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Mazda Switches To USB Keys
kv9 writes "The new Mazda Sassou while being 'cool and promoting a positive state of mind' has a most important feature, that every geek will love. Instead of the classic key it uses a usb flash drive for starting up. The key can also be used to transfer things like driving instructions or music to the car's hard drive."
Now you don't have to lose your keys, just have to get them in salty water, or rub your feet on the carpet and touch them, or ....
Sounds like a Japanese sneeze.
A: Start multiple cars that they own
B: Start other people's cars
You are not the customer.
How secure is this compared to a traditionnal key?
Really, "keygens" could be given a whole new meaning...
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Considering that my USB key just died yesterday after about a year of use, taking lots of yummy files with it, my heart THRILLS at this news.
What if someone uses something like Ghost to dupe the USB key to a key of their own? Unless this is a chip-based key, it won't be secure at all - and I don't know about you, but I don't want someone going to Best Buy and buying a $20 USB key to dupe my car key onto.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Sorry, but I don't want to be on the freeway with someone who needs instructions on how to drive.
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
RFID would be the way to go. I though that somebody (Mercedes, Lexus?) had one of their uber-expensive cars set up so that you carried an RFID chip in a credit card in your wallet. When you pulled up on the doorhandle it checked your ID and unlocked. Automatically locked when you got more than 20 feet away, and only had a push-button for a starter.
Or, it could have all been a dream.
Rumor has it that Mazda will introduce the new flash-drive technology on the 2006 Mazda 3.1. In the future they intend to make a version that can start via a network and is outfitted for carpooling - the Mazda 3.11 for Workgroups - until they get an 8-cylinder version, the Mazda 95.
(And while I may poke fun, I'm a happy owner of a 2005 Mazda 3, which is a damn good car - especially for the gas mileage...)
My office is a classified environment, and USB drives ain't allowed in the door. Where am I supposed to put my keys?
Your reality is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. - Baron Munchausen
"Mazda switches to USB keys"
Um, no.
Mazda put a USB key in a freakin' concept car. There's no USB keys in any Mazda at any dealership now. It might happen some day down the road.
"Switches" my ass. "Tries out"? "Messes about with"?
Come on guys.
Ahhh but look on the bright side - without a USB key they won't be able to upload their music to your harddrive
This already happens in a way. In high school it was pretty well known that most toyota keys would work on most toyota cars. I had a toyota pickup, and even though the keys were not the same, I was on one occasion able to enter, and start up a friend's truck. He happened to be walking on the sidewalk, and I drove past him as I was moving it to the back parking lot. That took a while to explain. Later though, he did help me when I locked my keys in my truck.
The point is, just because you see a failure mode in it doesn't mean that that he old way didn't have the a similar one
...you mean Mazda experimenting with using USB drives as a key in a concept car, then yes.
Most car models that don't have a radio immobilizer of some kind (which is most cars) only have maybe 30 different keys for the whole model production. A lot of repo guys have key rings with all the standard keys for high-repo models.
I've actually found a color/key collision before when I was a kid. My mom and I almost drove off with someone else's car until we realized it was WAY too clean to be our car and we were in the wrong one.
Thats also why you can go online and order key dupes using the number stamped on the key or in some cases the VIN.
(Not many people seem to know all you need is the VIN and a contact at a dealer to get a key, as well... and the VIN is visible on modern cars through the windshield)
There is no real security with cars. If someone wants it, they can take it.
The USB drive may simply be an add-on to the "keyless" ignition of the 2004 Prius: RFID authenticates with the ignition system when in close proximity. This way you've got a neat storage doodad, but the car will still run if your virus-ridden laptop reformats the USB drive.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
Wouldn't key loss, and hacking issues be absolved by biometrics?
And as for damaging a biometric key, I think in this case the user has bigger problems... Well unless they need to drive to the hospital without a thumb.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
Your naiveté betrays you -- there is no such thing as "rock solid". Ever.
What if you're talking about rocks?
Live forever, or die trying.
No, without commands from the computer to fire the injectors, etc, it won't start.
A: Start multiple cars that they own
B: Start other people's cars
Not that long. By having USB devices to start cars, soon hackers will be doing more than writing viruses and "testing" websites. They will be stealing your car.
But this is a larger problem than meets the eye. If software is used to start a car, how long until government gets creative? What kinds of algorthims can be put in the car computer?
The only good thing for software like this is we can keep track of kids. We can program cars that are started with certian USB keys, that the car will stop if it drives to a certain area. For example, we can have zones the car is not allowed to enter. We can also have software on the computer, to know what family member has the car, and where they are. Maybe we can even set up cars, so if the 16 year old daughter is going out with her friends, that the radio really listens to what is going on in the car to make sure she is not picking up a 18 year old drop out weed head. And if we hear something we don't like, we can drive to where the car is with out shotgun and have an old fashioned lynching.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Real thieves don't hotwire anyhow. They back up the tow truck and tow the car away, engine imobilizer and all. In broad daylight even. You don't need to start it to chop it into pieces.
If they REALLY wanted to do it they could still "hotwire" the newer cars by bringing a seperate matching key/column computer and splicing it into the car but why bother with this hassle when you can just tow?
- Toby
Take a look at any usb port and notice how scratched up the surrounding area is. This connector is an abomination. It seems I'm always putting the usb plug in upside down. Of course I can't be sure if it's upside down or just misaligned... Looking at the plug for the logo doesn't seem to help much --I had a laptop that had the ports upside down.
I doubt anyone can blindly plug in a usb device and achieve better than 90% accuracy. As for the keys to my current car it's ambidextrous, although not the case for my previous car. My proposal for USB 3.0 is to use the connector from an Atari 2600.
It's not about mechanical or other devices, it's about WEAR and TEAR after heavy use. The Prius keyfob almost never leaves your pocket, the car unlocks if you're near and locks if you walk away, fine.
The Mazda on the other NEEDS that USB stick plugged in to run. And then you have all sorts of people in the world who simply need to unlock/start/stop/lock their car a dozen times per day. Which means after a typical working year around 2500 plug-ins and pull-outs. If those USB devices, plug and socket, aren't built a hundred times stronger than your garden variety USB port and stick, the car key will never survive more than 2 years. No matter how clumsy you are (and most people are clumsy at least one or two days per year), the socket will wear out, the connection leads will lose contact or static electricity kills something inside. Remember the little shocks you sometimes get when touching a car? Static electricity. Some cars deliver more static electricity than others I suppose, but mine zaps me all the time. Not to mention isolating shoe soles on synthetic carpeting. Zapp. You watched Office Space? Good.
Morale of the story: things that are sensitive to static electricity and not hard wearing shouldn't be used as everyday access tokens for important things like cars and house doors. Make all the electronics inside a wireless keyfob and everything's fine. No wear on the connectors, no point of contact for static electricity. Everything else is bust and is in danger outside the dry home or office environment.
or they just point a gun at the drivers head and tell them to hand over the keys.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
If you work in a facility that requires you to not bring media into work so that you can't remove secret information, you deserve to be fired for bringing in a flash drive. Trusted insiders are the greatest threat, hence the need for policies. Such policies are very enforceable, and hold up under the law for the dismissal of employees who violate them. A good policy sets up not only what's forbidden, but also what to do if a security breach happens. Check http://www.sans.org/. If an employee is determined enough, he or she might just find a less restrictive job.