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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

#341

Post by boobsbr »

janalsncm wrote: post #309
alphazard wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "waste" in the startup industry has corrective mechanisms built in. Investors can pull their money out and take their business elsewhere. Taxpayers cannot pull their money out of the NSF and reallocate it to a different government agency.

Sure. In theory, investors can behave as rational actors. In practice, you get all sorts of chasing the Next Big Thing because there’s too much money flowing around to too little fundamental research. So I’m ok if we spend $1.2M on research. That’s like 5 developers for one year who would otherwise be allocated by the invisible hand into effectively useless endeavors like high frequency trading or ad tech. Cut to the…

> So I’m ok if we spend $1.2M on research.

I'm not. Where do I opt out of funding government grants?

At least I can decide not invest in something if I don't want to risk losing money.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#342

Post by andirk »

janalsncm wrote: post #285
vkou wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there actually a significant rise in car thefts? Or did we just hit an acute rise in car thefts of two particular models, caused by the discovery (Well, publication, really) that they are still using 30-year-old security?

Good question, it seems like car theft is on the rise, yes. And it’s spiking in particular metro areas (Milwaukee, Chicago) more than average, although national trends are also up. https://counciloncj.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/CCJ%E2%80...

In California, if youre car is stolen and then found, the cops will give you a fat ticket and tow your car and then give you a ticket for it getting towed. Somehow getting the car towed is also a ticket.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#343

Post by samtho »

This will always be a cat and mouse game: as cars become more complicated and have more security features, there are just more points of failure. A toolmaker for thieves or locksmiths will get a new car and automate the exploitation of a vulnerability. Some new lamps are fully computer controlled with pins for 12v, GND, CAN-H, and CAN-L instead of just a switched leg and a common. If I can get access to the inside of the housing, it’s game over anyway.

A sufficiently motivated actor will steal your car if then want to. The immobilizer is kind of a joke when you can, with an Arduino and access to the CAN bus, just dump the memory of your immo controller or instrument cluster and find your pin, then use that to pair a new key you had cut to a vin.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#344

Post by Tempest1981 »

pmontra wrote: post #316
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…

My father disconnected the distributor (correct word?) and took a piece of it with him. Definitely a killswitch. That was in the 70s. Cars got more complicated around 1980.

Yep, removing the rotor from under the distributor cap (correct), which disabled the ignition system.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#345

Post by sleepybrett »

oxfordmale wrote: post #299
gruez wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about a classical mechanical key? can be picked >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. Cryptographical signing won't help. AFAIK the attack you describe only applies to keyless entry systems (ie. you can open and start a car without having to pull your key out), which is related but not the same as an im…

Picking a laser cut key isn't trivial. Even picking a standard house lock isn't trivial, especially not in the dark. They don't clone the key, they use an antenna to amplify the signal from your key fob and then drive off. In principle you can do this by following someone, but much safer to do this at 2am at night. Similar to a one time password, the signal is only valid for a short period of time.

Darkness doesn't have anything to do with anything. Once you get the tensioner and pick into the keyway you aren't using your eyes anymore, at that point it's all feel.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#346

Post by lasfter »

neuronerdgirl wrote: post #305
xwdv wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems extravagant. By my calculations it should fund approximately 6 or so years.

Cover the two PhD students at the NIH payscales for PhD students on a standard training grant[1] ($43,894 not including benefits) and you've used up over a quarter of your budget on less than half the salary needs, completely ignoring any research costs that need to be covered on top of the much higher payscales of the professors. Plus a large number of PhD students in this kind of work make more than the states stip…

Where are you seeing $44k? The link you gave shows payscales for postdocs, and points to another page [1] showing that predoctoral trainees get $27k.

Also, in my field and in my region, $27k is massive funding. I don't know anybody who makes that much, let alone $44k, and we also don't get tuition or benefits covered. Our TA/RA union is currently striking because it's essentially impossible to live off of funding alone.

[1] https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-23-0...

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#347

Post by boobsbr »

devsda wrote: post #135
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.

This approach is not mischief proof and will become an easy way to get back at the owners and/or your neighbors. All a thief has to do is trigger enough false alarms (directly or indirectly) to annoy you and the neighborhood that you either disable it or learn to ignore it as false alarm.

I think it was sarcasm.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#348

Post by constantly »

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.

Very common. My work in the big city used to require us to use it when driving to take advantage of commuter parking benefit for the other reasons mentioned. Also use it at shopping malls where the valet price is the same or substantially similar to regular parking.

Surprisingly many of them use a text system so you text them to the number they confirmed with like 10 minutes before you need your car and they have it waiting — very convenient.

Also use it at big events like operas or plays or whatever where parking is awful but valet, despite being a little expensive, puts you right up at the front door when walking in and then they get it when you leave.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#349

Post by boobsbr »

shadowtree wrote: post #313

Way better would be a system of sliding metal panels to cover the windows when parked. Most break ins here in SF just smash and grab your shit. Give me a way to protect the inside of the car. Plus the fact that neither SFPD nor Oakland deploy decoy cars to actually go after the thieves - what a total failure of basic policing this area is. Can I get a 10mil grant to propose that!?

You want the Tom Jane Punisher's car?

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#350

Post by mywittyname »

vkou wrote: post #226
rhaway84773 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And despite being around for 30+ years it’s not broadly adopted despite a significant rise in car thefts.

Is there actually a significant rise in car thefts? Or did we just hit an acute rise in car thefts of two particular models, caused by the discovery (Well, publication, really) that they are still using 30-year-old security?

A salient issue has been that Hyundai/KIA didn't implement any anti-theft mechanisms on certain models, and recently the details about how to steal these cars has become popular knowledge, and now people who own the affected models can't even get insurance on them.

There's been some other exploits to infotainment systems, but AFAIK, they are all limited to proof of concepts. And the radio-repeater that almost works occasionally on some cars with wireless key access (better implementations have proximity detection which prevents this attack vector).

As it turns out, immobilizers are pretty damn effective.

If I owned an effected Hyundai/KIA, I'd do like we all did with 90s cars and put a killswitch in. It's not professional car thieves hitting the bulk of these cars, but mostly bored people showing of. So if YT can't show them what to do if the car won't start, they will go away.

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