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> If authorised dealerships are the only people who can legally re-code cars/keys then they've just assured themselves a huge business boost. One of the neat i

> If authorised dealerships are the only people who can legally re-code cars/keys then they've just assured themselves a huge business boost. One of the neat ideas that, imho, doesn't receive nearly enough attention in the bitcoin space is smart property -- you can use the blockchain and cryptography to have decentralized property transfer, even offline and in a hostile network environment (ie a thief trying to spoof a property transfer message to the car. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Smart_Property#Theory https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Smart_Property#Theory lists the gorey crypto-details, but imagine instead of transferring ownership, you just temporarily grant another party (ie your mechanic) to have 'ownership-like' rights to your car while it's in the shop. > Set up an industry group who stores the car's private keys and allows any authorised shop to request them... Centralized points of failure always fail. How long before the next Target or Home Depot has a credit card breach? How long before this centralized authority blocks non-dealer shops from being part of the network (or pay exorbitant fees). We can decentralize all this while still keeping it cryptographically secure.

gnopgnip 12y ago
What happens when you lose a key?
- floatrock 12y ago
  Exactly one of the major issues blocking consumer-level adoption of decentralization technologies. Centralized trust is just too darn convenient, especially wrt backups. As with most ideological debates, the middle ground is probably the most amicable. Bigger crypto-nerds than me will have more fleshed out ideas, I'm sure, but there are ways to have a hybrid centralized/decentralized approach. One algorithm I've heard tossed around, for example, is shamir's secret sharing. Basically you can split a key between different parties... no one party/dealer/mechanic/DMV has access to the family jewels, but you can reconstruct the secret with 3 of the 5 pieces or whatever threshold. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing The challenge is, like you say, to make all this magic enough that it becomes consumer friendly. Much more fulfilling a UX gig than designing virtual farms, though.
cik 12y ago
This is really a story about money to be made. Unfortunately, from a behavioural economics perspective neither the car manufacturers nor dealers have any incentive to make it difficult to steal a car. Why do we focus on keys at all; why can't we just use thumbprints, or heck retina scans to unlock the cars? That technology exists today, we can keep everything local, a crappy thumbprint scanner is $4 on ebay right now. Combine that with the in-dash electronics we have, and it would be simple to handle 'access management' or authorized thumbprints... much like my rubbish car can handle bluetooth devices. The problem is that at $429 (CAD) per lost key, my car dealer couldn't care less about this. It's literally not in their interest to give up this revenue stream. Until they have an economic incentive to do it, it won't happen.

gnopgnip 12y ago

What happens when you lose a key?

floatrock 12y ago
Exactly one of the major issues blocking consumer-level adoption of decentralization technologies. Centralized trust is just too darn convenient, especially wrt backups. As with most ideological debates, the middle ground is probably the most amicable. Bigger crypto-nerds than me will have more fleshed out ideas, I'm sure, but there are ways to have a hybrid centralized/decentralized approach. One algorithm I've heard tossed around, for example, is shamir's secret sharing. Basically you can split a key between different parties... no one party/dealer/mechanic/DMV has access to the family jewels, but you can reconstruct the secret with 3 of the 5 pieces or whatever threshold. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing The challenge is, like you say, to make all this magic enough that it becomes consumer friendly. Much more fulfilling a UX gig than designing virtual farms, though.

cik 12y ago

This is really a story about money to be made. Unfortunately, from a behavioural economics perspective neither the car manufacturers nor dealers have any incentive to make it difficult to steal a car. Why do we focus on keys at all; why can't we just use thumbprints, or heck retina scans to unlock the cars? That technology exists today, we can keep everything local, a crappy thumbprint scanner is $4 on ebay right now. Combine that with the in-dash electronics we have, and it would be simple to handle 'access management' or authorized thumbprints... much like my rubbish car can handle bluetooth devices. The problem is that at $429 (CAD) per lost key, my car dealer couldn't care less about this. It's literally not in their interest to give up this revenue stream. Until they have an economic incentive to do it, it won't happen.