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Drivers locked out of their cars at Royston Tesco
- pintxo 6y ago> "I thought it was some kind of alien phenomena." Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. For some (a lot?) of people, keyless entry seems still to be an advanced technology.
- uncledave 6y agoI think this is a statement about the poor state of education. I had a 40 year old oscilloscope open (Tek 465) on my desk a few years back when the in laws came round and it was like watching the monkeys around the monolith in 2001.
- OJFord 6y agoI have an EE degree and I firmly consider even the simplest forms of radio communication insane magic.
- mittaus 6y agoMonopoles.
- sathomasga 6y agoI have two degrees in electrical engineering and feel the same way.
- londons_explore 6y agoIt'll be someone using a 'jam, listen, and replay' device to unlock and start keyless cars so they can drive them to a port and steal them. Pretty much every week a car is stolen this way from my street. I now always take the engine management fuse out of the fusebox when parking my car so at least the car can't start when a thief pulls this... They tried anyway though!
- mhh__ 6y agoWhere do you live that a car gets stolen from your street every week?
- Jimjamb98 6y agoI can share that from living in a Northern UK city, between 2 or 3 "notorious" streets there would be multiple car break-ins each week. The University's student Facebook page became a constant feed of people reporting cars with smashed windows.
- adaml_623 6y agoThere is a big difference between drug addicts breaking windows to steal change and cars being stolen,
- dazc 6y agoI lived in Leeds (Northern UK City) for a while about 15 years ago and, yeah, cars were stolen routinely (mine included). I would expect it is less common now though?
- 177tcca 6y agoDamn. I figured the CCTV would at least knock crime down a little. Afraid to ask what kind of crime happens in places without cameras - those that exist.
- londons_explore 6y agoPolice just don't care about stolen cars. It's the same people who do it each week. They live at the end of the road at number 110. None of the stolen cars have ever been recovered, but they're all insured against theft so most people don't care and just buy another car till they get a model that's harder to steal.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
- barbegal 6y agoIt's odd that no one has analyzed the 433 MHz band to find out what is interfering with all these signals. It's most likely to be a bit of misbehaving equipment permanently on a channel.
- mhh__ 6y agoThe equipment should've gone through EMC so it might just be the sheer volume rather than one or two offenders.
- detaro 6y agoPresumably they've given Ofcom a call and they'll go look whenever they get around to it, but some noise on ISM is probably not treated as an emergency.
- uncledave 6y agoIf you look at the Ofcom schedule it says that 433Mhz ISM devices must accept harmful interference. So you’re probably right. They aren’t safety critical systems.
- LeonM 6y agoThere is nothing 'mysterious' about this, this is just how radios work. Neither does it have to be malicious. Most car key fobs work in the 433MHz range, if there is something in the area transmitting at said frequency, it will cause the relatively weak signals from keys fobs to be blocked. This it why we have electromechanical compatibility (EMC) certification for any electrical devices being sold. With the market being flood with cheap electronics from foreign manufacturers who do not care about getting certified, a single misbehaving weather station, 'smart' door bell, or baby monitor can cause disruptions to other wireless devices.
- JosephRedfern 6y agoStill sounds pretty mysterious to me. This kind of event is rare, and the source of the interference is (currently) a mystery. I’d love to pop by with a HackRF and directional antenna if I lived anywhere near-by!
- basicplus2 6y agoNot that rare for me or the people next door.. key fobs dont work frequently at my home.. have to use the physical key and operate the fob from within the car to disable the immobiliser
- jsmith99 6y agoGreat way to get lynched by angry drivers assuming the person with the gear is the culprit.
- globular-toast 6y agoIt's in Britain. We're not like that.
- jsmith99 6y agoThe shame of being angrily tutted at is comparable.
- TazeTSchnitzel 6y agoThere's several previous cases of RF interference causing this.
- cube00 6y ago> ask to speak to the on-duty manager to make them aware you are having difficulties getting into your vehicle as they are aware of the process to follow. Wonder what the "process" to solve this is if they don't even know the cause?
- tmhrtly 6y agoPortable faraday cage over the car and driver?
- grey-area 6y agoI wonder if a cone of tinfoil (handily available at Tesco) would work, shielding key and lock during unlock? Or are the receivers elsewhere in the car?
- nom 6y agomaybe they bring out the huge car sized faraday cage
- WJW 6y agoIf you build a structure out of supermarket trolleys around the car, would that be sufficient? I love the idea of a car size foldable Faraday cage btw.
- retrac 6y agoSerious answer? Maybe. It would depend on the frequency the keyfob is using, and the spacing of the grid, and the metal they're made of. There's a good chance a cage made out of shopping carts would block HF and below quite effectively. UHF and microwave will go straight through it though. Any holes need to be significantly smaller than the wavelength.
- gnfargbl 6y agoI would bet a small amount of money that the process is (1) put the fob very close to the car's receiver and try again, followed by (2) disassemble the fob and look for a mechanical key.
- ryankrage77 6y agoWhat's stopping people from physically inserting the key into the lock/ignition?
- neals 6y agoCars not having physical locks on doors or for ignitions anymore is one, I assume.
- ed_balls 6y agoDoes such car exist? (Tesla Maybe?)
- hcho 6y agoNone of the cars I have driven in the last decade had physical keys. Owned a Nissan, Mercedes and Toyota, rented various BMWs, Peugeots etc...
- l33tman 6y agoIn the keyfob there is usually a foldout key hidden even in modern cars
- hcho 6y agoNone of the cars I owned had this. I hadn't fiddled with the rented cars keys so those might have had it.
- zulln 6y agoA lot of them actually have a real key "hidden" within the digital fob, see example: https://www.bimmer-tech.net/blog/item/105-about-bmw-key-fob https://www.bimmer-tech.net/blog/item/105-about-bmw-key-fob I have never had to actually use it, but looked into it when I got low battery-warnings to make sure I would not be locked out. Assuming this is not a legal requirement I am sure there are models where this is not possible though.
- helsinkiandrew 6y agoArticle from a few years ago about a neon sign switching-mode power supply that was causing interference on the 433MHz frequency (as well as others): http://www.arrl.org/news/view/amateur-radio-sleuthing-pins-down-source-of-strange-rf-interference http://www.arrl.org/news/view/amateur-radio-sleuthing-pins-d... And “an inventor” who's make shift doorbell was causing problems on 355MHz: https://hackaday.com/2019/05/15/the-great-ohio-key-fob-mystery-or-honey-i-jammed-the-neighborhood/ https://hackaday.com/2019/05/15/the-great-ohio-key-fob-myste... Trouble with these devices is they rely on all applications just transmitting data very briefly. If someone doesn't it can block everything
- lordnacho 6y agoWould it be possible to shield the external noise somehow, eg with some foil in a cone shape?
- p0d 6y agoThe ham radio folk, of which I am one, are probably down there with scanners now and could tell you the problem ;-) Before I was a licensed ham I put together a little AM transmitter with a 9v battery connected to a portable cd player. I was shocked that I could pick up the signal several miles away (and yes I know hams, very bad behaviour, I was ignorant). I'll put my money on a new antenna having gone up nearby.
- uncledave 6y agoAs a fellow ham I’d probably stay away these days in fear of being labelled the cause of the problem.
- lawrenceduk 6y agoLast time this happened in the UK it was a push to call for assistance system that got stuck on, also at 433mhz. It’ll be the same here.
- aaron695 6y agohttps://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/9374180.tesco-fuel-pump-mystery-solved/ https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/9374180.tesco-fuel-pump-mys... (2011) A Tesco spokesperson said its garages had a system which allowed disabled drivers to contact a member of staff in the kiosk using a special key fob to call for assistance. This used a short signal which came on briefly to alert staff that someone needed help. But at Clifton Moor this had become jammed on and had blocked the remote central locking and ignition frequencies used by some cars.
- wallaBBB 6y agoI highly doubt it's actually jamming the the 433MHz signal from the fob. Command signals are most likely properly decoded by the vehicle, but rather the RSSI measurements are getting disturbances. Those signals are LF (25kHz or 125kHz)sent from the vehicle (multiple antennas) to the fob for localization. Fob performs the measurements and returns values to the vehicle. If the fob is not localized in the expected area, passive unlock or start would not work, and could even start the alarm. Some gate/card readers going crazy maybe... Wireless chargers that now come inbuilt as standard can also create enough disturbances to mess up the LF RSSI (but limited to single vehicle). Manufacturers are slowly moving to UWB and BLE for localization, as ToF is more robust (especially for relay attacks) than a simple signal strength measurement, plus it provides a common mechanism for both phones and fobs on the vehicle side.
- Muximize 6y agoTesco seems to be using wireless price tags. Maybe their transmitter is sending a signal that is strong and continuous enough to cause this? https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/86895/how-electronic-price-tag-works https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/86895/how-el...
- dkdbejwi383 6y agoThey must not have been from around there. It’s a local shop, for local people.
- helsinkiandrew 6y agoI immediately thought the same when I saw that headline
- JdeBP 6y agoIt's yet another large Tesco Extra on the edge of a town, in this particular case just off the Royston Bypass, with the intended large catchment area of such hypermarkets. The "local shop" on the other hand would be the Tesco Express in the town centre.
- dkdbejwi383 6y ago> Royston Bypass New road bad! There's nothing for you here.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y agoDoes UK still have those vans that drive around, looking for unlicensed TVs? If so, could one of those be repurposed? I suspect they have fairly wideband scanners.
- jpcooper 6y agoI remember this being a common fear in the UK during the 90s. I cannot report on whether such vans actually existed.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y agoWell, you're in luck! I can report on them existing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van I remember seeing them, when I lived in London, in the 1970s.
- pjc50 6y agoI wondered if it might be linked to one of the nearby military bases (e.g. radar), but I misremembered where they are; RAF Alconbury is to the north of Cambridge instead.
- bsd44 6y agoI once found out that that the reason why people parked next to my car can't unlock their cars is because I had my rear parking sensor switched on. As soon as I switched them off, their car fobs would start working again. I had some custom Chinese-made rear parking sensor installed. So nothing "mysterious", just radio frequency interference.
- globular-toast 6y agoI mean, it's not a mystery to you, but it's certainly a mystery to most of the general public. You can't see radio waves and most people have no idea that their car remote is operating in the same space as dozens of radio stations, GPS, Wi-fi etc. The vast majority of the population is quite happy to accept technology as magic.
- bsd44 6y agoI didn't mean "mystery" as "unexplained", I meant "mystery" as "magic, conspiracy, aliens..." type of interpretation which general public seem to take on lately.
- vidanay 6y agoHey, I've been to this Tesco! (My company is a km or so away)
- gyz 6y agoI had an experience like this in a parking lot in Belarus: our van wouldn't react to the keyfob. A man soon came by offering to help for some money, but some others warned us he was using some kind of jammer to make this happen on purpose. In fact I think it wasn't specifically made to be a jammer, he was just trolling with an accidentally-discovered device causing interference
- mrlonglong 6y agoThere is a place in Doncaster where remote keys just don't work! It is fortunate I still could unlock manually. Of course this was over a decade ago so it may not exist now.