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RFID-enabled Vehicles: Pinch My Ride
Billosaur writes "Wired has an excellent article on the problems with the theft of
RFID-enabled vehicles and how insurance companies are so over-confident in the technology, they are denying claims when such vehicles are stolen. Example: "Emad Wassef walked out of a Target store in Orange County, California, to find a big space where his 2003 Lincoln Navigator had been. The 38-year-old truck driver and former reserve Los Angeles police officer did what anyone would do: He reported the theft to the cops and called his insurance company. Two weeks later, the black SUV turned up near the Mexico border, minus its stereo, airbags, DVD player, and door panels. Wassef assumed he had a straightforward claim for around $25,000. His insurer, Chicago-based Unitrin Direct, disagreed." Their forensic examiner concluded that since all the keys were accounted for, there was no way the engine could have been started, despite the evidence that the ignition lock had been forced and the steering wheel locking lug had been damaged."
This is similar to the assumption that if your DNA is present at a crimescene, you must by default be guilty.
Lloyd's of London denied the Cunard line's claim for the loss of ocean liner Titanic, because "God himself could not sink this ship."
If you're going to be elitist, it would help to be elite.
ever cracked open a hard drive? the super magnets inside are real hany for use on RFID equipped keys. they disable them rather quickly. SHHH! don't tell anyone.
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
...and claim that you've been robbed. I.e. your keys stolen as well.
Yes, it's fraud. But when you commit fraud to get a legitimate claim granted, it's allright in my books.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Listed below, from best to worst, are the tested cars listed by name, points and, where applicable, time taken to gain entry.
"What Car?" Security Supertest League Table
The 26 Cars they Couldn't get into:
1-3: Lexus IS300, Lexus LS430 and Lexus SC430 (100).
4-7: BMW 318i SE, Nissan Maxima QX 3.0 SE+, Skoda Superb 2.5 TDi Comfort, Toyota Camry CDX V6 (95)
8-15: Audi A4 1.9 TDi SE, BMW 735i, BMW X5 3.0d, Citroën C3 1.4 HDi Exclusive, Jaguar S-type, Mazda Tribute, Nissan Primera 2.0, VW Passat V6 4motion (90).
16-23: Audi A2 1.4 TDi SE, Audi A6 Avant 4.2 quattro, Audi TT 180 Coupé, Ford Fiesta 1.4 Ghia, Seat Ibiza 1.4 Sport, Toyota Previa D-4D GLS, VW Golf GT TDi PD, Volvo S80 2.4T S. (85).
24-26: Nissan Almera 2.2 Di Sport, Nissan Almera Tino 2.0 SE+, Nissan X-Trail 2.0 SE+ (80).
The Cars they Could
27: BMW 520i (75) 1min 12sec
28: Saab 9-5 Aero 2.3 HOT (75) 1min 5sec
29: Renault Vel Satis (75) 58sec
30: Jaguar X-type 2.5 (70) 1min 30sec
31: Renault Clio 1.6 16v Initiale (70) 1min 15sec
32: BMW 325i Compact (70) 1min 4sec
33: Fiat Stilo 1.2 16v Active 5dr (70) 1min
34: Mazda Premacy (70) 32sec
35: Honda Jazz 1.4 SE Sport (70) 29sec
36: Renault Avantime (70) 25sec
37: Mazda MX-5 (70) 20sec
38: VW Polo TDi PD Sport (65) 1min 50sec
39: Volvo V70 T5 (65) 1min 36sec
40: Honda Civic Type-R (65) 1min 34sec
41: Mercedes C220 CDi Sports Coupé (65) 1min 20sec
42: Ford Mondeo TDCi (65) 1min 11sec
43: Volvo S60 T5 SE (65) 1min 7sec
44: Toyota Yaris T Sport (65) 57sec
45: MG ZT 190 (65) 50sec
46: Ford Focus ST170 (65) 45sec
47: Honda CR-V SE Sport (65) 43sec
48: Range Rover 4.4 V8 HSE (65) 38sec
49: Peugeot 307 SW 2.0 HDi SE (65) 33sec
50: MG TF 135 (65) 30sec
51: Mercedes SL500 (65) 29sec
52: Peugeot 206 HDi D Turbo (65) 20sec
53: Mini One (60) 50sec
54: Ford Maverick V6 XLT 3.0 (60) 32sec
55: Suzuki Liana 1.6 GLX (60) 28sec
56: Vauxhall VX220 (60) 18sec
57: Jeep Cherokee 3.7 Ltd (60) 9sec
58: Toyota Corolla T Sport (60) 8sec
59: Suzuki Wagon R+ 1.3 GL (50) 48sec
60: Daihatsu YRV F-speed (50) 12sec
No. In fact, it doesn't make sense.
Can you explain to me why we need a sliding scale? The gas-guzzler drivers are already buying more fuel and thus paying more tax. Do you like having the government tell you what and how to drive? Do you want to penalize contractors, limousine companies, and boat owners for buying a vehicle that meets their needs?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
They can even be brute forced, however almost every car which has a system like this embedded in the car, has an imobiliser integrated into the engine. While it used to be a case of just disconnecting the immobiliser, they're now very tricky to disable. If you force the ignition without an RFID, the imobiliser would activate before the car got down the road. If the thieves were able to clone the RFID key system they wouldn't need to force the ignition in that way. If they forced the ignition without the code, the imobiliser would have gone off. Sounds like either a defective imobiliser or insurance fraud to me.
One not-so-obvious answer may be that the owner had fitted the vehicle with a remote-start system or a 3rd party alarm. In most cases when this is done with RFID enabled vehicles, they have to override the RFID system. The hack to get around this high-tech security? Stick a key under the dash within range of the receiver. This would allow most remote start systems to then work.
If the owner had done this and perhaps the perps had witnessed the victim using the remote-start vehicle, then they had a good target.
Yes, I read the article and read about the back doors, but there's another situation where owners are willfully overriding security systems in order to get the functionality that they want and the manufacturer doesn't give them. Sound familiar?
Bypass kit, ~10 minute install 'nuff said.
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
A poll a while back found 1/4 of americans approve of insurance fraud
y n%5Cdynamicpressrelease_577.xml
http://www.accenture.com/xd/xd.asp?it=enweb&xd=_d
So yeah, not a bad assumption to make.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
You're correct on the second part though. Had the guy not been able to account for all keys, the insurance company would've rejected the claim due to negligence.
I'm always amazed by the tricks car workers and car theifs know. It just goes to prove that saying "locks keep an honest man honest", or however that goes. Once I locked my keys in my car just outside of Detroit. I found a guy to help me out in the yellow pages, who happened to be a recently laid off autoworker, in about 3 minutes he had my entire door panel off and actually took the lock out of the door to make a new key, and I was given a new working key within 10 minutes of him arriving.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
RTFA a little closer. The car had RFID keys and shouldn't be able to start without the physical key being present, making theft considerably more difficult. While new in the US, such technology has been fairly common in Europe for over a decade.
Read what I wrote a little closer. I said "since when do you need the keys to steal a car?" The answer is simple - you don't.
Two words ... Tow Truck.
Shove that Navigator into a nearby container and even a lojack can't find it (the condainer makes a nice faraday cage, blocking all radio signals).
Q: What do you call someone whoo thinks a key is perfect protection against theft?
A: A pigeon.
OK, so you have a signed letter from the loss adjuster at the insurance company saying that any car that goes missing that has an RFID in the ignition was not stolen. In that case there's only one thing to do: spend $500 on a private eye, find out where they live and what car they drive, and then take it. After all, you have a signed letter from the owner saying that it wasn't theft!
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
It reminds me of a case here in Seattle recently. A man went nuts and was chasing his girlfriend's truck in his own car. He rammed the truck, forced it across the center line, where it hit another woman's car.
This woman did have uninsured motorist coverage, but her insurance company denied her medical claims because the man deliberately caused the crash, therefore it wasn't technically an "accident", and thus was not covered by the woman's policy. Insurance companies are weasels and will do anything they can do to get out of paying, including tortured parsing of language.
The company eventually paid up, but only after the woman's situation was exposed by the local media, and the state insurance commissioner started to threaten the company.
There have been cases among my acquaintances and relatives where the insurance companies refused to pay with the most threadbare excuses.
Then they did better than I did when I had a claim against progressive. The adjuster outright lied to me multiple times (and they weren't even good lies). I finally had enough and got a lawyer involved. The lawyer finally got fed up with the new adjuster lying to her so she filed a lawsuit. The insurance company's attorney was a least honest.
That's not completely the case for cars with immobilizers. Your car's ECU has a specific rolling immobilization code. Any key you order must be programmed with the current code to match your car's ECU. When this is done, all keys you wish to use must be present or they are locked out. In this way, both the key and ECU are mated to each other. At least that's how it works on new Hondas, I watched the process when I picked up my new Civic. It helps to get around the "corrupt dealer employee" hole by requiring all keys AND the car to be in the same place and reprogrammed at the same time. There's no way to make a key at the dealership without the car present and expect it to start the car.
Of course, if you have your car in for service with all your keys, then they could do it without your knowledge.
A piggy back is not a ECU. They do significantly less than a real ecu (which is why that piggy back cost you ~$300 while a AEM engine management will run you ~1500), all the piggyback is doing is altering the input from the engine's sensors(maf,o2,etc..) to make the real ecu make adjustments based on it's own algorithms and unless you had that piggyback dynotuned you are probably not helping your performance and possibly hurting it, because I am sure you could figure out in about an hour better air/fuel maps than those nissan engineers.
If someone accuses you of stealing their car, even though they've lent it to you in the past, you can't be convicted unless they come up with some proof that it's in your garage, or get some film of you bringing it to a chop shop or something like that.
However, if you fuck your girlfriend one night, dump her the next morning, and the evil lying cunt goes to the ER and screams rape, you are HOSED. You will get 10-20 just on the psycho slut's word that it was rape and not consensual.
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.