The alternative, tire boots, are equally asinine and more likely to damage the car. These seem fractionally better up to the point where they are hacked. Unessarily connected devices are a liability beyond measure, and it floors me that nobody seems to notice.

A boot, at least, does not obstruct a now-angry driver's view. I have no doubt people will try to drive away with these devices on their windshield despite the loud noise. It's a recipe for accidents.

I appreciate the many definitions of "hacking" and "turn on your defroster for 15 minutes" qualifies as a clever exploit.

But at some point a bad product has to be called a bad product. A deterrent that can't deter anyone, but does less damage than a boot, is still useless, not better.

This is a stupid question, but something I’ve always wondered about is how tow trucks disengage the clutch and/or the parking brake... am I to understand that they simply don’t? So if I park my manual transmission car in reverse and with the parking brake on, they’re just going to literally drag my car to their lot or destroy my gearbox? How is this not a bigger issue?

They will just pick it up from whichever end is the drive side wheel, or they will 'break' into your car and put it in neutral. Depends on the tow business though, around me they only have flat bed haulers so they will just cable your car up and drag it on. Ideally also in neutral, but they would have no problem doing it even with a locked 4 wheel drive vehicle since the cable is lifting a bit up and the tow truck is many times heavier than any consumer vehicle and it isn't enough force at low speed to cause any damage.

Depends on the car and where it's drive wheels are. Also I think tow drivers are authorized to use a tool to break in to the car (non destructively) to put it in neutral if necessary.

Aside: if you ever notice a teeny tiny panel that has a dimple or hole to open it with by the shifter, that's the release for the interlock that prevents changing gears without the keys. That's how you get in neutral when the owner isn't present.

It's really not damaging to drag a car up onto a rollback with a locked parking brake or in park. The systems involved can take it just fine.

Thy pick it up by the end that actually does the driving. Not sure what happens with full four wheel drive locked. Use a full-size wrecker I suppose.

4WD/AWD cars can be towed by flat-bed, or by putting dollies below the wheels that are on the ground.

They put carts under the wheels.

It's substantially worse because the easier and cheaper it is to extract revenue from you the more people will do it.

The SIM card thing might be a felony.

Didnt a court recently rule that someone taking off a GPS tracker (and throwing it away?) was not theft? My memory is fuzzy on that one.

That’s different: in this case the student was knowingly using a metered service and would have no reason for doing so other than shifting their cost to someone else.

That looks like it. Can't find any followup on the case or more importantly any ruling on the theft issue.

How is that analogous to hacking a device so you can tether to it and use its data plan to avoid costs yourself?

They gave it to him. They put it on his car.

Ooh, I'd love to hear that one in court.

"Your Honor, that sign on the entrance to the parking lot discussing parking restrictions and enforcement thereof somehow implied that they're giving me this device and authorization to use it how I see fit".

I suppose if someone leaves their wallet on the hood of your car while they're tying their shoelace, they've also authorized you to use their credit cards, right?

If your car gets booted and you pick the lock to remove it can you now legally sell the boot?

the same way the dockless scooter companies abandoned their scooters?

Yes. You can buy dockless scooters from some police auctions.