Slashdot Mirror
Keyless Entries Fail In Las Vegas On Friday
Hoompini-Ting writes "Some accuse area 51, but in any case many folks were stranded when keyless locks failed or their car computers malfunctioned. No technical explanation but I'm sure slashdotters have theories. Similar to the failure in Seattle 3 years ago. See the Las Vegas Review-Journal for more details."
Vegas was built upon a geographical oddity known as a bad luck epicentre. This is merely a cute manifestation of this bad luck phenomenon.
And that's also why I lost all my money there too.
...have you met Commander Bond?
A weather baloon caused it, there is no need to worry!
Someone's probably just using an electromagnetic pulse device to rob a casino. Round up the usual suspects (Clooney, Pitt, etc.)
Estrada resorted to using his key to unlock his car door...
What is this world coming to?
My car is one of them," Ferguson said. "It's some kind of electrical disturbance. Either that or a nuclear bomb went off a few miles from here."
I'm betting it's an electrical disturbance because I don't think there would be much of him around otherwise.
"The military is certainly capable of fibbing about these things," Pike said. "But, for the military to have done it, they would have to have seriously miscalculated the effects of some test."
oh no.
I am blaming the military. Come to think of it, wouldn't it be possible to create a "Denial of Entry" by jamming those frequencies in a given area.
On the other side, that would make people actually open their doors by hand (what a concept!), they might loose some weight and build some muscle in the process too.
maybe the 2 rovers we sent to mars, ticked off the martians. they figured that why not tick off some people in the unluckiest place (LV) on the earth. :)
by the way, martians exist in different dimensions, so the rovers will not be able to see them
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Terry Bussell, Gov. Kenny Guinn's adviser on homeland security, ruled out terrorism...
Whew, that's a relief.
My best guess: it was a HAARP experiment.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
Here's two dumb questions in a row:
Are governors asking their homeland security advisors whether everything could be terrorism now? "My toilet clogged up this morning...could that be terrorism?" Isn't that really time the governor could spend better, I don't know, say, whimpering underneath a desk in the fetal position, or playing golf, or even chewing gum?
How do they know it's not the result of terrorist action? Perhaps there are some acutely stupid terrorists, and this is the first strike against keyless entry...in a very small area of the world...which nobody really noticed. Maybe they're just stupid terrorists. Maybe their next plan is to have a terror blog. Maybe their next plan is to get shirts printed up with the word "Terrorist" emblazoned on the front.
-----------------------
You are what you think.
the y2k+4 bug rears its ugly head
"... because no can leave!"
"... two men enter, one man leave... the Passion of THUNDERDOME!" ... sorry, Mel.
There is always a small panel near by with a red lever or wheel. Good thing car thieves aren't geeks.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
With hysterical results.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
The article said that the people up at Nellis were gearing up for a "Red Flag" operation next week. If memory serves, Red Flag is a mock warfare exercise, and i'm thinking they had an electronic warfare aircraft of one kind was on the way in, and flikked on the the switch marked "jam" instead of the button to turn on the surround sound in the cockpit :)
Learn about Photography Basics.
Estrada resorted to using his key to unlock his car door, but that set off his alarm.
What the hell was he doing in Vegas? Doesn't the "C" in "CHiPs" stand for "California"? And what's this about a car? Has he lost his bike?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Abnormal solar radiation
Unexpected other space radiation (supernovae? pulsars?)...
...Slashdot Effect...
Sigs are bad for your health.
Oh no! A DDoE [Distributed Denial of Entry]!!! Arrrrrggghhhh!!!!
.
Haven't any of you watched Oceans Eleven? I think that the Bellagio better check their vault.
It sounds like the Infinite Improbability Drive is malfunctioning again.
"Solar flares can produce and eject large numbers of charge particles, and usually the Earth's magnetic field deflects them before they enter the atmosphere,"
In other news, the Sun reached out and incinerated a home in Dayton, Ohio, late last week. The front yard was also slightly scorched, but neighbors reported absolutely no damage from the 50,000 Kelvin temperatures.
However, Tom Glavine, a next door neighbor did report breaking a sweat.
Can you spell EMP?
-rt
Anyone see the movie???
Got Code?
Now one of the pages you linked to is "Temporarily Unavailable". Sounds like a cover-up to me. That proves that something must be going on.
Sigs are bad for your health.
It's surely caused by someone's huuuuge king-size electric shaver nearby.
The intro quotes this as happening in Seattle 3 years ago...can anyone provide evidence?
I think this is the event they were referring to.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
It is not a bad luck epicentre, but a good luck epicentre. If you build a casino on it, you will always end up winning.
Fight Spammers!
I would have thought that everyone would have figured this one out. I saw it on a movie called "The Core." Basically, the center of the earth has stopped moving. Our only hope is to send down some kind of manned underground machine and detonate nuclear weapons.
And why did he change his name from "Poncharello" to "Estrada"?
Sounds like one of my less brilliant moments. One time when I was waxing my car, I was just applying the wax to the driver side door in a crouched position, and all the sudden my doors started locking and unlocking. Because of my paraniod nature, I immediatelly thought that it was because I was applying pressure to the door, and somehow creating or worsening a short or something...
.. we now return to less useless posts...
As it turns out, I had my keys with the fob in my pocket, and the folds in my pants were pushing the button as my hips were moving while applying the wax.. lol
In my defence, I had only had the car for a few days and had never had a keyless entry system before =)
Can anyone think of anything I've missed? Especially in the "man-made" section.
Hundreds of people suddenly degaussing there monitors after reading a Slashdot poll?
Physical key entry can fail also when some bastard kid pours Superglue into the keyhole. Or even a broken toothpick can F it up.
Table-ized A.I.
My car alarm goes off when someone uses a crowbar to open the door, but smashing the alarm with the crowbar will stop it.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Clearly someone watched Oceans 11 and decided to try using a pinch to rob a casino. Apparently the plan didn't work...or did it?
What lesson? Slashdoters have conclusively proven that Manual Overrides neither grow hair on your palms nor do they make you go blind.
MODerators: if you don't get the joke then you never read Cryptognomicon - what kind of geek *are* you?
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Car alarms are completely worthless these days. I don't know anybody who upon hearing a car alarm thinks 'someone is trying to steal a car'. Instead it's more like 'some asshole's alarm is too sensitive', or 'OH MY GOD, a leaf landed on someone's car!".
In at least one case, I saw a car alarm REDUCE a car's security. As a rather large and apparently intoxicated person walked past an expensive looking car, he triggered one of those stupid proximity alarms (as in 'this is the Viper, don't look so hard at the paint' or some such junk). He yelled 'OH YEAH!!! Well FUCK YOU!', and proceeded to kick in the headlights and smash the windshield. I guess it should have just kept quiet.
The best alarms don't make a sound. They give the thief a minute or so to drive off and then cut off the fuel. The idea being that they will be in traffic by then where they are much too high profile to attempt to bypass the alarm.
perspicacity
Holy crap dude, you win the prize for Obscure Word of the Week. Have you been reading books again??
(ps: I actually had to bust out the dictionary for that one.)
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
An engineer at Volkwagen thought that if someone tries to steal a new super-deluxe Toureg sport utility, the theft deterrent system ought to make it damn hard. So, if the car's alarm is not turned off using the key fob, the would-be intruder (even if he uses the key to manually unlock the driver's door) will run into several obstacles.
He'll find that the car won't start. And he'll then find he can't remove the key from the ignition (it locks it in place), and can't take the car out of Park.
Unfortunately, if the battery dies (for no apparent reason), the alarm cannot be turned off. So the owner will face the same set of obstacles.
He will use the key to manually open the door. He will insert the key and try to start the engine. He will fail, and try to remove the key, which will not come out. He will call VW roadside assistance, who will call AAA. The tow truck driver will arrive and won't be able to jump start the car, because the battery is in the rear cargo compartment, and the door locks are either dead or disabled by the alarm system. He will shrug and leave. Another tow truck driver will arrive, shrug, and leave. A third tow truck driver will arrive and decide to tow the car. He will discover that the transmission is locked in Park, so he can't tow it. He will shrug and leave. After another call to VW roadside assistance, a local dealer will get involved, sending a tow truck with a dolly, so the car can be rolled onto a flat bed truck and taken to the dealer.
The owner will be really happy he just spent $40,000 on a high-end German sport utility vehicle.
Forget the terrorist theories, someone please tell the whales to answer!
-- Soruk
Most vehicles have a switch under the dash that lets you turn off the alarm once in the vehicle.
;-)
Yeah... mine has that. It's called the fuse box.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Anyone ever see maximum overdrive? I rest my case.
It's called "mod rule"
What?
Thats strange because the other day i was driving my car (which has power-only stearing and brakes) when all of a sudden the power went out, i couldnt stear or break or even change down a gear (fully electronic gear selection) so i tried to bail but i couldnt even open the door - you guessed it electronic locks. Well it wouldnt have mattered if the power was on anyway because the locks automatically stop you opening the door while the car is moving. And anyway i couldnt see the approaching train track because the electronically tinted windows are designed to go black when the power is off (so you cant look inside the car). So the car rolled to a stop and i heard the horn that could only mean one thing...
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Lisa: I've got some textbooks but without state-approved syllabi and
standardized testing my education can only go so far.
Marge: Honey, maybe you should relax a little.
Lisa: Relax? I can't relax! Nor can I yield, relent, or -- [groans]
Only two synonyms? Oh my God: I'm losing my perspicacity!
[runs off screaming]
Homer: Well, it's always in the last place you look.
Clearly, this was a beta test of a new, long distance, selectively sized and targeted (Las Vegas metro this time around) EMP weapon.
Ooops! Now that I revealed this info, I expect a knock at my door any moment.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Authorities have ruled out terrorism in yesterday's solar eclipse.
Unknown host pong.
He must not be an American.
Actually -
You seem yourself to display a powerful example of a much larger problem with our society today - "unable to go into their cars?" No, I'm not referring to your poor sentence but rather to the concept presented. People can't use their remote keyless entry and so they're unable to enter their cars! If, in order to enter their car, they're forced to the incredible inconvenience and severe physical strain of inserting their key into their lock and actually TURNING it then they're actually unable to enter their car. How worthless can people get?
My stepfather lost one of the keyless entry devices for my car and I don't use the other. Trust me, using a key isn't difficult - I do so daily. On my air-cooled VW, I even roll the windows up and down manually!!!!!