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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

#431

Post by pdonis »

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...

> By making it hard to obtain weapons.

If the legal rule is "you can't shoot anybody", which is what the post I responded to said, wouldn't that make it impossible to legally obtain weapons? Why just "hard"?

If, OTOH, you mean make it hard to illegally obtain weapons, where has this actually been done successfully? My reading of human history is that criminals who want weapons have always been able to get them somehow.

> The US thinking to me seams to go along the lines of handing out nuclear weapons to everybody so forces are balanced...

I don't know where you are getting that from. The US thinking is very simple: since it is impossible for governments to prevent all violent crimes or to ensure that police show up in time to protect citizens from being harmed by violent crime, citizens must be allowed to have the means of self defense. The best way to minimize the number of citizens that feel the need to have weapons for self-defense is to extirpate crime--but unfortunately the US in recent decades has been moving in the opposite direction.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#432

Post by hutzlibu »

brewdad wrote: post #182
hutzlibu wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But also, bricks through windows are equally not difficult and not expensive, though they do leave a bit more evidence" But that would be loud. You don't want attention when breaking in. (Unless you are a fucked up junkie not caring about anything anymore) But yes, my parents for example are paranoid about always locking the front door 2 times(and get angry if I don't do it when I visit), but have a glass door in th…

> But that would be loud. You don't want attention when breaking in. (Unless you are a fucked up junkie not caring about anything anymore) Pre-Covid, it didn't matter if you were loud. You and your neighbors were all off at work all day. So long as a thief felt confident there was no alarm to trigger, they could make all the racket they wanted and no one would hear. Today, it's a little more risky but of the half doz…

But a thief does not know, if no one is there in the neighborhood, unless he is indeed professional and scouts the area in advance. Also in my area, there are plenty of old people always watching and listening ..

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#433

Post by sitzkrieg »

passer_byer wrote: post #378
pmontra wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My hack was to purchase a 2017 vehicle with a 5 speed manual transmission. I reckon 95% of would be thieves can’t easily drive it away!

my trick too, esp in some areas. getting harder and harder to find outside of sports cars :-(

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#434

Post by hdctambien »

dcow wrote: post #387
rocqua wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern versions of these keys cannot be cloned, they are challenge response. So you need to relay the challenge from the key, and then relay the response from the key back to the car. This is often used by thiefs who bring the relay close to the front door, hoping for the keys to be in a bowl or a hook near the door. Then they can open and start the car using the relay. The car then won't turn off when it loses c…

> (because that is dangerous) I've always wondered why the car doesn't warn the driver that there's 100 yards left before it will cut the engine (or limit it to idle), keep the power steering, turn on the hazards, and warn the driver that the vehicle won't continue to function because the key is not in range. Doesn't seem dangerous at all...

I dropped my wife off downtown in her car and she had the key in her purse. The car did make a weird beeping noise as I drove away, but I had no idea what it meant and I was pulling onto the highway which would have been a bad time for the car to stop driving on me.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#435

Post by wizofaus »

talldatethrow wrote: post #217
master-lincoln wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WTF? Do you mean that you can't shoot someone without legal consequence in some US jurisdiction if you have an open door? You can still shoot them... >You can shoot someone that rams your door to open it. So somebody destroys a door and that entitles you to take their life? I think in both situations you should just refrain from shooting at all. Seems to work in most of the rest of the world..

No, you can't legally shoot someone that walks in through an open door. You can ask them to leave, but youre going to have big problems if you shoot them and all they did up to that point was not leave instantly when asked, if they walked through an open door. If the door is locked, and they break in, you are not shooting them because they broke a lock. You are shooting them because theyve shown criminal intent by fo…

I'm curious in how many jurisdictions simply "showing criminal intent" is sufficient to mean they're legally a target to be shot at, potentially fatally. I'd be pretty horrified to know I was living in such a jurisdiction. Whereas somebody walking through my open door while clearly posing a threat to my life, or the life of family members (e.g. holding a weapon) I would have no hypothetical qualms over aiming a gun at, and should they continue to approach, firing. Mind you if that did result in their death I'd still expect to be required to provide evidence that it was a reasonable course of self-defence given the circumstances. Are you saying that isn't the case wherever you live?

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#436

Post by empiricus »

hutzlibu wrote: post #267
velosol wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're interested they're also available on Amazon.de https://www.amazon.de/LockCowboy-Transparent-Practice-Beginn...

I wasn't planning to, but why not pick up a new hobby ;) (It is indeed cheap)

I got one lockpick kit as a gift, and found out I can open the door of my apartment in 20 sec with it as a complete beginner. The fun part was that it was not possible to open it from the inside. That was how I learned that the lock was mounted with the inside part on the outside (it was a rented apartment).

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#437

Post by mcpackieh »

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

Voice recognition under combat stress? That shit barely works under optimal conditions.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#438

Post by genocidicbunny »

dcow wrote: post #387
rocqua wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern versions of these keys cannot be cloned, they are challenge response. So you need to relay the challenge from the key, and then relay the response from the key back to the car. This is often used by thiefs who bring the relay close to the front door, hoping for the keys to be in a bowl or a hook near the door. Then they can open and start the car using the relay. The car then won't turn off when it loses c…

> (because that is dangerous) I've always wondered why the car doesn't warn the driver that there's 100 yards left before it will cut the engine (or limit it to idle), keep the power steering, turn on the hazards, and warn the driver that the vehicle won't continue to function because the key is not in range. Doesn't seem dangerous at all...

That's still dangerous, and it doesn't matter how far out you warn the driver. The moment the car cuts to idle, the driver will lose some control. Imagine this happens while you're in less-than-ideal road conditions and you need to be able to accelerate. And there are a lot of reasons that the key might lose connection to the car other than the 'not present inside the car' case, like for example, the keyfobs battery running out, or the driver dropping their keys into some kind of shielded bag (my car for example has problems sensing the key when it's in an insulated shopping bag that I have).

I think at most you could do something like have the car go into 'limp home' mode if it senses the key was never present in the car for some amount of time after the car is started.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#439

Post by alistairSH »

EGreg wrote: post #101
gruez wrote: post #16

>At the end of the three-year project, the team aims to have a commercially viable prototype that can be scaled up to commercial production, first as a theft deterrent device, and potentially later as a complete vehicle entry and control system that could replace traditional keys and fobs. What's the point of this? Modern cars already have engines that are cryptographically tied to keys[1]. They're not perfect, but i…

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…

But the Pentagon couldn’t put biometric locks on their humvees?

The tanks that were stolen belonged to the Iraqi armed forces, not the US Army.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#440

Post by alistairSH »

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

every soldier who is authorized to use your equipment

You do realize that in a war zone, that list of authorized users can change rapidly (as people are injured, die, or rotated out of combat)?

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