A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
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A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
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Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#2isn't this just an absurdly complex re-imagining of the on/off switch? I've spoken to numerous people who either had their vehicle stolen or it was broken into. The ignition cylinder was damaged in the process. Rather than spend money replacing it they just wired in an on/off switch in a random place on the dash. The car got broken into again but was never stolen.
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#3The receiver which measures the voltage pattern and decides if the rest of the voltage is allowed or not becomes the weak point. Like the encrypted key system used today, this could be buried deep inside the engine, but unclear why this is better than keys today.
In addition, if the driver should be able to manually recreate the voltage pattern by actually flicking the lights/wipers, there will be a relatively small number of voltage combinations which could be iterated through an automated device connected directly to the wires very quickly.
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#4As a kid, I watched my father pull a single fuse from the family 4x4's fuse box whenever we left the vehicle unattented for any extended period. Does a practical, lower-tech deterent exist?
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#5Cool idea! Seems like car thieves could probably just carry around another device to hack it, but certainly could be a deterrent.
I don’t know much about it but it seems like a key is supposed to be the password for the car, so seemingly the key is where improvements could be made. Like add unique and random differences in the metal on each key and have the key slot read those and only turn on the car if it matches (since I guess the metal bumps are easily bypassed by thieves?)
Or couldn’t the bumps on keys just be replaced by.. pretty much anything that is physically secure and not multiple hundreds of years old technology? Credit card chips, magnet strips, 2fa fobs, fingerprint sensors, etc?
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#6The boomer in me suggests that you buy a manual transmission automobile to deter would-be thieves...
Regarding the article, I get the idea that essentially this is a stripped down version of using something like a Yubikey to access a workstation (in this case, a car). I chuckled at the idea of doing certain actions within the car to get it to operate.
^ ^ v v B A Start Start
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#7isn't this just an absurdly complex re-imagining of the on/off switch? I've spoken to numerous people who either had their vehicle stolen or it was broken into. The ignition cylinder was damaged in the process. Rather than spend money replacing it they just wired in an on/off switch in a random place on the dash. The car got broken into again but was never stolen.
Valets HATE this one weird trick
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#8A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
It's so simple, it can be done "With a new $1.2 million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation"...
I guess simple doesn't mean what it used to mean...
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#9isn't this just an absurdly complex re-imagining of the on/off switch? I've spoken to numerous people who either had their vehicle stolen or it was broken into. The ignition cylinder was damaged in the process. Rather than spend money replacing it they just wired in an on/off switch in a random place on the dash. The car got broken into again but was never stolen.
I have an old beater. It cost me 2300 USD when I bought it. Last year the ignition cylinder broke. My friend is a mechanic and he told me he could replace the cylinder for 90 USD, or buy him a beer to just install a button. I now jokingly call my car a Tesla since it starts with a button (it also requires the key)
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#10isn't this just an absurdly complex re-imagining of the on/off switch? I've spoken to numerous people who either had their vehicle stolen or it was broken into. The ignition cylinder was damaged in the process. Rather than spend money replacing it they just wired in an on/off switch in a random place on the dash. The car got broken into again but was never stolen.
Valets HATE this one weird trick
I used to have a car that had a kill switch requiring the turn signal to be turned on or some such thing. It was periodically a pain with valets or parking garages where your car might need to be moved. I'd leave a big note but it was ignored about half the time.