I actually saw a life demo of this about a year or two ago. It was pretty cool to see a guy randomly open his car’s doors and start it with a laptop.
Seems like a good spot for this. Encryption doesn’t help if you don’t lock your damn doors. And if your mirrors don’t fold in, maybe do it manually.
Since his two cars have been stolen, Cosentino has made some changes. He’s stopped parking his cars in his driveway and instead keeps them in his garage. He’s purchased more guns. He’s also in the process of installing a fence around his home.*
*“And obviously,” he said, “I would never leave the key [fob] in the car anymore.”
The part about them watching the mirrors to tell if a car is unlocked is pretty interesting. The auto-fold mirrors are basically a giant light up sign that says, “Hey, my car is sitting here unlocked, come on in”.
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Bump! Apparently this works…
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Welp, guess I’ll be keeping my keys up on the bar from now on. Audi is locked in the garage 95% of the time though and our Enclave still has a dinosaur key.
This is some Nick Cage Gone in 60 seconds type of stuff…
Damn that shits wild
It only picks up the fob though? There’s nothing else it would effect apparently? Did all TVs in the house turn on?
There are faraday bags/containers you can get to put your fobs in that can prevent things like this from happening.
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My understanding is that some key fobs are always broadcasting their signal so that vehicles know when the key is near or inside the car. It’s very short, specific spectrum. So they know what to exclude.
There’s a computer in that coat somewhere, he didn’t just put some wires and coat hangers together 
That antenna shit is wild. Couldn’t manufacturers put in an option for a pin code to start the vehicle? Not the most ideal fix, but that should stop anyone who uses that technology or steals cars because people leave their keys in their car accidentally.
I know a shit ton of idiots are getting their cars stolen here in Clarence because people are just leaving their keys in the console.
You’d have make that an option because people who don’t leave their fob in their car and actually lock it would be pissed that they have to enter a pin every time they start the car. And the second you make it an option the careless people aren’t going to use the pin.
I think an easy solution is once the fob has been motionless for X minutes it stops broadcasting. The chance that someone runs up to your door and starts scanning for a fob broadcasting 10 minutes after you get home is probably pretty slim. After that 10 minutes the fob could go dormant until it detects motion.
Definitely would have to be an option, and agreed, it would only be as good as the people who use it. But it could be a simple update to help people who are trying not to have their shit stolen. Another option is finger print on the start button like the old iphone or facial recognition I guess. If that person isn’t in the system then a pin would pop up. Come to think of it I am describing my iphone lol, but the technology is there to do it.
Idea of the key stopping transmission after a set period of time is also solid, but doesn’t stop people who have the key.
I’m not really concerned with people that have the fob. If you leave the fob in your car you obviously also don’t lock your car since it won’t lock with the fob in the car. At least none of the ones I’ve had experience with will. If there are models out there that let you lock the fob in the car that’s just dumb and needs to be fixed. Trying to engineer security for people who are leaving the fob that starts the car in the car and leaving it unlocked is a waste of time. They’re never going to use any optional “enhanced” security because they aren’t bothering to use even the most basic security of locking the doors.
Some manufacturers (Mercedes, etc.) have off functions built-in to the key
