And the point isn't that the 'protection' can be defeated. The point is that the protection was installed without notifying the consumer. As pointed out above - it's not likely you'd buy a car if you found out it couldn't use fuel from 90% of the filling stations in the country.

Any protection can and will eventually be circumvented by 'interested parties' with sufficient knowledge, time and equipment. Unfortunately, that means very little to the average consumer.

M