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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

#21

Post by screamingninja »

gruez wrote: post #16

>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 i…

Exactly. What's even worse is that it takes a huge research grant to come up with this.

> With a new $1.2 million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation...

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#22

Post by mavhc »

nso wrote: post #9
sidewndr46 wrote: post #2

isn'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)

Tesla cars don't need a button to start

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#23

Post by incahoots »

nso wrote: post #9
sidewndr46 wrote: post #2

isn'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)

The button was my go-to when I got a new car, I would defeat the lock cylinder without damaging the steering column, and place a button in a obscure spot to start my cars.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#24

Post by zerd »

ghaff wrote: post #10
constantly wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A friend had a car that required that you hold a magnet at a very specific spot in the back of the arm rest to be able to start ignition. Don't think he ever tried to valet that.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#26

Post by 1024core »

camhenlin wrote: post #11
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,…

> I think the keys are relatively common for those so maybe the thief has one.

I have a buddy who had an old Ford in San Francisco. Once in a while he'd get in the car in the morning and notice that it felt .... strange. He couldn't put a finger on it. Then one day he had to get to work a little early and showed up at his car much earlier than normal. He found a guy sleeping in his drivers seat. Needless to say, both were startled and the homeless dude ran off, leaving a big bunch of keys behind in a keychain. Those were "master" keys to get into a whole slew of older vehicles.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#27

Post by 0003 »

Thus begins the spiral coming back to "physical" security vs abstracted tech. Imagine the sales of a new BMW M5... "Yup this baby has it all. Top of the line security. Worried the thieves will see your finger prints on the keypad no worries. Just manually hit the windshield 3x, run the blinkers so many times. Etc etc. And there she goes..."

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#28

Post by hulitu »

obblekk wrote: post #3

The 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…

Plus DOS when the battery is exhausted after a couple of "turn lights on off, turn wipers on off".

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#29

Post by thatcat »

nso wrote: post #9
sidewndr46 wrote: post #2

isn'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)

Lol. I soldered in an alligator clip jumper wire for my friend to temporarily bypass the failing ignition switch and he left it like that, says he likes the sparking.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#30

Post by HPsquared »

postmortembees wrote: post #20

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 s…

Security is always a trade-off. The most effective, and also most costly, way to avoid car theft is to not own a car at all (for example).
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