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

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21–30 of 93 posts

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

#22
From Ubik [1], by Philip K. Dick:

The door refused to open. It said, "Five cents, please."

He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. "I'll pay you tomorrow," he told the door. Again it remained locked tight. "What I pay you," he informed it, "is in the nature of a gratuity; I don't have to pay you."

"I think otherwise," the door said. "Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt."

...he found the contract. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.

"You discover I'm right," the door said. It sounded smug.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubik

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

#23
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is going to be an unpopular take, but why should a person be allowed to maintain use of an item they don’t own and are delinquent on? The unpopular part is that this just removes some friction from an already existing process. This is assuming there are the appropriate regulations in place to notify and give a reasonable option to rectify the payment issue, but isn’t this exactly how we deal with stuff fr…

We already have that though, it's called repossession. This feature just removes the human barrier and makes it vulnerable to hacking.

It removes the risk of a human getting hurt or injured. I can't be the only one that's seen repos gone bad. I'm not talking about that dumb, scripted _reality_ show either

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

#25

So given that they have the legal right to come to your house and forcibly take a leased car from you if you miss payments, a few nag features honestly seem like an improvement. I would just want to be sure as hell that a car I own outright wouldn't even have the hardware available to do such a thing.

Problem is that it makes it so easy that eventually we'll end up in a world where you can't outright own a car and everyone is stuck in perpetual leases. This already happened with the software industry with most stuff nowadays being a subscription.

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

#26
post #7
post #4

you vill own nothing...

Did you read the title up to the word "lease"?

It's just a matter of time before this technology is used to extract rent on non-leased cars just like subscriptions for heated seats/etc (or intentionally make the full "own outright" model unaffordable so everyone is forced into leasing where they can use this tech).

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

#27
post #15

The problem with this is that I think it plays on good nature of people. Ford right now says it's for leased cars but it feels like a step to normalize restricting and milking people later on. It also open a whole new attack vector these companies are not ready to secure

Yep. Like software, car manufacturers want a car to be something you subscribe to rather than buy. Also lets them continue to receive income from secondhand sales or ownership changes.

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

#28

If they're that worried perhaps they shouldn't lease the car.

Do you think this 'feature' (and all of its potential vulnerabilities) will only exist in vehicles that are leased? I can't imagine that would be the case.
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