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A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

mrooding.me

231–240 of 325 posts

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#231

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

I've known about the SOS button since I've been driving BMW for over 6 years. Luckily, I've never been in a situation where I needed to use it.

What I didn't know is that it would dial home if the connection was lost. Even the person I spoke to at the dealer wasn't aware of this.

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also known as crying wolf. Don't you have insurance for theft? Kind mandatory in Amsterdam.

Pushing the problem to insure is blaming the victims, making the pay for crime.

Given that there's hundreds of thousands of bikes stolen a year and the chance of the theft being solved is very, very low, it's very much a "prepare for the worst and hope for the best" thing.

Also, in Amsterdam, don't get a fancy bike.

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> the types of crimes they deal with are much more severe. Not just that, because of tourists misbehaving everywhere, there are also just way more crimes/disturbances than in normal city/town.

Plus the fact that the number of policemen available is set according to the number of inhabitants, not the number of actual people (e.g. tourists).

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that CPU manufacturers DO like that, and will give out special unlocked versions of their CPUs and even sponsor overclockers, to see what people can do with their hardware. This also happens with car manufacturers, in racing and such. Tuners are more under the radar so they don't like that, as well as the warranty claims that were mentioned.

no, there is no software that i know of where you can as a consumer make your i3 an i5 with just a software unlock, that you can get for like 10 eur. the difference on the base model mercedes c class between getting a less powerful engine and the one that is one level up is like 3.5-4k eur. that is a lot of money. if i could unlock the bigger engine with just 400 eur i would buy the base model. manufacturers don't wa…

It’s not just more power though. My car has two version 130hp and 155. For the 2 grand I got 25 more horsepower and bigger brakes ,bigger clutch , bigger wheels with wider tyres and an LSD. The only time I can recall where the engine has been exactly the same inside was the mini one and Mini Cooper where the ecu only allowed for 86% throttle on the lower powered version. Every other engine has had a mechanical difference internally to support more power.

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#235
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was a bit worried that the box does not shield the signal enough. They make "Faraday Bags" exactly for this purpose.

I needed a quick fix that everyone in our house would be adopting quite quickly, and it should also fit into the style my wife used to decorate the entrance area. So the bowl where our keys were usually collected was replaced by a metal box with a lid. However, in the long run I won't bet on workarounds to prevent the signal to be repeated, I will rather use one of those steering wheel locks that's brightly visible f…

I think you can also disable the keyless entry (that is, entry without hitting a button on the fob) in most cars. Said cars should also just stop if it doesn't detect the key while driving, so starting keylessly should still work.

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#236
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll go damn far - on a flatbed.

How do they move it onto the flatbed if the hand brake is on?

It can be done, you just skull-drag it onto the back of the truck. Not great for the car, of course.

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they also dont like tuners because cars engines are often made the same for multiple "trims" so the car with 110 and 160 hp have the same engine but different "map" in the ecu. and only with ecu reflash you can get more power that would cost you x amount of money. imagine a CPU where 6 and 8 core variants are the same but the 6 core is locked in bios and you can unlock it with some tuning software, its like that. and…

> imagine a CPU where 6 and 8 core variants are the same but the 6 core is locked in bios and you can unlock it with some tuning software, its like that. But isn't this already the case (except locking might be in CPU firmware)? AFAIR this is the case with GPUs.

Can't think of an example with CPUs, but you could unlock an AMD 6950 to a 6970[1]. Some brands would actually add features to help do this.

[1] https://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/15...

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

haha! Yeah, but by the time you're involving a flatbed in your thieving, I don't know if any car security is going to be much good :P

I like to think high tech cars can detect when they're being towed and will activate their tracking system and ping the emergency call center. Of course, all bets are off when it's loaded into an RF shielded truck. It could have an onboard camera to record the number plate of the truck, but that could be shielded. Long story short, you're probably better off parking it in a firmly locked / secured garage, and have a…

> I like to think high tech cars can detect when they're being towed and will activate their tracking system and ping the emergency call center.

My GPS tracker does do this in my daily car, but it only sets it off if the rest of the alarm is triggered (i.e. if the door sensor registers it opening while the alarm is set).

With the race car, it generally gets locked up. Although if I'm out in the town or something with it someone could possibly take off with it if they short-circuit the relay, and use something to clamp on the steering column (when the wheel is detached). But honestly, if someone stole the car like that they'd probably be found a few hundred yards up the road wrapped around a tree and on fire, after hitting boost with no steering wheel.

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#239
post #6

The thieves would have been wiser to take something, anything to make the narrative of the original break in more believable. They didn't sell the narrative well enough, which left people curious.

Given that they knew exactly which system to disable, they probably also knew that the call center will be contacted the second they broke the window, and the police could be there within minutes. I don't know how well secured anything stealable is nowadays, but I can imagine it'd take a few minutes to remove e.g. the navigation system.

Re: A Dutch first: Ingenious BMW theft attempt

#240
post #207

Would it be possible, that the order of actions was actually different? The thief first pushed thin tools through the door gasketing and actually cut the wires from the outside. Not sure how well and how successfully, but i actually presume that this wasn't as good cut as they tried to achieve. Then, they tried to break the window and continue with the theft, but the system reported them too fast anyways...?

The author also mentions that these cars have radar and air pressure sensors - I don't know how accurate these are, but forcing something through the gasketing could cause a change in air pressure enough for it to trigger.
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