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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

#91

Post by gorkish »

Waterluvian wrote: post #14

I knew someone with a shitty pickup truck where he wired a light switch into the fuel pump and hid it under the steering column. The truck would be stolen something like 5 times a year and every time he would find it abandoned a km or so away when the gas in the line ran out. I drove in it once to get lunch and near the beginning the car begins sputtering and he's like, "oh right, you're thirsty" and reached under an…

Our local police department had a guy get his squad car stolen TWICE during traffic stops, and they installed an ignition interlock switch on their entire flee to prevent it happening again. Also they relegated the guy to motorcycle duty after that.

Another story is once my friend called me for help because his car would't start. I looked it over; tested his battery etc, but it wouldn't turn over. I asked him if he had an interlock of any sort and he said no. I didnt do any more investigating since the car was still new, so I showed him how to push start it and drove it over to the dealer. Come Monday morning the dealer called him to ask where he had put the interlock loop that he had pulled out from under the dash. "Oh that thing? Yeah I thought that was weird." SMH

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#92

Post by matsemann »

constantly wrote: post #7
sidewndr46 wrote: post #2

isn't this just an absurdly complex re-imagining of the on/off switch? I've spoken to numerous people who either had their vehicle stolen or it was broken into. The ignition cylinder was damaged in the process. Rather than spend money replacing it they just wired in an on/off switch in a random place on the dash. The car got broken into again but was never stolen.

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.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#93

Post by AnotherGoodName »

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…

https://xkcd.com/664/

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#94

Post by breischl »

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.

I've come pretty close to keying "FIX YOUR ALARM" into people's doors for this. In the end left them notes about it, which did result in it getting fixed, so I haven't had to actually do it. Someday, though.

I still think car alarms are a net negative to society. Thousands of hours of disrupted sleep and it prevents approximately no thefts.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#95

Post by dharmab »

hutzlibu wrote: post #53
postmortembees wrote: post #20

This is a very engineering solution to a very not-engineering problem. Would this deter thieves? Possibly! Would thieves eventually be able to work around it? Also probably! Would it increase the friction of getting in and driving? Definitely! Today, your house keys are basically useless for security -- getting into your house is trivially easy both destructively and not. But we all use house keys because they feel s…

"Today, your house keys are basically useless for security" They are not useless. Only some people have the skills and tools to open them - so they are useful at keeping most people out, even though they don't provide perfect protection. Most thieves are not professionals, but for example junkies who look for something easy. A simple automatic light, is already doing wonders to keep them away.

A friend of mine was bored and bought a Lishi tool online recently. Within 10 minutes and with no previous lock picking experience he was able to silently pick his house's deadbolt.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#96

Post by titanomachy »

Waterluvian wrote: post #14

I knew someone with a shitty pickup truck where he wired a light switch into the fuel pump and hid it under the steering column. The truck would be stolen something like 5 times a year and every time he would find it abandoned a km or so away when the gas in the line ran out. I drove in it once to get lunch and near the beginning the car begins sputtering and he's like, "oh right, you're thirsty" and reached under an…

> The truck would be stolen something like 5 times a year

Damn, I thought I lived in a bad part of town.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#97

Post by goodpoint »

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…

Just like the one from TFA, mass production devices are easily defeated because they are all the same.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#98

Post by buro9 »

The problem with this defense is that it is invisible... the thief will only know about it after they've caused external damage trying to get access to the system.

I just use a steering wheel lock, one of those bright yellow chunks of steel that bolts onto the steering wheel: https://www.milenco.com/products/automotive-security/automot...

This is visible to the theif and just raised the theft effort from "jump these cables just behind the headlight" to "jump these cables behind the headlight and then use a loud angle grinder in a very enclosed space". I'm in a residential area, this is a strong deterrent and avoids the initial damage being done to the car.

PS: Some sports cars kill their CAN when the car is turned off... but we do insist on keyless entry and this is what we get for it.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#99

Post by SoftTalker »

ilyt wrote: post #71
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.

We had that in the 90's and 00's, cars still got stolen

I lived in Chicago at that time, you heard those car alarms constantly and they were just ignored. I still remember the sequence of beeps, whoops, and buzzers of the popular alarms.

For the device in TFA, I don't see what prevents a thief from just bypassing the thing with a jumper from the battery + terminal.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#100

Post by TeMPOraL »

ilyt wrote: post #71
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.

We had that in the 90's and 00's, cars still got stolen

I guess it wasn't only me who mentally associated that sound with "uh oh someone's car was hit by a small branch carried by the wind" and/or "a cat walked over the car".
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