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1. It's re-inventing a kill switch. 2. It adds tons of uselees innovation to a kill switch. 3. If your car is antique/valuable/interesting, the people stealin

1. It's re-inventing a kill switch. 2. It adds tons of uselees innovation to a kill switch. 3. If your car is antique/valuable/interesting, the people stealing it know the starting diagram/circuit and can easily rip it out/bypass it. 4. IF your car is antique/valuable/interesting you wouldn't add this as it can depreciate the car value/make it more ugly. You're not installing this in a brand new BMW M6, or a new Honda Civic, or a E24/1980's BMW M6 or a 1990's Honda EK Civic. Solutionism at it's worse. Ignores the whole idea of what a car is. Ignores the innovation in Transponder tech that has been the standard for a while - only Kita/Hyundai in the USA has been avoiding it because if added BOM. Outside the USA car thefts are not as common and in Domestic Japan/India/Asia a transponder is still pretty rare. But back to the article - seeing this was sponsored by "University of Michigan- " - WTH is going on there? That is Ford/GM. Ford has had PATS technology for the longest time - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuriLock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuriLock GM has PK, same idea. "Battery Sleuth bypasses both the wireless communication that key fobs depend on and the standardized onboard communication network that’s used in today’s vehicles. Instead, it authenticates drivers by measuring voltage fluctuations in a vehicle’s electrical system. " Worthless, so it knows the cars resting voltage usage (easy enough) and if theres a drain, it means something is connected and that it can lock it up, but the same as a killswitch, it can be removed or bypassed. "Battery Sleuth also has defenses to guard against hacking or physical attacks on the device itself, including a siren that sounds if illegitimate activity is detected and a resistor that shuts down the vehicle’s electrical system if an unauthorized power source is connected to the vehicle. " Very easy to pop hood, pull siren out/disconnect. and lol "resistor" means anything/nothing.

incahoots 3y ago
I'd argue your 3rd point is more based in the reality of movies that involve unique cars (Gone in 60 Seconds, etc). Most unique rides are typically stolen due to owner laziness(leaving keys on top of a tire, keys in the visor, left running, etc.).
- rootsudo 3y ago
  I disagree - many cars are kept in parking lots - especially in HCOL. Access is basically whenever - if someone sees it there, and not moved often and such they know they can most likely attack it. Stripping an security system is also doable, via the can-bus attacks we see of late, but more personalized can just be to replace the ECU. In many cars this can be done in less than 15 minutes. Car shopping as presented in gone in 60 seconds is somewht common - ask people on any enthusiast forum and you'll see. Miatas in Bay area, stolen for the hard top/car itself. Skylines Honda Civics - just spare parts basically, though if it's a mint enough model I can see people vin swap because 2000's Honda S2000 - mint models reach 30K now, so it's own market. And that's just from what I've kept up* in. Now would someone pull up to someones garage, open that, and drive out? Probably not - but alot of people do drive cars to a parking space for work, or if they live in a condo - have shared/communal parking, and such. And to add an extra layer of paraonia, it is very inexpensive to attach a GPS/Air tag to a car and track it - within a week or two you can see a pattern of where it goes, for how long and what amount of time its standby. The VIN number is also viewable from the windshield, meaning if the thief has any sort of connection - they could even just order a replacement key thats preprogrammed with a base code and potentially just turn up to the car and drive away. But for opportunistic theft, yes - keys left within car/visible and then stolen but there are many different type of thieves for different markets. For unique/"antique" cars or any cars that were in the first three gran turismo - being targeted is a very big thing now in the community.
  - incahoots 3y ago
    Thanks for reminding me of the Miata/Civic thefts, I nearly forgot how big that was in the mid 2010s. I recall so many articles of that happening. I was living in Miami during that time, a friend had his EK hatch stolen, beautiful example too, spent a fortune on that car and it showed. Of course the aftermath was the same ole story of it being stripped, and cut to a near nonexistent state. Now thinking on this "solution" the amount of social engineering that happens today will defeat this pretty quickly. Most of the thefts for cars like my friends were done by people who knew the owners.
    - rootsudo 3y ago
rconti 3y ago
> Outside the USA car thefts are not as common and in Domestic Japan/India/Asia a transponder is still pretty rare. My priors are that car theft inside the USA is fairly rare now, but exceedingly common in Europe. I'm constantly hearing about all kinds of sophisticated electronic attacks on vehicles particularly in the UK, that are simply not an issue in the US.

incahoots 3y ago

I'd argue your 3rd point is more based in the reality of movies that involve unique cars (Gone in 60 Seconds, etc). Most unique rides are typically stolen due to owner laziness(leaving keys on top of a tire, keys in the visor, left running, etc.).

rootsudo 3y ago
I disagree - many cars are kept in parking lots - especially in HCOL. Access is basically whenever - if someone sees it there, and not moved often and such they know they can most likely attack it. Stripping an security system is also doable, via the can-bus attacks we see of late, but more personalized can just be to replace the ECU. In many cars this can be done in less than 15 minutes. Car shopping as presented in gone in 60 seconds is somewht common - ask people on any enthusiast forum and you'll see. Miatas in Bay area, stolen for the hard top/car itself. Skylines Honda Civics - just spare parts basically, though if it's a mint enough model I can see people vin swap because 2000's Honda S2000 - mint models reach 30K now, so it's own market. And that's just from what I've kept up* in. Now would someone pull up to someones garage, open that, and drive out? Probably not - but alot of people do drive cars to a parking space for work, or if they live in a condo - have shared/communal parking, and such. And to add an extra layer of paraonia, it is very inexpensive to attach a GPS/Air tag to a car and track it - within a week or two you can see a pattern of where it goes, for how long and what amount of time its standby. The VIN number is also viewable from the windshield, meaning if the thief has any sort of connection - they could even just order a replacement key thats preprogrammed with a base code and potentially just turn up to the car and drive away. But for opportunistic theft, yes - keys left within car/visible and then stolen but there are many different type of thieves for different markets. For unique/"antique" cars or any cars that were in the first three gran turismo - being targeted is a very big thing now in the community.
- incahoots 3y ago
  Thanks for reminding me of the Miata/Civic thefts, I nearly forgot how big that was in the mid 2010s. I recall so many articles of that happening. I was living in Miami during that time, a friend had his EK hatch stolen, beautiful example too, spent a fortune on that car and it showed. Of course the aftermath was the same ole story of it being stripped, and cut to a near nonexistent state. Now thinking on this "solution" the amount of social engineering that happens today will defeat this pretty quickly. Most of the thefts for cars like my friends were done by people who knew the owners.
  - rootsudo 3y ago

rconti 3y ago

> Outside the USA car thefts are not as common and in Domestic Japan/India/Asia a transponder is still pretty rare. My priors are that car theft inside the USA is fairly rare now, but exceedingly common in Europe. I'm constantly hearing about all kinds of sophisticated electronic attacks on vehicles particularly in the UK, that are simply not an issue in the US.