High-tech comes to auto theft
Those little clickers that let us unlock our car doors before we get there also broadcast information to anyone nearby. It may be coded but it is a fairly low-level encryption. Some cars also have a keyless ignition that uses electronic codes. Robert Vamosi discusses how car thieves can easily hack your codes and make off with the Mercedes.
Last fall the authors of a study from Johns Hopkins University and the security firm RSA used a laptop equipped with a microreader. They were able to capture the code sequence, decrypt it, then disengage the alarm and unlock and start a 2005 Ford Escape SUV without the key
Apparently European car thieves are already on to the technique.
Meet Radko Soucek, a 32-year-old car thief from the Czech Republic. Using a laptop and a reader, he is alleged to have stolen several expensive cars in and around Prague. Soucek is not new to auto theft; he has been stealing cars since he was 11 years old, but he recently turned high-tech when he realized how easily it could be done.
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