Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

news.umich.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 576 posts

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#411

Post by foooorsyth »

_ea1k wrote: post #367
foooorsyth wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> $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. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it sounded like the $1.2mm went to some prototypes and a research paper.

Well if that’s the case then it is indeed a rip off for the taxpayer.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#412

Post by Minor49er »

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...

Shinzo Abe might disagree with this

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#413

Post by pavon »

memetomancer wrote: post #143
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…

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…

There is zero novel research here, and the entire purpose of the 1.2 million dollar grant was research. All the value you are mentioning is related to bringing a product to market, which is something that the grant did not require and universities don't usually follow through. Most of the time transition to industry happens is when there are motivated companies who do all the work to bring the device to market, but need university patent licenses and expertise to do so. This would be a great senior project, but it is a complete waste of money for a cyber security grant.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#414

Post by dghlsakjg »

foooorsyth wrote: post #227
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…

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.

They already spent $1.2mm. They have a prototype hand wired together. This isn’t even close to production ready, and it never will go into production because almost every new vehicle has an immobilizer built in that is authenticated via an nfc chip in the key that does exactly what this does, but transparently without driver input.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#416

Post by xwdv »

neuronerdgirl wrote: post #393
lasfter wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 alo…

I'll give you that I misread bullet 2, so the total is a little over 31k. But grants that fund salaries for predoctoral scholars don't just fund the salary itself, they also cover the additional funds listed on that page. You can't partially fund a trainee on a grant. In any case, this wildly misses the forest for the trees - 1.2 mil in grants does not cover 6 years of salary plus research costs for 2 trainees and 2…

But it’s not 4 years either.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#418

Post by akira2501 »

bscphil wrote: post #409
jtriangle wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And the overwhelming majority of people, including thieves, don't do this, because the raised barrier to entry makes gun crimes vastly less attractive. Combine that with a broad social safety net that reduces poverty, and you miraculously get homicide rates dropping through the floor: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_countries_by_...

> because the raised barrier to entry makes gun crimes vastly less attractive.

Is that assertion based on study or "common sense?" It may well be that they don't feel the need to bring a gun because they know their victims are definitely not going to be armed anyways.

The real question would, do the criminals not use a weapon at all, or do they use weapons that just don't happen to be guns?

> broad social safety net that reduces poverty

People aren't being shot in the US because of poverty. The _majority_ of "gun violence" in the US is actually suicides. It's nearly 2/3 of that terrible statistical category. The remainder of murders typically involve alcohol and arguments.

The majority of murder victims in the US know their murderer by name and have been acquainted with them for years. Means. Motive. Opportunity. These things don't change.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#419

Post by kube-system »

EGreg wrote: post #403
seabird wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you put the locks on, they would never be used. If you need it you need it right now, and it's usually life or death. If somebody is trying to steal it, you shoot them. The last thing you want to be doing in a gunfight is fucking with a lock.

This is a strawman All you have to do is have every soldier who is authorized to use your equipment unlock the vehicle through an affirmative phrase — and the vehicle can check their voice for instance, or other biometrics like their fingerprint. Or each of them can wear a beacon or smartphone which does that. Cars today open with you just getting into the car. This is easy stuff man

Solders in warzones frequently wear gloves, encounter debris, shoot guns, or are exposed to extremely noisy conditions, which would result in an inadequate signal-to-noise ratio for reliably and quickly sensing fingerprints and/or voices. They also tend to avoid unnecessarily emitting RF which would give away their position to enemy forces who have advanced signals intelligence gathering.

Yes, it would be possible to do what you are saying. However, militaries find this undesirable because they find the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#420

Post by sleepybrett »

rkagerer wrote: post #209
postmortembees wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's funny, I have the opposite problem. I have a particular door lock for which three different locksmiths have all failed to cut usable keys. The originals work fine, but the copies don't. The last set barely works, if you wiggle it around a lot and ram to get it in, but then it gets stuck in there and is nearly impossible to remove. They've tried various blanks, and I've never gotten a satisfactory explanation fro…

want to post a picture anonymously? it may be that the biting is difficult. It may also be that one or more of the locks pins is sightly out of spec.
Post reply on HN