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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

#241

Post by toast0 »

breischl wrote: post #94
unsupp0rted wrote: post #56

Couldn't they just make the car blare non-stop alternating sirens for 10 minutes at a time, 4 times an hour for 12 hours, loud enough to get through drywall and double-paned windows, at the slightest perturbation? Although I don't own a car, I'm happy when I hear throughout the day and night that my neighbor's cars are well protected.

I've come pretty close to keying "FIX YOUR ALARM" into people's doors for this. In the end left them notes about it, which did result in it getting fixed, so I haven't had to actually do it. Someday, though. I still think car alarms are a net negative to society. Thousands of hours of disrupted sleep and it prevents approximately no thefts.

Not to mention all of the mockingbirds that have learned the song of the car alarm. It's the most complex birdsong out there, so many mockingbirds picked it up while it was regularly sung, and now it's passed down from each generation to the next.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#242

Post by intrasight »

samstave wrote: post #193
chriskanan wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Curious, what % of costs of a grant are usually consumed by the UNi - are these to pay for equipment, power, lab time, etc? Or are they slurping funds for other aspects of the uni's operations?

Universities typically take 50%

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#243

Post by sidewndr46 »

matsemann wrote: post #92
constantly wrote: post #7

Earlier 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.

Most places that I have used a valet they had a number you could dial and they'd bring your car up for you then callback when it was ready.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#244

Post by kodt »

tonymet wrote: post #184

this is a case where they should have run the idea by an ex car thief. How is this any better than a hidden killswitch under the glove box or behind the gas pedal? Once the attacker knows they can just short the circuit.

Also this does nothing to hinder armed carjacking where the car is already running. These are way up since 2020.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#245

Post by jtriangle »

master-lincoln wrote: post #174
pdonis wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you get criminals to obey this nice rule?

By making it hard to obtain weapons. The US thinking to me seams to go along the lines of handing out nuclear weapons to everybody so forces are balanced...

For 500 bucks worth of crypto anyone in the world can get a reasonably competent full auto AK with a box of milsurp ammo.

If that's your definition of "hard", I'd say you're setting that bar far too low.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#246

Post by elzbardico »

velosol wrote: post #167
EGreg wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let me get this straight Modern cars have engines that are cryptographically ties to keys But the Pentagon couldn’t put biometric locks on their humvees? https://www.ibtimes.co.in/isis-takes-dozens-captured-us-humv... They can’t account for trillions of dollars… but we vote them more money they didn’t even ask for https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/us/politics/trump-budget.... ”Mr. Trump’s budget, the largest in f…

What a nightmare that would be: wearing gloves, fast entry and exit, injury/swapping drivers, sand. Also those were Humvees taken from Iraqi personnel.

Or: "Our unit was ambushed while setting up camp. We could all have escaped alive in our truck, if not for the fact that the first of us killed by the enemy was Private Jeane, and she was the one with the keys."

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#247

Post by Kerrick »

My grandfather invented, marketed, and maybe patented a device on this premise before he died decades ago. I still have one in its retail packaging in my curio cabinet.

IIRC the first iteration he made used a keypad to enter the code, and the second used the blinkers.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010206124335/http://www.kapinn...

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#248

Post by Brusco_RF »

henryfjordan wrote: post #157
Eisenstein wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they'd save a not-insignificant amount of gas I wonder the efficiencies of cooking in a vehicle as opposed to a fixed pizza oven.

It all comes down to insulation I'd assume

It will necessarily be worse than the fixed oven.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#249

Post by gonzo »

sushid wrote: post #234
chriskanan wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Happens all the time, nearly everywhere.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#250

Post by justinclift »

sushid wrote: post #234
chriskanan wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Renting the space to the departments and other similar things probably.

I wish I was joking, but a friend who works at a Uni was recently complaining of their budget being affected by (mandatory) things like that.

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