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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

#321

Post by borski »

brk wrote: post #212
memetomancer wrote: post #143

Earlier 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…

It is obvious in retrospect because this concept has been around for 30 years. A common killswitch mechanism that I remember being implemented in the early 90's was a system that tied into accessory devices. On my friends car you had to put the key to ACC, then turn the cruise control on and off, and then engage and disengage the parking brake before the car would start. No other obvious lights, buttons, switches, et…

Dropbox wasn’t a new idea either. rsync had existed for many years.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#322

Post by sbohacek »

StevenXC wrote: post #107
K0balt wrote: post #84

1.2 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…

Speaking as someone who's reviewed for NSF before, I'd have expected this grant to also include resources to get the product to market, which I'm assuming you haven't done.

I don't think so. NSF Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) and NSF Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants include getting products to market. But this is a regular research grant from NSF Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC)[1].

The SaTC does have a Transition to Practice (TTP) option. However, this research is CORE (see the text "CORE" in the project title [2]). The objective is to write research papers.

[1] https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2022/nsf22517/nsf22517.htm [2] https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2245223&His...

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#323

Post by beerandt »

K0balt wrote: post #84

1.2 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…

Agreed. This is just fancy marketing for what is is essentially a battery with an obscure and overly convoluted password scheme to output >x amps.

Also:

Plugging in a battery booster down stream of the device's imposed amp bottleneck seems like a stupid simple circumvention.

Maybe it isolates the starter circuit, but that starts diminishing it's selling point of being simple and universal, if you need to start dealing with differences in wiring.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#324

Post by sclarisse »

justinclift wrote: post #276
ModernMech wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space is limited and coveted. What better way would you propose to allocate it than to give it to who can bring in the money to pay for it? That money goes to building new spaces, which is good for everyone.

Sure. Because Universities are all about "bringing in the money" rather than education, research, and similar yeah?

Yeah :(

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#325

Post by ecf »

I’ll let you in on a secret that would deter care thieves.

Adequately punish the ones police happen to catch.

It’ll create a reinforcing cycle. Police are more interested in pursuing these cases because it’s worth it for their time, and thieves will be dissuaded from car theft because there might actually be consequences if caught compared to the current slap on the wrist.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#326

Post by rocqua »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #302
oxfordmale wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about a classical mechanical key? I am referring to a laser cut key, the type that can't be easily lock picked, other than in Hollywood movies. The problem is relay theft, where thief's relay the signal of your fob key inside the house to the car via a simple antenna and amplifier system. Cryptographically signing won't help. However, this can be fixed by adding a motion sensor that makes key fobs go into a slee…

Doesn't the system already check the latency from key fob to car antenna? Better yet, you could use two antennas in the car, and triangulate the key fob.

The latency check is usually not sensitive enough to prevent a car being stolen from the drive-way from a relayed key that lies near the front door.

For reference 20 meters is about 66 nano-seconds.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#327

Post by Eisenstein »

tetraca wrote: post #163
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.

That's easy. Put it on treads, and add a tree cutter/stripper, and a hopper, so that it can pick up all the fuel it needs to wood-fire the pizza off the side of the road before it goes to the next destination.

Vertical integration. Great idea. It could also have a grain mill so it can stop by some wheat fields and make its own flour.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#328

Post by unsui »

K0balt wrote: post #84

1.2 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…

> I guess I should have applied for a grant.

But you didn't.

Echoing the sentiment from many of the replies, it's easy to arm-chair quarterback and criticize others' work (and moreover, the existence of the work itself) as intuitively obvious, and therefore lacking value.

Besides the fact that it has value to someone (therefore the grant award), the devil's in the details, and a grant like this isn't just for the idea, but also for development and productionizing.

But, going back to your point... if you think you can do better, than by all means do so. Seems like sour grapes that someone else is capitalizing on something that is intuitively obvious to you.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#329

Post by brk »

borski wrote: post #321
brk wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is obvious in retrospect because this concept has been around for 30 years. A common killswitch mechanism that I remember being implemented in the early 90's was a system that tied into accessory devices. On my friends car you had to put the key to ACC, then turn the cruise control on and off, and then engage and disengage the parking brake before the car would start. No other obvious lights, buttons, switches, et…

Dropbox wasn’t a new idea either. rsync had existed for many years.

But Dropbox made rsync more user friendly and available to people who weren't techies.

The concept of a starter interrupter has been around almost as long as the automobile itself. Ways to engage and disengage that interrupter have evolved and advanced over the years. Older folks will remember cars with a keyswitch on the front fender, and then a keypad inside, and then hidden switches like I described in my OP, and then IR and RF remotes, and so forth.

The basic concept in the linked article is not very novel, IMO. The specific implementation is cute, and somewhat current in the sense of evolution of these systems. But the whole thing is as noteworthy as the next arm64 advancement.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#330

Post by boringg »

autoexec wrote: post #176
boringg wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes great idea Captain! Let's solve all of societal issues before bothering to do any protection for your own personal assets. You've figured it out. And you know property crime is only a recent phenom of the last couple years. Never existed before the 1980s or you know tomb robbers etc.

I promise that you'll never once deal with the stress of knowing that someone has raided your tomb.

A promise you can't keep!
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