FOB keys and theft

DrewE wrote:

Fisherman wrote:

Well how about asking the people that have their vehicles stolen and shipped overseas never to be found again. We have had a rash of them where the thieves get close to the front door of the house, manage to intercept and clone the FOB and leave with the vehicle. One case was actually video taped and shown on the news.

theft of vehicles

The fobs are not being cloned; instead, it seems they're using what's basically a signal extender or repeater to make the vehicle think the fob is closer than it is, close enough to get it to start. The technical distinction is, of course, of little importance to the unfortunate people who have their vehicles stolen; but it is none the less an important distinction, since the repeater only can work if the fob is not all that far away from the vehicle.

It's not possible to duplicate or clone a fob by listening in on the radio communications between the car and the fob (assuming the system has been designed in anything resembling a cryptographically proper way). It should be possible for car makers to mitigate the relay attack by having quite tight timing requirements for the fob and car communications, such that being sufficiently far away means the signal is delayed too long to be accepted. Even car thieves can't make radio waves travel faster than the speed of light.

spot on.

On all my vehicles even if you were able to somehow get the vehicle started on ALL my vehicles, the car remains locked and unless you get close enough to the car you can't unlock the car, and next even in the car you can't drive off until the RFID from the chip in the transponder or key is recognized, and in the car w/o the keyless go, key must go into the ignition. So they could start the car, they couldn't get in, and even if they did w/o a key couldn't do anything.

I suspect fob is an easy to blame reason for theft, but the real reason is something else more mundane.