Electronic Devices Used For Car Thefts Set To Be Banned in England (bbc.com) 79
Sophisticated electronic devices used by criminals to steal cars are set to be banned under new laws in England and Wales. From a report: More than 700,000 vehicles were broken into last year -- often with the help of high-tech electronic devices, including so-called signal jammers, which are thought to play a part in four out of 10 vehicle thefts nationwide.
Until now, police could only bring a prosecution if they could prove a device had been used to commit a specific offence, but under new laws in the Crime and Policing Bill the onus will be on someone in possession of a device to show they had it for a legitimate purpose. Making or selling a signal jammer could lead to up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine.
Until now, police could only bring a prosecution if they could prove a device had been used to commit a specific offence, but under new laws in the Crime and Policing Bill the onus will be on someone in possession of a device to show they had it for a legitimate purpose. Making or selling a signal jammer could lead to up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine.
That which is not mandatory must be banned! (Score:1, Insightful)
Mandate.
Ban.
Mandate.
Ban.
Mandate.
Ban.
Business as usual for Europe.
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In case you have not notices, this is the UK. The UK has had proto-fascist tendencies for a long time now and happens to not be a member of the EU. Essentially a pariah-state that tricked its population into voting for leaving the EU so they can enact crappy, anti-freedom laws like this one.
Obviously, the real culprit here are car-makers that use insecure locking systems.
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Re:That which is not mandatory must be banned! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the exact opposite. In the UK, all that is not banned is permitted - Common Law principle, based mostly on precedents and 'as understood at the time'. Contrast with Napoleonic Law principle - all that is not allowed is forbidden, application of law and code with little regard to precedent.
Yep, the "Ist not permitted, therefore banned" is more a joke about Germans.
I must admit that my first thought on hearing that they'll ban these devices is "sure, that'll stop em"... but then realised it was less about stopping them and more about adding to the weight of evidence after being caught. What really sucks is when many of these scrotes are caught, they get off because of a technicality.
And it might finally force auto manufacturers to admit they've deliberately made an insecure product and fix it.
The British are surprisingly anti-authoritarian, but in their various British ways (there's English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish... and that's just the major nationalities). Less "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" and more "I don't think we shall be doing that and I suggest you self-fornicate".
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And it might finally force auto manufacturers to admit they've deliberately made an insecure product and fix it.
Hardly. The problem is criminals are generally quite savvy. There's no such thing as perfect security. The car companies have played a cat and mouse game with criminals for decades these days with all manner of immobiliser and high tech widgetry. There will always be an exploit, always a way to steal a car, and when all else fails, always a fallback brick through the windscreen, or failing all else a gun to the face along with an order to hand over the keys.
Yeah there's a couple of specific cars that are h
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We don't hold precedent as law, though. And rightly so: the judiciary branch has no business writing laws. Precedent is a judge saying: "This is how we will interpret that law from now on, amend the law if you think our interpretation is not correct".
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In case you have not notices, this is the UK. The UK has had proto-fascist tendencies for a long time now and happens to not be a member of the EU.
Obviously, the real culprit here are car-makers that use insecure locking systems.
I noticed.
In case you haven't noticed, the UK is located in Europe.
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The UK is an Island off the Western European continent. It is not part of the European Union.
and....what? My comment was not about the EU. I didn't say a word about the EU. Why do you?
They drive on a different side of the road than the continent.
Sure. Maybe it's part of North America, or even Asia!
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Oh fuck me here comes Gweihir. Long-time /. readers will know this chap is a clueless cnut.
I thank you.
Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.
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Always funny how some people (like you) cannot stand people with actual insight. Made my day.
Re:That which is not mandatory must be banned! (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, only Europe ever bans devices or mandates they have to comply with certain laws.
Absolutely. The US never does that ever. Ever. At all. Or Canada. Or India. Or China. Or Australia. Or... the entire developed (and developing) world.
Aren't you the guys that banned all Chinese manufacturers of CCTV equipment, for example, and 5G infrastructure, and forced drones to comply with your rules or be banned? You can't even bring a Kinder Egg into the US. In fact with the Chinese ones you literally made your allies (e.g. the UK!) comply against their will or you threatened their trade.
Bans are universal, pretending that the US is "free" or indeed even "as free" as 44 nation states in Europe or the wider world is such brainwashing nonsense that it's hilarious.
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Freedom in the EU is illusion at best
LOL. VJ Dunce, is that you?
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Name calling, pretty typical response and all you get from the Europe when called out on their bullshit.
You just proved JD 100% right.
The EU is a competitor not an ally, we should not be subsidizing their defense or really cooperating in anyway. Glad to see we are cutting you out of access to Ukrainian mineral resources. SUCK on it loosers!
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Indeed, the US are not allies to anyone. They cannot possibly be - the US are now a tributary territory - of putin's russia of all places, the country that could not win against Ukraine for three years of full-scale war.
What a fall, putin is giving the orders to the mighty US through a dumb mouthpiece, which cannot tell his arse from a hole in the ground and is deeply in private debt to moscow - and through a South African Nazi, who is afraid that putin will nuke him personally and that China is eating his
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My comment was about Europe, not the US.....or any other region.
Re:That which is not mandatory must be banned! (Score:4, Funny)
At least I can buy a real Kinder egg in the UK.
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You’re talking about nanny state stuff and ‘murica has banned children’s candy.
Re: That which is not mandatory must be banned! (Score:2)
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What are you, three years old?
The question was not the age, the question was the ability to legally do something. Last I checked there was no age limit on being allowed to buy kinder eggs in the UK.
Are they also (Score:2)
going to ban wire coathangers and paper clips?
And cellphones of course
Re: Are they also (Score:4, Insightful)
They already do, but it's in the anti-abortion regulations. Oh, you weren't talking US...my bad.
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Flipper Zero? (Score:2)
So what about my Flipper Zero? It's a very useful tool for my hobby stuff, but can also be used to steal cars.
Re:Flipper Zero? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ideally, you'd need to ask a lawyer how to properly frame a justification, but I expect some proforma responses will start doing the rounds in the UK's Flipper Zero community fairly soon. I recall a chef got stopped carrying his roll of knives around some years ago and once he'd demonstrated he was in fact a chef that was pretty much the end of the matter. Being able to easily demonstrate you are an Electrical Engineer or something else suitably appropriate would probably be a good start, especially given there would presumably be no obvious intent to use it for illicit purposes.
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So what about my Flipper Zero? It's a very useful tool for my hobby stuff, but can also be used to steal cars.
Yeah even before this law: https://www.dailydot.com/debug... [dailydot.com]
But 99% of the time they will just let you through. If they ask what it is, just tell them it's a tamagotchi and show the animal.
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If they ask what it is, just tell them it's a tamagotchi and show the animal.
My god, it says here you haven’t fed the little guy since Jan 1,1970. Son, you’re coming down to the station for animal cruelty.
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Waste of time? Looks like... (Score:4, Insightful)
"...electronic devices used by criminals to steal cars are set to be banned under new laws in England and Wales."
This is the pertinent question to ask:
Are criminals using these devices because they (the devices) are legal?
If the answer to that question is "YES", then the ban will have some [positive] effect.
My take: Criminals just do not care. The crime will go on no matter what laws are put in place, I am afraid!
Re:Waste of time? Looks like... (Score:4, Informative)
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Look at it from another perspective, are you actively using something for a legitimate purpose, or not? If the primary use of something is for criminal purposes, then a fair question is, "ok, you claim it's for legitimate purposes, so, what are you doing with it?". In this day and age, electronics that are specifically tailored for a specific criminal purpose really are just tools for criminals and nothing else.
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"...electronic devices used by criminals to steal cars are set to be banned under new laws in England and Wales."
This is the pertinent question to ask:
Are criminals using these devices because they (the devices) are legal?
If the answer to that question is "YES", then the ban will have some [positive] effect.
My take: Criminals just do not care. The crime will go on no matter what laws are put in place, I am afraid!
You're asking the wrong question...
The question you should be asking is "is car theft illegal".
Well of course it is.
What you also don't get is that this is not about preventing these devices from getting onto the street... they already are. What it is about is adding to the weight of evidence against the offenders. The UK is a nation of laws and has a presumption of innocence. So if the prosecution hasn't got enough evidence or some of that evidence is questionable, said offender walks. Car thefts
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The question you should be asking is "is car theft illegal".
Well of course it is.
Yes.. And criminals are going to bring with them whatever tools necessary that are easiest for them.
There are a lot of tools which pose a danger to property which people should not be just carrying around casually. For example, grinders, crowbars, lockpicks. I think it is fair if you are caught walking around with one in your bag you should have to show an explanation with credible substantiation for what you use it
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It's hilarious that you think physical keys are secure. Watch LockPickingLawyer and friends on Youtube for a little bit and if you take a judicious look at the channels you'll find that not only are they basically worthless if you're skilled, there's LOTS of dumb and easy to use bypasses of physical keys out there of all kinds, including some "make it easy" tools.
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The idea is that you have to catch the criminal in the act of using it to break into a car, or with a stolen car to prosecute without the law.
With the law you can find someone being suspicious, find the device, and that alone is a crime, and perhaps prevent a car theft.
Note: I'm not sure I agree with the premise that acting suspicious and having a tool that can facilitate crime is a good, but that's the concept of the law.
This is similar to how lockpicks are treated in my state in the US, and other multi us
Logs (Score:2)
Re: Logs (Score:3)
They know these types of devices are being used to steal cars, they can usually find a small amount of damage where they've tapped into the CANbus. (Broken side mirror as an example)
But knowing a particular car was stolen by accessing the CANbus doesn't tell you which device was used to do it.
Imaging you have 5 potential thieves, each has a device capable of being used to steal the car, you have no way to determine which person actually did it unless they left other evidence behind. Nobody is running DNA fr
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"so-called signal jammers" ?? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know much about stealing cars, but 60 minutes and others talk about "intercepting" the codes usually transfered between electronic key fobs and the car. If someone leaves their car keys near the front door, a bad guy with a scanner of sorts can communicate with the key fob and grab the codes necessary to steal the car. There's no mention of a jammer. In fact, a jammer would make interception impossible. Is there something I'm missing?
Re:"so-called signal jammers" ?? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know much about stealing cars, but 60 minutes and others talk about "intercepting" the codes usually transfered between electronic key fobs and the car. If someone leaves their car keys near the front door, a bad guy with a scanner of sorts can communicate with the key fob and grab the codes necessary to steal the car. There's no mention of a jammer. In fact, a jammer would make interception impossible. Is there something I'm missing?
This is a simple relay attack. A device just relays the signal from the key fob to the vehicle. As the key fob is "contactless" it doesn't require any interaction on the key fob to be activated. Just a signal asking for a response. Neither the signal, response or handshake need to be decrypted, just relayed to gain access to the vehicle. The device also gets around any proximity detection the vehicle might have.
Security experts have been screaming about this for-freaking-ages. However car manufacturers sold the idea as convenience "look, you don't even have to get your key out of your pocket to open the door" and lazy fuckers with zero knowledge on security bought it in droves.
The good part of this law is that it's one step closer to pushing the responsibility for this back onto the manufacturers. Even though I've a traditional "push button to open" key fob that is not vulnerable to this, my insurance still goes up because loads of other cars are.
As for jammers, they are of limited effectiveness and most people won't use the because it defeats the purpose of the key in the first place... it means they have to do something to unlock their car. Having to take their key out of a Faraday pouch is too much work. What needs to happen is for this kind of thing not to be put in cars.
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Re:"so-called signal jammers" ?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Car manufacturers should be held responsible for vomiting insecure products on customers, resulting in increased insurance costs for everyone.
Re:"so-called signal jammers" ?? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a simple relay attack. A device just relays the signal from the key fob to the vehicle. As the key fob is "contactless"
The thing is there are SEVERAL types of attack, and some attacks use jammers and some of them don't.
Some attacks simply use a jammer to prevent the car from locking when the owner presses the Lock button on their remote. That leaves the car unlocked so it can be accessed easily.
Other attacks thieves may be performing are against the rolling code system itself and involve blocking the car from receiving signal when the "Unlock" button is pressed to induce the owner to press the button several times until it finally unlocks for them, but in reality the thief was recording the signal each time the unlock button was pressed in order to prepare an attack against the weak rolling code system for later.
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Having the car shut itself off would be dangerous and disruptive, and most likely illegal.
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There's no mention of a jammer. In fact, a jammer would make interception impossible. Is there something I'm missing?
The thieves are using jammers to disable WIFI security cameras (which are the most common type at private residences) while they do their thing.
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There's no mention of a jammer. In fact, a jammer would make interception impossible. Is there something I'm missing?
Thinking about this some more, they might also use a jammer to jam the car's cellular modem and/or GPS receiver. Most recent model years have cellular modems for telemetry and can be tracked by the owner using an app or police with help from the manufacturer.
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I don't know, but I suspect what happens is that the key can no longer send signals to the car when the owner leaves, so the car doesn't lock, and the thief can get in, steal from the car, and possibly drive it away. Basically, from the car's perspective, the last known position of the key was in the car when the owner was driving it, so it stays unlocked. If it erred on the lock side, jammers would cause cars to lock when the driver was present.
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There's no mention of a jammer. In fact, a jammer would make interception impossible. Is there something I'm missing?
Yes, you're missing that in a modern car it is as important to replay the keyfob as it is to then cut off communication afterwards. Thieves that don't jam GPS / cellular connections to vehicles find themselves very quickly pulled over and arrested while the car phones home its location.
ban them (Score:1)
When we say stupid things to make a point (Score:3)
Lead for vehicle crime, Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Simms said the possession, manufacture, sale and supply of signal jammers had provided an "easily accessible tool for criminals⦠for far too long".
"These devices have no legitimate purpose, apart from assisting in criminal activity, and reducing their availability will support policing and industry in preventing vehicle theft which is damaging to both individuals and businesses." She added.
If she can't think of one simple legitimate use for these devices then she is a moron.
Criminals don't care. We see violent offenders out free in less time. What make you think the legal system will be stricter on car theives?
Why do we need a hands free system to start the car? We need to press a button on the key fob to lock it. Why not have a similar button to activate the FOB for 2 minutes giving us time to start the car?
How I see it is that we invent all these car theft prevention addons that are cumbersome and inconvenient but avoid the simple solutions.
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If she can't think of one simple legitimate use for these devices then she is a moron.
A device designed specifically to intercept and replay keyfob codes followed by jamming a signal has no legitimate use. In fact no signal jammer has a legitimate use in the UK since interfering with any radio communication through sending out erroneous transmissions is illegal. The fact that some people may play with it at home without disturbing others doesn't make something less illegal or more legitimate.
So ban the radios in cell phones? (Score:2)
UK is all about criminalization of normal (Score:2)
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* Signal jammer is anything that is capable of broadcasting on 315 MHz or 433.92 MHz frequencies
* Keyless repeater is anything that can receive and transmit on these frequencies
* OBD scan tool, especially if it is done via dongle and laptop, is a key cloning device.
Sure, you may win in court but it will cost you a lot to pay lawyers and experts.
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The UK is more likely to ban rocks because someone might use one to defend themselves, as opposed to stealing a car.
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It's just a matter of choosing your poison. The United States is so much more concerned with protecting people who might want to carry around this kind of equipment.
On the other hand, the United States is one of the best places in the world to be gunned down by a policeman simply for having the wrong skin colour.
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On the other hand, the United States is one of the best places in the world to be gunned down by a policeman simply for having the wrong skin colour.
Not true. If you look at the data for police shootings in US, adjust it for criminality instead of demographics, then a white criminal is more likely to get shot by cops than visible minority criminal.
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The ban misses the point (Score:2)
If I remember correctly, signal jammers are illegal in the US. Anyway, I want to point out two things (which haven't been mentioned in the comments): 1) The key fob of a car is read using software defined radio. Here's one I found on Amazon that sells for $35:
https://www.amazon.com/RTL-SDR... [amazon.com]
Then, using open-source software, such as GNU Radio, you can start reading car fob signals.
The actual signal jammer can be made from (one) Arduino. Here's a project I found on YouTube that jams wifi signals. I assum
Oblig Quote (Score:3)
"When ____ are outlawed, only outlaws will have ____."
- Louis L'Amour
Differences between the US and the UK (Score:2)
UK:
From the article: Making or selling a signal jammer could lead to up to five years in prison *or an unlimited fine*. Emphasis added.
US:
From the US constitution's eighth amendment: Excessive bail shall not be required, *nor excessive fines imposed*, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. Emphasis added.
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"Unlimited" fine doesn't mean that an unreasonable fine can be imposed. Just that it's up to the judge (and potentially the appeal courts) to decide what's reasonable.
get to the root (Score:2)
UK needs to get to the root of the problem and ban car thefts.
SDR (Score:2)
Is this just a backdoor way to ban SDR?
Europe seems hellbent on spying on all of its subjects and ensuring the subjects can get transparency back from them.
England not in the EU (Score:2)
Good they left. They can limit your freedom even more. With this they just blanket ban the use of ISM bands.