<story><title>Student says he was unwitting drug mule, sues Ford</title><url>http://news.msn.com/us/student-says-he-was-unwitting-drug-mule-sues-ford</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>crazygringo</author><text>At first I thought, how is this Ford&amp;#x27;s fault? How is this any different from someone just picking the trunk lock?&lt;p&gt;But then I realized: Ford &lt;i&gt;actively provided&lt;/i&gt; the car codes to a car they&amp;#x27;d sold, to someone who wasn&amp;#x27;t the owner, without the owner&amp;#x27;s permission. This is no different from the locksmith who installed the lock to your house, giving someone else a copy of the key to your front door &amp;quot;because they said they knew you&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Maybe Ford calculates that it&amp;#x27;s easier to just give out the codes to people related to the dealers, for convenience, but that needs to factor in that they &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; be forced to pay heavy, heavy fines or restitution when bad things happen.&lt;p&gt;And even worse, imagine if someone were raped or killed because of Ford&amp;#x27;s negligence concerning codes. People&amp;#x27;s security in their cars is a serious thing.</text></comment>
<story><title>Student says he was unwitting drug mule, sues Ford</title><url>http://news.msn.com/us/student-says-he-was-unwitting-drug-mule-sues-ford</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>gpcz</author><text>As implied in Cory Doctorow&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;The coming war on general-purpose computation,&amp;quot; modern cars are really computers with an engine and wheels.  This event has proven that computer security breaches in cars can have real-world legal consequences for citizens.  As a result, there may be a market in a hardening&amp;#x2F;privacy guide for new cars, similar to the kind sysadmins use to harden Internet-facing servers.  Alongside your standard hacker-types, a guide like this probably has a market in survivalist&amp;#x2F;conspiracy circles.&lt;p&gt;The guide could explain how to change the code in the car&amp;#x27;s alarm transmitter as well as how to remove devices with privacy implications like OnStar.</text></comment>