Did you RTFA? No, then STFU.

They aren't talking about lo-jack'ing the car. Then entire point of these "hacks" is to stop the car from starting, not kill the engine going down the freeway, because that's life threatening, law suit inducing, fucking DANGEROUS .

I never said the relay and the solenoid where the same thing. Learn to read. The starter circuit can be interrupted at the relay, the solenoid, or both. The big wire on the starter goes back to the solenoid, and a smaller wire from there to the relay. The starter is pretty easy to find, so that's the logical place to start tracing the system back to where they break it. I wouldn't completely rule out someone putting a second solenoid in there, but it would be silly (and costly) do so.

This isn't an alarm system or anti-theft measure. Those are designed to do things that are a) hard to find, b) hard to remove, and c) take long enough to defeat that you're likely to get caught in the act.

Because a new car will have a higher resell value when the bank repo's it.

Also, you need a better credit score and a better bank.

That used to be true; modern automatics have locking torque converters that eliminate the power loss to the transmission once in gear. (it slips just like a clutch would when changing gears.) Also, a lot of autos are "CVT" these days, so there aren't any gears. The issue of not being able to get it into neutral is often the same bug that stuck the throttle -- the shifter is electronic and the computer is ignoring you. In those cases, the "power button" isn't likely to turn the car off, either.

(Which, btw, is why I bitched about the "race car prius" not having a kill switch -- which is mandated in the rules -- in-line to the ECU. I don't give a single s*** what Toyota says -- they're going to tell you to not modify the car at all -- I want a way to physically disconnect power.)

Cheap cars have zero "bling" so few people want them. There are plenty of old-but-reliable, cheap cars out there. However, few people forced into that market understand enough about cars to know what's reliable and what's a rolling pile of soon-to-be-scrap; and if anything happens to their 1000$ heap, a) they don't know how to fix it, or b) have the money to get it fixed.

If they're trying to sell the car, then it's their responsibility to make it as presentable as possible. A car that doesn't start/run is a pile of scrap metal. It might work, or it might not. If you try to sell *me* a car that doesn't start, I'm going to offer scrap price for it or walking away. I'm not rolling dice.

Most after-market antitheft devices are trivial to remove. Those built into the ECU are much harder to defeat. (in a modern VW/Audi/etc. the immobilizer is linked to every piece of electronics in the car. Including the electric window/lock modules.)

I don't need a manual to locate such a device, or tell you how to bypass it. All it does is stop power from energizing the starter relay/solenoid. The starter is blindingly easy to find; tracing the "big red wire" back to the solenoid isn't very difficult. The only hard part is physically working in a modern cramped engine bay.

All these people whining that it cut the car off in traffic are probably lying, or exaggerating the events greatly (i.e. they stalled the car at a light and it wouldn't restart.)

And they often pay the price for it in court. (fraud and false advertising)

Because they can charge a 1000x markup for that extra flash. When a 64GB mcroSD card can be had for 20$, why should 64GB add hundreds to the cost of a phone? (greed)

Actually, the "improvement" in MPG is from capturing what would otherwise be wasted energy (idle, coasting, etc. ya' know, the things hybrid vehicles have been doing for a very long time.)

Right, because taking away a sliver of plastic will totally stop someone from driving. Just look at the stats for "driving without a license". Any technology put in the phone that can be selectively enabled (read: enabled by court order) can be disabled. And good luck getting Cyanogen to add that brain damage to the image. Plus, it's only the **DRIVER** who must be stopped; everyone else in the car is perfectly OK to text while in motion, but such technologies stop them too.

No, but they do make it an absolute joy to supplant their will and use other applications. In short, unless you've put measurable effort into it (and if you're using a Mac, this is highly unlikely), you're logged in to iCloud, and using iPhoto and iTunes.

a) police radios are increasingly encrypted. the days of analog radios are long gone.
b) the "secure messaging" system records everything. misuse could lead to disciplinary action. (not that there's a staff of people looking over every email.)

Then part (e) needs to be removed or amended. There's a very good reason "texting while driving" is illegal pretty much everywhere: it's fucking dangerous. If he needed to respond "immediately" then he should've pulled the damned car over.

(Also note, in NC cops can be assholes and write you a ticket if the car is on but in park because you are still technically "operating" a vehicle.)

Some "experience" there. I'm not a hunter, and it's been decades since "hunter safety" in high school (required in NC)... You don't f'ing fire on things you cannot clearly see and identify. "I thought I saw a deer" should be what they carve in his tombstone.

And to be perfectly fair, the issue hinges on glibc's completely idiotic insistence on free()ing everything at exit() instead of just f'ing exiting. The kernel knows exactly what to return to the free pool and does not depend on, or require, the application to return the memory it requested.