Leaving valuables in the car safely?

[The Natural Philosopher]

I simply dont keep any imporatnt data on any computer EXCEPT my headless boring as shit looks like a 15 year old XP chassis headless server

The operatinal data I need - passwords and the like - are held on the desktop but are password protected in an encrypted format. IF they are important. Lodas of saved logins to te likes of ebay and paypal of cpurse but agaim loss of the desktop would be 'instant repasswording; across all my sites.

As long as they dont take the server, everything is recoverable. I assume my smartphone WILL be stolen at some point. Ok a lot of phone numbers and satnav destinations on it as well as my email account logins, and some wifi logins.

But nothing else. And I can change those (login passwords) in minutes

[The Natural Philosopher]

Depends on the car.

[alan_m]

As seen in a documentary, for high value cars the thieves bring their own ECU to replace the one fitted to the car.

[R D S]

Yeah, got me in quite some bother as a teenager when we borrowed one of the older lad's Ford car key.

Yoof o' today though. Scum the lot of them.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Mine locks itself anyway after a couple of minutes if you forget.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Hope the rest wasn't as worn out as the ignition switch.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Simply swapping the ECU doesn't normally work. It has to be coded too. Rather outside the scope of most car thieves. But they might be able to drive a recovery vehicle. Or more likely clone the 'key' with keyless entry systems.

[Jethro_uk]

Or simply wait until the car is unlocked, and put a gun to the drivers head and invite them to make a gift of the car ?

There's only so much you can do before you realise why they sell insurance.

[Chris Green]

But no smash which is a slight improvement.

[Chris Green]

Ah well, I don't have (or want) a high value car! :-)

[Chris Green]

Cloning the key's wireless which unlocks the doors doesn't clone the transducer which has to be present for the car to start - or at least it does with our cheap Citroens.

[Brian Gaff]

I think what they mean is hide it away. If somebody knows its in the car they will have it. I guess you could put up a sign saying bait car under surveillance. Brian

[newshound]

One of my mates once drove all the way home from work in someone else's Hillman Chimp.

[Jethro_uk]

Of course if a car can't be stolen as a car, it can always be stolen and broken into highly profitable spares ...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Think most made in the last 20 years or so need the ECU coded? And not many are going to take much trouble to steal an old banger. ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not really sure about these keyless types. Neighbour's new Disco which had this was stolen and never recovered from outside their house. They were told the 'key' had been cloned. So now keep the one for the new replacement in some form of special safe.

My rather older car certainly has a chip in the key which communicates with another in the steering lock - totally separate from the remote central locking. So sort of three independent anti-theft thingies in the key.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Think a complete car is worth rather more in some countries. And it would seem less risky for the thieves.

[Tim Watts]

And probably is invalidating his insurance if he did need to claim for a serious theft (including the vehicle).

Mine says that it must be locked at all times when not being used/unattended.

[tabbypurr]

lol @ secure.

NT

[Ian Jackson]

I certainly found that my Cortina Mk2 FT-series key (FT208, FWIW) would open many other FT-series locks. Around 1970, quite a lot of cars used FT keys, including the early Vauxhall Viva and the Austin Princess.