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A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

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Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#141

Post by soneil »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #24
soneil wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I'd be so paranoid. We've read of people managing to hack the key openers, etc. They're an attractive target. I mean, if you were going to leave a box containing $30,000 on your doorstep. A box not only containing 30k, but a box that was labelled that it contained 30k. How would you protect it? Put a serial number on it so you can prove it's yours? A bike lock? A motion sensor? Cement it into the ground?…

$30k in cash is not the same as a $30k car. A $30k car that's been stolen is not worth $30k, then there's liquidity, risk and a bunch of other things. Having your car parked outside is not at all like having a box containing $30k outside your house.

I have to worry about a $1,000 bicycle. For some reason it's just socially accepted that this will happen to a $1,000 bicycle. But park a car worth an order of magnitude, and the level of worry actually goes down. That's the bit that throws me for a loop.

I'm not trying to argue that anyone should live in fear. Just that assumptions of state-sponsored action severely overestimate which ballpark this lives in. This is more complex than an opportunistic thief, but well within career criminal - and probably well below "steal to order".

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#142

Post by [deleted] »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #128
gambiting wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had a receiver with a nanosecond precision you can measure the distance to the key with enough accuracy that the relay attack doesn't work anymore. I don't know why manufacturers don't do that yet - I guess the parts necessary are still not available at scale yet? I personally just keep the keys in a metallic bag at night, blocks all signals perfectly.

Is that how contactless payment cards are protected?

[deleted]

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#143

Post by mynameisvlad »

netsharc wrote: post #105
drglitch wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having recently gotten a new BMW (in USA), they give you a huge packet of about 30 pages explaining the BMW TeleService and the "SOS" button. They also make you sign a power of attorney-style doc giving them rights to notify police in case they believe your vehicle is in trouble and provide police/EMS with its exact location. Mercedes and Audi have similar systems, as do others via OnStar. This is one of few cases wh…

BMW offers a car-sharing service in some cities in Europe through a joint venture with Sixt, called DriveNow. Some assholes like to take these cars and go for joyrides/street races. One of these idiots ran over a bicyclist and killed them. The court/prosecution asked DriveNow to give them the "black box" data of GPS location/heading/speed, but the company doesn't monitor GPS during trips. The court asked BMW, and BMW…

It's in some cities in the US too. It's not freaky at all for a company to want to protect their assets (the DriveNow cars). Mercedes Benz does this with their Car2Go cars as well, and I'm sure ZipCar also does this too. They have custom software running to enable all the DriveNow/Car2Go functionality.

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#144

Post by ashleyn »

gagabity wrote: post #17

More surprising that the car has some call home feature that the owner doesn't seem to know about.

Almost every major luxury car has a feature that reports on the operation of its self-driving(-like) features, data which is used to refine the next generation.

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#145

Post by vkou »

soneil wrote: post #141
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$30k in cash is not the same as a $30k car. A $30k car that's been stolen is not worth $30k, then there's liquidity, risk and a bunch of other things. Having your car parked outside is not at all like having a box containing $30k outside your house.

I have to worry about a $1,000 bicycle. For some reason it's just socially accepted that this will happen to a $1,000 bicycle. But park a car worth an order of magnitude, and the level of worry actually goes down. That's the bit that throws me for a loop. I'm not trying to argue that anyone should live in fear. Just that assumptions of state-sponsored action severely overestimate which ballpark this lives in. This is…

That's because most of us recognize that 20 seconds with angle grinder will make that $1,000 bicycle disappear. 20 minutes at a stolen bike dealer - which are everywhere - will turn it into $50.

20 seconds with an angle grinder will not make a $30,000 car disappear. Selling it on the black market is also a much bigger pain in the ass, then selling a stolen bicycle.

People leave $300,000 dollar homes unattended all the time - protected by nothing more then a flimsy lock, and a few panes of glass. Yet, most of the time, people don't worry about someone stealing their house.

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#146

Post by lucb1e »

hellofunk wrote: post #53
avar wrote: post #27

Reading this article is honestly a bit of a domestic culture shock for me, where does this guy live in The Netherlands? Here in downtown Amsterdam we called the police because the rear window of someone's car had just been smashed outside our office, and the police's response was "Has anyone been hurt? Nope? Then we're not coming". Meanwhile, wherever this guy lives they're sending officers because some BMW call cent…

> Here in downtown Amsterdam we called the police because the rear window of someone's car had just been smashed outside our office, and the police's response was "Has anyone been hurt? Nope? Then we're not coming". Amsterdam currently has a big police shortage, that's why. It's not normal, it's just a problem in Amsterdam. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/07/amsterdam-is-not-lawle...

> It's not normal, it's just a problem in Amsterdam.

Right, the two times we needed police in Limburg (Echt and Maastricht, few years apart) it didn't happen either. It had to be life-threatening and the people didn't literally shout "we'll kill you" so the police wasn't gonna bother.

Meanwhile on TV they're cycling through parks to fine people some 99 euros for not having a well-behaved dog on a leash (could have used discretion there), or fining some poor dude 370 euros for standing literally 2 minutes on a disabled spot to pick someone up.

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#147

Post by outworlder »

Rjevski wrote: post #101

I used to fix cars for a living. Sometimes it involved “cracking” alarm & immobiliser systems. My clients all claimed they broke/lost their keys to their car - most of the time they were believable (car stuck in front of their driveway, etc). Sometimes less so, but I’d do it anyway because I needed the money and I had no proof of the contrary (innocent until proven guilty right?), although given the sad conditions of…

> program new keys

Yeah. We bought an old Elantra which only came with a single key and no FOB. I bought a cheap gizmo on Amazon that you plug to the OBD port and allows you to program other FOBs.

Modern-ish cars are computers. Once you have physical access, all bets are off.

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#148

Post by acct1771 »

kccqzy wrote: post #107
Rjevski wrote: post #101

I used to fix cars for a living. Sometimes it involved “cracking” alarm & immobiliser systems. My clients all claimed they broke/lost their keys to their car - most of the time they were believable (car stuck in front of their driveway, etc). Sometimes less so, but I’d do it anyway because I needed the money and I had no proof of the contrary (innocent until proven guilty right?), although given the sad conditions of…

Have you taken a look at a Tesla car yet? From PR materials I'm led to believe that they treat their car software seriously. I doubt one can install untrusted firmware on a Tesla car; is that so?

Stripping or modding a Tesla would be the only way I'd get one...and I'd really like to. Very interested in what happens in this thread.

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#149

Post by lucb1e »

stingraycharles wrote: post #34
avar wrote: post #27

Reading this article is honestly a bit of a domestic culture shock for me, where does this guy live in The Netherlands? Here in downtown Amsterdam we called the police because the rear window of someone's car had just been smashed outside our office, and the police's response was "Has anyone been hurt? Nope? Then we're not coming". Meanwhile, wherever this guy lives they're sending officers because some BMW call cent…

You sound frustrated, like you think it’s a bad thing that the police has time to respond to these types of incidents. When you’re not in one of the big cities, it is in fact common that police has time for this type of stuff (I live in Zeist myself and could see this type of thing happening here). I think this is rather a signal that the police in Amsterdam is underfunded, and/or the types of crimes they deal with a…

> When you’re not in one of the big cities, it is in fact common that police has time for this type of stuff

I didn't do a nationwide survey, but you can add two places in Limburg (Maastricht and a small town near Echt) to the list of understaffed places since they also wouldn't respond to anything that was not life-threatening (literally asked whether we were threatened with our life).

For added fun, you should try calling the local police on a public holiday. Better have a good reason for bothering these busy bees when they're all out on parking meter patrol!

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#150

Post by tbrock »

maym86 wrote: post #33
jasoncartwright wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has happened so many times (I've heard of at least 5) in the UK to Tesla cars that Tesla themselves sent out a warning with instructions on how to turn off the passive entry feature that allows this attack. https://pasteboard.co/HypzOWg.png Here's a video of a relay theft (of a Merc) from West Midlands police in the UK... https://www.west-midlands.police.uk/news/4544/watch-police-r... Photo from a camera of atte…

Maybe you could stop this attack by having an IMU in the key so it only broadcasts the unlock signal while it's being held/moved.

The attacker could just wait outside your house for you to hold or move it as you head off to work in the morning then come back at night to pick the car up
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