Slashdot Mirror
Using Laptops to Steal Cars
Ant writes "Thieves are using laptops/notebooks to steal the most expensive luxury cars. Many of these cars have completely keyless ignitions and door locks, meaning it can all be done wirelessly. Thieves often follow a car until it gets left in a quiet area, and they can steal it in about 20 minutes..."
"While automakers and locksmiths are supposed to be the only groups that know where and how security information is stored in a car, the information eventually falls into the wrong hands."
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
>While automakers and locksmiths are supposed to be the only groups that know where and how security information is stored in a car, the information eventually falls into the wrong hands.
If you replicate a "secret" a few million times, put it in places outside your control, and if you have no way of changing it in the field then you do not have a secret!
>"...There are weaknesses in any system," Tim Hart of the Auto Locksmith Association told the U.K.'s Auto Express magazine.
What, Mr. Hart, are the weaknesses in OpenSSH public key authentication? It sounds like the automakers are trying to roll their own crypto, with the usual results. Designing a crypto system is like playing chess with a grandmaster. You'll make a mistake somewhere, and your opponent will find that mistake and use it to break you.
As long as people make blunders like this we'll have fiascos like the TI chips with 40-bit encryption.