Remote Key Locking: Danger!
From a subscriber to Tip of the Week:
"When traveling, especially in tourist and/or busy parking areas (e.g., malls), NEVER lock your car with the remote. Use the key or lock the door with the button. Thieves are getting high-tech, and apparently are able to 'read' your lock code when you lock your car with the remote and determine the unlock sequence. When you're gone, they unlock your car and rifle through your car while you're out shopping."We found this out the hard way last week in Victoria BC. Parked our 2004 Subaru Forester on the street; locked with the remote; went to eat (about an hour and a half) and returned to find the contents of the glove box strewn about on the seat -- nothing taken from there -- and my wife's red carry bag scattered on the back seat with her new digital camera missing.
"There was no visible signs of entry (e.g., 'slim jim' leaves a mark on the window rubber.) They probably spent all of 30 seconds inside the car. They didn't get into the covered 'trunk' area, where I had my camera.
"A conversation later with the Subaru parts guy said he had heard of thieves doing this. He didn't know how they do it, but that using laptops they can decode the lock/unlock sequence. I haven't been able to find much on the web about this; it looks like some makes are more susceptible than others.
"Moral: In busy, public places, don't use the remote to lock your car. And, of course, make sure that nothing of value is visible."
Thanks for the tip!
This follow-up is from another subscriber.
As to how the thieves do this, it's easier than many people would think.
Firstly, you find what frequency range the remote control broadcasts on. This can be found from the manufacturers documentation, or through the 'grapevine'.
You then get a laptop, a wireless networking device, and tell the wireless networking device to listen to that particular frequency. Install a piece of software called a Packet Sniffer and configure it to monitor any traffic flying around on that frequency.
Sit, and wait for traffic to show up on that frequency.
Packet sniffing software is able to capture network traffic broadcast over a network as it flies past you. The way networks work is very much like talking in a small office. Everyone can hear everything that's being said around them, however, unless their name is called and the conversation is directed at them, they won't actively listen. This is the same with networks. Everything on a particular frequency can be heard by every device that is listening on that frequency, but unless the devices individual ID is called at the beginning of the conversation, that device will not actively recieve & act on the data.
A packet sniffing tool tells the networking device in the laptop to listen to, and record, all traffic that occurs on that frequency. Kind of like a spy listening into a conversation between two other parties.
Packet sniffing tools are not illegal, in fact they are very important to the health of networks. We use packet sniffers at work to monitor the health of our telecommunications network. It's a very important tool, and can troubleshoot a lot of errors that otherwise we wouldn't be able to track.
When listening to a network, a reasonably intelligent person can sniff and re-assemble the 'sniffed' packets and piece together the whole picture if they want to.
Given the data transmitted to your car is probably very small in size, it makes it a lot easier. It's just a matter of 'sniffing' that burst of information as it's flying through the air, and when you're gone, send it again from the laptop to your vehicle. Your car can't tell whether it's sent from your remote, or the thieves laptop, and so it opens the car.
Some manufacturers say that their remotes are foolproof, as the data in the transmission from their remote to your car is encrypted. This is well and good if the thieves are trying to read the data in that transmission, but these thieves aren't.
They just want to re-send that data from your remote, to your car. They don't need to know how to read it, they just need to know your car knows how to read it! And when your car does read it and obediently opens, that's all they care about.
Hope this sheds some light on things.