Hi-tech Luxury Car Theft

by Trey Evans (RSS feed)
May 4th 2006 at 8:37AM

I was car shopping at the end of last year and looking at the new STS, and one of the features that really intrigued me was the "Keyless Go" (or whatever they call it). The idea is that you carry around a key-like device (in the case of BMW, it's a credit card thing) that, when in proximity of the car, you can unlock and start it without having to do anything short of pressing a button. Cool, right? Yeah, until black hats use RFID sniffers and laptops with mobile transmitters to break the ECU's encryption use the convenient technology for their own deviant purposes. It's been proposed that this is how Beckham's X5 was stolen, but at least his had a happy ending in the form of a free Audi.

Update: Sister site Engadget has a similar post - linking to the same article - which talks about the connection between this technique and the Beckham's Bimmer SUV.

Tags: beckham, keyless, theft

Filed under: Gadgets, Luxury Cars & Autos

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Rick May 5th 2006 4:06PM

This is actually getting to be fairly common as an option on many cars... For example, the Nissan Murano which has a key chain device that never needs to be inserted into the ignition.

Trey Evans May 5th 2006 4:21PM

Indeed it is, though the first car I had an experience with was the 750Li. The "key" was just a fob with a chip that communicated to the ECU. Now, the most popular car in the US, the Toyota Camry, has a "Smart Key System" with push-button start. So obviously, this is trickling down into economy sedans; in ten years, the Kia Rio will have it standard.