This seems like as good a HN thread as any to ask this, since I've been looking into it recently. What are some cars to look into if I'm interested in the following things? Or what are some cars that I should specifically avoid? - Low appeal to thieves interested in stealing the vehicle itself, due to the hardware (locks and whatever else) being exceptionally difficult to deal with - Some sort of secure/hidden compar…
Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles
401–410 of 449 posts
Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does she unlock her front door?
I imagine a lot of people don't use a key to get in their house, nor do they use the front door. Hit the button on the garage door remote, drive in, walk into house.
He then added "It's good that I always lock the door in the garage too".
Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
The key fob does use challenge-response, the thief just uses a glorified range-extender to get the car started with the key normally out of range. The car stays on once started. There's no MITM involved.
Huh? The diagram in the article shows two men ("Thief 1", "Thief 2") between the fob and the car, with arrows showing communications going from fob to thief to car. According to the first sentence of the Wikipedia MITM article, that's the very definition.
Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How does she unlock her front door? For many people, there's no need to unlock the front door because it's never locked. Having to lock your door just means you're living in a terrible neighborhood.
Not sure about the US, but in the UK where I have more experience having my stuff stolen, if you rob a house and the door is locked it is a far more serious crime than if the door is unlocked. Big reason people made sure to lock their doors in my neighbourhood growing up since 90% of the yobs would just check if doors were locked, not actually dare to break in.
Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure if this is a joke about old keys being better, but I'd argue you could have the benefits of new keys and old keys combined if you just made it so that new keys have to be inserted into some compartment inside of cars, where they are authenticated by those cars. You can imagine a fob with a USB that has a different authentication code than the wireless one it sends out, and unless the USB is plugged into…
Yes, I was making a joke, but I was also semi-serious. I personally wouldn't mind that the car unlocks based on the fob's proximity, but requires insertion of the key for ignition. I currently drive a 2009 car with the usual key fob and my biggest issue with it is not having to insert it to start the car, but unlocking the doors while my hands are full. Once I'm seated in the driver's seat I'm not carrying anything a…
Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How does she unlock her front door? For many people, there's no need to unlock the front door because it's never locked. Having to lock your door just means you're living in a terrible neighborhood.
Even if you live in a "good"neighborhood you could still be burgled by someone casing the neighborhood/home. Do people really not lock their houses when they leave? My parents always taught us to lock the house on the way out, even when we lived out in the country.
Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>Why is it transmitting without the user pressing a button? Is that a feature? It's not transmitting anything, it works pretty much the same way NFC works. Both the key and the car have their own public/private key pairs(which were obviously set by the manufacturer) and when you touch the handle the car transmits an unlock request to the key, encrypted with the car key's public key(this is going to get confusing lol…
As you described it, it is easily broken with a replay attack.
Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there any type of encryption between the car and the key? Or are the signals always constant? Could you just record the relay signal and play it back whenever, essentially replicating the key?
Every run of the mill garage door opener using rotating keys or nonces to prevent replay attacks. I assume any fob design worth its salt would implement something similar.
Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles
#409Everything else in our lives we've automated using our cellphone and apps. So why not cars?
Bring back the old mechanical coupling method, upgraded for better security in close proximity, and provide a long range automation method via app.
Just like your standard light switch. We have the old mechcanical way of using it, and our new radio based way via app.
Re: Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How does she unlock her front door? For many people, there's no need to unlock the front door because it's never locked. Having to lock your door just means you're living in a terrible neighborhood.
Not sure about the US, but in the UK where I have more experience having my stuff stolen, if you rob a house and the door is locked it is a far more serious crime than if the door is unlocked. Big reason people made sure to lock their doors in my neighbourhood growing up since 90% of the yobs would just check if doors were locked, not actually dare to break in.
This doesn't make much sense from first principles. I assume everyone agrees that theft is equally unwelcome regardless of whether the door was locked. But the additional damages from breaking into a locked home are pretty minor compared to the damages of the theft. Why would there be a large difference in punishment?