Topic: The correct way to lock your car

[Railton]

I read this story from a Triathlon forum I belong to. Don;t know if it is true or not. Urban legend?
I personally always lock the car doors by pressing the lock on the door before closing. How about you?
Railton
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I locked my car.  As I walked away I heard my car door unlock.  I went back and locked my car again three times. Each time, as soon as I started to walk away, I would hear it unlock again!!  Naturally alarmed, I looked around and there were two guys sitting in a car in the fire lane next to the store. They were obviously watching me intently, and there was no doubt they were somehow involved in this very weird situation.  I quickly chucked the errand I was on, jumped in my car and sped away.  I went straight t o the police station, told them what had happened, and found out I was part of a new, and very successful, scheme being used to gain entry into cars.  Two weeks later, my friend's son had a similar happening....

While traveling, my friend's son stopped at a roadside rest to use the bathroom.  When he came out to his car less than 4-5 minutes later, someone had gotten into his car and stolen his cell phone, laptop computer, GPS navigator, briefcase.....you name it.  He called the police and since there were no signs of his car being broken into, the police told him he had been a victim of the latest robbery tactic -- there is a device that robbers are using now to clone your security code when you lock your doors on your car using your key-chain locking device..



They sit a distance away and watch for their next victim. They know you are going inside of the store, restaurant, or bathroom and that they now have a few minutes to steal and run. The police officer said to manually lock your car door-by hitting the lock button inside the car -- that way if there is someone sitting in a parking lot watching for their next victim, it will not be you.



When you hit the lock button on your car upon exiting, it does not send the security code, but if you walk away and use the door lock on your key chain, it sends the code through the airwaves where it can be instantly stolen. 

[inco]

I too have heard about this.  However being the trusting person that I am I don't follow that advice and zap the remote. Maybe time to reconsider.

[dash]

I nearly always lock my car manually, I too have heard of this threat, and is not urban legend. In some respects, it is so disappointing that any advances in security systems are quickly overcome by criminals.

[tpl]

Ideally the protocol used for the lock/unlock transmission would be more complex.  For example, the message key to car would contain  a code to tell the car how to decode the next valid message. A repeat of the same message just would not work.   I was never into nor studied this stuff when I was working but I believe that robust techniques like this exist. Maybe the same stuff used for "chip and pin" in credit cards?

[EV Dan]

That reminded me of a rental Taurus where locking a driver door would lock just that, but locking the passenger side would lock all doors together 

Thank for the advise Railton, from now on I'm locking it "properly", as I heard of such thing before, just didn't pay attention.

[mrthompson]

This reminds me of the "unlocking your car with your cell phone" thing.

[Great_Big_Abyss]

My truck doesn't have power locks...much less remote entry. 

Good luck trying to scan my signal, hehe.

[Gardiner Westbound]

This might be an urban legend.

Modern key-less car entry systems utilize a 40-bit rolling code. The key fob sends a radio signal to the car's lock that includes a 40-bit code at the beginning of the signal. The car's lock is tuned to respond to this unique code and only this code. When it receives the code it locks or unlocks the car and performs the other actions it is programmed to do, flashes the lights, beeps the horn, etc.

When the signal is finished transmitting a random code generator in the locking device automatically changes the necessary code to a completely different code. The remote device is equipped with a code generator that is precisely synchronized to come up with the same code as the lock's generator so that when the next signal is sent the lock will again respond to it. This cycle can repeat millions of times without generating a previously used code. It's why one remote locking device can be set to work with one car and no other.…

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/remote-entry2.htm

[No H2O]

Rolling codes or not, besides the OEM Immobilizer, I devised my own set of cut-offs on top of it.

[Mike]

This might be an urban legend.

Modern key-less car entry systems utilize a 40-bit rolling code. The key fob sends a radio signal to the car's lock that includes a 40-bit code at the beginning of the signal. The car's lock is tuned to respond to this unique code and only this code. When it receives the code it locks or unlocks the car and performs the other actions it is programmed to do, flashes the lights, beeps the horn, etc.

When the signal is finished transmitting a random code generator in the locking device automatically changes the necessary code to a completely different code. The remote device is equipped with a code generator that is precisely synchronized to come up with the same code as the lock's generator so that when the next signal is sent the lock will again respond to it. This cycle can repeat millions of times without generating a previously used code. It's why one remote locking device can be set to work with one car and no other.…

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/remote-entry2.htm

Yeah, all cars today have rolling codes so what this story describes does not happen.  This is why whne you hit the unlock button at Walmart for your Civic, you do not accidentally unlock one of the other 3 million Civics near by.

Better description here:

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/remote-entry2.htm

[dr_spock]

Here's a weird thing, I have two remotes.  One time I was using one remote exclusively, after a while my car wouldn't recognize the second remote.  I had to reprogram my car for it and it worked again.  Now I test the second remote from time to time.

Any way, Mr. Hammer should make short work of any codes. 

[Mike]

Here's a weird thing, I have two remotes.  One time I was using one remote exclusively, after a while my car wouldn't recognize the second remote.  I had to reprogram my car for it and it worked again.  Now I test the second remote from time to time.

Any way, Mr. Hammer should make short work of any codes. 

 

[dr_spock]

Not that Hammer, this hammer.




1. Hit window.
2. Grab goodies
3. Run

One of my friends' cars were broken into twice by the above technique in his own drive way.  First was his car.  Then the rental car while his car was in for repairs.

[rrocket]

Hammer?  All you need is a spark plug.  Fits in your pocket.  Tosses through window...

[safristi]

Hammer?  All you need is a spark plug.  Fits in your pocket.  Tosses through window...

........................Sparky lay off the funny cigars...

[rrocket]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCu278LMtJ0

[mmret]

Ideally the protocol used for the lock/unlock transmission would be more complex.  For example, the message key to car would contain  a code to tell the car how to decode the next valid message. A repeat of the same message just would not work.   I was never into nor studied this stuff when I was working but I believe that robust techniques like this exist. Maybe the same stuff used for "chip and pin" in credit cards?

I wonder what they do in the event of a desync.

Example if i hit the lock button 3 miles away there's no chance the car receives it. So maybe the fob rolls to the next code but the car does not.

So either there is two-way communication (send code and ack to roll) or every time you send a code the car will roll several hundred codes just in case your keyfob skipped over a few while you pocket-pressed the buttons. As long as they are synced up once at the factory it should be reasonably safe as a good pseudorandom number generator is deterministic if you know the seed.

I actually enjoyed typing that. Too bad engineering is so underpaid (esp in Canada).

EDIT: For security, part of the seed would have to be secret / never transmitted to maintain security. Again with the factory sync-up....

[safristi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCu278LMtJ0

.......


 try it on yer Lexus ....Video @ 11pm...........

[rrocket]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCu278LMtJ0

.......


 try it on yer Lexus ....Video @ 11pm...........

Already happened to IQs IS300 last year!  Remember?