Manchester car park lock hack leads to horn-blare hoo-ha

"which you're legally allowed to use if you have an appropriate license"

Well, I'm sure car thieves will be reassured to know that they're not illegally jamming the locks.

Re: Old trick that

These sorts of problems have been around for decades, often because the receivers do not have any image rejection and/or are simple super-regens that can be desensed from a considerable distance with not a great deal of power. It was a little better when car remotes were on 418MHz (but not perfect, I was once able to accidentally jam someone's car alarm remote in the work car park with 10W of 434MHz Tx from about 20m away), now they're mostly in the 433.05-434.79MHz range then all it takes is a perfectly legal radio amateur and the really bad designs fall over very easily.

Re: Old trick that

Many years ago they had problems with the local amateur repeater and the 433MHz car systems. Despite the repeater being up on the roof, the car receivers were crappy enough to be jammed by it. There have been tales of MoD Mould repeaters, also in that band, causing similar issues.

I have no idea which idiot decided that 433MHz, a very popular amateur band, was a good place to put poorly-designed consumer electronics, but I hope their name is high on the list to be put against the wall when the revolution comes.

Re: i have tested it on my self

ITYM 430MHz? Anyways - there are many legitimate licensed users of that region of spectrum and car key fobs have zero protection from them, being ISM equipment operating on a basis of non-interference.

Also, as a previous poster pointed out, saying you;rer only allowed to use a 5% duty cycle, that may be so, but when a device is modified either deliberately, by human hand or by baby spit, that won't be the case.

Rules are rules, faults are faults and malicious intent is effective.

Society is to blame for accepting shit products like this a panaceas (sp? I didn't do well in French at school ;)

I think it's just you.

If I'm unloading the car setting up for camping for example, it's kind of handy to be able to open the boot without having to use the key every time.

And as for "every car I've ever owned", well I guess you're very young as my first four cars didn't even have central locking let alone internal boot release.

"Valet Parking" Mode

I think it's a side effect of a "valet parking" mode whereby you can have the key in a mode whereby you can hand it to a dodgy parking attendant to park/return your car for you without being able to empty the valuables out of the boot while he's at it.

I once had a Fiat which had this "function" implemented via physical keys as well as the fob. It always seemed utterly pointless as accessing the boot from the interior of the car was a key part of the vehicle's design.

It was also ludicrously easy to get things out of synch by pressing the wrong button on the fob and generating a steady stream of expletives which soundly jammed any human auditory systems within earshot.

The only vehicles I've never had problems with had physical keys only and no central locking or other "convenience features" whatsoever. Under such a system, the overhead in locking/unlocking and checking the status of the various locks is a matter of seconds and any errors could only be blamed on the owner, which makes you wonder why the manufacturers didn't just stick with it and save themselves a fortune in R&D while retaining a cast iron "not our fault."

Re: Another reason for a physical key..

I believe you have to maintain the "key in the area" thing - so the theory being that wouldn't work.

I have no idea if in practice, the car would stop, moan a bit (like the seatbelt warning in most, but not all cars) or apply brakes.

Anyone have any real world experience on how keyless start works in practice?

Re: Another reason for a physical key..

You realise that as soon as you turn the key you will also turn off the powered steering? Using the key as an emergency cut out while driving could be very dangerous indeed.

Steering assist is only really needed at lower speeds. I want to have the option of choosing between heavier steering or killing the whole thing completely so I can stop the vehicle either on engine or handbrake (which by law still has to be mechanical, but is usually no match for the types of engine I prefer). No cut out, no choice.

turn off by key

And on some cars, but probably not modern ones, turning the engine off by key could cause the steering lock to engage. Not a good thing in a moving car

Re: Another reason for a physical key..

"Using the key as an emergency cut out while driving could be very dangerous indeed."

But being unable to control your vehicle if the electronics go haywire is OK with you, is it?

You might lose power steering but it is still steerable - or you could use the handbrake but even those are going electronic these days.

I really, really, really, do NOT like all the electronics in cars these days, which is why I shall probably hang on to my 14 year old car as long as possible. It has enough electronics for my liking, mostly for making hte engine more efficient.

Re: Another reason for a physical key..

Paranoid?

I've been working with computers long enough to ensure there's always a backup, especially when that computer has the potential of killing me if it goes haywire.

In my opinion, SkyNet will happen the moment someone comes up with the idea of hardwiring it into the power grid. As long as we ensure computers have plugs, A.I won't worry me :)