SAFETY WARNING: How to Lock Your Car and Why

[chimpymustgo]

I just got this email warning about electronic locks. Please read and pass along.
*******

How to Lock Your Car and Why

I locked my car. As I walked away I heard my car door unlock. I went back and locked my car again three times. Each time, as soon as I started to walk away, I would hear it unlock again!! Naturally alarmed, I looked around and there were two guys sitting in a car in the fire lane next to the store. They were obviously watching me intently, and there was no doubt they were somehow involved in this very weird situation. I quickly chucked the errand I was on, jumped in my car and sped away. I went straight t o the police station, told them what had happened, and found out I was part of a new, and very successful, scheme being used to gain entry into cars. Two weeks later, my friend's son had a similar happening....
While traveling, my friend's son stopped at a roadside rest to use the bathroom. When he came out to his car less than 4-5 minutes later, someone had gotten into his car and stolen his cell phone, laptop computer, GPS navigator, briefcase.....you name it. He called the police and since there were no signs of his car being broken into, the police told him he had been a victim of the latest robbery tactic -- there is a device that robbers are using now to clone your security code when you lock your doors on your car using your key-chain locking device.

They sit a distance away and watch for their next victim. They know you are going inside of the store, restaurant, or bathroom and that they now have a few minutes to steal and run. The police officer said to manually lock your car door-by hitting the lock button inside the car -- that way if there is someone sitting in a parking lot watching for their next victim, it will not be you.

When you hit the lock button on your car upon exiting, it does not send the security code, but if you walk away and use the door lock on your key chain, it sends the code through the airwaves where it can be instantly stolen.
This is very real.

Be wisely aware of what you just read and please pass this note on. Look how many times we all lock our doors with our remote just to be sure we remembered to lock them -- and bingo, someone has our code...and whatever was in our car.

[PCIntern]

1. Nope, Sorry...

http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/keyless.asp

[Junkdrawer]

3. The Snopes you posted is about something else. n/t

[Frosty1]

9. Here you go

http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/lockcode.asp

[NJmaverick]

18. That debunks this OP, so I have to unrec

[MNDemNY]

48. Snopes also debunks your TV doctor!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :+

[backscatter712]

23. Good info there.

Newer cars have smarter keyless entry devices - they don't transmit a fixed code, but a cryptographic hash or similar pseudorandom code, that changes every time the remote is used. So just recording the signal emitted by the remote then playing it back won't work.

[Matariki]

55. Very telling when two different tales have the same word for word text

While traveling he stopped at the roadside park, similar to what we have here with bathrooms, vending machines etc. He came out to his car less than 4-5 minutes later and found someone had gotten into his car, and stolen his cell phone, laptop computer, GPS navigator briefcase... you name it.

That's from the snopes article and although it's a different story, the wording is identical to a paragraph in the OP.

[PCIntern]

32. Oops, you're right but

with rolling ocdes it's still BS, I think.

[MercutioATC]

4. That doesn't actually debunk the OP.

You can't use a cellphone or SOUND-based device to unlock a car. A device that uses an RF signal would work, though.

[NJmaverick]

17. The second link does debunk the story though

[TxRider]

53. Not if you own an early 90's or maybe even a mid 90's car.

[Renew Deal]

12. That's not the same thing.

Nice try though :eyes:

[NJmaverick]

16. Look at the second link, you owe the poster an apology

[Renew Deal]

21. There's only one link

[NJmaverick]

27. Look at post 9

[rfranklin]

2. Sounds like urban myth...

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/automotive/unlock-car-door-remote.htm/printable

[MercutioATC]

6. Here's the pertinent paragraph from your linked article:

"Before this rolling code system was developed, thieves were able to use electronic devices called "code grabbers" to lock onto your keyfob's unique signal. With rolling codes, the signal is unique every time, rendering a code grabber device useless"

[RaleighNCDUer]

45. That does indicate that older models are still vulnerable thought. nt

[NJmaverick]

19. According to Snopes it is

[Le Taz Hot]

5. How about not getting a car with one of those

automatic lock thingies? That and power windows. It's just more things that are going to be an expensive repair if/when they ever break.

[Renew Deal]

13. Too late

[Le Taz Hot]

14. I don't know,

I thought that was pretty useful. :shrug:

[backscatter712]

24. Newer cars use rolling codes, so code-grabbers don't work.

You'll have to know the algorithm in the keyless remote's microcontroller, and the unique code. In other words, you have to reverse-engineer the whole damned thing, because just recording the signal from the keyless remote and playing it back won't work.

[RaleighNCDUer]

46. I don't like the concept of power windows.

Get caught in a flash flood, the windows short out, and you are stuck.

You can always hand crank a window down, even under 10' of water.

[Cid_B]

50. Mythbusters disagrees with you...

Episode on escaping from a car underwater... thought the methodology on that one was a bit off though.

[backscatter712]

54. Yeah - once the windows have a lot of water pressure on them...

Neither a hand-crank or power-window motor will have enough oomph to roll the window down, and yes, the motor still worked underwater when the Mythbusters tested it.

You have to either get out really quick before the car sinks to where the pressure traps you inside, or you sit and wait quietly (the Zen method) until the car interior fills up with water, then you'll be able to open the door and escape.

If you thrash around and panic, you'll run out of air and drown before you can escape though.

[caraher]

60. What?

I thought the issue was opening the *door*. You definitely cannot open the door against the water pressure, but with windows you are moving the glass perpendicular to the pressure force, not against it.

I thought the whole idea was that you open the windows and once the car fills with water, the pressure has equalized and you can open the door (and hopefully get to the surface before you have to breathe again!).

[backscatter712]

62. IIRC from the show.

The door was also a problem, but with the windows, the water pressure when there's an air pocket inside the car and water outside will cause the water to press in on the window hard enough that the window motor can't move it, and if you turn the crank on non-power windows, it'll break.

Breaking the windows is an option if you have a heavy enough blunt implement handy.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

7. Thanks for your post. A big whew here. I never use my remote to lock. Just to unlock.

[sailor65]

8. This hasn't worked since the advent of code-hopping

it's an urban myth these days.

Usually, situations like the above happen because people turn off the annoying horn honk when the keyless system locks and then wind up walking away only thinking they had locked the vehicle.

[dysfunctional press]

10. with our vw, you can't lock the driver's door with the lock button when the door is open...

so you'd either have to use the 'keyless' device, or use the key to do it manually.

[Vickers]

25. I have a VW like that, too. Here's the funny part: I had a '71 Beetle

and you couldn't lock the driver's door from the inside if the door was open. You had to shut it and lock it with a key.

God thing is, you never locked your keys in the car!

[dysfunctional press]

29. i managed to lock my keys inside our new beetle, in sopite of the feature...

the car was in for repairs, and we had a rental...i went to pick up the vw at the dealership, and started transferring stuff from the rental...the beetle key was laying on the seat, and i shut the door- another feature about new beetles(that 2001 model, anyway) was that the key somehow automatically locked the door when it was in the vicinity. as soon as i shut the beetle door, the locks engaged, and the key was laying on the driver seat.
the worst part- it was after 6pm, and there was NOBODY left in the service department, so there was nobody who had the ability to open the door.
the manager was able to find a wire device specially made to unlock locked beetle doors from the outside- it goes in the door like a slim-jim, but then goes under the window, and into the car, and pushes the unlock button on the inside of the car door...the only problem was- when the doors were locked with the signal-device in the key, it also automatically disengages the unlock button on the inside of the door- making the wire device completely useless.

i had to keep the rental car an extra day.

[rfranklin]

38. I have locked myself out of VWs and Fords by leaving the keys...

in the trunk while loading or unloading equipment and then slamming the lid shut. Wow, that makes you feel really stupid.

[DefenseLawyer]

11. And when I returned to the car... there in the door handle...

was a bloody hook!!!!!!!!!

[NYC_SKP]

40. LOL!

:rofl:

[cali]

15. lol. I haven't locked my car in years and years and years.

and I don't even have a house key. I've gone away for a month at a time and not locked my house.

[RB TexLa]

20. I can't think of the last time I locked my car, I take my keys most of the time when I park it

but don't remember actually locking it.

[hunter]

22. I rarely lock my 25 year old truck.

There's a radio with a cassette player in there, but it doesn't work.

The tires tend to be the most valuable thing on it, but only when they are new.

[Ikonoklast]

26. When I fill the tank on my '96 Suburban witha quarter million miles on it,

the value doubles.


I left the 'ol bus running, lights on, and all the doors open, hoping someone would steal it, and when I woke up in the morning, there were two of them sitting in my driveway.

[Marr]

37. Someone once broke into my old VW to steal the change out of my ash tray.

The worst thing was, they'd clearly rooted around inside the car to find anything of real value... but had been unsuccessful. The car itself apparently hadn't even crossed their mind as being worth stealing. I felt insulted, somehow. :P

[MineralMan]

28. A good rule of thumb: If someone forwards an email to you,

odds are high that it is bogus. Most of them are. Before posting them on DU, forwarding them to others, or doing anything but deleting them, It's best to check Snopes to see if the one you got has already been checked. If it hasn't, still assume that it's bogus until you check it out.

Being cautious with forwarded emails can eliminate a lot of embarrassment.

[petronius]

30. You should embellish that with an embarrassing personal story

and send it around as a chain e-mail...

:)

[MineralMan]

41. If I did, my mother and mother-in-law would send it to everyone

on the planet. I'm sure they have everybody's email address in their address books. I delete twenty of these forwarded emails a day from one or the other of them. I gave up trying to explain. "But, it came from my old high school friend. She wouldn't send me anything that wasn't true." Try arguing with your mother about that one.

I just delete them without trying any more. Then, when I'm home visiting on the holidays, I clear all the trojan horses and such from their computers. Since they're both deathly afraid to put anything like a credit card on the internet, and they refuse to do internet banking (people want to steal your money, you know) there's nothing really in their computers that's sensitive.

[NJmaverick]

31. That is an excellent rule to live by and one I follow myself

The idea of hidden knowledge being passed around by email has always struck me as far fetched (especially in this day and age of 24X7 news stations craving any sort of story).

[liberalmuse]

33. I got this in my box some weeks ago.

From a friend who is always sending me this stuff. I tell her about 'Snopes', yet she still sends it, except now with a 'I don't know if it's true or not', LOL. That kind of email makes me nuts, because it's so full of paranoia and reminds me of 'the herd' mentality.

Then again, my sister and I got an email with a dire warning from our wingnut uncle about how 'Plug-ins' could burn down a house, so DON'T USE THEM!!! Snopes basically debunks it, but some months later my sister smelled something burning in her house and found the 'Plug-in' she kept in the bathroom melted down, so you never know...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

34. My automatic locking system broke, and I never got it fixed

Plain old fashioned keys work just fine.

[LeftyMom]

35. I'm sure a thief well-equipped and inventive enough to do that

can find better uses for their skills than sneaking into my car to get my gps.

But leaving half the contents of a Best Buy in your car isn't a good idea no matter how you lock it. Every car car has windows, and a high tech device called a big heavy rock defeats the security they provide.

[Marr]

36. Haha, no kidding.

I remember talking to a cop once about locks and home security. He was of the opinion that security will only deter the most casual sort of potential burgler. One thing he mentioned was how people would stick a car jack in the door frame of one of these very well-locked doors and just drop the door right out of it's frame.

I suspect car theft-- especially just to steal an object inside, like a stereo or a GPS system-- is ten times worse, since you can just smash the window and be well away before anyone investigates the noise.

[NightWatcher]

39. if a thief wants into your car bad enough the only device he needs is a rock

[MineralMan]

42. Rocks are old school. They've all stolen one of those

window-breaker/seatbelt slasher tools from Walgreens. Works better and you don't have to find a good rock or get your hands diry.

[snagglepuss]

43. I wouldn't be so fast as other posters to dismiss the OP because several

weeks ago a Toronto nieghbourhood had 6 SUVs, late-model Highlanders, stolen in 1/2 an hour. Police said it was an extremely sophisticated group of theives they've seen operating elsewhere that are able to quickly hack into the cars electonics although the manufascturers say that would be impossible. I don't know if its the same thing as mentioned in the email but I think people should be aware that automated systems may not be reliable.

snip

Police are investigating whether the thieves could have bypassed the built-in security systems using a proximity key. It's a device that matches the electronic signal sent from a remote door opener to the vehicle.

Stealing a signal requires detailed knowledge and a combination of data, specialized skills, equipment and access to various components of a system, according to Microtrip Technology Inc., which makes key fobs.

Once thieves break into a vehicle they can hack into its computers and trick it so any key can start it, says Mohamed Bouchama, executive director of Car Help Canada.

"They train on this stuff for quite a while, so they know what they want," he said. "They know what they're looking for."

The experts also told CBC News that with a theft ring this sophisticated, chances are the vehicles were likely already on shipping containers and leaving the country.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/11/25/toronto-leaside-suvtheft.html

snip

As to how the vehicles were stolen, Mr. Dubin is stumped. All late-model Highlanders have an electronic immobilizer which “basically means that there’s a transponder chip in the key and in order to start the car, get a flow of gas, start the engine ... you have to insert the key.”


If there is some kind of new technology that can bypass the transponder, ‘‘we haven’t run into that yet,’’ said Mr. Dubin.


http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/11/25/six-suvs-stolen-in-leaside-spree.aspx

[Xithras]

57. It's not impossible. It's not even hard. It's just a little time consuming, so it's uncommon.

Quite honestly, the only thing I would need in order to hack the keyless entry system from every Prius made is the keyless entry system from a SINGLE Prius. If I had my hands on one of those, I could capture the code from you locking your car, feed it into my own receiver, and pull a valid NEXT code from my devices SRAM. I can then transmit that code, and unlock your car.

It's uncommon because it requires quite a bit of technical skill and some prep work, and when you're done the system can only be used on a specific type (and often, model) of car. It's not worth the effort to steal a single car this way, but can be an easy way for professional theft rings to gain access to a number of identical vehicles (for export or chop shop), which is probably what happened with those Highlanders.

[madmom]

44. I never lock my car, there is nothing in it that compares to the cost of repairing after a break in.

[HelenWheels]

47. Locked out

My Toyota Camry locked me out with the keys in the ignition and the car running. I had an extra key but it was in my purse in the car. I called the dealership who I bought my car from and they cut another key and came to my house within 20 minutes. And we live about 10 mines from the dealership. The best part was they didn't charge me a cent.

[librechik]

49. Thanks! (patting myself on the back cuz I was too lazy to go replace my electronic key pad

when I lost it several years ago! That's one for procrastination!)

[CreekDog]

51. You watched War Games one too many times

:tinfoilhat:

[Ignis]

52. Ugh. There are problems with RFID, but this is silly. (nt)

[snooper2]

56. Why to people automatically believe chain mails like this?

:banghead:

Whenever a line like this is somewhere in the body:

" Two weeks later, my friend's son had a similar happening.... "



you should know

[Sparkly]

58. Has it been sent to Snopes?

I have no way of knowing if it's true or not -- the only thing that strikes me as odd is that three times the person started to walk away but the car unlocked while they were still close enough that it was audible. Wouldn't the would-be thieves have waited until the owner was a bit further away after the first or second time?

I dunno.

My car is so old it doesn't even have a remote key thing. Only works with a regular old-fashioned key.

[flvegan]

59. Locking.

Just seemed like this thread needed that.

[Ignis]

63. IATL

:spank:

[Fire1]

61. Thanks for the information. Will heed. n/t