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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."
this reminds me of those personal cellphone jammers that people have been buying... surely the same technology can be applied to the frequency of these keyless entry remotes...
just my 2 cents...
Investing forum
If it were some weird electrical disturbance or whatever, wouldn't all the keyless entry systems be affected? I didn't get the assumption from the article that it was all of them, rather a small amount. I'd be curious to know whether or not all the ones that failed where in the same area, or if it was spread out over Vegas.
The intro quotes this as happening in Seattle 3 years ago...can anyone provide evidence?
No, I haven't searched with Google. I didn't make the allegation.
I'll create an amusing sig when I have something meaningful to post.
So now "they" have a device that effectively squelches a large frequencyband, temporarily. In either situation, this spells bad news. The dependencies on radiotraffic are getting bigger and bigger everyday, not including numerous electronical devices that suffer from it. This is like pirate radio, but on a much bigger scale...
That's like sitting through 3 hours of the Oxygen network because you can't find the remote.
I bought my last car just after a colleague had had problems with his keyless system - it started unlocking the doors every time a truck with a CB went past. As a result, I insisted on not having keyless entry. I'm beginning to think I should moderate my decision "Insightful".
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I loaned my vehicle to a friend for a few days last night which was supposed to be returned around 10PM. Around that time, she called and was frantic because she was late and she could not disable the alarm to get into it. I had no idea what the heck was going on. Probably some SDI research gone awry. There is always wierd stuff going on here in the Las Vegas Valley. Vegas is a great place to live. Always something going on, always something interesting happening.
Whenever I'm in Manhattan near the Empire State Building my keyless entry is absolutely useless. I'm fairly confident that my poor little electronic key fob gets drowned out by the sheer volume of RF signals in the area. Probably the same sort of thing in Vegas only in a short burst.
Curse the FCC and part 15 of their rules.
Free Mac Mini. Yes, I'm
Someone used a pinch. To quote Basher:
"A pinch creates a similar electromagnetic pulse, but without the fuss of mass destruction and death. So instead of Hiroshima, you'd be getting the seventeenth century."
Ok, I just wanted to post a quote from one of my favorite TV screen saver movies. Still, it's somewhat on-topic.
RW
RAF Fylingdales, on the North Yorkshire moors in England. They've had big problems with the poweful radar there (which will form part of the NMD system); cars that get too close have their alarms or engine immobilizers triggered. In the latter case, they have to be towed out of range of the radar. More about the story can be found here.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
I am many years out of date on this, but the last time I looked BMW was the only car manufacturer with the perspicacity to include an emergency window winding mechanism in its cars with electric windows. It always seemed like a no brainer to me.
An impact puch might serve (and I recommend every car carry one in its glove box), but that's messy and expensive for simple, non life threatening situations.
KFG
We had a very similar situation here in the Colorado Springs, CO area a few years ago when a faulty FM broadcast tower started sending out signals on rogue frequencies.
Not only were keyless entry systems affected, but garage doors started opening at seemingly random intervals as well. It happened on the southwest side of the city, which as anyone familiar with the area knows, is smack-dab next to NORAD (as well as the main array of broadcast antennae that serve the city).
Needless to say, the conspiracy theorists had a field day with that one too.
bash: rtfm: command not found
Actually, no. Most car doors have a more generic lock than the ignition. Once I went to drive my mom's car, sat inside, only to find the key didn't work in the ignition. That's when I realized I had never gotten my mom's car key, and had unlocked the door with MY car's key. I double checked to be sure, and my key always unlocked her car door with ease.
I'm honestly not sure why this is, but I do have a suspicion. The intent is probably that you can't make a key that fits the car from the outside. First you'd need to make a key using the door lock, then you'd have to get inside the car, then make another key using the ignition. Hopefully this takes too long or requires too many visits to the car, and before you can make keys for both locks either the owner will return and catch you, or a passerby will notice what you're doing.
As for having the car alarm go off "by default" if you put a proper key in the door, I still think that is stupid and obnoxious. I think car alarms should be outlawed altogether, at least until the things have some remotely significant success rate. And by success i mean only going off if someone is actually breaking into the car. Alternatively, the car's owner should be fined (maybe 200$) if the alarm goes off without real provocation. Too many car alarms are too sensitive, and the owners dont give a shit because they're not the ones trying to sleep in the house/apartment/dorm next to their blaring car alarm.
BMW doesn't do it on all their cars either. I know my friend's BMW is electric only.
One annoying thing BMW does do is that if you push the lock in manually on the door, there's no way to pull it back out! Took me a minute to figure out that pulling on the door opening level automatically unlocks the door the first time you pull it, then the second time it opens the door.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Actually, come to think about it, the alarm isn't set off when the key is turned, rather when the door is opened. Still makes sense to me, since the window can be left open with the alarm enabled...
The door's lock is essentially physical; detecting a pick would certainly add complexity. Picking is rare anyway, they use a slim-jim or a curved tool that hits the power lock button.
The ignition's tumblers are higher precision and, in some cars, have sensors that read a code embedded in the chip to verify the key.
when I'm in the parking lot of a sizeable medical practise here which has a bunch of X-Ray machines and other diagnostic equipment.
if the lock could detect tampering like from a pick or a jiggler and THAT set off the alarm
Interesting idea. I think it would be fairly simple to distinguish between a key and a lockpick. You'd have to have contacts inside the lock for each tumbler. Typically, a key will set the tumblers from the outside in, while it's much easier to pick a lock from the inside out. I've never used a jiggler, so I don't know how you'd detect that. Of course, people who wanted to pick those locks would just develope techniques to defeat that.
An easier way would be to put an RFID in the key. Of course, then you're stuck going to a dealership to get a spare.
Either way, though, you're still subject to computer failures.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Okay, surely somebody else stopped to think that in order to rule out terrorism* the (substitute the big brother entity of your choice here) must have known what actually did cause the problem?
Am I alarmed that the government and/or military has the ability to disable my key bob? Not particularly.
* - regardless of the scale, flaming shoes for cripes...
The OEM remote control for my Chrysler Concord has FCCID GQ43VT9T. Which is registered to a company called TRW (TRW is also engraved into the back of the keyless entry remote).
According to the FCC, all remote controls with this FCC ID operate at 315.000mhz. My guess would be, most keyless entry systems built by this company operate at this frequency (ie, they don't all have separate FCC ID's, and separate frequencies).
It would only take me, an amateur radio operator, about an hour to come up with a way to block transmission on that frequency for, say, a 50 mile radius.
Go here to check your FCC ID.
I know of a case where a bunch of people got locked out of their cars for some hours. It was in a parkinglot in front of a shopping center.
After an investigation it turned out that in one of the high apartment buildings next to the parkinglot, someone had a wireless set of headphones jamming the keyless car locks.
You stop there for lunch on your bike and will the alarm/immobliser disarm afterwards? Will it buggery. Apparently there's a US Airforce "listening station" nearby.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
to have strange EMP problems since there's a large (>= 10 kW) ELF installation owned by the DoD in that area, according to an acquaintance who was an EE tech there. Posting anon due the the nature of the topic mentioned.
There is a fairly large mountain, Mount Wilson, about 15 miles from the center of Los Angeles. It is a weird bit of topography to have such a high mountain right next to a city at sea level, and both the academic and telecommunications fields have taken advantage of it.
I went up there with my son to see the array of telescopes. They have some amazing, unique installlations, including a spectacular optical interferometer.
About a mile from the observatory there is the largest antenna farm you've ever seen. Antennas of every size, geometry, and description.
And -- the keyless entry on my Toyota Spyder didn't work. It was a little puzzling, I assumed that the remote's battery was dead -- but the little light worked just fine. If I put the remote right next to the car, it would work about one time out of 10. Very odd. I thought maybe it was the altitude...
Then when I tried it at the parking garage the next day, it worked perfectly, with its normal range and exuberance. I now believe that it was interference from the antenna farm that was causing it not to work at Mount Wilson.
I'm sure that there was some kind of similar interference in Vegas yesterday. I wonder if Aviation Week will write it up.
Thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I'm not a radio/electro-magnetic frequency expert, but couldn't a low-power EMP bomb cause something like this? There was talk a year or so ago that terrorists may use EMP devices to distrupt critical infrastructure. In this case, I think the "terrorist" angle merit(ed) looking into.
One of my electronics instructors in college had been an electronic warfare guy on B-52s. He did some serious damage to one of our early warning systems during a test of some new anti-jamming equipment (they wanted to see how long it would take to pinpoint his position as he jammed while flying down the west coast from Alaska). Apparently his equipment had been miscalibrated, which caused him to jam on the wrong frequency.
I never asked him for details, but I got the impression he could have jammed just about any frequency he wanted, so I don't buy Estrada's statement.
Another funny story he had actually involved a garage door opener. This was back when such systems were new and expensive. IIRC this was in Wyoming or some similar sparsely populated state, and he was working at the base radar station. The doctor in the nearby town had a garage door opener installed, but apparantly it operated on the same frequency as the radar, and so every time the radar dish came around his garage door would go up or down.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
- EMP device (or similar radiofrequency weapon)
- Government tests of evil mass-population-control backdoors built into car lock software (you can't stop it with tinfoil, if it needs radio to work! Bwahahahah!)
- Some silly bugger intentionally flooding the car-lock frequencies with pseudo codes, perhaps as a form of "dictionary password attack" to steal cars, perhaps as just a prank.
Back when the FCC had District Engineers, instead of "Regional Directors" who are usually lawyers, you could probably get somebody on the phone who'd crank up a receiver and tune around until they found the source of the problem. Today, the FCC doesn't even have an office in Las Vegas. The nearest field office is in LA.
Many tower sites have 460Mhz high power paging transmitters co-located there along with 150Mhz transmitters. Often times these transmitters are not "UP" at the saame time. Paging transmitters are up most of the time during the day. When you have two stations that are close to each other and you don't have a device called a "circulator" on the output of the RF Power Amp (PA), you get a mix of the two signals. 460-150 puts out a mix at about 310Mhz. Right in the band that many of the wireless key entry systems use. If the mix is only a few watts, comming from a high gain paging transmitter's antenna, yep, it would stomp all over the keyless remote.
No need for panic, I am sure it was someone replacing a bad circulator on a paging transmitter.
--fatboy
Another similar situation in Montreal when a brand new public transport train locomotive was put into service: its route took it through a residential neighborhood lined w/ houses equipped w/ 1-2 door garages. Imagine the owners' surprise when, as the train passed by for the first time, nearly all the garage doors equipped w/ electrical openers opened on their own! I can't remember exactly what caused it, but it was related either to the new locomotive's communication system or the part-electric propulsion system.
Either that, or it is terrorism.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Actually, there are systems that easily do over-the-horizon at uhf frequencies. (Troposcatter and some radar) The principle is that if I launch enough power, some of it will scatter over the horizon and the reflection will scatter back. This is how they used to communicate with the DEW line
Actually, no. Most car doors have a more generic lock than the ignition. Once I went to drive my mom's car, sat inside, only to find the key didn't work in the ignition. That's when I realized I had never gotten my mom's car key, and had unlocked the door with MY car's key. I double checked to be sure, and my key always unlocked her car door with ease.
One of my automobiles is a black Chevy Camaro. One night a few years ago, when I was leaving a local bowling alley I went out and tried my key in the door. It wouldn't open. I couldn't figure it out, I took my key out of the door lock and looked to make sure I was using the right key. I was. Then I took a step back to think and I noticed that there were two identical black Camaros parked side by side. I casually walked over to the *other* one, opened the door and drove home.
These are cars that were built 18 years ago. Same make, model and year but the door lock cylinders are different. Either you and your mother have cheap cars or you perhaps you should try playing powerball, because the astronimical odds of you two getting automobiles with the same lock cylinders on the doors have come to pass.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Being an amateur radio operator and at one time a repeater owner I know that all kinds of radio frequency problems can happen. My repeater only transmitted one someone was using it but when a small little transistor started to self oscillate it transmitted by itself. Since it bypassed the control there was not auto shut off. Worse yet my normal narrow 7Khz signal was now running 100mhz in each direction! Since my transmitter was in the 146Mhz range it was now blotting out other transmitters and devices from 46Mhz to 246Mhz.
It blotted out Fire, police, business, TV and worse yet, military frequencies! A friend who works at mountain top sites for Motorola found the problem from a nearby mountain via a 50 thousand dollar service monitor and noticed that it was centered on my frequency! I found him on my doorstep when I arrived home. It was powered down and a resister network on the transistors stopped it from ever happening again.
The point is I could have been fined BIG dollars for this little problem and would have if I reported it. Cities are dense with radio signals from all kinds of sources and any one of those can malfunction. If no one can traces this down I doubt the offending person or equipment will come forward. Unless this was a test of a military EMP bomb in the desert test range I doubt it was the military since it only effect a narrow range of devices. The narrow range of problems almost eliminates the EMP bomb as well.
This morning 21 Feb 04, I went to the bank and parked where I could see my car, making it uncecessary to lock it.
As I finished my banking transaction, a bunch (greater than 4 or more) of car alarms went off in the bank parking lot and in the parking lot across the street.
One of the alarms was mine and as I walked to my car I saw a number of people 'scratching their heads', looking at their cars.
Damn Pesky Terrorists!
I live in Nevada, and have done a lot of work with 802.11 in various locations around the state. The most interesting project I ever worked on was in Pahrump. We discovered that we could not create any working connections with a directional antenna pointed toward Area 51. I don't know if they use conventional jamming equipment, experimental wireless equipment or weapons, or who knows what. All I know is that it was a real pain in the butt, and required moving equipment around to avoid pointing anything that direction.
I don't know what caused the Vegas outage, but the Bremerton one is being blamed on a visiting Navy ship. Some have argued against that theory, but it actually rings a loud bell with me. I remember being in the Navy in San Diego two years ago and my remote keyless entry wouldn't work in the vicinity of the ships. When I was off base and away from the piers it started working again. The only thing that is kind of strange is that the interference was only on the base; it shouldn't affect things across an entire town or city.
anywhere about 20-25 degrees declination from the empire State Building. One of my favorite bars there (gingerman, is anyone is familiar) jokes that it is a 'keys required zone for safety'...
I have been telling you how Broadband over Power Line was going to interfere with everything. Now it's happening. This is just the beginning.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Because these things are so cheap, and because there are several hobby-type people working on them, it wouldn't even need to be *deliberate*. It could simply be accidental leakage of microwave energy.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
or do you believe that cars are still driveable without fuel?
I'd say the danger is minimal. I've had a fuel pump fail before, and the car did give some warning before cutting out completely. That would also be the correct time for the lights to start flashing and the horn sounding. At the same time, it will warn other drivers of the disabled car.
to say all car alarms are completely worthless is overly broad. I think proximity sensors that detect motion outside the car is worthless, but inside would be useful.
The vast majority of car alarms are the start screaming when a leaf touches the car type. Certainly, that is the type that everyone except the owner hates, and what most people think of when they hear the term car alarm.
Any motion sensor is an invitation to trouble. Many savvy thieves pick out a car they like in it's driveway. Every night at a disgustingly early hour, they set the alarm off by bouncing the car and hide in the shadows. Eventually, the combination of carelessness and sleep loss gets the owner to conclude the alarm needs an adjustment and he leaves it off.
The night the alarm doesn't go off, the car is stolen.
There are useful anti-theft devices, but ALARMS do no good and annoy the neighbors. After enough of that, they CAUSE vandalism.
Personally, I choose cars by utility value and don't leave anything valuable in them. I've never had a poblem.
This aircraft appears to have the ability needed to do this based on this info found on this website: Rivet-Joint
Sometimes, the easiest way to ban something is not the best.
Case in point, your rule has already been implemented in a couple of cities, but if your rule had been in effect nationwide we would not have those cool extra-sensitive new silent alarms with motion sensors that page you when your car gets broken into. Sensitive silent alarms benefit everyone because thiefs will never be sure the car they're targetting has one or not, and obviously they will not be a nuisance to anyone because they're silent.
This is the reason, by the way, I oppose the banning of Kazaa. Ban the crime if you want, but you never know what kind of innovations you're blocking by banning the tool that's being used to commit the crime.
In Berkeley California, we don't have problems with noisy car alarms. If they're on for more than 15 minutes, the car gets towed. I only had the problem once, five years ago, and I called the cops and the car got towed. That's it. End of story. I never had a problem ever since.
About 10 yrs ago during a thunder storm, my garage door kept opening and closing on its own. The incredible thing is that it was right in synch with the lightening strikes. It never occurred again after that storm though... very weird.
When you are on top of Mt Soledad at the cross, those attennas 1/4 mile to your west are KFMB-TV (ch8), KGTV-TV (ch10), KFMB-DTV (ch55), KGTV-DTV (ch25), KIOZ-FM, KIFM-FM, KYXY-FM, KFMB-FM, to name some of the big guys.
Collectively they have an effective radiated power of several MegaWatts.
Every time I visit there, I see people trying to open their car door with the remote, and then trying to call for help on their cell phone, which doesn't work either. I usually bring my slim jim.
A nice place to visit if you want to be entertained. Oh and the view is nice too.
Call him paranoid if you want... I'm putting on a tin foil hat (& giving up mod points, like I care today) to show you THIS FASCINATING ARTICLE about EMP stuff being developed in... Ta-da! Las Vegas. This was unturned by a quick Google check.
Quoteth:But almost none of the technology to protect against EMP that was developed through Defense Department nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site as late as 1992 was put to use in the private sector
Webmaster Wanted - Entropic Reactions
I drive a '97 Ford and my factory keyless entry often failed unless I stood right next to the car antenna. These things operate at 295MHz and seem to be extremely susceptible to interference. I modified my spare keyfob and replaced the "operating" LED with an IR emitter, and added an IR receiver inside the car. This pretty much always works, and since it's just using the same code over IR it didn't require any reprogramming of the keyless entry system. It has another advantage in that it's a narrow beam transmission, not like the omnidirectional RF broadcast, which anyone with a portable scanner can record and duplicate.
And as some others pointed out - opening the door manually will trigger the alarm. The factory alarm is wired into the keyless entry system, it will only disarm if it receives an Unlock code. The alarm has sensors on all the doors to detect if they are open or closed, it doesn't have sensors to detect that you used a key to unlock the door.
-- *My* journal is more interesting than *yours*...
... like Janet's boob.