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A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

news.umich.edu

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Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#11

Post by camhenlin »

localtoast wrote: post #4

As 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?

My buddy has an 89 Prelude that got stolen a couple of times. It basically got driven around and left with an empty tank around town both times and no signs of break in. I think the keys are relatively common for those so maybe the thief has one.

Anyways, I installed a switch up under his dash the disconnects the fuel pump +12v wire. It takes just a moment to flick the switch if you know where it is, and afterwards, the engine will crank and crank and crank and sort of sound like it wants to start at first, but never do anything. It would probably take several minutes to find it if you had to look for the switch, especially if it were at night and you were trying to steal the car. Seems like a good lower tech deterrent to me! The car has not been stolen since.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#14

Post by Waterluvian »

I knew someone with a shitty pickup truck where he wired a light switch into the fuel pump and hid it under the steering column. The truck would be stolen something like 5 times a year and every time he would find it abandoned a km or so away when the gas in the line ran out.

I drove in it once to get lunch and near the beginning the car begins sputtering and he's like, "oh right, you're thirsty" and reached under and flicked the switch. So understated, I still laugh at the memory.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#15

Post by rootsudo »

1. It's re-inventing a kill switch.

2. It adds tons of uselees innovation to a kill switch.

3. If your car is antique/valuable/interesting, the people stealing it know the starting diagram/circuit and can easily rip it out/bypass it.

4. IF your car is antique/valuable/interesting you wouldn't add this as it can depreciate the car value/make it more ugly. You're not installing this in a brand new BMW M6, or a new Honda Civic, or a E24/1980's BMW M6 or a 1990's Honda EK Civic.

Solutionism at it's worse. Ignores the whole idea of what a car is. Ignores the innovation in Transponder tech that has been the standard for a while - only Kita/Hyundai in the USA has been avoiding it because if added BOM.

Outside the USA car thefts are not as common and in Domestic Japan/India/Asia a transponder is still pretty rare.

But back to the article - seeing this was sponsored by "University of Michigan- " - WTH is going on there? That is Ford/GM.

Ford has had PATS technology for the longest time - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuriLock

GM has PK, same idea.

"Battery Sleuth bypasses both the wireless communication that key fobs depend on and the standardized onboard communication network that’s used in today’s vehicles. Instead, it authenticates drivers by measuring voltage fluctuations in a vehicle’s electrical system. "

Worthless, so it knows the cars resting voltage usage (easy enough) and if theres a drain, it means something is connected and that it can lock it up, but the same as a killswitch, it can be removed or bypassed.

"Battery Sleuth also has defenses to guard against hacking or physical attacks on the device itself, including a siren that sounds if illegitimate activity is detected and a resistor that shuts down the vehicle’s electrical system if an unauthorized power source is connected to the vehicle. "

Very easy to pop hood, pull siren out/disconnect. and lol "resistor" means anything/nothing.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#16

Post by gruez »

>At the end of the three-year project, the team aims to have a commercially viable prototype that can be scaled up to commercial production, first as a theft deterrent device, and potentially later as a complete vehicle entry and control system that could replace traditional keys and fobs.

What's the point of this? Modern cars already have engines that are cryptographically tied to keys[1]. They're not perfect, but is adding a whole new rube goldberg machine into your car really better than fixing the existing system?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immobiliser

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#17

Post by pc86 »

soared wrote: post #5

Cool 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 (…

> 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

So turn a $100 ignition switch assembly into a $3,000 1-of-1 monstrosity? Would you need to replace the entire ignition assembly if you lose your keys, or would you be able to generate a key from the ignition assembly (or VIN or other unique identifier)? Thieves would probably just do that for high end vehicles anyway.

> 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?

Isn't this exactly what push-to-start tech is? I'm not sure the percentage of vehicles that have push-to-start at this point but I'd imagine it's well into the majority, and increasing.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#19

Post by Ancapistani »

Waterluvian wrote: post #14

I knew someone with a shitty pickup truck where he wired a light switch into the fuel pump and hid it under the steering column. The truck would be stolen something like 5 times a year and every time he would find it abandoned a km or so away when the gas in the line ran out. I drove in it once to get lunch and near the beginning the car begins sputtering and he's like, "oh right, you're thirsty" and reached under an…

Super common in simple vehicles used to "run into town" in rural areas. We call them "kill switches".

My previous vehicle was a '97 Jeep Wrangler. There were two kill switches installed when I bought it: one down by the driver's seatbelt latch for the fuel pump, and one reachable by inserting your finger into the opening for the 4wd shifter the disabled the starter. Neither was easily visible.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#20

Post by postmortembees »

This is a very engineering solution to a very not-engineering problem.

Would this deter thieves? Possibly! Would thieves eventually be able to work around it? Also probably! Would it increase the friction of getting in and driving? Definitely!

Today, your house keys are basically useless for security -- getting into your house is trivially easy both destructively and not. But we all use house keys because they feel safer. Ask people to provide biometrics or long passkeys or keycards and eliminate the existing locks? It's a hassle most folks won't tolerate.

Likewise, people are comfortable with the walk up, push button, leave nature of fobs. Replacing that with "walk up, scan fingerprint" or "walk up, type in password" is going to tick off a lot of people.

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