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."
From the article:
Jerry Bussell, Gov. Kenny Guinn's adviser on homeland security, ruled out terrorism
It's amazing how, since 9/11, for every little problem in this country terrorism has to be ruled out...
[sarcasm]
We are talking about people that are unable to go in their cars, it's obviously a terrorist act...
[/sarcasm]
I just want to add a little something that IMHO makes sense here:
"Why of course the people don't want war... That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, a parliament or a communist dictatorship... the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.
--Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarshal and Luftwaffe chief at Nuremberg trials, 1945
Mod me down because I'm really off-topic.
Read this.
They are building keyless entry systems without physical keys as a backup measure?
Didn't we learn our lesson about manual over-rides long ago?
lysergically yours
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.
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
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?
So in one case there was a physical key as a backup system and when the guy resorted to using it (as though a key were some sort of desperate emergency measure) his car freaked out.
I'm no luddite, but this kind of stuff makes me laugh.
lysergically yours
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.
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 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.
that some Ford, etc. systems use the same frequency as the military, so if it were a military cause, than perhaps only those keyless systems would be affected?
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
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.
From Rumor Mill News:
"... because no can leave!"
"... two men enter, one man leave... the Passion of THUNDERDOME!" ... sorry, Mel.
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
Well, this is probably the occurrence:m arch/03302mys tery.html
http://www.thesunlink.com/news/2001/
Sorry to all you conspiracy theory nuts, this happens all the time. The fact that it made the news surely indicates a slow news day. 30 people in a town of millions called a towing company for a lockout, oooooo! Many keyless entry systems operate around 430MHz. Anytime I transmit on 440MHz while sitting in a parking lot, I set off car alarms and laugh at the people press the crap out of the buttons on their keyless entry systems. Military over the horizon radar is broadband and around 430-440MHz. Anytime the Navy has a big boat in the area, the 440 repeaters are buzzing with radar noise, and low-end keyless entry systems can fail. Granted that Las Vegas doesn't have a whole lot of Navy vessels nearby, but they do have miltary there. On the other hand, it's more fun to blame it on Area 51
There is always a small panel near by with a red lever or wheel. Good thing car thieves aren't geeks.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
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.
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.
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.
Haven't any of you watched Oceans Eleven? I think that the Bellagio better check their vault.
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.
On my car, the key has a microchip (or something, maybe just more like a magnetic tag) of some sort built into the key. This chip interacts somehow with something imbedded in the ignition, which allows the car to start. In other words, if you try to start the car with something other than my key, supposedly the car won't start because that chip or whatever is missing.
This may be the idea behind this sort of thing. You can open the door with the key, or something else, and the alarm goes off. If you're the legitimate user, you then start up your car, and this chip or whatever then confirms that yes, you really are the driver, and the alarm shuts up. Otherwise, it's probably a robbery in progress.
Doesn't seem like that big of deal to me. I mean either this helps prevent your car being stolen or, worst case, you have to sit around for a bit embarrassed while AAA comes out to help you.
It sounds like the Infinite Improbability Drive is malfunctioning again.
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.
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!
Had this been a real EMP, the devices still wouldn't work. An EMP would render most semiconductors (transistors, diodes, etc) completely useless, and indefinitely so.
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 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.
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
While whatever causing the disturbance can cause your remote to stop operating, there is no way that random RF interference can cause your car and garage doors to start opening. All these systems use a set "code" of pulses - so it takes a lot more than just broadcasting on the right freqency to make something happen.
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.
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.
Er, brothers and Saturns, not moms and Yugos.
Last weekend a young woman politely knocked on my door and asked if I drove a red Saturn. Well, no, but my visiting brother does.... It turns out some friends of hers (who live across the street) had let her borrow *their* red Saturn. She not only was able to unlock my brother's car with their key, she was able to $#@%in' DRIVE AWAY with it. FWIW, apparently it wasn't completely trivial; after she managed to drive away with it, she was unable to get it started again when she tried to drive it back....
Listen to what I say, not what I mean...
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.
Forget the terrorist theories, someone please tell the whales to answer!
-- Soruk
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.