Always park where the most people are, thieves love the privacy of a back alley when they break into your car. If there is a crowd around, they can never be sure the owner isn’t amongst that crowd.
I don’t know which is true but I was always told to stay in the light because people won’t suspect you under a street light like they would in the shadows. I have no first hand experience though but knew a few fellows.
“Always park where the most people are, thieves love the privacy of a back alley when they break into your car.”
That is very good advice–when it is possible to do so.
Many years ago, in the days when I still drove into NYC, I was having an unusually hard time finding a parking space on the street one night. My circle became ever-wider until I finally found a street that was only partially filled with parked cars. Because this was the only place that I had found to park during a 30-40 minute tour of Greenwich Village, naturally I pulled in and parked.
Well…you guessed it. When I returned to the car, the trunk had been broken into, and a particularly nice (and expensive) set of socket wrenches had been stolen.
:-((
I didn’t make that mistake again!
It isn’t a mistake if you’ve made you best effort not to do it and it was the only choice left to you.
Dont sweat it,someday the scum will be gone.
Mike, I think you should pay a visit to DC and the Office of Personnel Management and Pentagon in particular.
Your right there are secure systems that have been broken into…AND EVER SINGLE ONE WAS DONE FROM THE INSIDE…NOT from the outside through an internet connection.
The system in a car is NOT like your windows or linux system on your PC. The car software is a dedicated piece of software with specific set of protocols. Doesn’t get email, or can be sent files. It’s a verily simple system that should be easy to secure. The more complex the harder it is to secure. Before you write your first line of code you need to design in security. You can’t wait til the end and retrofit it in.
Mike, five years ago I might have agreed, but many new cars are coming out with systems that detect objects around them using sonar, radar, even applying the Doppler effect, and override the driver inputs. Any system that transmits and receives, and then can override the driver inputs and operates the vehicle based upon the inputs is open to hacking. I know this may not be the traditional definition of “hacking” but it’s net effect is the same. Someone with the appropriate technical skills could easily take over control of the car. Cars that interact with each other pose an even bigger threat. More susceptibility to external inputs and more autonomous vehicle control poses threats that were unimagined just a few years ago.
. Any system that transmits and receives, and then can override the driver inputs and operates the vehicle based upon the inputs is open to hacking.
That was part 2 of the problem I mentioned earlier. I don’t see the need for the On-Start to even have the ability to control any of the cars driving components. That is definitely a security problem. The easiest way to solve it…is to disable that functionality.
Any system that transmits and receives, and then can override the driver inputs and operates the vehicle based upon the inputs is open to hacking.
This is absolutely true, but I don’t like those systems even if they were hardened to the point where it was impossible to break in (which would be easy enough to do - just make that a closed system that has no ability to receive commands outside of its own loop – people forget that it’s very easy to stop a computer from being hacked over the internet; Disconnect the computer from the internet).
I don’t trust potentially buggy code to override my decisions as a driver. There could be a flaw in the programming that would make it do something stupid without a hacker ever even glancing at the car. I prefer to trust myself over a computer that was programmed by a human who was probably underpaid and overworked.
Shaadowfax, there is the (possibly urban legend) story of the software bug in the F15 (?) flight software, where if it crossed the equator, the computer would command the craft to flip upside down.
And then there is the US cruiser whose engine control software was based on Windows. They had a software glitch (Green screen) due to an entry incorrectly formatted, and had to be towed to port.
Well, we’re not going to get away from computers in cars, nor do we want to. Most cars today have more lines of computer code than the F22 Raptor. The trick is finding the balance between enhanced controlability and allowing the human to have the final say in what the vehicle does.
I’ll give you an example: The previous generation of Ford Escapes had a terrible traction control system. We had a fleet of them at work and I hated driving the things. If you went around a corner that had any sand or gravel on it, the system would panic and slam on the brakes. It was frankly very dangerous - we’re lucky that we were never being tailgated when it would happen.
That doesn’t mean I think TCS is automatically bad - the TCS in my TL is superb - it intervenes when it needs to, but gives me enough leeway to drive the car properly otherwise. It even allows predictable sliding around corners without freaking out and trying to take over, which is very impressive.
But even though it’s superb, Honda was smart enough to allow me to turn it completely off if I need to. Ford was not - you can lower its intensity, but it will still always be monitoring and will take over if it thinks you’re in trouble, which is problematic because it incorrectly thinks you’re in trouble a lot.
Computers in modern cars are great, but they have to be very meticulously designed or they create problems.
I have an excellent security device when I go away on a trip. I unplug my garage door opener.
You know, that’s a good idea. Mine are nine feet up though. I’m going to think about putting the outlets on a switch that would make it convenient.
The garage door opener we have is 15 years old and has a button on side of the wall mounted unit that we move and the door will close but not open with the remote.
Ah yes, the lock feature. Never thought of that and never used it. I think only one door has it. On occasion though having to trouble shoot why the door doesn’t work I found someone pushed the wrong button and locked it. Wasn’t me of course. Still allows you to pull the key pad outside and short the wires though I believe.
The lock feature also prevents using the wall mounted unit opening the door until the button is moved back to it’s normal position.
Correction, I’ve got ten foot ceilings, not nine so makes it a little hard to keep pulling the plugs. Plus I checked the lock function and the outside keypad still works when locked. I’ve got two Chamberlain so maybe other brands are different although I think they share parts. Wiring a couple switches would probably be the easiest but then I’d have to use a key on the side door every time we came back from being gone for a few days.