Great, so a Konami Code for cars. SMH.
A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
231–240 of 576 posts
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
Valets HATE this one weird trick
Huh, never considered valet parking to actually be a real thing. Isn't it annoying having to wait for someone to drive your car? I'd almost pay more not to have to do it.
Pal, I've seen wallet parking across several countries in the world. Latin American, Western, and Eastern Europe, I just got curious about where you live to never have seen it.
And to answer your question: No, valet parking is usually useful because the parking place is far from where you're going (usually a hotel or restaurant). Having the valet saves you the walk from the lot to the place where you're going. It is even more useful when it's raining and you're having a formal dinner.
The wait for getting the car back is also pretty short because someone radios a driver already in the parking lot to bring your car in most circumstances.
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#2331.2 million grant for this? Now I’ve seen grift, but come on. I want to hire their grant writer. Literally a relay in the starter lead. This looks like one of my afternoon projects, and I’m not even joking. I have a 1990s montero diesel and it leaks power, and I often forget to disconnect the terminal. So I bought a relay from AliExpress (same one shown in this photo but one size up) and hooked it up with an esp32 an…
Not sure about the details of this particular grant, but with federal grants usually you don't get a million dollar check to develop your idea. The money is divided in phases each requiring a set of milestones to be completed, reviewed and approved for you to have access to more resources. The total grant may be a million, but you may first get 100K and 6 months to show a working version then the next phase if approv…
Most federal grant I've worked with don't have internal milestones gating funding. That is taken care of by separate grants at each phase.
You might need to lay out your whole road map for the first grant, but but that entire grant only covers 6mo or whatever.
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#2341.2 million grant for this? Now I’ve seen grift, but come on. I want to hire their grant writer. Literally a relay in the starter lead. This looks like one of my afternoon projects, and I’m not even joking. I have a 1990s montero diesel and it leaks power, and I often forget to disconnect the terminal. So I bought a relay from AliExpress (same one shown in this photo but one size up) and hooked it up with an esp32 an…
Here is the link to the award (I think): https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2245223&His... Probably half the award is taken up by indirect costs at the university, leaving the remainder for a few PhD students to be funded, money for the devices, and any studies where they are probably paying participants to use the device. $1.2M doesn't go that far in terms of grants. As far as whether this is a good in…
Half is taken by the university? How does that work?
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
Valets HATE this one weird trick
Huh, never considered valet parking to actually be a real thing. Isn't it annoying having to wait for someone to drive your car? I'd almost pay more not to have to do it.
Sometimes it's a lazy rich person tax, but sometimes it's required because there's limited parking, and the valets can jam the cars in double-parked (or more), since they can shuffle them around as needed.
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#236What's the value of the underlying implementation here? Is it just the ability to retrofit?
From a user perspective, this is "you need to physically be in the car and scan your thumbprint or type on a keypad to start it"; it seems like there are lots of simpler ways that such functionality be built into a car by the manufacturer that are just as secure, it's just that there's no demand for it.
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Today, your house keys are basically useless for security" They are not useless. Only some people have the skills and tools to open them - so they are useful at keeping most people out, even though they don't provide perfect protection. Most thieves are not professionals, but for example junkies who look for something easy. A simple automatic light, is already doing wonders to keep them away.
Raking house locks is a) not difficult and b) not expensive. You don't need to be a professional to do that. But also, bricks through windows are equally not difficult and not expensive, though they do leave a bit more evidence. When my neighbors have been burgled, this is the preferred method of entry I've seen.
At least here in the Nordics no one uses easily pickable locks for house or apartment doors. Those kinds of locks are mostly found in cheap padlocks and maybe bike locks. Doors usually have Abloy locks or similar.
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a frustrating yet common sort of take. Yes, this is simple, as the article clearly points out. Yes it is obvious in retrospect. But did you do anything with your brilliant work besides bodge your terrible car a few more miles down the road? There is value to developing the entire system... to ensuring the keypad mechanism is reasonably robust and tamper proof. There is value to understanding the vehicle as a…
I work for a major OEM in automotive. Getting ANYTHING “simple” into real cars, especially anything related to physical access and starting the vehicle, is a huge undertaking. $1.2 mm is cheap for this sort of feature, assuming that money goes to the actual implementation, standardization, homologation, and integration on the assembly line.
Car OEM are far as example of efficient work…
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Valets HATE this one weird trick
Huh, never considered valet parking to actually be a real thing. Isn't it annoying having to wait for someone to drive your car? I'd almost pay more not to have to do it.
At my work at the time (pre-pandemic) we used to have an EV valet - attendant would take your car, park it and then move it to an EV spot when one opened up, then put it back into normal parking - you would get a text with the location on each move.
It was quite nice and let me focus on work instead of worrying about charging and only initial paperwork (we had QR stickers on the car and keychain QR).
That's about the only time I've used a valet regularly.
Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
Locks are often intentionally omitted from equipment in environments where high availability is prioritized. They are also often omitted in locations where physical security is provided at a broader level.
Sure, let's intentionally omit locks from equipment that is designed not to fall into enemy hands. Let's not have a kill switch, either. Sure, makes sense for an agency with more money to spend than every corporation in America!
If the enemy gets physical access to the vehicle that you're going to use to escape, you're already toasted.
And on the other hand, if you are ambushed, you don't want you and your unit to die because the soldier who had the keys just got fragged by the enemy and now you can't escape.