Personally I like the fact the majority of people are oblivious to matters such as overwriting. If too many people know about it, then it raises the bar for those who want to circumvent it.

You might be right about Omar’s employment status – it’s hard to tell. The original AP article was really vague about whether he was still an employee or had already been fired. This article – http://tinyurl.com/yhwu6mv – explicitly says this wasn’t in retaliation for being fired but was the reason for his dismissal. On the other hand, the Wired story – http://tinyurl.com/yeoephc – says explicitly that Omar had been let go about a month ago as part of a reduction of force.

Either way, I don’t think it changes the responsibility of the dealership to have managed this better. I mean, the Wired article also says that Omar had his account closed when he was fired. That’s good, but what was he doing with an account on that system in the first place? It sounds like lots of people at the dealership have access to that system, and that seems unnecessary and careless. I’ll bet he didn’t have an account on the payroll system.

Apparently, these kinds of devices are used by car dealerships that specialize in selling (and financing) cars to people who don’t have the cash to buy a car without financing, and whose credit histories mean they can’t get financing from more reputable institutions.

In other words, the alternative to having a remotely-activated kill switch installed in your gently-used 1983 Family Truckster with 308,000 miles on it is an unpleasant visit from Yuri and Dmitri to remind you of your financial obligations.