It's disheartening that generic concepts like these are considered patentable. Even without the dystopian features this is hardly an invention that merits protecting with a 20 year government enforced monopoly. This particular application is still pending but presumably Ford's patent attorneys considered it attainable.
Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments
441–450 of 568 posts
Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
The amount of mental gymnastics I hear from people who illegally park or obstruct society for their own selfish reasons is beyond me. There are places to park, there are places to not park, they don't have an overlap.
I don't agree with this. I'm from the US and have now lived in Japan for 6+ years. We have zero on street parking around the city, yet we joke that the hazard lights button is the "park anywhere" button, and you see it all the time. Because nobody strongly abuses this, it generally works fine and people go on with their lives around them. Even with the small neighborhood streets around Tokyo, you rarely see it being…
> the hazard lights button is the "park anywhere" button
I first saw this behavior when I went to school in Rochester, NY and wondered what the hell everybody was doing. Never encountered it growing up outside of Boston.
Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments
#443In college, a roommate of mine was double-parked, or parked in a fire zone, or something, in our 8-house cul-de-sac. He ran upstairs to get something from his room, and a tow truck appeared (this all happened in well under 5 minutes). When he came out, he argued with the tow truck guys a bunch, but they kept hooking up his car and arguing back and couldn't be reasoned with, etc etc. My friend sat on the hood to keep…
Interesting to see so many different perspectives on this one. Seems like I'm in the minority, but my perspective is you are absolutely not towing my car while I am present. I'll get in and drive away while it's hooked to the truck. Or whatever I have to do. You are not towing it. Period.
Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pointing out sanctimony or hypocrisy is not a valid argument against. It's is a kind of ad hominem. A person can be both right and sanctimonious
Weird to me it’s being read as sanctimony. My intent was just to convey “I was a driver for 22 years I am allowed to say we are entitled behind the wheel.” Maybe people feel guilty about owning cars so it rubbed them wrong? Some people have to, I’m lucky enough to not. I don’t think I’m better, just emotionally liberated. It’s an amazing feeling to have the privilege of not having to drive or park, get psychotically…
Ad hominem, when used, is commonly done as a pure convenience for the person wielding it.
I cannot say about this particular case.
Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the mere capability renders the machine fundamentally untrustworthy. I've said this a couple of times before, but I find it fairly astonishing that we don't have legislation covering what manufacturers are allowed to do to a product with embedded devices after a user has purchased it. I want to be very clear - after I have bought a product, ANY CHANGE WITHOUT MY CONSENT done by the embedded software at the behest o…
> I want to be very clear - after I have bought a product, ANY CHANGE WITHOUT MY CONSENT done by the embedded software at the behest of the manufacturer is essentially breaking and entering (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)). Man, do I have bad news for you about everything.
Including Firefox and forced live updates (noteworthy since it’s from such a “you own your machine” org):
Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look up craigslist scams. "My agent will come and pick up your goods, and give you a cashier's check." After 5 days, the check is discovered to be fake, and you have to pay the money. They're taking advantage of the payment lag.
This happened to me. A guy mailed me a cashier's check and said his "friend" would pick up the item. I called the bank the check was drawn on; they confirmed it was fake. I pretended I never got the money and the "friend" never showed up. Lesson learned. Now I only exchange Craigslist items in person, in the parking lot of a police station, for cash. And I test the cash with a counterfeit detector pen.
> And I test the cash with a counterfeit detector pen.
FYI, having owned a liquor store for a while and processing a ton of cash, the only counterfeit bills the pens could detect were the crappy amateur ones that were already pretty obvious without using the pen. Plenty of counterfeit bills passed the pen test just fine and didn't get revealed until the bank rejected them from a deposit.
Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worry more about some hacker type deciding to ddos all the McDonalds by telling the cars that’s where they need to be. Kind of surprised it hasn’t happened yet honestly.
I'm not particularly worried about the well-being of the McDonald's corporation. I'd be more worried, if anything, about some bad actor deciding they want every car on a major interstate to wreck all at once.
They could also be used to harm pedestrians
Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments
#448Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much was the underpayment (I know you said a dollar or two, but I presume this had gone on for a while?). It's odd to me that they repo'ed rather than contacting him to say 'hey, there's a problem with your account.' I find the story wholly believable, a lot of people who work in payments seem to be stupid and/or stubborn, and it might be the industry selects for those traits.
> It's odd to me that they repo'ed rather than contacting him to say 'hey, there's a problem with your account.' That might be a good assumption if human beings were involved in the decision loop to repossess the vehicle, but I wouldn't be surprised if the entire process is automated.
> but I wouldn't be surprised if the entire process is automated.
Yup, I accidentally underpaid my mortgage one month by $0.20 (I fat fingered the online payment). I didn't get my house repossessed, but it did send the automated billing system at the bank into a huge tizzy that took six months and multiple phone conversations with different departments to sort out. I was flabbergasted that it caused so much commotion, as it can't be that unusual an error to occur.
Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments
#449Ha! This trope started with Tesla, though that threat is much more credible given where FSD is at. (By "much more credible," I mean "more theoretically possible, but not very likely to happen"). I guess Ford should feel flattered that they are being compared to Tesla like this!
Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
Brace yourself then, because the future of automotive is highly connected, and in many ways it already is. Every car since the early 2000s has computerized components that control everything from power steering to infotainment systems, and your car probably already communicates with some servers using a built in cellular sim. Hackers have been able to compromise cars for at least a couple of decades, and while car ma…
Every new Ford on sale today in the US, from the cheapest Maverick to the most expensive F150 configuration, now has remote monitoring and access via 5G as standard - it's needed if nothing else to offer the apps to remote start and unlock the car that consumers just expect now. Its generally the same industry wide. > https://www.ford.com/support/category/fordpass/
My 2013 F150 periodically asks me if it should upload a “Vehicle health report”. I have always declined.
The idea of a vehicle repossessing itself does bother me. In the early 2000s I bought a vehicle from Mitsubishi, financed through them. At the time, setting up an automatic payment through them cost a monthly fee, so I set it up through my bank instead.
About 3 years later I got a call from them threatening repossession because I was three months behind on payments. I checked and every payment had been sent.
It turned out that Mitsubishi Motors East had transferred my loan to Mitsubishi Motors West, or something like that, and I had missed that. It was probably in one of the statements I never bothered opening.