61–70 of 81 posts
They should fine the car manufacturers for ignoring the security flaws.
For millennia we have been doing ok by focusing on punishing the bad actor and not punishing people for making something that isn’t exactly perfect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Radio equipment restrictions are as old as radio itself. Go into cellular telecommunication or, god forbid, radar, and you will find a great number of things you are not allowed to possess or sell, with very severe punishments for violation.
Like what?
"Making or selling a signal jammer could lead to up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine." I can understand you like to make some devices illegal. But really, five years prison, unlimited fine. Is everybody insane now.
How does it compare with the sentence for actual car theft?
"Making or selling a signal jammer could lead to up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine." I can understand you like to make some devices illegal. But really, five years prison, unlimited fine. Is everybody insane now.
In UK it is a crime to silently pray at your own home. It is a different culture, court decides who is a criminal. There are no civil liberties or constitution like in US!
First statue of Liberty, Magna Carta, predates the US itself by more than half a millennium.
"Making or selling a signal jammer could lead to up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine." I can understand you like to make some devices illegal. But really, five years prison, unlimited fine. Is everybody insane now.
Standard UK culture. You can be arrested for social media posts.
How about banning the sale of cars that don't use time of flight measurement in their keyless go system? The problem isn't thieves using easy to get standard equipment for car theft, the problem is car manufacturers making it pretty easy for them. Remember when you could open cars using an old coat hanger? Did they ban steel wire to prevent this?
I'm always amused when law makers try to fight crime by making new laws. Because that affects exactly everybody except criminals who - by definition - don't care about laws. Like, I can really imagine the reaction of professional car thieves when they heard of this new ban: "Damn, Bobby, let's pack it in! I guess we're not allowed to use those jammers any more. Too bad, they served us well."
The other idea is that if the tools themselves are illegal it's a higher barrier to entry for the people who want to get into that kind of crime so maybe some of them will never start in the first place.
And it does work in some circumstances.
They perhaps could have gone with clarifying or strengthening existing legislation instead of course. There's already an offence of "going equipped to steal", but it is hard to prove because you might be able to get a court to believe that you were carrying a bunch of housebreaking tools around in the middle of the night for some legitimate reason.
So that's why we tend to pass laws to target tools.
And yes, hardened car thieves probably won't be deterred, but it will be easier to prosecute them if they're found in suspicious circumstances and found with these now-illegal devices. It's not like criminals usually think they're going to get caught - the deterrent effect simply doesn't work on some people.
Real failure is the unwillingness to spend resources to track the stolen vehicles and apprehend the responsible. UK is an island, proper tracking in ports of exit and quick response should be possible. Or just add enough surveillance so you can track the stolen cars to logical points where they dissapear.
And what about the cars which are stolen and then broken up and sold as parts? That's fairly common.
And the ones which are given false plates and resold - perfectly doable if nobody checks the VIN - and never leave the country.
Just because we're an island doesn't make it easy.
But we do need to spend more resources on crime prevention and the apprehension of criminals, we've known that for years but we've also kept electing governments who refuse to do it while also claiming to be "tough on crime" so it's the usual mess.
"Making or selling a signal jammer could lead to up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine." I can understand you like to make some devices illegal. But really, five years prison, unlimited fine. Is everybody insane now.
Oh, thank goodness, they're finally banning these evil devices. Hopefully they'll move on to bobby pins, coat hangers, screwdrivers, and hammers next.
I fear for the day that the state insists on limiting our computing choices to sanitised controllable devices, and that having a root-access programmable computer is viewed by them with the same suspicion as keeping Great Grandpa's old service revolver in the attic.