I once helped someone get their car home after one of these was installed. Their license would not be returned until it was installed, but they weren't allowed to leave it on the lot. Someone else drove it there, and then I got to experience the breathalyzer to drive it home.<p>The interesting part is how bad the interlock was. First off, it can apparently randomly not work, so you get three tries. Worse yet, per the official documentation, apparently they can misdetect an ignition while driving at speed, and when that happens you have to pull over and blow within thirty seconds. Now, this is not something you can do while driving, as you have to look at the camera while you do it, on top of needing to have a deep breath. There's no motivation to improve this, because the customer is the legal system, not the person who has to have it installed
The fragility of putting ignition control behind a third party cloud service was always going to end like this. Someone had to find out the hard way.
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We need to legally mandate a single physical switch that disables all vehicles radios, and a second that factory resets everything but the odometer and vehicle fault logs / black box.
Irrelevant to this issue - the devices didn’t get bricked over the air, but rather they have a “calibration” time lock which must be reset at a service center and the service centers are ransomwared.
That's an extremely attractive attack surface. How about we just have keys to turn on the engine?
The issue here is not an OTA thing, for what it’s worth. That is to say, it’s not that these devices phoned home directly and a cloud server is down; rather, these devices require periodic “calibration” (due to a combination of regulation, legitimate technical need, and grift) at a service center and the service centers are out of commission, presumably due to ransomware.
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I guarantee that basically nothing will come out of this.<p>People dont willingly put these alcohol breathalyzer interlocks on their vehicles. They're 100% court mandated, as a punishment for, usually, drunk driving.<p>This country is so hell-bent on making criminals' lives worse and worse as a never-ending punishment. So what 150k people cant use their cars. 'They did something wrong and deserve it', is the usual motto in the USA.<p>Now, lets have a discussion about software liability....
And there is nearly no oversight on how much these private companies are allowed to charge those 150K people for something that is court mandated. These interlocks can exceed $100/month for some of the poorest people in society.<p>Unfortunately the US public has no interest in this issue. They have a dual morality where lawbreaking is <i>wrong</i>, but profiting off of criminals and the poor isn't. So mandatory prison labor, expensive monitoring, for-profit probation services, and for-profit jails are <i>fine</i>.<p>Literally if you don't pay or play, you go to jail. But it was a plea so you "volunteered" (to not go to jail).
> So what 150k people cant use their cars. 'They did something wrong and deserve it', is the usual motto in the USA.<p>Maybe I'm in the wrong here, but I do find it pretty fair that people that can't responsible use a vehicle aren't allowed to use a vehicle. You don't see me flying airplanes for hire ...<p>> Now, lets have a discussion about software liability....<p>You're welcome to demand that the software you use provide a warranty. For some reason government agencies which actually would have the ability to demand this seem to not care. It does seem extremely negligent to allow people who can't use cars responsibly to use cars with provided software without a warranty.
> Maybe I'm in the wrong here, but I do find it pretty fair that people that can't responsible use a vehicle aren't allowed to use a vehicle.<p>Except they are allowed to use a vehicle. This issue isn't that they aren't allowed to use their vehicles. The danger is the disruption in what they are allowed to do and software/hardware failing. This is dangerous not only for them, but others as well.<p>And to be clear, this is specifically about people who are allowed to drive with a breathalyzer. So, "aren't allowed to use a vehicle" makes no sense. They are allowed to drive with certain conditions. Just like you and me.
Given that most of these defendants are poor, they're using public defenders.<p>The choices these defendants are being offered is "We can charge you for 3-10 years in prison, or you can pay a pile of money to the state and our private companies for 1 year of a breathalyzer in your car"<p>The plea deal is at best blackmail, and enriches the state and 'business partners' (private companies) via more suffering.<p>And given how this plea deal system works, I would wager that quite a few who pled out didn't do anything wrong, but are still subject to the blackmail and subsequent removal of rights with tenuous due process at bets.<p>The whole root of this issue is that the USA demolished most of public transit to go all in on the personal vehicle. This was done nationwide to increase profits for vehicle companies and gas/oil companies. If we did have good/great public transit, drunk driving would be a significantly less of a thing. But that would cut into US domestic car production and oil/gas production.
> This country is so hell-bent on making criminals' lives worse and worse as a never-ending punishment.<p>Interlock devices are typically mandated for 6-12 months if it's your first DUI. In California, you will be mandated to use it for three years after your fourth (!) DUI. DUI laws in many parts of the US are ridiculously permissive and your criticism is pretty off-base.
The comment you're replying to isn't disagreeing with the sentences but with the additional hassle on top of the sentence. Do you think that additional ad-hoc punishment is justified? Where would you draw the line?<p>If the people of the country were more constitution minded, they would want a punishment that fits the crime, and no additional punishment on top of it. So I share this gripe, even though I consider DUI a very serious crime (including those who do it and don't get caught).
I'm generally against long term punishments for crimes like this, but operating a dangerous machine like a car is a serious matter. A breathalyzer is a reasonable compromise compared to just taking away your license, right?
> People dont willingly put these alcohol breathalyzer interlocks on their vehicles<p>N=1, but I know of one case where the defendant was offered a lock on their car or an ankle alcohol monitor. Of course they were going to choose the car lock.
"Plea deals" have an interesting caveat that I didn't know - <i>you can agree to punishments that the government couldn't impose</i> as part of a plea deal.<p>So if the punishment for driving drunk is 3 years in prison, you may be able to avoid it by accepting a plea deal that infringes on your third amendment rights.<p>This can even occur in a civil case.
I like to not share roads with drunks
Well, one could remove their licenses instead, however the US is built around the car, and not being able to use one almost becomes a social credit, in that you can not function in the country without a car.
Drunk driving is already illegal. Doesn't seem like that rule stopped them. Why would this rule?<p>I've had my license suspended. It was just speeding. It's my only traffic ticket, let's not focus on that too much.<p>Do you know what was stopping me from getting in my car and driving it to work? Absolutely nothing.
So, you think someone that illegally drives drunk will magically decide to abstain from driving because they don't have a license? Really?
I have no problem sharing the roads with drunks. It's the cars that scare me.
The issue here has nothing to do with the device and everything to do with the fact that car-brained America is so cowardly and broken that they will do some Rube Goldberg stunt before they even consider taking cars away from alcoholics.
It's actually an easy problem to solve, some places have done it with great success. You can't effectively stop DUI by taking the car away. The problem is the drinking. You make someone test every morning and if they've been drinking they get the slammer for the day. You don't need to take away their transportation.
Nobody in human rights would allow that. Take away the car and people cannot live.<p>The above is sadly serious. It is almost impossible to find a job and a house you can afford in walking distance of each other, demanding there be things like grocery shopping as well make it not feasible for most people. Taking away someone's car is cruel and usual punishment that cannot be accepted.
> It is almost impossible to find a job and a house you can afford in walking distance of each other, demanding there be things like grocery shopping as well make it not feasible for most people<p>This is exactly what the parent meant by designing the country in a 'car-brained' fashion. It's not true in many/most other countries.
Wouldn't it be better to take the alcohol away?
If “car brained” means recognizing how great cars are for improving our lives, by letting us get to places quickly, then I don’t see anything cowardly or broken about it. Just seems rational.