Can anyone tell me why this isnt complete bollocks

[The Natural Philosopher]

How can a key wrapped in tinfoil even open a car?

[Harry Bloomfield]

The Natural Philosopher pretended :

You misunderstood...

The key is read remotely by the thief, which then allows the thief to send the correct code to the car, to open it, start it and drive it away. Owners keeping the keys in tinfoil, or a Faraday screen, prevents a thief from remotely reading the key.

Likewise, the contactless debit/credit cards, they can be remotely scanned and the data used to make purchases by thieves. I keep my cards in my wallet, inserted into the outer pocket of which, is a sheet of metal foil.

[Brian Gaff]

Yes I'm sure for once they can. I got the exact same info from a metropolitan Police newsletter sent to our local neighbourhood watch. The keyless systems, ie not the ones where you have to press the button, but the ones that work on proximity have the car pinging and seeing if a matching fob is nearby. Normally it is not, so the crims. have two interlinked devices, the guy walks down the road and then when he finds a car he knows has one of these opening systems, he records its pinging and sends it to the person going down the row of houses, when the person gets a ping back from a fob in a house, he then records this and sends it to the other person who proceeds to get into the car. I think nowadays even some fobs where you have to action pressing a button the two can communicate first to see if they are a match.The idea of the tin foil is to make a faraday cage, the same advice has been given out for contactless payment cards for similar reasons of course I personally think something a bit more substantial than foil is a good idea though. Say a small tin box. The thing that annoys me with both contactless cards and car opening systems is that so little security is built in for these systems. One might expect that some kind of secondary system might be in place that somehow stops people just recording signals and repeating them when you consider the cost of a car and the need for security for your bank account. I'm not sure I'd ever be comfortable using a phone as a payment card. Brian

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message news:picuqs$ilr$ [e-mail]...

[Bill Wright]

That won't stop the RF.

Bill

[Brian-Gaff]

Total enclosure is the only way and even then if the transmitter is powerful or the receiver very sensitive it might still get through. Perhaps we all need switchable jammers on our person. Brian

[Andrew Mawson]

I defy anyone on the group to purchase tin foil on their local high street !

(they will undoubtedly be able to buy ALUMINIUM foil used for cooking)

Loose terminology leads to confusion not education

Andrew

[Harry Bloomfield]

Bill Wright has brought this to us :

It will stop the majority, more than enough to defeat a thief. Try it with your car key.

[Harry Bloomfield]

It happens that Brian Gaff formulated :

True, but that would be a bit unwieldy for carrying round. Cooking foil works well enough, I have tried it.

The only time my cards are exposed to RF skimming, is when they are out of my wallet, when I pay for something. At such times, I make sure there is no one near enough to skim my card whilst it is unprotected.

[Andy Burns]

If the car has keyless entry, and you leave the key in the hallway, it's probably out of range as far as the car is concerned, but the crooks can put a transceiver midway between the car and house and gain entry then start the car, sort out another key at their leisure ...

[The Natural Philosopher]

So how does the thief read a key that doesnt transmit? Until you press the wotsit?

[Andy Burns]

Keyless entry constantly transmits, you just keep it in your pocket, no pressing to enter or start.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ah. THOSE things. yep. seen those. Not a great idea

[Harry Bloomfield]

The Natural Philosopher was thinking very hard :

Some keys are passive and can be interrogated by the car. In fact most modern car keys have a tiny chip built into them, which has no button, no power needed, which responds to interrogation by the ignition lock. The chip is the size of a grain of rice.

[pamela]

In reality, how easy is it for a thief to use RF to read your credit card? Surely they need to get very close.

[Chris Green]

Our cars need a transducer in the key fob to be present in the car for them to start. So there are two 'layers' of security, firstly you need to transmit the required code from the key fob to open the car doors, then the transducer (presumably passive) in the keyfob needs to be present in the car for the immobiliser to allow you to start the car.

[newshound]

Aluminium foil should be better than tinfoil, though: higher conductivity. Although IIRC tinfoil was probably thicker.

[Andy Burns]

Once they can get inside the car, they plug something into the OBD port that bypasses that, no doubt what they can get away with varies by manufacturer.

[Tim Streater]

I have two of those metallic wallet jobbies that can each hold one card. I don't put the contactless card in them, just have one either side of my card in the wallet.

[NY]

Do they constantly transmit? I thought they were dormant until they received an interrogation signal from the car - or from a thief's cloning device. I think also most keys transmit a unique code (different every time the car challenges the key) to turn off the immobiliser - so even if the key's serrations or the electronic unlock/start code work, there is a second line of defence that will not admit fuel to the engine. Evidently whatever technology car thieves use can also cope with the unique rolling immobiliser code.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Quite. Neighbour had a car stolen and never recovered. The infamous Jaguar/Land Rover keyless entry.

They now keep the keys in a 'safe' bought specifically to screen them. Quite a substantial device. And earthed.