Growing risk of keyless vehicle thefts through "relay attacks"

A criminal/burglars whole job is to figure out how to break into whatever, if there is a will, there is a way… Ever heard of a brick?? lol…

A lock is ONLY used to keep a honest man honest…

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A youngish Italian guy is walking on 86th street in Brooklyn late one night with his girlfriend. As they’re passing a jewelery store she stops to look in the window, and says to him “honey, I’d love this nice bracelet”. He picks up a brick laying near the curb, smashes the window, and hands her the bracelet. A few stores down the street is a furrier. She stops to look in that window and says “honey, I’d love that mink jacket”. He says " whaddya think, I’m made out of bricks?".

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:laughing:
Even though I haven’t walked on 86th Street since 1956, I remember it as a nice shopping street. My elementary school was located at the corner of 86th St & Ridge Blvd.

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I went to high school at Lafayette.

I sure miss plain old metal keys. Not that they didn’t have their own problems…but boy, they sure seemed simpler and more reliable.

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That’s about 7 miles from where we lived on 81st St, in Bay Ridge.

I don’t miss having to dig in my pocket for my keys on a rainy/snowy day. Just walk up to the car while carrying my shopping goodies, pull on the door handle, and… open sesame.

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Fair enough, I’ll grant you that point.

I had to get another key fob made for my wife’s car a few weeks ago. Cost me $300 at the dealer because I couldn’t get any locksmiths to call me back.

I’m sure a metal key copy would have been $10 or less.

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Not if it had a chip in it for the immobilizer so the car would start and run…

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IIRC, “copying” a key like that can cost as much as $250, and keys with those embedded chips have been pretty common for well over a decade… maybe as long as 2 decades.

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Closer to 4 decades…

General Motors (GM) first introduced immobilizer systems in the early 1980s. The first U.S.-made vehicle to use this technology was the 1985 Corvette, which featured GM’s Vehicle Anti-Theft System (VATS). In 1986, VATS was introduced on the Corvette, and thefts from the car dropped significantly. GM expanded VATS to the Camaro, Firebird, and Cadillac Seville in 1988.

Time flies when you are having fun… lol

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That worked real good for Kia and Hyundai

What a great neighborhood to grow up! I grew up in a rural area in the western USA, cowboy & farming country, it was a good place to grow up. But around 10 years old I read the novel “It’s Like This Cat”, about a group of teenager friends living in Manhattan, and I became an instant fan. I used to enjoy long weekends in Manhattan every few months, but haven’t been back since 911.

That’s not Manhattan, it’s Brooklyn.

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Tesla sells two additional key cards for $40. I usually use the Bluetooth phone app and that costs nothing to download. They also have a key fob that has buttons for unlocking the frunk, doors and trunk for $175.

In addition to the two fobs, my vehicle also came with a key card. I’ve never used it, but I suppose that I should test it out. I do occasionally use the phone app for locking/unlocking the doors and the rear hatch.

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I always use the phone app. It is more convenient than the other two methods and all I have to do is have my phone in my right pants pocket where I normally keep it.

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A few months ago, I left my phone in the car, and then I found that I was unable to lock the car via the touch-sensitive door handles. I tried repeatedly–without success–to lock it… until I took the phone out of the car. Apparently, it can sense whether the linked phone is inside the car, or outside.

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60 years since I read the book, but I seem to recall at least part of the plot takes place in Manhattan. Dave (the main character) I believe lives in Manhattan, but has a friend he frequently visits in Brooklyn.

hmmm … thinking you may not be referring to the book plot’s location, but that 86th & Ridge is in Brooklyn … if so, apologize for the confusion. NYC addresses can be a little confusing. Like the intersection of 1st and 1st … lol …

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