Stealing cars without keys, hacking it:

http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-42132804/relay-crime-theft-caught-on-camera

It seems a box that can pick up the key fob RF signal further than it usually can be heard, then transfer to another box which broadcasts to the car and they have complete control. Bye bye car.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-42132804/relay-crime-theft-caught-on-camera

It seems a box that can pick up the key fob RF signal further than it usually can be heard, then transfer to another box which broadcasts to the car and they have complete control. Bye bye car.

That is so much better than a gun in yer face from a hopped up car-jacker. Civilization!

Originally posted by @apathist
That is so much better than a gun in yer face from a hopped up car-jacker. Civilization!

But much less stressful...assuming you are not at the business end of the gun.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-42132804/relay-crime-theft-caught-on-camera

It seems a box that can pick up the key fob RF signal further than it usually can be heard, then transfer to another box which broadcasts to the car and they have complete control. Bye bye car.

Card readers (those key-pad things you type your PINs into at the grocery store or the gas station) can also be hacked by RF.

Originally posted by @moonbus
Card readers (those key-pad things you type your PINs into at the grocery store or the gas station) can also be hacked by RF.

Yeah but to get a car, maybe worth 20 thou, a bit different from losing a couple hundred in a card reader scam.

The point is: what is the price of comfort. I can still operate the lock of my car with the key and do so routinely. My wie however thinks it is great to operate the lock remote. Something I do not really understand.

As long as we transmit anything randomly it can be intercepted. So what we would need would be a shielded or encoded connection between key and car. Not really that expensive to implement, but who would pay any amount of money for that?

Originally posted by @ponderable
The point is: what is the price of comfort. I can still operate the lock of my car with the key and do so routinely. My wie however thinks it is great to operate the lock remote. Something I do not really understand.

As long as we transmit anything randomly it can be intercepted. So what we would need would be a shielded or encoded connection between ...[text shortened]... and car. Not really that expensive to implement, but who would pay any amount of money for that?

The weakness is the key fob constantly transmitting a signal. In this case the dude at the garage door was searching for that signal and it was recieved and copied and then transferred to the other device that imitated the signal of the key fob.

I think it would take a quantum cryptography device to protect in that instance and that would, I don't think, be capable of downsizing to a key fob. Not sure if that would even work in the first place. Maybe a system of co-ordinated key code updates second by second where if you did what they did, by the time the signal was duplicated and retransmitted it would be too late since only the key fob electronics and the internal electronics of the car would know the code of the second. That would take a precise timing pulse however, again, a miniatureization problem. Atomic clocks are now down to the size of a sugar cube but they would have to be ten times smaller than that to fit in a key fob and to use the small amount of energy given by those button batteries powering them.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
The weakness is the key fob constantly transmitting a signal. In this case the dude at the garage door was searching for that signal and it was recieved and copied and then transferred to the other device that imitated the signal of the key fob.

I think it would take a quantum cryptography device to protect in that instance and that would, I don't thin ...[text shortened]... n a key fob and to use the small amount of energy given by those button batteries powering them.

The easy way would be to synchronize and update signals frequently. Like in a Hardware toekn for safety. No Need for Quantum encryption.

Originally posted by @ponderable
The easy way would be to synchronize and update signals frequently. Like in a Hardware toekn for safety. No Need for Quantum encryption.

That was the gist of my second idea about this situation, changing codes. but they would have to change maybe once a second to be useful. I don't think the gang stealing that car could have done that in one second but that is a difficult engineering job for sure. One second off sync and you don't open your own frigging car door🙂

Maybe the code could be something like starting with digit 20 or Pi, then both car and fob programmed to update the next number which would be in a memory bank but that would mean you would have a one in ten chance of getting it right.

When I was working Apollo tracking and timing, it was kind of like that, there was a bank of digital codes, based on n^1 plus n^2 plus n^3 and so forth and that combination sent up to Apollo which had a transponder onboard that retransmitted the signal back to Earth from some ground station and it was a unique code so when the return pulses came back to Earth and put through an algorythm it would give the distance to Apollo within 50 feet.

So maybe there could be something like a huge memory bank of digits of Pi, say to the first 35 million digits, I think Pi is now known a LOT deeper than that.

So start at digit X, whatever, 20, 40 and start upping the number but keeping the first set of numbers in memory once per second would allow a year long advance of digits where each step would have one more number in it but referencing all the previous digits so there would be one long set of digits that would have to match besides the latest update of one digit at a time. There would be just about zero chance then for hackers to figure out exactly where you are in the sequence, at least in a reasonable amount of time.

If computer tech was able to actually figure it out but it takes 2 hours, they would just try something easier.

I don't know if there IS a program that could input a few digits of pi and figure out just which digit number a random selection of actual Pi digits a string represents, especially when you could have millions of digits in memory, not a huge feat in terms of present memory capability.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
Yeah but to get a car, maybe worth 20 thou, a bit different from losing a couple hundred in a card reader scam.

A few hundred at the chop shop, if they don't just take it from you.

Originally posted by @apathist
A few hundred at the chop shop, if they don't just take it from you.

You know from personal experience? Or are you on the take too?🙂