Police admit they're 'stumped' by mystery car thefts

Post by DigitalJack » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 6:21 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #34

corresation wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article makes it sound exactly like what it seems to be -- that the thieves are using an exploit that they don't know, and thus they want to know. One of the guys quoted makes a profession out of this and he doesn't know what they're doing. But apparently lots of people on HN do.

Nobody here has claimed to know exactly what exploit the thieves are using. But a lot of people are claiming (rightly) that general knowledge that these car systems have vulnerabilities is widespread. And that point is what seemed, to me, to be missing from TFA. If TFA had given some more context, and said "exploits which would allow this type of access were shown at a recent hacker conference, and some cars have kno…

Post by inafield » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 6:23 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #3

What's the big mystery here? There have been published articles on the ease of hacking car remotes (and even the onboard electronics) going back at least a couple of years. For example: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/01... http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/07/hacking_bmws_r... http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20085131-48/remote-unlo... http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2011/…

Post by jevinskie » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 6:29 PM UTC

DanBlake wrote: post #60

I never understood why keyfobs work in a UDP style, when communication between the remote and car would be infinitely better. For instance, instead of just sending "12345" and having the doors open since the code was expected, What about if the remote said "hey car, whats your random number" - the car then transmits back "54321" at which point the transmitter sends a hashed reply sha512(54321 + unique-random-id-set-p…

Post by PaulMcCartney » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 6:32 PM UTC

adammil wrote: post #35

michael_h wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume that they use the passenger side front door because that is where the storage compartment is located.

They use the passenger side door because its the one facing the sidewalk.

Post by adventured » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 6:33 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #7

mindcrime wrote: post #3

What's the big mystery here? There have been published articles on the ease of hacking car remotes (and even the onboard electronics) going back at least a couple of years. For example: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/01... http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/07/hacking_bmws_r... http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20085131-48/remote-unlo... http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2011/…

Oh, but according to SOMEONE (source for this claim is not given) "That code is encrypted and constantly changing — and should be hackproof." American media at it's best!