Racist?
I would venture it is a code scanner that reads the code to unlock the car. Aren’t computers great!
Maybe they should use a mechanical locking mechanism. The car manufacturer could install these mechanical devices and provide two or three “keys” that would be needed to unlock them.
I went to a casino in MS years ago. I don’t gamble, so I just walked around. I saw a guy with a little rectangular black box, and he was waving it low, and in front of various slot machines,and when he did they’d “jackpot”.
When embedded systems engineers go bad....
Somebody with Onstar connections?
Mysterious? Key codes are published.
What’s the surprise. Our kids have been cracking copy protection schemes for years now. Or Who’s to say it’s not faulty encryption with back door?
This will combine nicely with what has been going on around here lately. I suppose it’s been in other areas for awhile, but it was “new” to us:
Thieves have been breaking into cars at events that they know will last for several hours (concerts, etc.). They take the garage door opener, along with the car registration (which one is required to have at all times). They drive to the address, use the opener, and clean out the house.
This resulted in a bizarre press conference, where the police spokesman basically told people to break the law by not carrying around the vehicle registration or insurance information with an address listed. At least one woman was injured when she arrived home “early” and surprised the thieves.
It is a trick to get us all to ride the bus and use bicycle lanes.
ping
Broad Band Infrared transmitter and your electronic lock system goes “Click”.
http://penturalabs.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/pocket-emps-on-sale-5/
not much of a mystery.. a news crew in canada has one. Don’t police do their job any more (you know. check around and see what they can turn up. It was the top hit on google for me)
digging more, one site blames.. curry light bulbs.. I knew there was more reasons to hate them than mercury.
Car dealers have similar devices. Probably not much effort to create an electronic skeleton key.
I can still get into my wife’s car with a coat hanger.
If these are all GM cars the thieves may have hacked the onstar system code for unlocking the doors.
I could see the same thing with electric garage doors openers. Just have a transmitter that scans through all the possible codes until you get the right one.
I can’t imagine how difficult it would really be if you knew the range of codes to simply flood them all as quickly as possible. You can get a lot of horsepower in a small package these days. I’m not sure how these systems work though, I just always assumed there was some sort of encryption and too wide of a range for this to be possible. Guess I was wrong
This is why I never use my key fob to lock the doors of my car. The signal can be intercepted, decoded and spoofed for easy entry by thieves. They can’t drive your car away, but they can help themselves to the contents pretty easily.
Use the lock button in the door.