Can anyone tell me why this isnt complete bollocks

[tony sayer]

Well explain it way most on here can understand then?..

[T i m]

Some don't, they think there is a right way round to use it. ;-)

;-)

Cheers, T i m

[The Natural Philosopher]

He hasn't understood the problem and is trying to look like he does.

The internet is full of secret uncrackabale conversations based on public/private keys or shared secrets where you cannot infer what the next bit of data is going to be from the last bit of data you recorded.

The ONLY thing that actaully has made sense is the system whereby someone stands betwen the car owner and the car, and relays at a strength high enough to unlock the car, and presumably to drive for 50 yards before they lose signal and the car detects there is none and stops.

Asssuming that the car is smart enough to interrogate the foib while driving on as more or less continuous basis.

[Jack James]

They normally don?t stop the car when they can no longer see the fob, because it is considered dangerous to stop the car like that. They wont allow the car to be started again if it can't see the fob tho.

[Richard]

Maybe "garage sale" a euphemism down under.

[Richard]

uk.d-i-y being a prime example.

[Andy Burns]

Once the car starts, it stays running, even if loses contact with the key ... don't you think it might be a bit dangerous if it shut the engine off in lane3 of the M1 when the fob's battery voltage dropped below some threshold?

[The Natural Philosopher]

I would have thought that a few flashing lights and a 'warning : immobiliser will cut in in 5 minutes" would do the trick

It raises the questoin of what they intend to do with a car that has been stolen in this way. Cant sell it on. Strip for parts I suppose

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not with sufficient warmning. After all I have drtivenb cars that entered into 'limp' mode when the gearbox got too hot, or a turbo hose failed.

That brings em down to less than 50 mph, thenm a couople of minutes later, the thing can be taken off yte motorway to a service staion ..

Let's face it, replacing fob batteries is standard maintenance. You might just as well say 'isn't it a bit dangerous for a car to run out of fuel in lane3 of the M1 when the tank runs dry? or isn't it a bit dangerous for a car engine to seize up in lane3 of the M1 when the oil runs out?

The differnce is that your worldview has security as an addon extra: In fact more and more its a fundamental part of the cars structure.

And thats why car theft is so much less than it was back in the day.

I haven't had a car stolen or broken into since 1985.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Andrew formulated the question :

I am very, very aware of who is around me. I suffered an attempt when I was 14 and have been hyper aware since.

[Robin]

Hows that work in, say, Montana? Or come to that, on a lot of the M25 most mornings and afternoons?

[tim...]

the difference being that the keys can (apparently) be read from 100s of yards away.

a CC can only be remotely read from inches away.

only if the company supplying the goods don't need the pin or the CVV number - neither of which is encoded in the chip

tim

[tim...]

a solution looking for a problem.

it was always destined to end in tears

tim

[tim...]

it's much closer that that

The cards is powered by the RF and the loss of power over the air is the square of the distance.

An RF signal that could supply enough power to start up the card from a yard away would be serious dangerous.

Of course if the card is already powered by the C&P reader then the data can be overheard from further away, but that nor the same thing at all.

tim

[tim...]

and if they are in a position to do that they they don't need any clever tech to read the data on the card

a mark 1 eyeball will suffice

tim

[Bob Eager]

Sure about that? My PIN is validated when I use the offline card reader for online banking.

Presumably a hash of some kind, but it's still there.

[Robin]

Indeed. Chip and pin was _designed_ for offline authorisation. It's the ease of communications these days that means most merchants only accept want online authorisation.

[Andy Burns]

I had an attempt on mine a couple of years ago, which I blame on a combination of poor design and people's inability to follow instructions.

1) A few years ago, Audis came with two normal remote key fobs and an "workshop" key that was a plastic mechanical key for emergency use, not fob shaped (likely it had a transponder chip in it, I never needed to use it, so don't know, but it wasn't a remote transmitter) 2) In the glovebox was an empty fob, which you could slip the workshop key into, if you needed to insert it into the ignition rather than just use it for the door locks. 3) The manual explicitly warned you *NOT* to keep the workshop key in the empty fob in the glovebox, and to keep it at home, but I guess enough people didn't read that, and thought the glovebox was a convenient enough place to keep the workshop key. 4) Thieves must have cottoned on that enough people were stupid enough to keep the workshop key in the empty fob, in the glovebox ... therefore about a dozen Audis in the village got their passenger windows smashed at 5am one morning so the thieves could see who was stupid. 5) Nearly three years later the three scrotes each got banged up for 27 months. 6) new Audis no longer come with a workshop key.

[The Natural Philosopher]

??? well the same way that an amber light warning of low fuel or oil or water works.

You either make it to a service station, or a layby, or you stop on the hard shoulder.

It's a warning that your car is going to stop by istself if you dont do it yourself

[The Natural Philosopher]

I do not think that is what is being said. What seems to be the case is that one scrote follows the driver out of the car, while another scrote stays nearby. The first scrote picks up the fob signal and *relays it by a completely different channel and transport*, to the second scrote, where it is translated back to 'fob talk' and allows the car to be opened and started.

My friend with his XF jag needs to be within about 3 feet for it to unlock.

And it wont start unless the fob is more or less inside the car. I assume its a bluetooth link or some such

So the scrote has to be essentially within a few feet of the driver at one end, and of the car at the other.

Using something like the mobile phone network to bridge the gap