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BMW Traps A Car Thief By Remotely Locking His Doors (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes CNET:
Seattle police caught an alleged car thief by enlisting the help of car maker BMW to both track and then remotely lock the luckless criminal in the very car he was trying to steal... Turns out if you're inside a stolen car, it's perhaps not the best time to take a nap. "A car thief awoke from a sound slumber Sunday morning (November 27) to find he had been remotely locked inside a stolen BMW, just as Seattle police officers were bearing down on him," wrote Jonah Spangenthal-Lee [deputy director of communications for the Seattle Police Department].
The suspect found a key fob mistakenly left inside the BMW by a friend who'd borrowed the car from the owner and the alleged crime was on. But technology triumphed. When the owner, who'd just gotten married a day earlier, discovered the theft, the police contacted BMW corporate, who tracked the car to Seattle's Ravenna neighborhood.
The 38-year-old inside was then booked for both auto theft and possession of methamphetamine.
The suspect found a key fob mistakenly left inside the BMW by a friend who'd borrowed the car from the owner and the alleged crime was on. But technology triumphed. When the owner, who'd just gotten married a day earlier, discovered the theft, the police contacted BMW corporate, who tracked the car to Seattle's Ravenna neighborhood.
The 38-year-old inside was then booked for both auto theft and possession of methamphetamine.
Good for the guy who got his car back, and good that they put the would be thief away, but still, can't say I much like the idea that our corporate overlords can track your car (and therefore movements) and remotely lock down your vehicle.
If it's possible to lock someone inside a car — which is a really terrible feature, by the way — then how long before some car's AI flips out and drives off a bridge — into a river — with passengers inside...and locks the doors shut?
This incredibly rare set of circumstances is exactly why we should happily and unquestioningly give our freedoms and privacy away to corporations and to the government!
#DeleteChrome
Pulling the door opener lever on the door of a car overrides the locking mechanisms. This is a fire-safety requirement. The guy was probably just still asleep when the cops found the car.
People died while being locked in cars.
Two examples are : car fallen in the water, and people sleeping in a car while owner and friend locked it. The owner came back after a long hot weeken, his friend was dead inside.
Double lock is a dangerous feature.
aaaaaaa
Their R&D center was located on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts. After a tragic accident as a result of Soviet hacking, Oldsmobile closed the center in 1969.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I have never seen a "modern" car that doesn't have headrests. Those headrests can be detached and the metal spikes used to break the passenger windows.
The "feature" has already caused at least one death.
Last week, a burglar pried apart some security bars at my business and squeezed in. He was able to make off with some stolen goods because once inside, he was easily able to open the locked exit door. Fire codes require that all building exit doors accessible to the public be openable from the inside even when locked. These laws were made after repeated fires with huge death tolls exacerbated by locked exit doors. That's what the bar on the door you press when leaving most restaurants and stores does. Even when the door is locked, pushing the bar from the inside will open the door. That way if a fire breaks out, you're not trapped inside because the only person who has the key was the idiot who started the fire and is dead.
Same thing with refrigerators - both the old stand-up units which latched shut, and walk-in refrigerator/freezers used in restaurants. Too many people (especially kids playing) were dying after being trapped inside, that laws were passed requiring a mechanism which allows someone inside to open the latch on the outside.
I don't see why cars should be any different. Yes easy egress makes thievery easier. But preventing that is just not worth the potential loss of life. Any car designer who thinks this is a good idea should be locked inside one of their cars on a sunny day until they admit it's a terrible idea. Heck, after dozens of kids dying each year after being locked in the trunk of a car while playing, we finally passed a law mandating a release mechanism inside the trunk. And some idiot car designer decides it would be a good idea to make it impossible for someone inside the passenger compartment to exit at will? Shame on BMW for trying to spin this to the press as a "helpful" feature.
In an emergency, you're supposed to be able to break a car's side windows.
I supposed the "sun-cooked" guy had passed out (alcohol ? heat shock, while he was asleep ?) before realising he should get out of the car.
I'm more surprised that the thief didn't try to break out of the car. But, on the other hand the lock has happened while he was napping inside the car, so he might not have realised what had happened and did not release he should run away as fast as possible before the police arrives.
I would be much more worried about the remote disabling of the car :
- was some form of owner's access required in order to do the disabling ? (i.e.: the owner's second fob is needed in order to validate the instruction to lock and ignore the stolen fob ?)
- or does any sufficiently high executive at BMW have the power to shut down any random car ?
Also : is the remote access limited to very simple instruction (locking doors and revoking fobs - which as mentioned above shouldn't be dangerous except under special circumstances) or can the car be remotely shut down while it is driving ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I don't see why this is a story on Slashdot
Then you must not be thinking of the children. Or terrorists. Oh, and don't forget about children and terrorists.
This story sounds like nothing on the surface, right up until you realize that BMW can track their cars remotely and execute remote operations on them (this was just a teaser of their remote capabilities most likely).
From hacking that system to legal "justifications" sans warrants, this is a privacy and security nightmare.
But hey, carry on...nothing to see here according to the ignorant masses who have been trained that way. Simply because most "gadgets" these days are a privacy and security nightmare doesn't dismiss that fact, or the consequences.
I for one was rather baffled over the keyfob left in the car. My 8-year old car would not automatically lock the doors if it sensed the keyfob inside, so I'm assuming the car was left unlocked with the keyfob. Fail all around.