I drove them twice as rentals. Worst driving experience I have ever had in my life.
Thing could barely keep up in traffic, no room, and felt like I was gonna get stuck in .5 inch of snow. Bottomed out on the smallest bumps too.
Things were terrible.
Yeah wafer locks are generally pretty easy to pick.
Still takes a little more skill than over riding something electronic though.
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[quote=âMedievalist, post:37, topic:75415, full:trueâ]Why do you think these videos are fake?
[/quote]
I donât think theyâre fake, people are just confused about a mishmash of various technologies and attacks. Most of the videos Iâve seen have been clearly misunderstood/misidentified in many articles as keyless-entry attacks when in fact they were attacks on insecure remote-control fobs. There is one video Iâve seen that might be an example of the attack, and to me it seems less likely that it was a keyless entry system being defeated because the car flashes its lights to signal that it is unlocking, suggesting that itâs probably a remote-control unlock feature being attacked instead of keyless-entry. It is quite possible that there exists some shoddy-designed keyless entry system that operates in this fashion, so I also canât rule it out without knowing more (and we know itâs possible), but regardless the answer is âdonât do it shoddilyâ rather than âdonât do itâ.
The security researcherâs demonstration scenario seems pretty immaterial to me - some crack team of Oceans-11 style thieves target you, follow you from your car, with the face-guy tailing you into a cafe, getting a seat right next to you while another guy outside co-ordinates his radio gear without drawing attention from the surrounding people, while hoping you donât look out the window while heâs messing with your car? Seriously? Sure that could be a thing but itâs like worrying that 3d-printers are going to create murder-sprees using âuntraceableâ 3d-printed guns and Someone Should Do Something! Letâs assume that thieves devise a less stupid way to use the tech, the reality of risk-assessment remains that you donât win the lottery. The people who are capable of pulling off technical attacks without getting caught are typically also the kind of person who can hold down a regular job and earn regular money, ie more money with much less risk than by bottom-feeding off cars. And for those that are smart and talented yet still determined to turn their skills to a life of crime, ripping off cars is still less money and much more risk than other criminal opportunities presented by todayâs cybercrimescape. And for those few that do turn their attention to cars, attacks that donât require two operatives working in tandem with a host of wildcards and risk⌠thatâs easier and safer. I think the vulnerability should be addressed in the next generation of systems, but the evidence so far is that I have a greater chance of being struck by lightning than being victim of this (very cool) attack vector. And frankly, being struck by lightning is much worse than car thieves. I have auto insurance.
This attack is very cool and it excites the security nerd in me, but itâs not something I actually worry about happening to me in the real world. My car is far more secure than pretty much any other system on the market.
(That said, methods of defeating this attack also excites the security nerd in me, and they should do it! 
)
Your post reminds me of Microsoftâs response to the L0pht - âyour research is purely theoretical!â.
Which resulted in L0phtcrack, of courseâŚ
Itâs already been demonstrated that these hacks quickly escape into the wild, and a single stolen car delivered to a chop shop will pay for a dozen illegal electronic car hacking devices. This is the script kiddy lesson, as delivered by l0phtcrack - you donât have to be any kind of specialist or have any special knowledge to exploit a known vulnerability. You just donât. Any security that depends on idiots being unable to use sophisticated, idiot-friendly tools provided by others is doomed.
Now, I understand that you love your keyless entry, and that you are willing to risk it being hackable because you figure the odds are somebody else will get burnt, not you, and anyway you are insured and wonât lose your job if you lose your car. I do get it, honestly.
But your preferences and opinions arenât a valid basis for determining mine, or for restricting my buying options. As Iâve repeatedly said, I am quite literally willing to pay extra to have a factory-installed traditional key lock and ignition in my modern, high tech cars.
This is because personally I prefer systems that are less costly, more compact, more reliable, less subject to interference, more physically robust, and trivially user-serviceable. I can unlock the door to @nixiebunnyâs classic Chevy while carrying two cases of beer (assuming he lends me a key) and during the 60 years plus that the carâs been on the road it has not required a single fob battery replacement. That, by my criteria, proves the old brass key is better than any radio-based system; in my hands it does the job more reliably at a lower cost.
You assume that this hack will quickly escape into the wild⌠yet everyone has known about it for over five years and itâs still not a crimewave, or arguably even a thing at all. The reality remains that this is not something that a script kiddy can do in momâs basement.
The reality remains that keyless-entry is factually a lot more secure than your preference, and one of the reasons you couldnât buy a car with simple brass key is that many insurance companies penalize people with that kind of easily-stolen car and the market penalizes manufacturers whose cars top the most-stolen lists, so itâs not a very attractive option to either buyers or sellers. There are places and ways for you to order a custom car with the features you pick, but if you want the advantages of a mass-produced car, then the trade-off is accepting less say over the features.
Did you not actually read the article and its links, or are you just trolling me?
I read the article and the links. Iâve also been following updates on this attack for years and, as I mentioned upthread, many/most of the articles are confused and mixing up different technologies and different attacks.
It just occurred to me that perhaps what is getting your goat is that many cars use insecure remote fobs that are vulnerable to easy attacks (similar to how garage-door-openers can be spoofed), bulky, and generally infuriating, which you rightly detest, and you are lumping these and keyless entry systems into the one big bucket of âtech-keysâ, while Iâm not talking about that bucket, but specifically about keyless-entry systems, which are fairly difficult to attack (due to having encrypted two-way handshake instead of cheap one-way garage-door-opener style rolling codes, impossible-to-hotwire ignition, require a team of thieves for a technical attack etc) and which have slashed the rates of car theft in models equipped with them.
I agree with you that bulky faux-keyless remote fobs are awful. I hate those too. Especially in rental cars where both the key and the giant fob (and usually even the spare fob too!) are on the same non-remoevable keyring. Ugh. Worst of all worlds.
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I think usually itâs not a matter of needing to âpickâ the lock. I would doubt car thieves waste much time on picking; bumping, perhaps, which is fast.
As a lot of people have pointed out from personal experience, some car locks - both door and ignition - eventually wear down to where the keys become literally interchangeable. Also, besides bumping, a lot of older non-electronic locks are vulnerable to the hammer-a-big-screwdriver-into-it technique, and many older door locks to the even simpler hit-it-hard-with-a-weighted-hammer technique to punch the lock cylinder right through the door, allowing you to pull the latch mechanism with pliers. Then thereâs the good olâ âSlim Jimâ - or we can simply observe that there was plenty of car theft in the âgood old daysâ pre-electronic locks, and draw conclusions from that.
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I kinda used picking as general term.
I actually know a little about defeating locks and how to pick them. Car locks are a wafer lock. Bumping really only works on pin tumbler locks. The easiest and quickest techniques for wafer locks is what is called scrubbing and raking or use jiggler keys. You use these types of picks
Wafer picks
Jiggler keys
Of course there is the old string trick or using a wedge and bar to hit the locks. If no one is going to see. Raking using a wafer pick or using a jiggler key though would draw little attention to a camera or someone seeing you do it. Just looks like your fumbling with a keys a little bit but not odd and out of place.
I totally agree the mechanical locks are pretty easily defeated too bit a slim jim or wedge and bar is harder to hide and rakes and jigglers, while pretty easy, take a little bit of practice at least.
Yeah, no lock really keeps anyone out, just slows them down and draws attention while they do it. Increase the chances of getting caught in the act is all any lock really does.
You would probably be really surprised how quick and fast jiggling or raking can open a lock.
Actually this exactly the kind of thing some script kiddy in his basement can do. The code and methods are out there for anyone to grab.
Not really - even handing the script kiddy already-working custom radio gear - you need multiple people working together (so a script kiddy canât do it, an individual can be part of an attack but they need a team and teamwork), they canât do it from momâs basement because you need to go out into the world, you need to find a goldilocks situation to have a chance (owner identified and nearby but not too close, in a public place, but not paying attention to person sidling up to them, car out of sight, etc), and at the end of it, you get a car that is only good for one single joyride or stripping for parts because you canât start it (once youâve driven away, the radio trick wonât work any more, so when the engine goes off, it stays off), there is no ignition system to hotwire (the motor itself is part-computer) so you need a obtain a replacement blank key from⌠somewhere, and cars with these systems are generally also cars with GPS tracking as standard. So itâs one of those attacks that looks great in a Hollywood movie but is quite clumsy and vulnerable and doesnât really overcome its shortcomings in a world awash with lower-hanging richer fruit. I think the biggest risk of this vulnerability would be an organised crime ring with the kind of resources needed to wring some value out of the mess, I donât think script kiddies would/could do much beyond a few isolated incidents.
Your attempt to knit pick fails.
Doing so from the basement obviously means making the gear and installing the software. Duh!! Canât jack any car without leaving the house. Your point failed there.
Pfft. Your proverbial âgoldilocks situationâ is called evry shopping mall, grocery store, and movie theater parking lot in the country.
80% of the time a car is stolen for guess what??? Stripping the parts in a chop shop! People steal cars for the parts not the actual car most of the time. The GPS tracking devices arenât that hard to remove or disable either. Sorry, but your precious electronic doo-dads donât really increase the security in any real way. Just makes things more prone to problems and failures.
Electronic security isnât any better. Just gives ultra techies a hard on.
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The free-fall of car-theft rates shows otherwise.
Today, the vast majority of car theft is done by stealing the keys. These fancy mission-impossible style attacks are, as you put it, about giving âultra techies a hard on.â
Not at all. Itâs a new trick and time adapts.
The only thing your tech in cars does is make your car a data mine for your habits and give another source of probable failure and expensive repair.
The vast majority of car attacks isnât by stealing keys. Itâs over riding the lock system with picks, bricks, and tools. Wanna know why? Itâs because the vast majority of cars still use keys. Itâs a matter of what is most common.
Cars like Priuses and these other yuppie wagons just arenât in high enough demand for parts to want to be stolen over more desirable cars as well.
Nothing fancy or mission impossible about this simple exploit. Itâs the same as people scanning and hacking smart phones at shopping centers for identity theft which is actually very easy and common. People donât realize the criminal is always two or three steps ahead of you. They pray on the type of naive security youâre expressing right now.
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Correct - most car attacks work by targeting cars with traditional old keys, because theyâre so much easier to steal.
"Stolen cars and trucks were once a regular feature in newspapers across the nation. But the thefts donât seem to generate many headlines these days unless connected with another incident. Stolen car rings still exist, and joyriders still steal unlocked cars with keys left inside. But overall vehicle theft has fallen dramatically over the past two decades â both in Delaware and across the country.
Delaware alone has seen a 55% reduction since 1995, slightly better than the 52.5% drop nationwide. The 2,970 vehicles reported stolen in the state that year plummeted to 1,332 in 2013, the most recent year for which figures are available. The reductions are even greater in neighboring states, in New Jersey vehicle thefts have fallen 72.6%, according to the FBIâs Uniform Crime Reports.
The reasons, police say, are largely related to technology: newer vehicles remotely unlocked with electronic signals are harder to break into, and easier to track.
âManufacturers are making cars harder to steal,â said Chris McDonold, a former Baltimore County Police officer and now deputy director of the Maryland Vehicle Theft Prevention Council." (link)
Of the vehicles that get stolen despite having modern security, those are mostly stolen by stealing the key, not by mission-impossible hijinks. (There are gangs that use high-tech attacks too, more of a thing in Europe I think, but their known techniques are mechanicâs tools designed by the manufacturer to bypass/access the security system, they donât need a team of operatives working together in the field like this cool-but-clumsy attack that requires the owner to be standing nearby while they mess with their car. And of course, there is always the olâ flatbed truck technique⌠)
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More on the realities of car theft:
Some years back, a magazine here ran an interview with one of the most successful car thieves in the state, after she was convicted, and she explained her MO. Very amusing.
She went to bars, looked for older well-to-do men with wedding rings and flirted with them until they tried to pick her up. On the way to a hotel, sheâd say âOh! I only like such-and-such brand of condom. Can you stop at the drug store and get some? Iâll wait in the car, can you leave the stereo on?â Heâd leave the keys in the car, and the second he was in the store, she was in the driverâs seat and away with the car to the chop shop. Of course the guy wouldnât want to wreck his marriage, be liable for the theft, and look like a complete fool, so 19 times out of 20 he would report the car to police and insurance as having been inexplicably stolen by persons unknown while he was in the bar or drug store.
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Was it a first or second generation? 'Cause that doesnât describe my 2010 even a little. Power mode gets me on the freeway no problem, drives way better than my little 2600 lb. RSX in the snow, I honestly donât know what the top speed is, but I assure you it can go at least 100 mph, and itâs the largest car Iâve ever owned (the RSX could fit inside it with room to spare).
Car keys have been chipped for years, and will not start without them. The difference is that these cars have the remote keyless entry AND ignition. Therein lies the problem.
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Chipped keys work when inserted into the ignition switch. Thatâs not what Iâm talking about. Iâm saying an RFID chip (which is different from the key transponder chip, which requires physical contact) in the fob could act as a proximity check, since the unpowered RFID signal canât be boosted in the same way the fobâs powered radio signal can.
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