7 ms·
This has bene known in the automtive/security world forever, you can google replay attacks and people demonstrate this. German cars do have a rolling code, esp
by rootsudo 5y ago
This has bene known in the automtive/security world forever, you can google replay attacks and people demonstrate this.
German cars do have a rolling code, especially BMW with EWS2 around 1996'and it's a nicely documented system to break.
With that said, it would be fun to dump older car firmware to see how simple the security was, previous to 1996, most cars ECU firmware were litereally on eproms.
There are also communities and such dedicated to bypassing this, not for theft but for engine swapping and car modification - having an annoying security system that can disable the starter or fuel pump sucks when you engine swapped your car.
- josefx 5y agoAs far as I understand even physical car keys tended to be on the low end. With a decent chance that you could find a different car by the same manufacturer that you could at least unlock with your key.
- arno_v 5y agoYeah a friend of mine had that. Almost drove away in the wrong car, luckily he noticed "weird CDs" lying around.
- fisherjeff 5y agoOld Subaru by any chance…?
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoLiterally any vehicle with a worn out ignition cylinder from 100k of keys hanging off of it.
- moepstar 5y agoFun-fact: you can lock any Ford with a 6-sided key (not sure what those are called) of your Ford...
- jaywalk 5y agoFunner-fact: you can lock any car that's unlocked by opening up the door and locking it.
- rootusrootus 5y agoNot my Bolt. Even if the key is nowhere on your person or in the car, it steadfastly refuses to let you lock the door that way. If you push the lock button while the door is open, it immediately unlocks it for you. It would make sense to do that if it detected the fob inside the car. But it does it no matter what.
- doubled112 5y agoIf you lose your keys, you can't lock the car up and come back with the spare? That's not a feature.
- dharmab 5y agoYour spare would be your cell phone app.
- rootusrootus 5y agoI agree, it's not a feature. It's annoying.
- hunter2_ 5y agoI agree, but realistically the car is already locked when you lose your keys, assuming you lock your car when you leave it. An exception would be, say, dropping your keys down a storm drain after getting out and before walking away, but even this is becoming unusual as more cars have push-to-start and capacitive exterior touch areas such that your key is always in your pocket.
- serf 5y agomost modern cars will not let you do this as to prevent accidental car-on-while-locked or locked-keys scenarios.
- MisterTea 5y agoThe key from a 2001 GMC Savannah opened the doors of our 2002 Chevy Express (same van model, different badges). Though the Express key could not open the Savannah. Either key did not work in each others ignition lock.
- knodi123 5y agoBarely on topic, but I accidentally stole a bike due to this issue. Somebody parked their bike in the same rack, same model, same color, same brand of lock, and my key popped it right open. About half way home I finally realized why the seat felt funny. Drove back and swapped it with my own, I hope nobody noticed.
- cafard 5y agoLong ago, I unlocked the wrong VW Rabbit, and was briefly surprised when I couldn't start it. More recently (last dozen or so years) the NY Times Sunday Magazine had a short piece, something like "Dude, Where's Your Car", about a woman actually driving off with the wrong car, and having to arrange its return to the owner.
- testplzignore 5y agoI used to drive a Nissan whose doors would unlock when you closed a door - I'm not sure if it was intentional or not. But I found I could also trigger the unlocking mechanism by punching the outside of the door at just the right spot. Very useful for when ice would get in the locks.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoIt was intentional. It's so you can't lock your keys inside.
- drewzero1 5y agoI had a Mazda with this feature, apparently very common among Japanese cars in the early 90s. At first I thought it was broken, until I started looking into how to fix it and found you just have to pull the handle as you're closing the door to stop it from popping up. It's supposed to make you think about grabbing your keys but after a while it sort of became automatic. I've got an early 80s SAAB that handled this in a more straightforward way. The driver's door lock plunger will not go down while the door is open, forcing you to lock it with the key (or reach around from another door, and then lock that.)
- mikestew 5y agoWhen I was an auto mechanic back in the days before key fobs, I'd driven the wrong car into the bay...twice, that I recall. I even changed the oil on one of those cars, when it was in for a brake job. It was the other blue '85 Chevy Malibu that needed the oil change.
- quercusa 5y agoSomeone once drove my car away from the SJ airport lot as a favor for his friend, who was quite surprised to be picked up in someone else's blue Camry.
- matthewdgreen 5y agoThe news here is the fact that this very old and well-known attack works on cars in the 2020/2021 model years. This is pretty surprising, since the appropriate countermeasures have been widely-deployed even in inexpensive cars for well over a decade. Modern “keyless” vehicles have largely moved on to dealing with relay attacks, which is at least a more challenging class of attack than this one.
- formerly_proven 5y agoHonestly keyless go is a clusterfuck. Cars are getting stolen all over the place. Police says to wrap keys in tinfoil. It's not particularly obvious why insurers don't seem to care, though there have been some rulings where they didn't need to pay because stealing a car like this wasn't technically stealing under the insurance policy.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoInsurers don't care because vulnerability can be predicted by make/model/year so they a) can readily predict how much they'll pay out, are all saddled with the same cost increase (per vulnerable vehicle) and are free to pass that on to customers knowing that the competition has to do the same so they won't be undercut. Basically they don't care because the cost passes right through them with minimal friction in this case.
- avidiax 5y agoThat assumes a static level of exploitation. If criminal gangs decide that Honda/Acura is the low-hanging fruit and ramp up theft of these vehicles, the insurance companies will have to react with increased insurance costs, which will put pressure on the manufacturers since it raises TCOO.
- jdavis703 5y agoInsurance renews every 6 or 12 months. At least in the US criminal gangs are fairly decentralized, so it seems insurance companies are on somewhat even ground with any shift in crime patterns.
- sandworm101 5y agoIt also really sux when you have to repair those security systems. I honestly would forgo the entire encryption fob thing in favor of a decent mechanical key for starting the car. Sure, they can be bypassed, but if someone is under your hood crossing wires then you have bigger problems. Or better yet, an S&G digital safe lock. If it is good enough for missile launch codes it is good enough for my civic. Replacing an S&G lock body is far cheaper than any car immobilizer.
- numpad0 5y ago00000000 was good enough to secure nukes for a long time[1] 1: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/launch-code-for-us-nukes-was-00000000-for-20-years https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/launch-code-for-...
- brokenmachine 5y agoBetter than having the "more secure" number on a post-it on the side of the bomb. :-)
- irq-1 5y agoA digital keypad and a phone based system would be best. Apps can be updated for security, and the cars firmware can be updated via the app too. The keypad means even if a purse is stolen with the phone and keys in it, you can still start your car.
- dharmab 5y agoFord has keypad entry on a number of models, for example.
- meowster 5y agoIf someone wants to get in via the keypad, there is a list [0] that was mentioned on HN [1]. The list is 3129 numbers, which if pressed in sequence, will eventually open the door because all of the possible code permutations are contained in that sequence. [0] https://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1520430&displaytype=printable https://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1520430&displaytype... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7622165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7622165
- bane 5y agoI took a class on SDRs one time and replay attack against a Honda was one of the toy examples they used as homework.