’ll see people with extensive rap sheets who end up as productive members of society in their 30’s or 40’s and beyond.

On the contrary, Canada's rate of stolen cars is only 10% less than the US despite having very few port cities. <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy79dq2n093o>

What if the sentenced person is actually innocent? No amount of apologies or recompensation will bring that person back.

Advocacy in favor of the death penalty is never about "death penalty for murderers/rapists" but "death penalty for people convicted of being murderers/rapists". Practice has shown there's a big difference

Within my lifetime we've gone from leaving the backdoor unlocked at night and leaving the car keys on the seat (or in the ignition) from being the normal practice to being unthinkable.

You're focusing on the wrong govt policies.

This runs directly contrary to my lived experience here, so unless you can provide evidence it sure seems like you're just stereotyping an entire nation to engage in ideological warfare.

But you are right that there are many (older models) that use ciphers with know quick exploits: TI's DTS40/DTS80 (40/80bit, proprietary cipher, in many cases terrible entropy), models from Toyota, HKMC, Tesla. About 6s to crack in many cases.

NXP's HTAG2 - most commonly used one in the '00s - 48bit proprietary cipher, a lot less exploited in the wild than the TI's disastrous two variants.

As much as some narrative wants us to think, we don't need to be forced to live in effectively the same conditions as a maximum-security prison in order to have no crime.

Cars (and other things) being easy to steal isn't the problem.

It's a pretty good argument for the regulation, since everyone else is already doing it just make it the standard.

https://platetovin.com/about#pricing

But how are they getting the data?

And before anyone says "but the thief can swap the ECU before it calls home and if it was continously reporting at least there would be a trail where he did it" it is silly. Let's say there indeed is a gps trail leading from in front of your house to some alleyway or a forest. Do you think the car is still there? Nope.

It is a common fallacy. The manufacturer wants to steal your privacy and gives you a useful feature tied to it. Oh, do you want to be able to switch the car off remotely when it's stolen or not? If so we need to know where you drive for next 20 years. And if you ever drove over 80mph we're using this to decline your warranty BTW. I

Would be nice to have a organized online database of how to disconnect various "smart" devices— cars, TVs, appliances, etc.

> These attacks could be executed remotely on any hardware-equipped vehicle in about 30 seconds, regardless of whether it had an active Kia Connect subscription.

If this should tell companies anything is that most of these services should be opt-in instead of opt-out in favor of security and privacy.

OP was talking about not buying a car that requires a subscription to activate, not about whether the subscription makes you vulnerable.

In such world thanks to the commonality of FLOSS we have dedicated distros and package for such iron, widespread enough to be commonly available in users hands. As a result the security risks are still more than zero but much, much less and many who could since their car is their own, not owned for real by the OEM, they could simply cut the connection if they do want so.

Such open world could be done in few years by laws, and anything is already there since decades. It's a matter of knowledge and will.

I've had to fetch something from my car while my gf had the car keys with her, I could just open it with my phone. It's useful.

It was nice and warm by the time I arrived to it. With only a keyfob it would have still been ice cold.

Absolutely not a necessary feature, but I miss it (free MyLink subscription expired and I won't pay for it).

Also, remote start/temp control that works no matter the distance as long as there’s internet connectivity is superior to a radio based implementation. There’s plenty of places that are largely RF impermeable, or otherwise distance is too far. If you’re in a store, 100ft is barely any distance, especially with the layers of concrete in the way.

Physical access is required to exploit any unauthorized access to the vehicle. What are you going to do? Steal my change?

Software quality and security updates on the internet-facing component.

It doesn't matter if my door has shitty locks, you still can't enter my house unless I invite you.

I will give you one hint: cars have sensors that are read wirelessly by ECUs on the internal (unprotected) network.

[1] But that's why sarcasm is usually frowned upon on HN.

Not sure how you program it to your car, but I would get it just so I don't need to use an app.

The fact that your car needs "somewhat frequent" updates doesn't concern you? Cars are effectively appliances, they should work right the first time, with minor updates here and there to fix serious issues which can be done in the safety of a shop at next scheduled service, and not risk pulling a Rivian and bricking the entire fleet at the push of a button.

- customer service: took 3 weeks to get my last service appointment, so I couldn’t drive my car for that long (service was because the charge port door wouldn’t open); was not told that when I had to replace the touchscreen (it had bubbles in it and I live in a very moderate climate), I would no longer have a radio.

- basic/critical features being poorly designed or seemingly had little thought put into them: see the above charge port door issue; window seals that drip going through the car wash; no physical controls for anything so you have to focus on the touchscreen while driving; other random fit and finish issues just due to substandard workmanship.

- substandard software: frequent issues and bugs with basic operation; after my touchscreen was replaced, the glove box pin no longer opens the glove box (minor nit, but annoying); loads of other random little annoyances.

Personally, I’d rather connect to my WiFi where I have control, but that’s a lot to ask for regular consumers.

Note: the technical details are very lacking so it may not be that interesting to most here. tl;dw: there is a reseller that shouldn't be selling the tablets to "unauthorized" people and some other tidbits about how the thief operates.