U.S. Government Sometimes Jams Keyless Car Locks?

PizzaFace writes "The Washington Post reports that in certain towns (generally near military bases), on certain days (such as the day an aircraft carrier returns to port), keyless car entry systems and remote garage door openers mysteriously fail. While some frustrated motorists blame aliens, the FCC says the jammed frequencies belong to the U.S. military. The good ol' Post even tracks down a government contractor who all-but-confirms the source of the interference."

Comments

When you can't

[dark404]

enter your car, and start it with just the key, the government may be to blame, but you need to be slapped.

Re:When you can't

[WormholeFiend]

Even if they can still open the door with the key, a number of them still need the remote to deactivate the alarm system and activate the secure ignition circuit.

My brother had one installed, and I asked him what he'd do if his remote's battery ever went dead.

He shrugged and said he'd buy new ones at the store... but stores arent always opened when Murphy's Law decides to apply itself.

Jams?

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Jamming is a deliberate "denial of service" attack in the RF relm. Interference is the unintentional degradation or stoppage of service.

When 2 ethernet NIC's transmit at the same time in normal operation we don't call it jamming. I doubt that what the government is doing is intentional.

Re:Jams?

[kevlar]

The military is operating within its authorized bounds. So are these remotes. The problem is that the military has blankey control over that spectrum, where as your remote can use it, but cannot interfere with anything else. Hence the "must accept any interference" clause.

I think this says it all...

[stoneymonster]

"But unlike other more powerful radio signals, keyless entry remotes are not licensed by the Federal Communications Commission. They are allowed to operate on frequencies used by licensed customers as long as their signals are sufficiently weak and don't interfere with others. But because of this outlaw status, their own signals can be jeopardized." Tough. Get licensed, or have a working backup system that doesn't depend on radio. I honestly don't see the issue here. The situation isn't likely to change, so the unlicensed folk will have to work around it. Use spread-spectrum at low power or frequency hopping to get around this. -C

Who ever used that part of the spectrum

[crovira]

for that purpose deserves to be bitch-slapped.

Re:The manufacturers should be arrested!

[Minwee]

I though that you needed a license from the FCC to broadcast at a given frequency.

Perhaps this might be a good time to read the article. Particularly the bit about how low power transmissions aren't regulated by the FCC.

Take notes. There will be an exam at the end.

I once had a car alarm

[earthforce_1]

that went bezerk for almost 48 hours. It worked perfectly until out of the blue, the alarm would sound, doors would lock and unlock every second, and if I shut it off, it would turn itself on again a second later. The car was parked in my parents driveway at the time. I had to disconnect the battery to shut the damned thing off. I tried it again 24 hours later, same problem. The day after that, the problem went away, never reappeared.

Co-incidentally, there was an airshow on in town during this time. When the airshow ended, so did the problems. I wonder what kind of super radar they were using that had this effect.

Re:I once had a car alarm

[LostCluster]

Your car most likely trigged whenever it heard a wrong sequence on its frequency, figuring that somebody was trying to steal the car by trying to guess the code.

When the air-show came to town, there's usually some military aircraft included in the group whose favorite comminication frequency just happens to be the one your car alarm is tuned to.

Therefore, the car alarm thinks it's always being challenged by the random noise that is really the pilots talking to each other...

Re:Top 10 most stolen cars

[rco3]

Might I suggest you work on your cause-and-effect a bit more?

I have three rocks in my garden. All of them are red. None have been stolen. Ergo, red rocks cannot be stolen.

See how stupid it sounds? Dude - the top five cars on that list are also the TOP FIVE most common cars in the U.S. If you can establish a relationship between the theft rates of similarly-equipped cars, where the only variable is RFID or not, then you've got a case and you are welcome to tell us all about it. If you just wanna spout uneducated shit... ... well, OK, welcome to Slashdot!

What's the frequency, Kennith?

[LostCluster]

The cause of the problem is rather clear... keyless systems are Part 15-compliant flea power devices, and their makers have decided to pick radio frequencies used by the military. Since those frequencies are rarely used in most civilian areas, that bandwidth is usually in the clear. However, when a military ship is coming home, that's the frequency band most likely to be used to communicate with the base, and that's where the trouble starts...

Why don't the car people put their systems on 900mHz, 2.4GHz, or 5.8GHz with the rest of the consumer device universe? They might have to deal with occasional interference from other things, but they can be assured that nobody will ever come in with a high-wattage use of that space that'll blow them out of the water.

Probably true.

[stoneymonster]

I was assuming it was more narrow band interference. But given that several classes of devices are affected, it must be wider. The other thing this article seems to be is heavy into blaming the military. How about blaming the car manufacturers for producing an unreliable technology with no backups and depending on the military to only occasionally encroach on these frequencies? -C