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Student says he was unwitting drug mule, sues Ford
- isleyaardvark 13y agoHow would this be different from a locksmith making a fake key for a more traditional lock and doing the same thing? Is it practically that much more difficult to do?
- miahi 13y agoA locksmith can copy a key, but cannot create a key that fits a specific lock without knowing anything about the key. In this case, they could create a key with the data Ford provided just using the "publicly available" (written on the windshield) VIN. That key cannot be used to actually start the engine, because you need to register it with the ECU using manufacturer's codes and usually with at least one of the previous keys present. But there are bugs to be exploited in that case too.
- viraptor 13y agoActually, they can add long as they have access to the lock itself. Take a blank key, insert and turn; find the dent made by the closest pin and for that place one level down. Repeat until you have a key that works. This is regarding the physical keys for the trunk.
- Zikes 13y agoWhat strikes me about this is that the criminals could have just as easily stolen the vehicles, but the value of the marijuana outweighed the value of the vehicles.
- base698 13y agoThey can probably liquidate the drugs due to contacts they've made in that world faster, so even if the car was worth more it could be harder to liquidate. Stealing a car is worthless if you can't sell it or get a premium for it.
- mathattack 13y ago100+ pounds is a lot of drugs! And it's a gift that keeps on giving. Once you have the car codes, you can use the same vehicle many times.
- Afforess 13y agoStolen cars are incredibly hard to sell. There is a reason criminals just steal one and ditch it later.
- asperous 13y agoIn addition to being hard to sell, this also multiplies the risk involved, which I imagine most drug runners would prefer to minimize.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoIt's not just the vehicle, they also got the use of the driver as a patsy.
- toki5 13y agoI'm not sure I'd call this Ford's fault. >Lopez said the smuggling organization was able to get a duplicate key from a locksmith in El Paso, who got the codes after calling up a Ford dealership. >An FBI affidavit says someone at a Dallas auto dealer accessed the codes in Ford's database, giving out more than 2,300 codes over an 18-month period. I think dealerships, of all places, would be (should be) allowed to have codes for cars in their lot. I trust dealerships to have these codes. If they do nefarious things with them, they should be punished, but I don't think Ford should be punished for having a dealership-accessible database of key codes. Whoever was cooperating with the criminals is, to me, the person to blame here (along with the criminals). I'd have sued that dealership, not Ford itself.
- cperciva 13y agoIt makes sense for dealerships to have codes for cars in their lot. But it sounds like dealerships have access to codes for all Ford cars, which is a pretty clear least-privilege violation.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoWell dealers sort of have to have hte access in order to provide service. You're a Ford customer and you drop you key into the sewer as you're fumbling with your keys. Your dealer can help you make a new key (or sell you one for an extortionate price).
- not_that_noob 13y agoagreed - but they should at least check id to match dmv records - seems a common sense check. [to the nitpicking gallery: yes - bad guy can use fake id to do this, but any key code pull should be accompanied by a letter to the registered dmv address notifying the pull - all simple checks that would make it harder, costlier and with more points where it could be caught]
- arjie 13y agoParent to your comment is saying that dealer 1 can provide access to a car in dealer 2's lot. They can each provide service without having access to the other's cars. Therefore, this is a principle of least privilege violation.
- not_that_noob 13y agoI wonder how many bags of marijuana made it undetected in that car, since he was in the screened commuter lane. And he's so lucky they had a record of accesses to the key code database. If they could have erased that record of the access, then it would have been a perfect crime.
- mathattack 13y agoThe first thing I thought was, "The guy is making this up. What would Bayesian stats tell us?" In this case, I was wrong.
- Dylan16807 13y agoWell if you compare a one in a million scenario to millions of people crossing the border... What makes you think Bayesian stats would be against this scenario?
- Yourfags 13y agoUnclear article, it seems like the smugglers were just playing a lottery with their stuff, hoping that the cars they chose wouldn't get investigated?
- lotharbot 13y agoI suspect the percentage that gets caught on any given trip is quite low. They're playing a lottery with a 99%+ win chance. When they win, they sell the stuff at a huge markup, and when they lose, all they lose is one shipment and one potential courier who wasn't even in on the plot.
- Wingman4l7 13y agoExactly. The "War on Drugs" is never going to succeed when all the smugglers have to do is factor in a loss % into their price; it's simple math.
- jrockway 13y agoThey still have drug trafficking in Singapore, where you get the death penalty for drug trafficking. I think the key is not to make drugs expensive, but to make them cheap. Then the criminals are out of business.
- Wingman4l7 13y agoYup -- then the key players just make sure to insulate themselves with plenty of lower-tier traffickers. Drugs will only be cheap when they are legal.
- jordanthoms 13y agoWell, they don't really care if people get caught with it, so long as some make it through.
- gpcz 13y agoAs implied in Cory Doctorow's "The coming war on general-purpose computation," modern cars are really computers with an engine and wheels. This event has proven that computer security breaches in cars can have real-world legal consequences for citizens. As a result, there may be a market in a hardening/privacy guide for new cars, similar to the kind sysadmins use to harden Internet-facing servers. Alongside your standard hacker-types, a guide like this probably has a market in survivalist/conspiracy circles. The guide could explain how to change the code in the car's alarm transmitter as well as how to remove devices with privacy implications like OnStar.
- rjsw 13y agoModern cars are really a LAN with an engine and wheels. You need to decide how secure each computer on the network needs to be or whether it is enough that you need be able to get into the car to get at the diagnostic connector. There was a case a while back of one model of car being easily stolen because the cables to the ABS system accessable from the wheel arches. There has also been talk of allowing wireless access to the in-car network in order to allow cars to be driven much closer together in high-occupancy lanes.
- gohrt 13y agoCould have been much worse. The crimincal case could have easily gone the other way: "The car was locked, locks are presumed secure, presence of a lock is proof that you were aware of the contents of your trunk." This is what happens in home burglaries: If your lock gets picked, insurers claim that the door was never locked.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- gpcz 13y agoLockpicks leave evidence of their use (src: http://www.lockwiki.com/index.php/File:Forensics_pin_picked.jpg http://www.lockwiki.com/index.php/File:Forensics_pin_picked.... ). If the victim was confident that the lock was picked, they could hire a forensic locksmith to find this evidence if the reimbursement is worth the cost of the locksmith. As far as I know, getting a keyfob code and using it to unlock a car door is completely surreptitious (no evidence left) entry, as opposed to lockpicks, which are covert entry (evidence is left).
- mikeash 13y agoOr if you did leave the door unlocked, you could lock it, pick your own lock, then hire the forensic locksmith to prove it had been picked! Or just pick it in advance, just in case....
- gcb0 13y ago1. insert key in oily sand. 2. insert key in keyhole. two steps. instant faked picked lock proof. otherwise, use a softer metal on the picks (or plastic, or grease the picks, or as every criminal does, apply soap to the tips), and pick without any markings.
- toast0 13y agoIt did go the other way, he was convicted by a jury before the charges were dropped.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- angersock 13y agoSo, the poor bastard is out half a year of his life and who knows what other collateral damage (job, school, personal life, etc.) Does the prosecutor here just go "Whoopsie, our bad!", or what?
- jrockway 13y agoDoes the prosecutor here just go "Whoopsie, our bad!", or what? Yes, that's what happens. It's a cost of having a free society that's randomly distributed instead of explicitly collected from your income, like many costs in a free society.
- kybernetyk 13y agoI don't know about the USA but here in Germany he would have gotten an reimbursement of whooping ~10EUR/day.
- crazygringo 13y agoAt first I thought, how is this Ford's fault? How is this any different from someone just picking the trunk lock? But then I realized: Ford actively provided the car codes to a car they'd sold, to someone who wasn't the owner, without the owner's permission. This is no different from the locksmith who installed the lock to your house, giving someone else a copy of the key to your front door "because they said they knew you". Maybe Ford calculates that it's easier to just give out the codes to people related to the dealers, for convenience, but that needs to factor in that they should be forced to pay heavy, heavy fines or restitution when bad things happen. And even worse, imagine if someone were raped or killed because of Ford's negligence concerning codes. People's security in their cars is a serious thing.