[HN Gopher] Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts ___________________________________________________________________ Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts Author : amadeuspagel Score : 126 points Date : 2023-05-12 12:52 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.thebaltimorebanner.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.thebaltimorebanner.com) | fullstop wrote: | I have an older (2011) Kia and took it in for a firmware update. | It changed two things: 1. Alarm sounds for 60s, | increased from 30s 2. The key must be in the ignition for | the vehicle to start | | #2 seemed kinda odd, but then I realized that people who used any | sort of remote start kit would have a bit of a dilemma, as it | would no longer function after the update. | whitej125 wrote: | I figured these Hyundai/Kia thefts using a USB cable was some | techy issue... like there was a auto technicians USB port that | would disable car security if it has something plugged into it. | | No. | | After 5 minutes of searching you see that a USB-A connector just | happens to fit perfectly over the nub in the ignition and allows | you to turn it. | | The problem is there is no engine immobilizer. So you can start | the engine just by physically turning the ignition. I thought EI | was pretty much standard on all cars post late 90's. | [deleted] | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: | "Immobilisers have been mandatory in all new cars sold in | Germany since 1 January 1998, in the United Kingdom since 1 | October 1998, in Finland since 1998, in Australia since 2001 | and in Canada since 2007." (Wikipedia) | olyjohn wrote: | So it's the government's fault for not making them mandatory | in the US. Better sue the federal government too. | HPsquared wrote: | They do have a lot more money than Kia (though probably not | in net worth terms) | trafficante wrote: | I can see why news organizations don't want to publicize "your | old phone cable is a skeleton key for Kia/Hyundai ignitions" - | but it's kind of a critical piece of information that does push | this issue into the realm of manufacturer negligence imo. | pvillano wrote: | Don't worry, the kids are on it | hinkley wrote: | I've had my eye on their new electric platform for a while and | stuff like this is not helping me pull the trigger. | | I'm also still a little disappointed that the MSRP came out about | 10% higher than the estimates. We're getting into too much money | for a car there. | mensetmanusman wrote: | Shouldn't they sue the car owners for owning a car that could so | easily tempt someone to steal it? | | Maybe they should implement car burkas? | gweinberg wrote: | Wouldn't it make more sense for Kia and Hyundai to be suing | Baltimore? | danielrpa wrote: | As an ex Hyundai owner, I prayed that someone would steal my car | so I'd have an excuse to get rid of it! | | Maybe they know almost nobody wants to steal their cars, so no | need for anti theft tech :) | g42gregory wrote: | Maybe this is naive, but wouldn't the solution be not to sell the | cars in Baltimore? It's not that large of a market and there are | local car manufacturers there as well. Maybe require in the user | agreement not to drive to Baltimore either, similar to the rental | car agreements that don't allow for the cars to be driven to | Mexico? | r00fus wrote: | I mean, like, people relocate and stuff or go into other cities | to buy cars. Banning sales isn't going to do much other than a | middle finger to Baltimore. | | Kia/Hyundai need to fix their security flaw. | diebeforei485 wrote: | How about changing the law to require safety features. | | More importantly, this is a strange lawsuit. Bicycles get stolen | all the time, are bicycle manufacturers going to get sued by | cities? | ravensfan69 wrote: | I live in Baltimore, in a pretty "good" part of town where most | of the young professionals and Hopkins hospital staff live. I | know 4 different people who've had cars stolen in the past 24 | months. In 3 of these cases the perpetrators were teenagers, and | in 2 of these cases they brandished guns. Only one of these | thefts were Hyundai/Kia-related, and the thief punched my buddy | in the face during the theft. | | Many others I know have had cars broken into, homes broken into, | tons of packages stolen, property vandalized, etc. Basically any | form of property crime you can imagine. | | The idea that Hyundai or Kia are somehow culpable for these this | extreme social dysfunction is absolutely farcical. Vagrants and | criminals are kept like livestock by the local government and a | class of parasitic NGOs- left to terrorize normal law-abiding | citizens who barely have a legal recourse to violence should one | of these incidents go sideways. | | It would take Ra's al Ghul to resolve the problems of this city | mrbonner wrote: | Seattle reporting in! Mine was a victim of smash and grab. | kevinthew wrote: | There is data on the Kia/Hyundai problem that is unique to | these makes because they cut corners on safety features that | are standard across industry -- I don't know why your anecdote | of people getting carjacked is relevant at all? | ravensfan69 wrote: | > "Theft and violence reigns supreme in a lawless urban | wasteland" > "How are these anecdotes relevant?" | | This is a tremendous leap in logic, but I am suggesting that | Baltimore's problems can and do exist wholly independently of | the engineering standards of Korean automakers | local_crmdgeon wrote: | Yeah, at some point in Chicago and Baltimore people figured out | that career criminals vote, and will vote in their own | interests. Very few people vote in local elections anyway, so | they've managed to elect a ton of prosecutors who promise not | to prosecute. | | Feels like the 70s in Urban America repeating itself. I feel | bad for the older Black population in Baltimore. They busted | ass for the last 50 years and they got to enjoy a really lovely | city from like 2009 to 2013. Imagine growing up like Henrietta | Lacks, only to have all your shit stolen by teenagers who are | legally untouchable. | MavisBacon wrote: | Most career criminals have a felony conviction under their | belt and thus would not be able to vote, so this does not | make a whole lot of sense | btilly wrote: | The interaction between felony convictions and being able | to vote varies by state. You can find a map of the rules at | https://www.aclu.org/issues/voting-rights/voter- | restoration/.... | | In Baltimore, Maryland, you cannot vote while in prison. | But you can once you get out. Felony conviction or no. | | (I honestly don't think that the population with felony | convictions are significant factors in elections, but they | can and do vote.) | MavisBacon wrote: | Ah my apologies, that change came in 2016 after I moved. | Appreciate the correction | vkou wrote: | Please provide a citation for the insane claim that career | criminals are a major voting block sufficient to consistently | swing elections. | throwaway6734 wrote: | Why? There are plenty of middle class black neighborhoods in | Baltimore and the long term outlook continues to look better | after the nadir of 2015. | [deleted] | hoofhearted wrote: | Citations needed. | | Please don't come on my turf and start trashing out city | without facts. | | I just looked down my street to Fort McHenry and our flag was | still there :) | tedajax wrote: | Legitimately insane take, thank you | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | _> It would take Ra's al Ghul to resolve the problems of this | city_ | | I heard OCP has some ideas and products they'd like to pitch. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMtqRir7dco | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYsulVXpgYg | throwaway6734 wrote: | Haha it won't take Ra's or Bane, just more time and more people | with money moving into the city and helping to build out the | tax base. | | Imo now is a great time to buy property if you can deal with | the rest. | | Sorry to hear about the bad string of luck those close to you | have had. It's vile and disgusting how much psychopathic | behavior is tolerated by some residents in the city. | aksss wrote: | Cities get what cities vote for. If they naively vote for "good | intentions" over practical policy, there's a cost to the | lessons learned. The cost may exceed the value, particularly if | the lessons could be called self-evident. The cost can also be | ruinous (e.g. Portland, S. Francisco.). In the long view, we | can hope for correction and that the philosophical observer can | say, "Well, that didn't work out like we thought it would", but | this is cold comfort to the victims in the intervening years | and the opportunity cost for the city at large. | | From the outside, the policies seem to defy all common sense. | Doubling down on bad policy seems like foolishness, naivety, | denial, complicity, or AOTA. When the plane's computer is | saying 'terrain.', 'terrain.', at what point do you decide to | pull up, and what does that even look like in Balitmore? The | complexity of Baltimore's problems brings out the defeatist in | anyone, but I think there are some obvious starting points. | | It reminds me of C.S. Lewis's statement about progress: | | "Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And | if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get | you any nearer. | | If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about- | turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the | man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man." | | Nearer to what are Baltimore's leader's trying to get? | MavisBacon wrote: | Baltimore is one of the most dangerous cities in the world, | constantly dealing with people fleeing the city for the | county, and they have been in large numbers since the 70s. | Not the same flavor of hysteria as SF or Portland | aksss wrote: | I would suggest that something rhymes in the how | prosecutorial discretion and bail policies are implemented | in each of these places, though my point isn't to compare | one city to the other aside from them all being examples of | "one reaps what one sows" at a practical policy level. | MavisBacon wrote: | Baltimore is one of the most entrenched cities in US on a | number of levels. It's kind of ridiculous you are | comparing the hyperwoke follies of SF and Portland with | the outright despair and corruption in Baltimore. We have | not reaped what we have sown, we hardly have a shot | hitekker wrote: | They're not the same, but speaking as someone who's been | both cities, there are some interesting similarities . | Such as that both suffer endemic corruption by a single | party which uses social issues as a ploy to forestall | reform. Baltimore is a city that has been forgotten, | whereas SF is a city in the limelight. Baltimore's | problems begin much earlier, SF's problems are relatively | more recent; but the rot in both speaks to a deeper | problem in American Society. | thejarren wrote: | As someone who owns a Hyundai and a Kia, this is an interesting | thread to read. Going to look into some safety steps moving | forward. | Zircom wrote: | I replaced my Hyundai badges with Toyota ones I 3D printed to | fit and just completely took off the Elantra lettering | dmbche wrote: | A good option is to install one or two hidden switches that | need activating corectly for the fuel pump to run - even with | your key they won't be able to take your car. | | I think it's Autralia where like 80% of the car theft are | done with the owner's key? (Too lazy to look for the | citation) | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | They'll smash your windows anyway. Only safe option is to | switch brands. | Convolutional wrote: | I should point out to those not from the US that this is how | Americans view the US. There is a lot of crime, the government | and NGOs are on the side of the criminals etc. It is up voted | to the top as well, with agreement in the replies, this is how | Americans view the US. | | The US incarcerates more people than China, despite China | having more than four times as many people, but the view | obviously is the incarceration rate needs to increase even | more, as crimes are barely being prosecuted according to him. | The US is off the charts in incarceration rates, but he thinks | they are far too low and want them increased more, as he sees | increasing incarceration even more as the solution to the | problem which western Europe does not seem to have to this | extent. | | So those outside the US can get insights into what the US is | and how it thinks from threads like this. | lozenge wrote: | You could have chosen from about 220 countries with a lower | incarceration rate than the US, but because you said China, | people are ignoring the substance of your comment. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarce. | .. | plagiarist wrote: | Yeah, that's a weird comparison. But I doubt the people who | are deliberately focusing on China instead of Europe would | engage in an honest discussion about things even without | it. | renlo wrote: | If China executes prisoners who would be imprisoned in the | US, is it a fair to compare the number of incarcerated in the | US and China [1]? In the US they get a lengthy prison | sentence, increasing the moving sum of incarcerated for the | US, in China they are shot, decreasing the moving sum of the | incarcerated for China. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_offences_in_China | maxerickson wrote: | ~10,000 executions a year1. It would take roughly 5 million | people for China to match the US incarceration rate. | | So it's probably fair enough to compare incarceration rates | and numbers. | | 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Chin | a#Ra... | cscurmudgeon wrote: | From your link: | | > The exact numbers of people executed in China is | classified as a state secret; | | In addition to executions, China has been clamping down | on entire populations, therefore, preventing future | incarceration. | | > Uyghur birthrate fell by almost half between 2017-2019, | research finds, adding to evidence of coercive fertility | policies | | https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/12/chinese- | uyghur... | swearwolf wrote: | 1.) Though this is becoming an increasingly popular viewpoint | in many of the American cities that are experiencing these | problems right now, it's far from universally held. | | 2.) The U.S. is not a monolith, so looking at the prison | population of the United States as a whole doesn't tell you | about what's going on in an individual state or city. | | 3.) The number of people incarcerated has a long tail. In the | U.S. in particular, many people received long sentences | during the years following the '94 crime bill. Little if any | effort is being made to commute these despite policies | centered on new incarceration changing. | | 4.) In the places where reduced incarceration is being tried | in the U.S. it's important to recognize that it's being tried | effectively in a vacuum. In many other places which are able | to sustain low incarceration rates, there are a lot of social | programs that help make that possible, and also programs to | help people rehabilitate after a conviction. The U.S. has | little if any of that. Where reduced incarceration is being | tried, it's usually not replaced with something that's more | effective. | wing-_-nuts wrote: | I consider myself a liberal, but while I think pretty much | all drug possession charges should be dropped and | decriminalized, violent crime? Robbery? Those folks should | _absolutely_ be in jail. I don 't care if we have to build | tent cities to incarcerate them. You hurt someone | intentionally, you should not be breathing free air for a | while. | mindslight wrote: | The fundamental problem is that the misguided attempt to | criminalize drugs destroyed respect for the law for | generations. Once you're at risk of being locked in a | cage for decades for engaging in behavior that would | otherwise just be called _running a small business_ , | then robbery isn't a huge leap. Especially after your | industry ends up creating its own parallel justice system | because the usual courts have been made unavailable. | | So yes, while drugs should be deillegalized and those | crimes expunged, this is only but a first step on a long | road to repairing the severe damage that was done to law | and order by the very people fallaciously rallying behind | "law and order" in the 80's and 90's. | Tyrek wrote: | Yeah, locking up Elizabeth Holmes and SBF for _running a | small business_ will destroy respect for the law for | generations. How dare we?! | kevviiinn wrote: | Basically, being in a police state has normalized crime. | Yes, the US _is_ a police state. Hell, the police have | crazy influence over politics as well | pb7 wrote: | I looked up "police state" and got this: | | >a totalitarian state controlled by a political police | force that secretly supervises the citizens' activities | | Can you explain how the US is all of those things? | bluescrn wrote: | The problem is property crime without violence. | | It can ruin the victims life just as much as non-lethal | violence (taking away a person's source of income, or | transport required to keep a job, or wrecking a business | they've spent many years building), but many take the | 'it's only property, it's insured!' attitude. | lesuorac wrote: | Prison is where criminals go. Jail is where people not | convicted of a crime go. | | Drug Offenses are nearly half the prison population [1]. | So the prison population can decrease by significant | amounts without releasing any violent criminals. | | [1]: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inma | te_offen... | kooshball wrote: | > Drug Offenses are nearly half the prison population | | this is not true. your data is federal only. most | prisoners are at state prisons. drug offense is about 1/5 | of total. | | source https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2023.html | mattmanser wrote: | There are root causes to those crimes, they don't happen | in isolation. | | Worse still you call yourself a liberal when in Europe | you'd probably be a centrist moderate. | | You aren't liberal, America's just massively skewed | facist right now so you think you are. | | Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with a moderate, but a | liberal wouldn't be calling for more imprisonment, they'd | be calling for better recidivism. | BurningFrog wrote: | Locking up violent people and thieves is very popular among | those outside the US! | | You're right about the comparatively huge US prison | population, but the difference is NOT because other countries | let violent people and thieves roam free! | plagiarist wrote: | That is a false dichotomy version of what they're | suggesting. And what do you think is the difference? | tohnjitor wrote: | The difference is the US has more people who commit | violent crimes. | plagiarist wrote: | Why is that? | HDThoreaun wrote: | America's dominant culture is toxic individualism. | Respecting others is largely thought of a waste of time. | There is no culture of shame like there is in eastern | asian countries. Seriously, disrespecting people is | something to be proud of for a huge number of americans. | Everyone looks out for themselves and taking care of | number 1 is generally seen as the correct decision. There | is incredible income inequality which leaves many of the | poor feeling abandoned. The cowboy may be the most famous | American caricature. It celebrates toxic individualism | and law breaking. This leads to tons of cultural | artifacts that glorify crime. Those things all add up to | a feeling that the social contract has been broken and | crime is an acceptable thing to do. | electriclove wrote: | No consequences | PathOfEclipse wrote: | [flagged] | loeg wrote: | > I should point out to those not from the US that this is | how Americans view the US. There is a lot of crime, the | government and NGOs are on the side of the criminals etc. It | is up voted to the top as well, with agreement in the | replies, this is how Americans view the US. | | What? No. This is not remotely a universal American viewpoint | -- especially the government being "on the side of the | criminals etc." What would that even mean? | ravensfan69 wrote: | > What would that even mean? | | It would look, and maybe this is sheer coincidence, very | much like our present situation | Natsu wrote: | > especially the government being "on the side of the | criminals etc." What would that even mean? | | I imagine that people would gesture at stories like this: | | https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and- | courts/suspect... | | > Police arrested one of two gun-wielding people caught on | camera during a double shooting at a crowded holiday | celebration this past weekend in south St. Louis, but the | 33-year-old woman was released Wednesday afternoon after | the prosecutor's office refused charges against her. | | > The suspect's release drew public ire, but Circuit | Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner's office declined to further | explain. | dfxm12 wrote: | _It would take Ra 's al Ghul to resolve the problems of this | city_ | | FWIW, the parent poster doesn't want increased incarceration, | they want these people executed (probably without due | process). | stickfigure wrote: | Dunno about the parent poster, but I would settle for | caning. | ravensfan69 wrote: | This was obvious hyperbole meant to express a deep | frustration at having suffered at the hands of criminals in | a city I care deeply about. People I love have been | terrorized | serf wrote: | >FWIW, the parent poster doesn't want increased | incarceration, they want these people executed (probably | without due process). | | that isn't just wrong -- it's not even what parent said. | | Their hyperbole was pointing out that the perceived | situation is so bad that it would take something drastic to | turn it around, not that they in anyway wanted or desired | it. | | There is a lot of purposeful misinterpretation/mis-reading | going on in this thread, it seems. | cscurmudgeon wrote: | 1. Two things can be true. The US imprisons a lot and the US | doesn't imprison the right folks. | | 2. Comparison with China is not accurate. a) Can't trust | numbers from China and b) China has a much more rigid social | structure and rules and the population has been beaten in | submission (e.g. make pie Tiananmen square). Imagine a visa | system that prevents folks from California from migrating to | Texas (we are even for allowing mass migration from outside). | | Even Politifact rates such comparisons false | https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/dec/16/matthew- | co... | | It is better looking at a local level. And here China exceeds | the US. https://apnews.com/article/china-prisons-uyghurs- | religion-0d... | | 3) If this is really not a problem with Baltimore (as you | imply), other locations with Kias and Hyundias should also be | suing them. As far as I know, they are also sold in China but | don't have these issues. | mturmon wrote: | Sorry, these views are not "how Americans view the U.S." | | The GP comment is pushing a certain narrative that (in my | view) has been ginned up by reactionary groups for their own | ends. | | In addition, it's wrong on the facts (insofar as it makes any | fact-based claims versus just pushing buttons). | | I'll go farther. I scoff most profoundly at the viewpoint of | the GP post. I view people pushing it as low-information and | politically naive (if they actually believe it) or evil and | opportunistic (if they are just "intensifying the | contradictions" for their own reactionary ends). | livinglist wrote: | Don't trust any day from Chinese government.. | mnky9800n wrote: | He says he wants to take the solution of the Batman villain | in Batman begins. He doesn't want to incarcerate more people. | He wants to destroy the city of Baltimore with all the people | in it. | serf wrote: | >I should point out to those not from the US that this is how | Americans view the US. | | No, it isn't. It's the opinion of a single person, and you're | taking it for granted that their comment was made in earnest | and that they truly represent 'the American view' -- whatever | that is. | | >So those outside the US can get insights into what the US is | and how it thinks from threads like this. | | No, they can't. They can learn about the opinion of a single | person. | | Can you point me to a country with such a unified opinion | that any single person can cover the opinions of the entire | populous? | | If not, why would you assume that such a case may exist for | the United States? | | And more to the point, the premise was that it is ridiculous | to hold the manufacturer of stolen goods to be wholly | responsible for the theft in a jurisdiction that has law | enforcement -- do you disagree with that, or do you just care | to make an example out of someone? | atkailash wrote: | [dead] | Izikiel43 wrote: | > the government and NGOs are on the side of the criminals | | I lived in Vancouver in Canada, that is true there too, | Seattle is the same (the CHAZ bs a couple years ago? 3rd | avenue in Downtown?). Hell, in Argentina is also the same and | that's south america. I think this is more a problem of | places with left leaning politics which consider criminals | victims of society which means that they can't be held | responsible by their actions. Meanwhile, everyone else | suffers. | alphanullmeric wrote: | Think of the poor thieves. Stealing is a basic human right! | Hopefully we can spread the word to looters across the | country that the EU will welcome them with open arms. | ravensfan69 wrote: | It feels bizarre to make appeals to a foreign society with a | history, culture, government, and demographics which are | utterly alien to the situation in the west. We don't live in | China. Are you so sure that our situation SHOULD be that of | China that you'd be willing to risk you or a loved one being | victimized by a violent thug? It always confused me that | people would side with criminals over the innocent. | plagiarist wrote: | "...even more than China. We should instead try approaches | that, in Europe, have empirically lead to less violent | crime." | | "Why do you love criminals and want innocent families to be | terrorized and executed by criminals?" | Convolutional wrote: | The massive incarceration rates in the US don't seem to be | solving anything, although you don't think they're enough. | The US has the highest incarceration rate in the | industrialized world yet in your view it is barely | incarcerating at all. | | If China is too different, look at western Europe. | England's incarceration rate is less than one third of the | US's. Canada is on sixth of the US's. These countries have | lower incarceration rates but less crime. | mixmastamyk wrote: | There are short-term solutions and there are long-term | solutions. What is your long-term solution? | JPKab wrote: | > So those outside the US can get insights into what the US | is and how it thinks from threads like this. | | No, everyone outside of your head can get insights into your | willingness to cherrypick a single comment and extrapolate to | fit your pessimistic, hyper-critical mental model. | | It's also interesting how you talk about incarceration rates | independently of crime rates, and act as if the US is | prosecuting and incarcerating broad swathes of innocent | people. For those of us who have had loved ones murdered or | assaulted, or been mugged/beaten, we don't have the luxury of | thinking of this in an abstract way fitting a bong rip | session in a dorm room. Take off the Che Guevara t-shirt, | take a walk outside, and realize that the world isn't a neat | little theory straight from a professor being interviewed on | Democracy Now!. | leothecool wrote: | > the US is prosecuting and incarcerating broad swathes of | innocent people. | | There's about half a million people in jail right now who | haven't been convicted of a crime. Some of them are | innocent, for sure. | alphanullmeric wrote: | The key argument being made is that people like you would | defend thieves while knowing they are guilty. | kevviiinn wrote: | Considering how often police lie and plant evidence, I | would say a hefty number are innocent | xhkkffbf wrote: | Note: the incarceration rates were much higher in the past | and that's the basis of many of these claims. What you're | seeing now is the political backlash from those rates. Many | crimes aren't prosecuted and the cops often don't do | anything. So it's not exactly fair to say that Baltimore has | a high incarceration rate these days. | mlazos wrote: | I agree the US incarcerates too many people, does the | comparison to China make sense? How can we trust their | numbers especially when they disappear people. | Convolutional wrote: | Well don't trust China's numbers, and compare the US | incarceration rate to those of any industrialized country's | numbers that you do trust. | mlazos wrote: | Yeah I mean we also have more crime too, so I feel like | we'd need to normalize this somehow with like | incarcerated/crime rate or something. Given I think | nonviolent offenses should be less severely punished than | they are today. | Natsu wrote: | "Too many" doesn't mean much when you look at actual | crime rates of serious things like murder and rape where | most people don't want those people to be free to commit | more crimes that are less susceptible to reporting bias. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | Although I lived in the US for just a year, my impression was | that a) US promoted an all-or-nothing culture, and b) crime, | especially gun-related crime, was wildly glorified. | | My layman belief is that this isn't just a law and order | issue. Its a cultural dysfunction. | tonfreed wrote: | It's the tyranny of low standards. I sat in an airport in | Florida in 2016 watching CNN rerunning the same police | shooting footage over and over trying to convince anyone | still listening that the pistol that had fallen out of the | kid's hand was, in fact, a book. At the time I could have | told you the exact type of gun it was, too. | | The criminal is excused because he doesn't know any better, | those that defend themselves are punished to the fullest | extent because it's politically expedient to do so. | arp242 wrote: | The previous poster didn't really say anything about | incarceration. They didn't say anything about _any_ solution | - they just said there 's a serious problem. You're reading | far too much in to their comment. | draw_down wrote: | [dead] | lordloki wrote: | China has literal concentration camps and prisoner organ | harvesting. I don't think your comparison means much. | pySSK wrote: | The organ harvesting thing was propaganda spread by an | openly anti-communist organization and has been discredited | by international bodies. The concentration camps are | obviously not the norm - the way China talks about them, | they seem similar to extrajudicial imprisonment we have to | incarcerate similar types of terrorists and enemies of the | state. | tomp wrote: | > openly anti-communist organization | | You say that like it's a bad thing. | | Most organisations worldwide, are openly anti-communist, | except those that explicitly support dictatorship and | human rights abuse. | | I guess that's a good thing. | carabiner wrote: | The US has very similar camps in the form of forced labor | (i.e. slavery) by prisoners. These slaves have built | products in the US that many of us have used, including | clothes and office furniture. They make 63 cents per hour | - make no mistake, they are _slaves_. | infamouscow wrote: | I think you are being downvoted for being stupid.* | | The US is a massive area of land with a variety of | different regional geographic and cultural differences. | You wouldn't go about describing Europe or an entire | continent with equally broad strokes. It helps to be as | specific as possible to advance the discussion. | | *: Yes, stupid. https://youtu.be/ww47bR86wSc | pb7 wrote: | This is voluntary work for people who have been | convicted. I agree they should be paid more though. | jimbob45 wrote: | The source I remember was that China's waiting lists for | organ transplants were _extremely_ low. If you have a | refutation of that specific point, I would be very | interested to read what you have to write. | simfree wrote: | Sending most of the citizens below retirement age of a | province to concentration camps certainly seems like a | normalized practice in China today. | | It was wrong when we did the same here in the USA with | Japanese Americans (George Takei wrote about his time | there) and we should not normalize this mass imprisonment | without individual right to fair trial. | Fezzik wrote: | The way the Chinese government talks about things tends | to not be that accurate. The Uyghurs are not terrorists. | They are an ethnic minority that is being terrorized and | subjected to genocide by the Chinese government. | | Edit: spelling | h11h wrote: | What exactly are you talking about regarding the "organ | harvesting thing"? It's undeniable that it happened. In | 2014 China promised to stop doing it. Here's an article | from Chinese state media: | | > China's long-term dependence on executed prisoners as | organ donors will end at the start of next year, | according to a high-ranking official. | | http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-12/05/content_190 | 287... | | My understanding is the debates are over whether or not | it still happens and to what extent political prisoners | (particularly Falun Gong members) were victims. | lowkey_ wrote: | High incarceration rate makes sense when the US has a high | crime rate. I don't understand why anyone thinks | incarceration rate should not be correlated or would not be | correlate to crime rate. | | Incarcerating criminals isn't the issue, having so many | criminals is the issue. | prmoustache wrote: | Apparently incarceration and death penalty do not really | work as a deterrent in this country. | | Is it because most of the violent crimes are related to | drug addiction? | jolux wrote: | The US prison system is violent and brutal, which begets | a high recidivism rate. In my opinion this is because | American culture tends to confuse retribution for justice | but opinions vary I'm sure. | mc32 wrote: | In most countries the prison system is unpleasant, | including the UK, Italy, Spain, Japan, Ukraine, Mexico, | etc. In addition the justice/legal systems slightly favor | the prosecution. | | Salvador was overrun with gang violence, a new government | came in, rounded up the gangsters and crime has gone | down. On balance the population of Salvador is better | off. | jolux wrote: | The problem with US prisons goes far beyond basic | unpleasantness. Take it from the Department of Justice: | https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files- | laws... | | "'The Department of Justice conducted a thorough | investigation of Alabama's prisons for men and determined | that Alabama violated and is continuing to violate the | Constitution because its prisons are riddled with | prisoner-on-prisoner and guard-on-prisoner violence. The | violations have led to homicides, rapes, and serious | injuries.'" | | This is not a system that is going to successfully | reintegrate people. We owe a basic level of humane | treatment even to prisoners, if not for the sake of | liberal values than for the pragmatic reason that violent | people who are put in an environment which encourages | further violence will remain violent people when they are | released back into our society. | mc32 wrote: | The same department of justice that continues to | prosecute a case against Assange? I'm nonplussed. Boris | Becker (UK), Amanda Knox (IT), speak to prison brutality | (and those are well known international personages.) | | Ukraine: | https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/08/ukraine- | four-... | | Mexico: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/mexicos- | federal-prisons-a-... | | Spain: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-31 | 9-77231-8_... | | Brazil: https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/qa-why- | is-prison-v... | | And in Paradise (I mean Cuba): https://democraticspaces.c | om/trending/2022/3/29/prisoners-de... | | Etc... | jolux wrote: | I linked the DOJ and not the Equal Justice Initiative | because I thought they would be less likely to be seen as | partisan or politically motivated. But here's EJI on the | same issue: https://eji.org/issues/prison-conditions/ and | Harvard Political Review making a similar argument to my | top post (that US prisons don't adequately rehabilitate): | https://harvardpolitics.com/recidivism-american-progress/ | | And since you linked Amnesty, here's their report on | solitary confinement at ADX Florence: | https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/07/usa- | prisoners... | | Ukraine, Mexico, and Brazil are nowhere near as highly | developed as the US. | | Spain is definitely closer, but Spain doesn't execute | people like the US does. Of course problems with prisons | exist elsewhere. | | What's specifically appalling about the US is the | juxtaposition of extreme wealth and relative freedom with | widespread, institutionalized abuse and neglect of | prisoners, not just to their detriment, but to the | detriment of the US as a whole. | mc32 wrote: | I agree that our justice and prison systems need a | recalibration to one, focus on violent crime, aggravated | sexual crime, property crime, and de-emphasis on personal | vice correction while also trying to guide prisoners to a | better path. | | At the same time, I wish to point out most other prison | systems in the world are similar or worse and suspects | before they become prisoners have fewer legal rights | afforded them. | | That said, the catch and release system we're seeing in | some places are aggravating crime and they are not doing | anyone any favors, the criminals or the victims. | HDThoreaun wrote: | Prison isn't supposed to be a deterrent in this country. | It's to separate the criminals from everyone else. | HPsquared wrote: | Not mutually exclusive. | local_crmdgeon wrote: | The City of Baltimore has repeatedly demonstrated that they will | do anything besides try to change the behavior of the population. | It's a failed city, and luckily the model is being exported to | places like SF, LA, and DC. | | Why should we punish people who repeatedly commit crime anyway? | Fuck it, why do anything? Let's sue Kia instead, maybe we can get | a payday | hoofhearted wrote: | It's a little early to be drinking isn't it? | | The city is suing to recover the money they spent on all the | police efforts expended because Kia cut corners to reduce | costs. | macinjosh wrote: | Schwinn does nothing to stop bicycle thefts. Let's sue them | too! | plagiarist wrote: | If a Schwinn-branded bicycle lock is so easily broken that | the majority of thefts are from opening those locks, why | not? | olyjohn wrote: | Schwinn is so negligent they don't even come with locks. | Let sue them! | Natsu wrote: | There will always be a most popular car to steal as long | as there are car thefts. | | Maybe the problem is the thieves? | plagiarist wrote: | If it were possible for two problems to exist at the same | time, I'd say one problem is a product defect reducing | the barrier of entry so low that car theft is accessible | to bored teenagers. | | But of course you are right, only one problem can ever | exist and the problem is car thieves. | fib739mnsi wrote: | [dead] | Natsu wrote: | This just kind of ignores how one of those things | wouldn't even be a problem without the other. | plagiarist wrote: | True, if the locks were perfect then nobody would be | stealing cars. | HPsquared wrote: | They would first steal the keys, then the cars. That's | actually more dangerous as it involves robbery or | burglary. In a way it's better that the cars are easy to | steal. Similarly, in bad areas some people leave their | cars unlocked so that instead of breaking a window to | rummage around inside, thieves can simply open the door. | electriclove wrote: | What in the sibling comment caused it to be flagged | 'dead'? Hyundai and Kia are Korean auto manufacturers. Is | this product defect occurring there as well? If so, are | car thefts increasing there as well? | hoofhearted wrote: | Apples to oranges lol | local_crmdgeon wrote: | How? Bikes are easier to steal and sell, and we don't see | them being sued. The logic is the same. | op00to wrote: | If there were a bicycle manufacturer that knowingly made | its bikes easier to steal and sell, AND those bicycles | when stolen were linked to numerous horrific collisions | resulting in death and major injury of innocent parties, | then there might be a comparison. | [deleted] | alphanullmeric wrote: | In other words, it's the redistribution of consequences, the | left wing speciality. | peoplearepeople wrote: | No it's completely ridiculous that police think this is a car | manufacturer issue. This is a failure of the police | hoofhearted wrote: | It's the only car manufacturer in the city with this | problem, how is it the police's fault? | | And P.S. the police in the city have been handing out | steering wheel locks and educating affected owners, so I | believe you are misinformed. | stickfigure wrote: | "You left your house unlocked? It's your fault" | | "You dressed like that? It's your fault" | plagiarist wrote: | Sorry, just to get this clear, you are likening an | argument over a manufacturer creating defective products | with arguments that might come from a rapist's defense | attorney? | Chris2048 wrote: | The argument isn't comparing the manufacturers liability, | but that of the people choosing to steal the cars in the | first place - why is it relevant how easy the cars are to | steal? | plagiarist wrote: | Because human nature is a bit more complex than "car | thief or not." | jyrkesh wrote: | If I buy a front door lock that has a systemic | manufacturing problem and someone breaks into my house, I | might want to sue the manufacturer. | | But if someone breaks into my house--regardless of | whether it was unlocked, the lock was defective, or they | broke a window--and the police are negligent or | incompetent in investigating or prosecuting the | perpetrators, in what world is that a) not the police's | fault? and b) an opportunity for the _police_ to sue the | _manufacturer_? | | If I start a cultural movement to get rid of front door | locks and it gains traction, and then B&Es spike, can the | police sue _me_ too? | plagiarist wrote: | If you make a lock that is recognizable and easily broken | to the extent that B&Es double nationwide, I don't see a | problem with cities suing you over it. | | I don't know why you want to try and link the idea of a | cultural movement? There's very clearly a difference | between a defective product and a deliberate decision. | fib739mnsi wrote: | [dead] | HDThoreaun wrote: | If your house does not have a lock and everyone knows it | then yea, that's your fault. | xdennis wrote: | It's the government's fault for allowing criminals to run | loose. It's their job to deal with criminals regardless | of how capable the victims are to protect themselves. | | When you see an Asian granny being beaten up you don't | sue her for being so easy to beat up. | Whinner wrote: | I don't think you realize how easy it is to steal these | cars. Look up a few videos. You rip off the plastic on the | steering column, pry out the ignition cylinder and then use | the A end of a usb cable to turn the exposed nub to start | the car. Under 30 seconds. While there are other issues | going on, this is gross negligence on Kia/Hyundai to not | use an immobilizer. | olyjohn wrote: | Cars have been this easy to steal forever. Thieves | generally take your car in under 30 seconds regardless. | This particular vulnerability was just one of the first | to get fully documented and distributed to everybody and | popularized by an algorithm. | bluescrn wrote: | It shouldn't really matter that theft is easy. If you're | prepared to smash a window, you could steal from homes | and businesses, not just cars. There should be a strong | enough deterrent to make it uncommon. | | You may not be able to stop desparate people from | stealing, but if kids are repeatedly stealing cars for | entertainment, then problem isn't the security of the | cars. | typeofhuman wrote: | Not the police. It's a failure of the courts. Prosecutors | are simply not charging or reducing charges for these | offenders. The police routinely arrest the same people over | and over again - including for gun charges! But the courts | let them out. | | Case in point. A couple of teens stole a car, smashed it | into another car, killed a 6mo old and put his mother in | the hospital. The charges? Trespassing. | hgsgm wrote: | Government should mandate product standards before suing over | them. | | Government should thank Kia for making criminals easier to spot. | | Government should raise fees for people who buy substandard cars | and then waste city resources dealing with their trash. | | Car owners could sue Kia for selling defective cars. | | Insurance companies should charge far more for Kias. | | Government should mandate insurance cost disclosures as part of | car sales. | | Problem solved. | bastawhiz wrote: | > Car owners could sue Kia for selling defective cars. | | > Insurance companies should charge far more for Kias. | | Great, someone made the unknowing mistake of buying one of | these defective cars before it was known they are easily | stolen. Now their insurance goes up and they have to sue the | manufacturer. How many people actually have the money to deal | with that? Suing the car company is expensive. And if I don't | have the cash to buy another car (and the trade in value of the | one I have has crashed) I'm just stuck paying increased | insurance costs. And fees from the city, apparently. | | This isn't the economic motivation you think it is, it's just | pushing the burden onto the owners who had no idea what they | were getting themselves into. | | What you've done is proposed a bunch of complicated rules that | burden consumers and dealers to do everything possible to | prevent people from buying these cars, all so you can avoid | just having the manufacturer do a recall. The government can | simply say that the cars lack safety features, force a recall, | and move on. Cut out all the consumer-unfriendly bureaucracy. | [deleted] | nicenewtemp84 wrote: | This isn't as simple as "no immobilizer". My 2004 Ford F250 | doesn't have one either. | | Thieves got into it and tried extremely hard to force the | ignition and steal it. They tried hammering a flat head into it | and rotating. Didn't work. They tried grabbing the outside of the | mechanism with some kind of pliers and rotate, and that didn't | work. I can see they easily spent several minutes on the whole | ordeal, and didn't get anywhere. The entire lock mechanism was | destroyed, almost shaved smaller from how many times they tried | and their pliers slipped. | | When I got to it a few days later, I had to get home using that | truck. I put the key in the ignition and turned it, and drove | off. | nathanaldensr wrote: | [flagged] | myvoiceismypass wrote: | If they are not following industry standards on securing the | car, then yes the car manufacturers should be liable. | netsharc wrote: | Buyer beware? To argue on behalf of the Koreans, the cars | didn't come with immobilizers, which is perfectly legal in | the US, whereas in the EU it's a requirement. Maybe Baltimore | should be suing whichever agency it is that permits that. | | I wonder if an analogy can be made with airbags, of course | airbags are well-advertised and sane buyers would avoid cars | without them, how about seat-belt pretensioners instead? | dang wrote: | Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and | flamebait, especially of the ideological battle variety? You've | unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site | is for, and destroys what it is for. This has been a problem | for a while, and we eventually have to ban accounts that keep | doing this kind of thing. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33014228 (Sept 2022) | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30086559 (Jan 2022) | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19830614 (May 2019) | | If you wouldn't mind reviewing | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the | intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. | throwanem wrote: | Yeah, I've seen "The Wire" too, I get that people totally | ignorant of what life in my town is like will overindex on | that. But honestly, this is just an embarrassingly ill-informed | take. You'd do exactly as well to defend an email provider | whose exceptional account takeover rate derives from the fact | that they don't support passwords. | HDThoreaun wrote: | There are an infinite number of people in the US willing to | steal cars that are this easy to steal. Our culture is to risk | positive for arresting people to stop this. | feteru wrote: | When it doesn't happen with any other makes, yes! Cost cutting | out industry standard anti-theft tech should be the car | companies responsibility. Also....17 other local prosecutors, | not just Baltimore. | guardiangod wrote: | "industry standard". What standard? You mean the federal | vehicle standard, which didn't require cars to have | immobilizers? | | Or do you mean that because Hyundai/Kia didn't do what other | companies do, that the government has the right to fine them? | If yes, then what is the federal standard for? | themaninthedark wrote: | Industry standard means used widely across the industry, I | would like to note that Hyundai and Kia are the largest | Korean automotive makers. In the NA market, Hyundai is | positioned #5 with 10% market share. In Korea, Kia and | Hyundai combined have ~79% of the market. So to frame it as | "they are not using industry standard" is wrong as at least | 10% of the NA market and ~80% of the Korean market does not | use this technology. | | So in the past, the most stolen make of car was the Honda | Accord. | | Apparently Honda should have taken note and aggressively | pushed new anti-theft technology. | | You are looking for a technological solution to a societal | problem. | klodolph wrote: | We got a car in the mid 1990s with better anti-theft features. | The only reason that these manufacturers are manufacturing cars | this way is because other people are bearing the cost of theft. | pleb_nz wrote: | Talk about cart before the horse | softwaredoug wrote: | Are there resources to know what car brands are most vulnerable | to the exploits car thieves are using? | bombcar wrote: | You may be able to find insurance reports on "most stolen | vehicles" or similar. | gjsman-1000 wrote: | Imagine if a city sued homeowners because it's their fault for | calling the police after a break-in, because they used a deadbolt | that failed the LockPickingLawyer. This is about equally as sane. | | Yes, yes, I know that Hyundai and Kia vehicles are easy pickings, | but they talk as though "those vehicles are easy to steal, so | those teenagers, they just felt so compelled to..." Nobody forces | somebody to steal a car. If anti-theft prevents a car theft, | consider that is still someone who _had intent_ to steal a | vehicle if it were possible. | qup wrote: | It turns out, people _will_ download a car. | digdugdirk wrote: | This situation is more like a deadbolt with a cover that could | be pried off with your fingers, and then could be opened by any | key shaped object once the cover is off. | | Maybe to put in software terms - a login page that allowed | anyone to sign in to any account by viewing source and finding | an admin login button sitting there for anyone to see. | | It truly is a flawed design. Yes, a design that might not be | flawed for many societies around the world, but it's certainly | flawed for a product that is sold in the USA. | ericmcer wrote: | Of those two the second struck me as an example of someone | who should expect to be victimized. | | It is funny how conditioned we are to assume people online | will be as malicious as we allow them to be. | digdugdirk wrote: | Mechanical engineers operate under the same assumption, | though it's generally a stupidity standard vs a | maliciousness standard. In this case, they absolutely | should have recognized there was no backup to their (much | more affordable) immobilizer design, and caught it in the | early design review phases. | klodolph wrote: | LockPickingLawyer is highly skilled, and can defeat locks that | most others can't. | | This is like selling one of those old Kryptonite locks that | could be defeated with a Bic pen. At that point, the lock is | truly defective, and should be pulled from the market. Your | lock should require something more than a readily-available, | vaguely key-shaped object to operate--so if you can operate the | lock with a Bic pen (like the old Kryptonite locks) or a USB | charging cable (like the new Kias), the lock is defective. | gjsman-1000 wrote: | True, I agree, but here is the thing: There is no federal | standard requiring fancy anti-theft equipment. | | Baltimore is quite literally suing because two manufacturers | aren't doing what other manufacturers do, because it would be | more convenient for them, despite there being no rule | requiring such technology. | | That's a slippery slope. For heaven's sake let's make a rule, | but trying to sue a manufacturer for not doing what other | manufacturers do in absence of a law seems dangerous. | | Let's say Tesla and Ford start requiring all auto parts to be | digitally paired, to "prevent theft," so parts are not | interchangeable. If this case succeeds, any automaker who | doesn't do that could be found liable. | klodolph wrote: | I don't think we should _need_ to codify every possible | problem as a rule. It is enough that Kia knows, or should | know, the consequences of their actions, but chose to let | somebody else (the owners, the police) deal with the | consequences. | | Basically, I think mens rea is a much more sound basis for | law than rules prescribing specific behavior, in general. | Like, if you are an engineer and you design a bridge, and | it turns out that the bridge fails and _you should have | known that it would fail,_ you bear the liability. This | basic doctrine can be augmented with specific rules (like, | cars must have back-up cameras and airbags, houses must | have three-prong outlets with proper grounds and GFCI in | bathrooms & kitchens), but the law should not have to make | rules for everything before it happens--as long as you have | mens rea (you knew the risks or _should have_ known the | risks), you bear some responsibility for your actions. | endisneigh wrote: | i deeply disagree with this line of thought. why is the onus | on the manufacturer here, instead of going after the thieves? | HDThoreaun wrote: | There is an effectively unlimited supply of kids who | believe they have no future and are therefore willing to | risk it all. Enforcement can't stop them from stealing a | car when it takes a cord everyone has and less than 30 | seconds. | klodolph wrote: | > why is the onus on the manufacturer here, instead of | going after the thieves? | | This is a false dilemma. You can go after both. | yccs27 wrote: | That is just a false dichotomy. Of course the thieves are | at fault, but the manufacturer is also liable because they | failed to ensure even the most basic degree of security. | endisneigh wrote: | ridiculous. there are already federal standards, that Kia | and Hyundai met. Baltimore should sue the government if | they want to complain. | | should bike manufacturers also be sued for not designing | a bicycle in a way that cannot be ridden off by anyone | who is not the owner when parked? | | idk how people defend these frivolous suits. | op00to wrote: | In every jurisdiction, where they can, police are going | after Kia thieves. You can keep throwing people in jail, | but more and more jail is obviously not an effective | deterrent. This is scientific fact, accepted by the DOJ. | [1] It is a simple solution to make the manufacturer fix | the car so it is not as easily driven away. | | [1] https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf | bastawhiz wrote: | I, as a consumer, expect that the car has a key because the | key keeps people who don't have the key from starting and | operating my car. They sold a product for money that | operates so poorly that it fails at one of its basic | functions. | | Imagine if Google sold a Pixel whose fingerprint sensor | could be bypassed if you just licked your finger before | pressing the sensor. Suddenly this phone is now the target | of thieves because it's easily unlocked and wiped. You're | suggesting there's no onus on the manufacturer for that? | endisneigh wrote: | the onus is on them in the sense that people will stop | buying them. I do not think it is the government's | responsibility to micromanage, no. | | the scenario you proposed is already possible with face | unlock and identical twins and look-alikes. should we sue | Apple? | klodolph wrote: | The identical twin thing affects 1 in 250 people, and I | think we could reasonably expect an identical twin to | know the risks of face unlock without having to spell it | out for them. So if you're an identical twin, and you | don't want your twin accessing your phone, you set a | passcode instead. | | Kia owners don't really have an alternative. The car is | defective. | bastawhiz wrote: | People already have the cars. And the 2023 models don't | seem to be affected. So getting people to stop buying | them is sort of pointless (because the people who already | own them are now stuck holding the bag). If the | government has no business getting companies who produced | a flawed product that--as you suggest--people should stop | buying to fix their products, why exactly do we have | standards at all? What part of "you have an obligation to | issue a recall that fixes the product" is micromanaging? | That could be done with a court order. | | > the scenario you proposed is already possible with face | unlock | | I didn't mention face unlock. Any _fingerprint sensor_ | that is trivial defeated is fundamentally broken. | endisneigh wrote: | > I didn't mention face unlock. Any fingerprint sensor | that is trivial defeated is fundamentally broken. | | I know you didn't. The point is that your phone can be | accessed by those who are not you. | | and the standards should be around safety | vanilla_nut wrote: | The answer is enforcement: cars were much easier to steal in | the past, and somehow we managed to deter theft anyway. But in | many US cities if your car gets stolen the cops won't even | _pick up the phone_. They openly admit there 's next to no | chance of recovery, and rarely help you even if you have some | kind of tracking solution. | | If you do manage to track down your car, you won't get a timely | enough response from the police to hold folks who stole it | accountable. Most of the time they'll simply claim that they | procured the car from someone else, and the police don't push | the issue. Same with bicycle theft. | op00to wrote: | No, that is not an apt analogy. Homeowners did not design the | lock. Homeowners did not introduce a flaw into the lock to save | money. | | Think about it this way: no one forces a kid to jump into a | pool and drown, but if you have a pool without a fence | completely surrounding it and the kid does just that, you are | liable for the damages by creating an attractive nuisance. | Hyundai created the situation of easily stolen cars by not | "building the fence around their pool". | [deleted] | alexb_ wrote: | How is it Hyundai's fault that people steal cars? It's acting as | if theives are some force of nature that we can't control or | something. You prevent theft by putting theives in jail. It's not | complicated. | taffronaut wrote: | It's Hyundai's fault that it's trivially easy to steal their | cars. Also, you may prevent subsequent thefts by putting a | particular thief in jail, but not the first one they commit. | Hyundai make the jail route less valuable because the learning | curve to steal Hyundai cars is so shallow that there can be a | constant stream of new thieves committing their first theft. | capableweb wrote: | > You prevent theft by putting theives in jail. It's not | complicated. | | Damn you right, it's so simple, why didn't they thought of just | putting the thieves in jail?! | | Also, seems like this whole "people stealing cars" thing | doesn't just happen in Baltimore. What if putting the thieves | in jail could work in other cities too? Maybe even | internationally? | | You could be on to something really big here, I hope people | from Baltimore government comes across your comment. | cwoolfe wrote: | Yes they are put in jail. But who bears the cost of extra | policing, court time, jail space? The city does. So the city is | seeking reparation from the cost incurred. | bluescrn wrote: | > But who bears the cost of extra policing, court time, jail | space? | | Does that really exceed the cost damage done if they're left | to keep on stealing/crashing cars? At some point they'll kill | someone, and the 'cash value of a human life' question will | come up. | hgsgm wrote: | The perpetrator is responsible for that cost. | | If Kia is liable for inducing crime, government should be | similarly liable for allowing crime; as preventing it is | their main job. | PedroBatista wrote: | Please read the article before commenting. | | Yes, "You prevent theft by putting thieves in jail." But it's | actually complicated if you adopt a realistic stance other than | "I want to speak with the manager". | | The part that's Hyundai's fault is both the ridiculously easy | to steal a car BUT also they dragged their feet when asked to | address the issue and didn't do anything other than telling | police and local governments "Wait for the next model in a | couple of years" | hardware2win wrote: | Consider reading the article | | The concerns are valid | | >Certain Kia or Hyundai models can be stolen using a | screwdriver and a USB charging cord. | | >Cleveland, St. Louis and Seattle are among the other cities | that started suing the the car companies earlier this year. | Baltimore's lawsuit says the companies "failed to keep up with | industry standards," and claim it was a result of business | decisions made to reduce costs and boost profits | "notwithstanding decades of academic literature and research | supporting the deterrent effects" of anti-theft technology. | | >Car thefts in the city have nearly doubled this year compared | to the same time last year, part of a nationwide trend after | videos showing how to easily steal the vehicles racked up | millions of views on TikTok. | itsoktocry wrote: | > _"Hyundai and Kia's decision to put cost savings and | profits over public safety has had significant consequences | for Baltimore and its residents... "_ | | Hyundai has some of the _safest_ , most efficient small cars | on the road, for great prices. I'd say these things are a net | positive to "public safety" over all. | [deleted] | hgsgm wrote: | Do those great prices include the cost of recovering a | stolen car? | antisthenes wrote: | Feel free to demand an additional discount when buying a | Kia/Hyundai in Baltimore. | arein3 wrote: | How is hyundai responsible for that? South corea is full | of hyundais and there's no such problem there. Maybe the | root cause of stealing is different? | HDThoreaun wrote: | They designed a car that is ridiculously easy to steal. | arein3 wrote: | If you are a thief | HDThoreaun wrote: | It's ridiculously easy for anyone to steal. If I buy a | door I expect the lock to work, that's the value doors | provide. If it turns out that the lock actually does | nothing I would consider myself defrauded by the door | manufacturer unless they specifically told me that the | lock doesn't work. | bombcar wrote: | Go watch the LockPickingLawyer - some of it is skill, but | there's a lot of product out there that's painfully easy | to bypass. | HDThoreaun wrote: | People have baseline expectations when they buy a | product. If you buy a lock the expectation is that you | need some level of skill to steal it. If it turns out | that anyone can just pull the lock open you've been | defrauded by the lock seller. But if the lockpicklawyer | opens it you haven't, because no one expects locks to be | unpickable. | mparkms wrote: | They cheaped out and didn't include a basic security | feature that 96% of all other cars have.[0] This isn't a | problem in countries outside the US because they have | regulations requiring immobilizers in new cars. | | [0] https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2022/09/129_336 | 571.htm... | [deleted] | ericmcer wrote: | Are the spikes of car thefts similar across all cities? Every | large city has Kia and Hyundais, you would think this would | be a nationwide phenomenon. | chucksta wrote: | Uh it is.. https://www.yahoo.com/news/nationwide-rise-kia- | hyundai-car-2... | hgsgm wrote: | There's a good article about that; it was recent posted on | HN: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35915492 | harimau777 wrote: | I know that they are also common in Milwaukee. | themaninthedark wrote: | I think it is a mistake to look at all cities, it should be | looked at nationwide though. | | By only looking at cities you are pulling in a large number | of other policies and effects that only cities may have | implemented. | fullstop wrote: | > Every large city has Kia and Hyundais, you would think | this would be a nationwide phenomenon. | | It absolutely is, though. | sithadmin wrote: | Nothing in the article nor the parts that you extracted | establishes exactly why a municipality would have standing to | sue a product manufacturer for damages, or why a manufacturer | is somehow obligated to include features that a municipality | deems to be 'standard'. | | The fact that there are consumer products whose absence of | features creates a negative externality for local law | enforcement doesn't seem like sufficient grounds for | standing, and this sort of thing is hardly limited to auto | antitheft features. Awarding a municipality damages or other | relief here would set precedent opening the door to all sorts | of whacky things. Should spraypaint manufacturers be held | liable for graffiti? Should speaker manufacturers that sell | devices without decibel-output-limiters be held liable for | noise complaints? The sane answer here to all of this seems | like 'no'. | | The appropriate venue for dealing with this is federal auto | safety regulations, not municipalities trolling manufacturers | in civil court. | explorer83 wrote: | The city should run a public campaign to publicly advertise | the consequences of stealing a vehicle (e.g./ jail, heavy | fines, reduced job prospects, etc.). Make it clear | criminals will be punished hard for stealing cars. Maybe | they can ask the manufacturers and dealers to sponsor or | donate to it. | krisoft wrote: | Or the city can run a public campaign advertising these | car models as prone to being stolen. That hurts the | companies image, which puts pressure on them to get | better. Of course it is cheaper if they don't have to buy | ad-space for such an advertisement. Maybe they could use | publicity around a lawsuit? Maybe that is what we are | reading right now? | harimau777 wrote: | How far does that line of reasoning go? Suppose that every | car they sold used the same key. "We just said that the car | has locks. We didn't say that those locks have unique | keys." | | Clearly there has to be some degree to which a customer can | assume that a product they buy meets the standard | functionality associated with that product. | alexb_ wrote: | Then they still wouldn't be at fault. It's not their | fault that the society Baltimore has crafted is so low | trust that you can't leave your car outside for a second | without it getting stolen. | HDThoreaun wrote: | It's their fault they made a defective product though. | When people buy a car the expectation is that you can't | steal it in under 10 seconds with no tools. | prottog wrote: | Like others said, in that case the customer who bought | the product has standing to sue, not the city of | Baltimore. | singron wrote: | The customer has clear cause. Fitness for purpose, | warranty, etc. The municipality probably doesn't. If | anything, they should try to coordinate a class action | lawsuit among consumers. | sithadmin wrote: | While that would definitely be a problem, that's the end- | user's/customer's problem. It would be appropriate for a | Hyundai/Kia buyer to sue Hyundai/Kia for damages | experienced because of such a thing. It doesn't make | sense for a municipality to sue here - they're not a | party with a stake in the ostensibly defective product. | alistairSH wrote: | But the city is expending resources (police, mostly) so | there is damage. | erichocean wrote: | Yes, and the city _taxes its residents to pay for the | police_ --the same residents who bought the cars | requiring more police involvement. | | It's a self-correcting problem, no lawsuit required. | | The city could even have a special tax on "cars without | immobilizers" that Kia owners paid, to cover their costs. | Again: no lawsuit required. | [deleted] | idontpost wrote: | [dead] | oatmeal1 wrote: | Public nuisance for having crimes committed against you is a | ridiculous legal theory. It's victim blaming to the highest | degree. | | "Failing to keep up with industry standards" is also | ridiculous because it's just a bandwagon fallacy. | wslh wrote: | The article sounds like if you leave the door open you should | assume anybody will enter and steal you. This is reversing | the victim to the victimary. | | In a sexist way would be similar that you are being raped | because you wear some specific clothes. | | Or you are hacked because you don't apply a patch. | ufish235 wrote: | It's not an appropriate analogy because Kia is not the | victim. They are responsible for securing their vehicles | appropriately. | tatrajim wrote: | If a woman doesn't wear a titanium chastity belt, she can | be deemed negligent. | arein3 wrote: | And if LPL can pick up the belt lock then it's fair game. | | Sounds stupid, like the way to blame hyundai or kia for | existence of scum people like thieves. | klodolph wrote: | Are you reading the same article? The city is going after | Kia, not the car owners. Kia is making defective cars; | people are buying them; the city is going after Kia. | jjk166 wrote: | Yeah, suing clothing manufacturers because people wearing | them were raped is not any better. The city has an | obligation to prevent crime, car manufacturers do not. | prottog wrote: | If anything, the city of Baltimore should sue itself for | failing to prevent crime. It would make about as much | sense. | arein3 wrote: | People downvoting are so used to scummy people that they | think it's the norm. | | In other societies crime is not normal, and "teenagers" | have two braincells to understand that a thief is a | repugnant person and that the consequences are not worth | it. | wslh wrote: | Nice experiment here in HN, it gives us information about | a specific bias. | op00to wrote: | I have seen teenagers break car windows in London, | Brussels, Montreal, Newark NJ... I haven't been to Asia, | but I guarantee teenagers do stupid shit there too. I'm | not sure why you think teenagers have fully formed brains | in other localities but somehow not in Baltimore. | [deleted] | hardware2win wrote: | Lets do not jump into emotional arguments | | Car makers should make their cars as hard as reasonably | possible to steal. | | If dumb ass tenager can do that, the it is a mess | themaninthedark wrote: | But that is exactly where this line of reasoning will | take you. | | If you don't take "reasonable precautions" then you are | liable. | | I will also note that I often see comments here talking | about living in SF and how they leave their car unlocked | or windows down to limit the damage from thieves smashing | the windows to get inside. | | So with this "reasonable precautions" line, everyone who | does this should be liable for promoting theft. | wslh wrote: | In my country, thieves removes your wheels, break your | window, etc. Any electronic or hacker approach is very | advanced. | harimau777 wrote: | Their cars omit the industry standard features to prevent | someone from starting the car without a key. That makes the | cars trivially easy to steal. | | When they purchase a car, a reasonable person would assume that | the key works to the degree that is standard in the industry. | jjk166 wrote: | There isn't a standard they are obligated to follow for | preventing someone from starting a car without a key. Just | because many companies do something one way does not | automatically make it reasonable to assume all will. The | entire point of being able to shop around between different | car manufacturers is that you may want a vehicle that does | something differently. For example, if you are in a place | without a lot of car thieves, maybe you'd prefer the cost | savings from a cheaper, inferior anti-theft system. | | Baltimore can make a standard requiring cars to have a better | anti-theft system, but they haven't. | krisoft wrote: | > You prevent theft by putting theives in jail. | | This is such an incredible naive view of the world. | | Whether or not crimes are committed is a complicated interplay | of cost/benefit. | | You say that the city is acting as if thieves are some force of | nature. And to a certain extent they are. If it is easy enough | to commit a crime and the reward is high enough a crime will be | committed. As an example if you leave gold bars littered on | your front yard people will pick them up. No amount of "putting | thieves in jail" will save you. | | Obviously increasing the chance of getting caught acts as a | deterrent. But it is not cost free. Investigating and | prosecuting car thieves cost hard money. If there are too many | thieves of opportunity created by sub-par security arrangements | the police/justice system becomes overwhelmed. The city can and | should increase their police force of course, but at a certain | point it is like trying to stop a tide with a rake. If you can | prevent crime before it happens, for example by following sane | and cost-efficient security practices that saves money and | aggravation for everyone involved. | | What prevents crime is multiple overlapping layers of our | society engineered such that crime is maintained at a certain | level. "putting thieves in jail" is just one of those layers. | And if you think you can simply policeman yourself out of any | situation then you haven't thought about the problem to a | sufficient depth yet | linksnapzz wrote: | I notice that jewelers and goldsmiths in Riyadh have nowhere | near the level of secure access controls, nor the type and | amount of reinforced display cases that you see in Chicago or | NYC. Likewise, I can leave a $4000 macbook on a table in a | bar in the cheapest neighborhood in Saitama, and not have it | walk off if I step outside for a smoke. | | Why do you suppose this is? | | What is happening there, that isn't happening in Baltimore? | typeofhuman wrote: | [flagged] | op00to wrote: | [flagged] | prottog wrote: | > As an example if you leave gold bars littered on your front | yard people will pick them up. No amount of "putting thieves | in jail" will save you. | | Of course there is an amount of "putting thieves in jail" | which will save you; once all the thieves are in jail, the | remainder of the populace would mind their own business and | walk past the gold bars. | | If your thesis is that literally everyone would steal those | gold bars, then I have to point out that this is a very | pessimistic view, and that there are multiple different | places around the world where it wouldn't happen. | krisoft wrote: | > once all the thieves are in jail, the remainder of the | populace would mind their own business and walk past the | gold bars | | Perhaps. I posit that you are going to run out of one of | these things sooner than you are going to run out of | thieves though: gold bars, patience of police to hunt down | your stolen gold bars, places in prison. | | You are going to run out of gold bars because if there is a | stash of them unsecured there will be some thieves who | either by sheer luck, or by being better at their job than | the police at theirs will succesfully get away with | stealing them. | | You are going to run out of police patience by one of two | ways: either immediately, once they hear that your | unsecured gold bars were just laying in your front garden. | In which case they take your report and chuck it in a | drawer to forget about it. Or if you are politically well | connected they will try to persuade you to secure them | better. If you are literally their king and they can't | convince you to store the gold better they might try to | protect it by posting a policeman next to it | | And then finnaly if you have so much money that | replenishing the stolen gold is not a problem, and you have | so much political power that the police is not able to | change your storage practices then that is when you are | going to run out of space in your prisons. | | > If your thesis is that literally everyone would steal | those gold bars | | Not at all. But it doesn't need to be. My thesis is that | there would be enough people who would try that it | overwhelms your police force destined to throw thieves in | prison. | shrx wrote: | Is there a list published somewhere documenting which Hyundai and | Kia car models are affected? | russellbeattie wrote: | If you own a Kia, enter your VIM on their site below and it'll | tell you if it's vulnerable. I just checked my 2012 Sportage - | it has an electronic keyfob start so it's OK. | | https://ksupport.kiausa.com/ConsumerAffairs/SWLD | shrx wrote: | Found a list of models that are blacklisted from being added to | insurance policies [1]: 2015-2021 Hyundai | Accent (all body styles) 2015-2021 Hyundai Elantra | (two-door and four-door) 2015-2021 Hyundai Kona | 2015-2021 Hyundai Santa Fe 2015-2021 Hyundai Tucson | 2015-2018 Hyundai Veloster 2015-2021 Kia Forte | 2015-2021 Kia Optima 2015-2016 Kia Optima Hybrid | 2015-2021 Kia Rio (all body styles) 2015-2021 Kia | Sedona 2015-2016 Kia Sorento 2015-2021 Kia Soul | 2015-2021 Kia Sportage | | edit: forbes [2] offers a slightly different list of models: | | > Hyundai is offering a free software update to prevent thefts | on certain targeted vehicles, starting Tuesday on nearly 4 | million Hyundais on the road. The first million eligible cars | are 2017 to 2020 Elantra, 2015 to 2019 Sonata and 2020 to 2021 | Venue vehicles. Affected owners can bring in the car to Hyundai | dealerships for the free anti-theft upgrade. It takes about an | hour to install. Once updated a window decal will (hopefully) | alert and deter thieves from targeting the vehicle. | | > The next batch of eligible vehicles will go in for the | software update in June and includes a long list of Kia models, | including: 2018-2022 Accent 2011-2016 | Elantra 2021-2022 Elantra 2018-2020 Elantra GT | 2011-2014 Genesis Coupe 2018-2022 Kona | 2020-2021 Palisade 2013-2018 Santa Fe Sport | 2013-2022 Santa Fe 2019 Santa Fe XL 2011-2014 | Sonata 2011-2022 Tucson 2012-2017, 2019-2021 | Veloster | | [1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/these-hyundai-and-kia- | models-a... | | [2] https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/kia-hyundai-car-thefts- | se... | oatmeal1 wrote: | Of all the entities that could be blamed, it's not the jails that | create recidivists, it's not the law enforcement that fails to | intervene before serious crimes are committed, and it's not the | schools that are raising delinquents. | jMyles wrote: | > this is how Americans view the US. There is a lot of crime, the | government and NGOs are on the side of the criminals etc | | Probably fair, according to the anecdata collected in my travels | in life so far. This view of the US seems common, almost | consensus. | | > he thinks they are far too low and want them increased more | | This part, I don't think is typical (or even widespread) among | Americans, and I don't see it expressly endorsed by ravensfan69 - | seems like you are presuming it. | | It seems to me that, by very far, the common American sentiment | is, "our justice system has failed, and the focus on | incarceration has made crime worse instead of better." | | On the other hand, many types of crime - especially violent crime | - have fallen in my lifetime in the US, in concert with much of | the rest of the world. | | But yeah, we Americans don't like prisons and we know damn well | that our state is just building them as an end-around to achieve | a plantation economy. We're not stupid. | TurkishPoptart wrote: | Cars designed for a high-trust society don't make the cut in low- | trust societies. | nemo44x wrote: | [flagged] | dang wrote: | Can you please stop posting flamebait? I don't want to ban you | but I had to ask you this just recently | (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35486328) and many times | previously (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35090086). | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | aardvarkr wrote: | Lots of comments that didn't read the article so here's a good | excerpt on why there's a lawsuit. | | Baltimore's lawsuit says the companies "failed to keep up with | industry standards," and claim it was a result of business | decisions made to reduce costs and boost profits "notwithstanding | decades of academic literature and research supporting the | deterrent effects" of anti-theft technology. | | "The dramatically increased rate of Hyundai and Kia theft in | Baltimore has required city and police resources that would not | have been needed but for Hyundai and Kia's deliberate failures," | the lawsuit says. "Car thieves -- many of them teenagers-- take | advantage of these failures and engage in reckless driving, | creating substantial safety risks to themselves and Baltimore | residents and their property." | aardvarkr wrote: | It's also worth noting that this was all started with a viral | TikTok video showing Hire ridiculously easy it is to steal a | Kia/Hyundai is. Here's a collection of graphs showing the | before and after of theft data in major cities. | https://usafacts.org/data-projects/car-thefts | aimor wrote: | Those charts are great, really drives home how quickly trends | like this explode and increase total car theft. Also | interesting how regional it is, the exploit at its peak | quadrupled car thefts in Milwaukee in less than a year so | Baltimore has plenty of room for things to get worse. | User23 wrote: | Clearly the answer is to sue TikTok too. You're brilliant be | sure to demand a consulting fee. | mh- wrote: | Am I missing something, or did they not do anything to adjust | for how many Kias/Hyundais are _in those cities_? | | That could explain why some cities saw much bigger spikes | than others - or it might not! Feels sloppy. | | edit: this obviously doesn't negate your point, there's | clearly an enormous spike. It's just weird since the article | took the time to break it down by city, and to call attention | to some cities seeing larger spikes than others. | klodolph wrote: | This echoes what happened in 2004 with Kryptonite locks and | Bic pens. | | Someone figured out that you could open a Kryptonite lock | using a Bic pen, which has roughly the same shape as a | tubular lock key. You did not need to use the actual key or | pick the lock. There was a rash of bike thefts afterwards. | | TikTok is a convenient scapegoat, but I think the problem | would exist without TikTok, because it so closely echoes a | similar situation from 2004. To be honest, I think that the | manufacturer should bear the blame in both scenarios--it's | their responsibility to make sure that the products can | withstand, for at least a few minutes, an unskilled thief | with inconspicuous, unpowered, commonly available tools | (like, a thief with no lock picks or angle grinders). | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5efaWSWwlk | dwater wrote: | When that happened Kryptonite voluntarily created a free | lock replacement program, where if you owned a tubular | cylinder Kryptonite lock they replaced it for free, postage | paid. | prottog wrote: | Kia should countersue because Baltimore fails to keep up with | being a city in a developed country. | hgsgm wrote: | Are these standards written somewhere? | | If it's required, it should be documented. | lcw wrote: | The point of the lawsuit seems to be to create case law that | would influence standards and/or a requirements for | automotive security features. | harimau777 wrote: | I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand it, this sort of thing | is generally based on a reasonable person standard. I.e. | would a reasonable person assume that if their car requires a | key to start, then it cannot be started with something as | trivial as a USB key? | Fatnino wrote: | I keep hearing this vague claim that the cars can be | started with a usb key. How does this work? Is there a usb | port that reads some secret file off the USB key? Is it | just the USB plug shape that fits somewhere in the car that | forces it to turn on? | [deleted] | toast0 wrote: | As I understand it, USB-A plugs fit the ignition lock | cylinder and will turn it. Unknown if you have to flip it | and reverse it a minimum of two times before achieving | usb-a super position and being able to plug in. | mattkrause wrote: | I _think_ (not a car thief!) that starting the car just | requires turning something approximately USB-shaped; the | electronics in the key don 't matter. | moffkalast wrote: | Here's a demonstration: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTeVgfPM0Xw | | Apparently it's more of a joke, you can do it completely | bare handed if you don't mind tearing some plastic and | manage to grab a finicky bit. The cars have no | immobilizers at all apparently. | meragrin_ wrote: | > Lots of comments that didn't read the article so here's a | good excerpt on why there's a lawsuit. | | Yea, I don't think that is it. | | > "Car thieves ... engage in reckless driving, creating | substantial safety risks to themselves and Baltimore residents | and their property." | | I don't see anything about Hyundai or Kia taking the cars for | joy rides. They are not going out and encouraging people to | steal their cars. They are not responsible for enforcing | community standards. There is no law which states they must use | any certain anti-theft technology. The cars are in no way | malfunctioning. So why is there a lawsuit? | | Why not go after the owners? They bought the cars and didn't | care whether they had anti-theft technology. | HillRat wrote: | These lawsuits are part of a longstanding effort by cities and | states to try and develop a theory of manufacturer legal | accountability through public nuisance law, an effort that is | perhaps morally laudable but legally fraught; to date, other | than a few outlier environmental cases from the '70s, courts | have almost uniformly declined to create a kind of parallel | product-liability law through nuisance. While _individual car | owners_ have legal recourse through traditional product | liability and negligence routes, hard to see these cases | succeeding in court; on the other hand, they _do_ create some | additional political pressure on Hyundai /Kia to take more | responsibility, which is ultimately where the tobacco lawsuits | in the '90s ended up -- not winning at the bench, but at the | conference table. | theGnuMe wrote: | The auto manufacturers absolutely have liability. | amanaplanacanal wrote: | Can you point to some case law supporting that position? Or | some sort of legal analysis? | theGnuMe wrote: | The words you want to google are "Public" "Liability" | "Nuisance" "Tort" | lordloki wrote: | So you have no evidence to back up your assertion. Got | it. | inconceivable wrote: | this is also seemingly the strategy for anti-gun manufacturer | efforts. so far they don't seem to be successful. | lesuorac wrote: | Can you clarify? | | Afaik, lawsuits again gun manufacturers are actually | successful [1]. | | [1]: https://apnews.com/article/sandy-hook-school-shooting- | reming... | giantg2 wrote: | "The dramatically increased rate of Hyundai and Kia theft in | Baltimore has required city and police resources that would not | have been needed but for Hyundai and Kia's deliberate | failures," | | I'd like to see the data here. Is there any indication that the | crime wouldn't be present in other areas of life? Would the | people committing these crimes be law-abiding citizens if not | for the temptation of these cars being easier to steal? Or | would the police resources be spent on alternate crimes? It | seems the common denominator here is people willing to commit | crimes, not the city's claim that it "would not have been" if | the company increased security. | [deleted] | aardvarkr wrote: | Here's the link that I posted above with data showing the | before and after. It's quite stark just how big of a spike | there has been in theft. https://usafacts.org/data- | projects/car-thefts | giantg2 wrote: | Not exactly the data I was looking for. This is very niche | and not from a more comprehensive level. However, the city | level data seems to show that some cities are not seeing a | higher spike, but others are. Without any real analysis, | this seems to indicate that there are other factors at play | than simply Kias being easier to steal. | [deleted] | local_crmdgeon wrote: | This. The problem is that Baltimore treats crime as being | separate from criminals. | | Almost all crime is committed by a tiny, tiny group of people | - in NYC, 327 people commit 1/3rd of all shoplifting. | https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/15/nyregion/shoplifting- | arre... | | We used to just warehouse people like this, and we stopped | because that was mean and did not get us likes on Instagram. | pfannkuchen wrote: | There is a theoretical limit to the rate at which a society | can digest unsocialized people, and this is affected by the | exposed surface area of the clumps of unsocialized people. | Where by "unsocialized" I mean with respect to that | particular society - people in any society are | "unsocialized" with respect to any other sufficiently | separate society. We seem to have run into a case of | serious indigestion. Traditionally we warehoused people who | weren't being digested successfully. Why we stopped is a | really interesting question. | local_crmdgeon wrote: | I absolutely agree. I hate that "lock up criminals" has | become a race-loaded statement, because in Baltimore (and | in my neighborhood) the _victims are Black /POC_. This | doesn't impact Becky on IG, it impacts the older people | who spent their lives turning America's urban areas | around. | | It's really, really unjust. | jameshart wrote: | They might be committing other crimes, but at least they | would not be speeding around in stolen Kias and Hyundais. | That seems like a win. | | Easily stolen cars lead to nuisance behavior that affects far | more than the immediate victim of the theft. | narag wrote: | _Lots of comments that didn't read the article..._ | | I didn't read it either... because I'd read a bunch of other | articles and watched videos about the problem a couple of | months ago. | | IMHO the root cause is that it's impossible with current | legislation/courts practice to deter this kind of behaviour. | Specifically: | | * Many of the perpetrators are minors | | * Stealing a car, depending on cirsumstances, is a misdemeanor | | * There is no mounting of repeated offenses | | * Police can't keep the suspects on custody for long and | prosecution is overkill for the results | | So more or less, stealing a car is free. And instead of fixing | the above points (maybe Baltimore as a city can't do that on | its own) the "solution" is suing car makers. | prepend wrote: | Auto theft in Maryland is a felony. What are thieves being | charged with that's not a felony? | alphanullmeric wrote: | And you should be sued for leaving your door unlocked if you | get robbed, and the guy that robbed you should be pampered by | the government as a victim of the system. | annexrichmond wrote: | Is this Hyundai/Kia theft disproportionately rampant in other | cities as well? | | If so then Baltimore may have a reasonable case. If not then it's | a Baltimore problem. | jrochkind1 wrote: | The first line of the OP: | | > The city of Baltimore has filed a federal lawsuit against car | manufacturers Kia and Hyundai, joining a number of cities who | say the companies created a public nuisance by making cars that | can be easily stolen. | | later on: | | > Cleveland, St. Louis and Seattle are among the other cities | that started suing the the car companies earlier this year. | | I feel like this whole thread has a lot of odd takes stirred up | by people's suppositions of what happens particularly in | "Baltimore". | op00to wrote: | Yes. This was literally a 3 second google, and the first damn | hit: | | https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2023/05/09/stolen-... | digdugdirk wrote: | People are commenting on this with a fundamental lack of | understanding of a car's ignition system. | | This design truly is flawed. Traditionally, the immobilizer in an | ignition system is physically tied to the steering column. | Basically, you'd need to remove the steering column (the physical | pipe that goes between your steering wheel and the front steering | rack) in order to remove the part. If you want to defeat that | immobilizer, you need to do a massive amount of damage to the | mechanism, and that damage usually destroys the electronics that | register the correct key being put into the ignition switch. This | is more or less a self-reinforcing security feature, since the | car wont start without this electronic signal. | | Kia/Hyundai decided to just tack a little immobilizer module on | without integrating it into the steering column, and they didn't | even do a decent job mechanically securing it to the column from | the outside. That means you can jam a screwdriver in there and | pop the "security" mechanism off. Once that's gone, you're left | with a little (conveniently USB sized) nub that can be turned | which will immediately start the car. No muss, no fuss, no | recognition that it's missing its immobilizer module. | | Its a fundamentally flawed design, and it never should have made | it past review. | rootusrootus wrote: | A typical modern (say, mid 90s or later) car immobilizer is not | mechanical, it is electronic. If you don't have a properly | programmed key (or fob) in close proximity to the sensor, the | ECU won't let the engine start. No amount of physical force or | access to the steering column will defeat it. You may get far | enough to make the starter turn the engine, but the ECU won't | fire the injectors. | | The problem with Hyundai & Kia is that they elected not to | include this 25 year old technology at all. | colechristensen wrote: | The electronic immobilizer on my 2009 jetta is a communication | between the cars computer and the key doing some sort of key | exchange or rolling code. There's no amount of tampering with | anything in the steering column which can result in a running | car. You start the engine and without the correct | authentication the computer shuts the engine off after one | second. I experienced it myself in a situation where i had a | physical key which was not electronically paired with the | engine so i could unlock and start the car one second at a | time. There's no option outside of hacking the car computer or | having access to dealer only computer interface tools. | oatmeal1 wrote: | The design of the ignition system is completely irrelevant. | Even if a manufacturer designed a car that simply had an "on" | button without the need for keys, it would not be their fault | if that car was stolen. | alexb_ wrote: | Kia could sell their cars with a giant button that says "BYPASS | LOCK AND START IGNITION WITHOUT KEY" and it _still_ wouldn 't | be their fault, at all. | gjsman-1000 wrote: | Also, this would be completely legal to sell. There's no law | requiring keys, or an immobilizer, or really any anti-theft | technology. | | If you don't like that, and I don't, change the law. Don't | sue for something completely legal because it makes life | inconvenient for a city. There is a long list of things | cities find inconvenient, like bicycles without a built-in | GPS, or even things as dumb as American flags in an upscale | neighborhood. | joseph_grobbles wrote: | [dead] | krisoft wrote: | > Don't sue for something completely legal because it makes | life inconvenient for a city. | | I don't understand this reasoning. The city believes there | is already a law under which what the car manufacturer did | is not legal. They and the car manufacturer will go in | front of a judge where the city will need to prove this, | while the lawyers of the car manufacturer will presumably | argue otherwise. | | Should I be feeling bad for Kia that they have to justify | their choices? | jjk166 wrote: | The city is going to spend substantial time and taxpayer | dollars to argue a legal theory that is extremely dubious | at best. If private citizens want to sue for dumb | reasons, that's their prerogative, but a public entity | with lots of other problems to deal with is fair game for | criticism when they engage in boondoggles. | JustSomeNobody wrote: | If I leave my door open and someone steals my TV, it's not my | fault I don't have a TV anymore. | taylodl wrote: | Legally it is. If there was no signs of forced entry then | you're not going to be compensated for your loss and the | police aren't going to pursue any suspects. | | But that's not what this case is about. To use your analogy, | imagine KIA were a lock maker such as Kwikset. You bought | their lock to install on your front door. You locked your | door and left the house. You came back and your TV was gone, | with no signs of forced entry. That's when you discover a | major flaw in the design of the lock - if you turn the knob | the opposite way then the lock will unlock from the outside. | It's a flaw in the design. The lock maker is definitely | legally liable for that defect, _and_ , this is the important | point, the city of Baltimore could sue them claiming damages | incurred by having excessive police calls caused by their | defective product. Of course every case is different, but | Baltimore would be likely to win. | | I'd say they're likely to win in this case as well. Since KIA | has been aware of this problem for some time and taken no | steps to resolve it, I imagine Baltimore is applying some | financial incentive. As other cities take note they too may | file their own suits and then KIA may realize it's cheaper | and better PR to issue a massive and costly recall. | op00to wrote: | > Legally it is. If there was no signs of forced entry then | you're not going to be compensated for your loss and the | police aren't going to pursue any suspects. | | This is not correct. The police will take a report, and | your insurance (if you have it) will cover your TV even if | you left the door wide open. Even if you were drunk. Even | if you weren't drunk. There is no clause in standard | insurance policies or our laws and statutes that failure to | lock shit up somehow makes it free for anyone else to take. | bavila wrote: | > Legally it is. If there was no signs of forced entry then | you're not going to be compensated for your loss and the | police aren't going to pursue any suspects. | | To the extent that common law is generally adopted in the | United States, theft is the intentional taking of the | property of another with the intent to permanently deprive | the owner of said property. It doesn't matter whether | there's forced entry or not (you may be thinking of | burglary -- either way, principles of "constructive | breaking" could still apply depending on the law as | codified by a given jurisdiction). | | Even from a less pedantic standpoint, if I had a home | surveillance system that captured the entire incident on | camera (along with the perpetrator's face and the license | plate of the vehicle that he used to drive off with my TV), | there is still sufficient evidence to arrest and prosecute. | There is no legal requirement of "signs of forced entry" to | sustain a theft charge under these circumstances. | sidewndr46 wrote: | The police aren't going to pursue any suspects over a | stolen TV period. The obligation of the police is not to | solve crime. They are more or less required to create a | police report for you, but that is about it. | r00fus wrote: | Not to defend the police but the cops (in CA) did follow | up on a burglary of my wife's handbag (with | wallet/ids/phone) from her car at a gas station. | | If the theft was part of a bigger issue with (to use the | Kwikset hypothetical) the vendor's product defect | allowing mass thefts then it would be important to the | police. | electriclove wrote: | The cops in San Jose CA did nothing when the glass was | shattered and my bag was stolen from my car. | bluGill wrote: | The first time I tried picking a lock I just put the picks | in and the lock opened. No need to worry about pins, just | put something, and it opened. I can pick a Kwikset lock, | but it is not that easy. (I'm not very good, Kwikset | doesn't have a good rep among lock pickers, but it isn't | the worst) | kayodelycaon wrote: | That's not what legally means... it's still illegal to | steal other people's things, no matter how easy you make it | to steal. | | Now practically, whether it's legal or not, no one is going | to help you. | op00to wrote: | If our hypothetical forgetful person has insurance, their | insurance agent will surely pay out a claim in the | situation where a door was left open. | endisneigh wrote: | flawed or not, the onus is not on Kia. ultimately baltimore is | suing them because of the spike in car thefts, not because of | the flawed design. presumably if baltimore had no thieves, | there would be no thefts irrespective of the design. | | so in effect baltimore is suing kia becuase their cars are | getting stolen which is ridiculous. | | i don't know how anyone can defend this. | | this would be like baltimore suing banks for allowing customers | to put in the pin "1234" after seeing a spike in money theft | through ATMs. | | if Baltimore wants the cars to be harder to steal, then they | should work with the governor to pass a law that requires cars | sold in Maryland to have whatever security functionality they | deem necessary. | aardvarkr wrote: | Here's a better analogy - imagine the atm manufacturer wanted | to save money so they built a machine with a lock that could | be pried off with a screwdriver instead of integrating | security features inside the machine. This ATM would be about | as trivially easy to break into as stealing a Kia/Hyundai is. | Would the bank be right to pursue legal damages against the | atm manufacturer for negligence? | endisneigh wrote: | > Would the bank be right to pursue legal damages against | the atm manufacturer for negligence? | | no. rather what would happen is that the bank would | rightfully ask them to fix it or they would go with another | manufacturer that meets their needs. | | likewise, the government should increase the standard if | they're not happy with it. not give the rubber stamp and | _still_ complain. | bombcar wrote: | The _bank_ is the customer in that case, and you could | argue that they could sue, based on "assumptions about | contract" or whatever. | | Baltimore didn't buy these cars. | misterprime wrote: | I'm curious if a class action lawsuit for Kia and Hyundai | customers would make more sense. | | I also wonder if auto insurance companies might refuse to | insure Kia and Hyundai vehicles until this is fixed. | bombcar wrote: | I believe the second has already begun, now that they | offer a software patch to fix it (in theory). | shp0ngle wrote: | It endangers the public safety of Baltimore. | henryfjordan wrote: | You cannot make something that you know will cause a | nuisance. You cannot, for instance, sell fireworks only | between 1-3am in the middle of a neighborhood and act | surprised when the neighbors are mad at you because kids are | setting them off all night. | | It was absolutely predictable that these cars would be stolen | and that the police would have to deal with the fallout. Just | because there's no explicit law does not mean that Kia | doesn't know better. Kia needs to pay for that. | ryandrake wrote: | Yea, I'm really surprised at all this defense of these | corporations. They produced and sold a defective product, | which is causing monetary damages to cities as they need to | deal with the predictable exploit of that defect. I'm sure | the city is prepared to show that these damages are a | result of the companies' negligence. | | If I owned one of these defective cars, I'd also be keen on | participating in a lawsuit against the company. | | If these cars had a defect that caused them to suddenly | catch fire and burn down neighborhoods, you'd bet there | would be lawsuits from everyone, including cities who pay | for fire departments. | michaelt wrote: | _> Yea, I 'm really surprised at all this defense of | these corporations._ | | Well, the government _does_ already set a bunch of | standards for cars. | | And before the car leaves the factory, it's fine for the | government to be issuing mandatory standards for lights, | spare parts, seatbelts, crash safety, pedestrian | protection, fuel economy and so on. | | But the government having a second, secret set of | requirements? That can change without anyone being | notified? To me that seems rather irregular. | op00to wrote: | There's no federal standard that says cars must not | explode in a fireball during refueling. If one make of | car started exploding, you'd see the federal government | get involved very quickly. | | To me, that seems like a responsible way to react to an | irregular situation. | endisneigh wrote: | The cars are not exploding. The government has no reason | to car about your private property. Should bike | manufacturers be sued as well for the rampant bike theft | that happens in virtually every city in America? Gimme a | break | | Affected owners should put together a class action and | force a recall on the affected cars. As for those who | actually got their cars stolen - they should take that up | with the police and their insurance. | op00to wrote: | [flagged] | atonse wrote: | is there evidence that car thefts are higher due to Kia, or | due to lax enforcement? I suspect it's a bit of both and | Baltimore is trying to pin it all on anyone else but them. | | Not making excuses for Kia. They should absolutely get | penalties for taking shortcuts. But I feel that higher | insurance premiums and a bad reputation would take care of | it. And people won't buy their cars. | joseph_grobbles wrote: | [dead] | gjsman-1000 wrote: | > Its a fundamentally flawed design, and it never should have | made it past review. | | It is a flawed design, but there's just one problem for a | lawsuit: Immobilizers are not legally required in the US. A | flawed immobilizer is fine, considering there doesn't even need | to be an immobilizer. | | Baltimore is suing because, yes, they are easy to steal and | that makes things inconvenient for Baltimore. But no law was | broken - there is no law requiring cars to be hard to steal. | Thus they are trying to claim "public nuisance" instead of | "negligence." | | This, in my mind, is a super slippery slope. You know parts | pairing on iPhones, where you can't swap the camera without | Apple's approval? One day there could be a carmaker or two that | pairs everything from mirrors to catalytic converter to | "prevent theft and fraud." If Baltimore wins, anyone who | doesn't do that could be found liable. Just an extreme example | of how this could go sideways fast. | | Or let's say two or three bike manufacturers start putting GPS | systems into their bikes, to prevent theft. Can any bike | manufacturer that doesn't do that be sued in the future? I | would argue, they should absolutely not be in absence of a law. | taylodl wrote: | The product sold doesn't comply with the stated fit of | purpose. A consumer has the reasonable expectation that an | ignition switch will hamper the efforts of someone to steal | their car. There are lots of consumer protection laws that | can be applied here - up to fraud. I suspect Baltimore isn't | as interested in the the money to be gained as they are in | generating negative PR for KIA and thus forcing them to | address the issue. | bombcar wrote: | Wouldn't' that be the customers suing, or something? | Baltimore didn't buy these cars, it might get dismissed | from standing. | linksnapzz wrote: | That's not criminal, that's a tort. | | Baltimore, not being the customer, probably lacks standing. | plagiarist wrote: | And Baltimore is asserting they have standing regarding | financial damages incurred from policing the thefts. If | only there was some way to resolve whether the defendant | or plaintiff is the correct party! | xkcd-sucks wrote: | But it's established through case law that police aren't | _obligated_ to do anything about theft. So the costs of | policing thefts would seem to be voluntary, not damages. | Interesting to see how it turns out. | linksnapzz wrote: | Hyundai should countersue the city, for having such a | reprobrate populace that necessitates that manufacturers | of durable goods implement increasingly elaborate and | expensive antitheft schemes. "Maintaining a Nuisance", I | think the term is. | | Or perhaps they should have owners sign a release, | promising not to operate or store the vehicle in any zip | code that insurance companies deem high risk. | plagiarist wrote: | I kinda agree! Forcing the customer to sign a car theft | waiver that other car companies do not would solve the | problem somewhat. It informs them so that they can use | their money on a different vehicle. | golemiprague wrote: | [dead] | endisneigh wrote: | even after reading the article this lawsuit makes no sense. | | inherently a car that can easily be repaired can easily be | stolen. the implication is that Baltimore does not want cars that | can easily be modified so they cannot easily be stolen. | | troubling to say the least. then again, baltimore isn't exactly | the pinnacle of governance. | | take the iphone for example, which are notoriously difficult to | use if stolen. the result has been people tend not to steal | iphones as much | (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-06-19/how-an- | ip...). | | however the result is you have less control of your device. is | this a worthy tradeoff? | harimau777 wrote: | I don't think that's necessarily the case. My understanding is | that the part that they omitted was some sort of chip. | Soldering in a new chip is something that could be easily done | by someone making repairs but which would be difficult for | someone to do during a theft. | ramraj07 wrote: | Are you saying Hyundai and Kia did this so the car is more | easily modifiable? Are they known for making more repairable | cars? Are they framework laptop of the car world? Or merely | cheap carmakers who found the wrong corner to cut and save | costs? | endisneigh wrote: | what I'm saying is that if you imagine the most reparable car | in the world, it would inherently be easy to steal and thus | subject to the same lawsuit being presented to Kia and | Hyundai. | yccs27 wrote: | There is no relationship. I can take apart my front door | including the lock without a problem, and it is still | secure. Security is a property of the locked state, | repairability a property of the unlocked state. | endisneigh wrote: | no it is not. the fact that you can take apart your front | door makes it inherently easier to get into your house | vs. a door that could not be disassembled. | l33t233372 wrote: | I'm wondering if you can explicitly say what about | including an immobilizer in the north American market | inherently makes those vehicles less repairable than | their immobilizer-equipped counterparts in other markets. | taffronaut wrote: | I don't follow the reasoning that inherently easily repairable | cars are easily stolen. Cars have shipped for decades with | steering and in some cases transmission locks. These required | physical key and programmed fob to be present in order to start | and drive. Security was down to the quality of the engineering | of those components. I don't see how it hampered modification | to or ability to repair the rest of the car. | endisneigh wrote: | you disagree that a car that's more reparable is more easily | stolen? imagine a car with screws on the door to be swapped, | and another car without them. you don't think the car with | the screws would be easier to steal? | krisoft wrote: | > you disagree that a car that's more reparable is more | easily stolen? | | Yes,I do. | | > imagine a car with screws on the door to be swapped, and | another car without them. you don't think the car with the | screws would be easier to steal? | | I imagined that. Every car door I have ever interacted with | had the screws on the hinges such that you could only | access them with the door open. You could swap all of them. | This is not a particularly good example you choose I am | afraid. | | You can design cars which are hard to repair and easy to | steal, or one which is easy to repair and hard to steal. | | Thing is nobody is asking Kia to do something | unprecedented. All people are asking to be about as safe | from stealing as cars from other manufacturers are. | endisneigh wrote: | I don't know what to tell ya then. clearly and obviously, | a door that can be taken off, and thus is more easily | repaired, could be stolen easier than one that is not | (e.g. door is welded after being attached to the car). if | you disagree with that then we have to agree to disagree. | | > Thing is nobody is asking Kia to do something | unprecedented. All people are asking to be about as safe | from stealing as cars from other manufacturers are. | | how about you just not buy kia. they'll figure it out. | why people want to involve the government in everything | is just beyond me. | [deleted] | krisoft wrote: | > I don't know what to tell ya then. | | Well maybe tell me a single car model where the door | cannot be taken off and a single source outside of | yourself who claims this as an anti-theft feature. | | > if you disagree with that then we have to agree to | disagree. | | I agree with you that welding the hinge of a door to the | chassis would lower its repairability. I disagree that it | would make it less likely to be stolen. Cars are not | stolen by people walking off with their doors. Assuming | that there is some means of ingress and egress enabling | normal users to regularly enter the vehicle, that is the | doors are not completely welded shut, thiefs will use | that. | | If you are making the point that a vehicle completely | welded shut would be less repairable, and also less | likely to be stolen I guess I have to agree with that. | For some reason I don't predict it to be a comercial | success though. | | Common vehicle anti-theft features include immobilisers, | steering locks, coded key fobs, car alarms, kill | switches. I don't see that you have shown that these | techniques make cars less repairable. | | > how about you just not buy kia. | | Consider it done. | | > why people want to involve the government in everything | is just beyond me | | I can explain this part. People get their car stolen and | they call the police to report it. They expect that the | police will expend resources to find it and punish the | thieves. Many in among these very comments have expressed | that sentiment. That is where the government gets in the | picture. | | Or people fall victim of some other crime. Like they have | a hit and run traffic accident, or someone smashes into | their shop window with a car and drives away with stolen | goods, or any number of other crimes. They report it to | the police who investigates and realises that the | criminals used a stolen car to facilitate their crime. | Because a ready source of easily stolen cars is not just | a headache for the people whose car have gone missing. It | undermines the security and safety of others too. This is | an other way how the government got involved. | | Are you with me so far? Do you agree that people can and | should report to the police when crimes have been | commited against them? | | Assuming that we are on the same page so far. Or at least | that you are seeing my point even if you are not | agreeing: what happens next is that the police looks at | their statistics and sees that many of these crimes have | their root in the shoddy safety practices of a particular | car manufacturer. They see that it costs them a lot of | money too. So they go and ask their own government paid | lawyer and ask them if they can do something about this. | And presumably said lawyer told them that yes they can do | something about it, they can sue the car manufacturer for | public nuisance. | | That is how people reporting crimes leads to the police | noticing a common theme in the crimes and that leads to | the city suing the vehicle manufacturer. I hope that | answers your question about how and why people got the | government involved in this issue. | Arrath wrote: | You are making some strange connections here. | | You might as well argue that a car built to be human | drivable is easier to steal since the human needs to be | able to see the surroundings, and a car with glass | windows is easier to break into than a steel box with | some external camera and lidar modules. | endisneigh wrote: | Yes, that is true too, but the law says a car needs | windows or similarly sized cavities. Within the minimum | requirements for a steer legal car, more repair ability | makes it easier to steal inherently. | | Idk why people argue against this obvious fact. Things | have trade offs and this is one of them. Of course you | can design things to be repairable and minimize risk of | theft, but if you didn't care about that things could be | even more accessible for modification if desired. | bastawhiz wrote: | An easily repairable safe is not an insecure safe. The security | of the safe shouldn't be able to be easily compromised from the | outside of the safe. Just because I can repair and replace | parts doesn't make it insecure. | endisneigh wrote: | a safe that could be repaired from in and out of the safe | would be even more reparable than one that could only be | repaired from inside. thus, the most reparable safe would be | also one that could be compromised. there inherently is a | tradeoff between security and modifiability by end users. | bastawhiz wrote: | A safe that can be repaired from the outside isn't a safe. | You're not even trying to engage in a reasonable | conversation. | endisneigh wrote: | there is nothing about a safe that says it cannot be | repaired from the outside (though it would certainly be a | bad safe). regardless, my example isn't limited to safes | to begin with. | gjsman-1000 wrote: | Right? Why don't we all have our catalytic converters digitally | paired with the Engine Control Unit iPhone-style? Is it the | manufacturer's fault for not doing that? | | Heck, just like an iPhone, let's have all parts on a car from | the headlamps to the door handles to the mirrors digitally | paired together. That would stop theft, and any car maker who | doesn't do it is encouraging theft. | shagie wrote: | That doesn't quite follow as the catalytic converter is | melted down for its metals rather than used as is. | | As to "all the parts on a car paired" - there is VIN etching. | https://www.allstate.com/resources/allstate/attachments/tool. | .. | | The audio system has some semblance of paring. | | Though with he KIA, this is more often dealing with use (e.g. | joy riding) of the car rather than reselling it. | LgWoodenBadger wrote: | Melted down? More likely they're sold to questionable | "remanufacturers" | shagie wrote: | Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic | converter theft ring - | https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department- | announces-... // | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33444851 (405 points | // 468 comments) | | > Federal, state, and local law enforcement partners from | across the United States executed a nationwide, | coordinated takedown today of leaders and associates of a | national network of thieves, dealers, and processors for | their roles in conspiracies involving stolen catalytic | converters sold to a metal refinery for tens of millions | of dollars. | | > ... | | > They knowingly purchased stolen catalytic converters | and, through a "de-canning" process, extracted the | precious metal powders from the catalytic core. DG Auto | sold the precious metal powders it processed from | California and elsewhere to a metal refinery for over | $545 million. | | Ok, not quite _melted_ down, but reduced to rather base | components. They are not reused in the same form. | mrtweetyhack wrote: | [dead] | ineedasername wrote: | So... is Apple going to be the hook in lawsuits because their | phones are so desirable and easy to steal? Heck you don't even | need a screwdriver and usb cable like with the cars. | | I should launch a lawsuit against the contractor who built my | house because even though the doors have locks a third can break | in with nothing more than a rock and some willingness to maybe | get cut on shattered glass | pfannkuchen wrote: | Are there regulations requiring car companies to include this | anti theft equipment? If not, that seems like the obvious route | for government to pursue? Lacking a regulation requiring this up | front, it seems like there is zero case here? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-05-12 23:00 UTC)