First: It's funny, because it is happening to Russians
Second: It's fucking scary, because it can happen everywhere. Fuck cars that rely on digital services.
this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2025
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first they disabled Russian porsches and I didn't care because I am not a russian owner of a porsche.
then they came for Ukrainian tractors and I didn't care because I am not an Ukrainian owner of a tractor.
then step by step everything was digitally locked and I owned nothing and I was not really happy.
Just got a dishwasher and it doesn't even have an app. How can that be?
are you from the past?
Just got a toilet and it doesn’t even have an app. How can that be?
Just got a car and it is driven by bear. How can this be?
and I owned nothing
Companies love that, until everybody is completely in debt and they learn you can't seize property from people that don't own anything.
By then they will already own all the property.
Yes. They're busy buying everything already. They just need a financial crisis to get the rest for pennies on the dollar. After that it's time for neo-feudalism.
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[...] and what owners can do next.
Sell their Porsche and buy a car that can't be locked remotely?
In 2025? Is that even a thing?
You can disable the modem on new Toyotas and they run fine. The dealership will bitch and moan but they can be disabled.
You can also steal new toyotas in a matter of minutes because they absolutely fucked up the can bus security.
One way to tell: disable the cellular modem in your car and see if it still operates.
This assumes there’s a user accessible option to disable it.
I assumed it's not a option, so I took the suggestion to mean "physically disable" the device. Modern cars have a number of integrated computers and they rarely serve individual purposes, but there's a good chance there's an external antenna near/in a window. Granted, I don't have any vehicles with cell service, so I could be wrong. I do own a drill though
Just wrap your car in tinfoil. Bonus is that it stops the government from reading you mind while inside.
Shill for big foil..thanks for the advice MR REYNOLDS.
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I took the question initially in jest, then sat back and thought about it. fuck.
To be fair though... I came out to my old car without digital nonsense yesterday and it didn't start either.
Sorry you had to find out your car is homophobic like that.
There's the upcoming Slate trucks, but those are scheduled for Q4 2026. And... also probably going to be US exclusive for a bit. Oof.
The Slate truck is simple for YOU. It doesn't have lots of bells and whistles, but is still and electric vehicle that runs on computers. I haven't heard if it has a remote connection yet, but I bet it does. Also, Jeff Bezos is an investor and I am pretty sure it is not some new altruistic streak for Amazon to launch a consumer product that they can't monetize forever.
Slate will have no OTA capabilities. How they will monatize forever is by selling parts to users and educating them how to service themselves.
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Sell them to whom?
Recycling companies?
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I doubt most owners of recent-model luxury-brand cars in Russia are average joes for which this is their only transport. I therefore find my sympathy to be somewhat limited.
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Vehicle Tracking System (VTS) — a security module designed to prevent theft but now shutting down cars unexpectedly.
Also, what a strangely written article.
Owners welcomed theft deterrent like that. OnStar is probably the main original US service, found in GM cars. I think Subaru picked them up at some point, but basically all new cars have the option to have manufacturer tracking and app-based vehicle connections for remote start, tracking, service alerts, diagnostic uploads, etc
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I feel like I got my car at the perfect time:
It has Android Auto and CarPlay, and it's a manual so there's no way for it to turn on or off remotely.
Now I just have to make sure it survives until I die.
It's a voluntary anti-theft measure I believe. Prevents it from being started without the owner's consent. Which immobilizers are also supposed to do, but we all know how well those work.
If I owned a Porsche in Russia, I would also get something like that tbh. Luckily I don't live in Russia, nor do I have a Porsche anymore and mine was too old for this kinda shit anyway
Maybe Russia started jamming satellite signals and did this to themselves.
Good thing this is a completely optional "feature" that I'd never pay for
"smart" cars
Well, it's because Russia is jamming GPS signal, it affects planes, cars, everything relying on GPS.
That's a huge leap to assume GPS blocking was also blanketing other 2 way satellite communication frequencies.
None of these things need GPS to function. Even planes. A compass, a map and a clock go a long way.
For planes maybe it's not strictly necessary but makes things way safer
Why not do cars need internet access in order to start?
I understand having auxiliary services the network connected but surely the failure mode should just be an error on the screen but otherwise the car should still function. It's not like operating without internet access is dangerous or anything.
Also, why don't we just do that, cut Russias internet access, it seems like it would cause utter chaos.
As for “cut russias internet”, I imagine they have a lot of services hosted on their own infrastructure within Russia.
Of course probably a lot of people use western services like social media and e-commerce. Which would piss off a lot of Russian people. So you could have western governments require sanctions on services to reject Russian traffic.
One of the downsides though is there are probably a lot of people who disagree with the regime and want to get info in and out. You push them closer to isolation like North Korea. So called “winning of hearts and minds” might be better served by keeping things open.
But what do I know.
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