Going back to the original post...It indicates that the device is not a jammer but a reader of the signal that it can then use to unlock your car. Every time the reporter locked his car, he heard it lock and then as he walked away he heard it unlock.
Ah! Yes a code grabber. They were around in the 80s but modern remotes have a far more sophisticated signal and intercepting a signal and using it to unlock a modern car is virtually, but not entirely, impossible. The jammer is the only thing that you or I are likely to be faced with and that is a real threat - but awareness of how it works should help us avoid being caught.
There's not much about interceptors/grabbers on the web but there is this article in Snopes about emails that have been circulating for many years - similar to the one you quoted.
So in fact the thing is not actually genuine...It is just one of those "please circulate this" nuisance things that are just built to worry gullible people like me...Well, I'm really pissed off that it succeeded
Don't be Peter. There are a lot of these things kicking around and I swear the majority are wind-ups. Some are very convincing too I'm a sort of 'bury my head in the sand' sort of chap who works on the philisophy 'it won't happen to me' so by and large, I ignore them anyway.. however well meaning
petermcleland wrote:Well, I'm really pissed off that it succeeded
That's the first time I've seen you swear!
Actually, it served a very useful purpose in alerting us to the widespread use of jammers. I'd heard of them but had no idea how ubiquitous they'd become, although if you leave nothing in your car they serve you better than a centrepunch through the side window! You'd get back to the car and not even know that someone had looked in it!
As far as 'annoying' emails go, you could easily be as smug as me by putting Snopes on your favourites bar. With just a couple of clicks you can check the veracity of all these urban myths and return them to your friends with a note saying 'Everybody knows that old chestnut. You really shouldn't be so gullible!'
it IS possible to intercept and re transmit car security signals, although not overly common. You may remember about two years ago someone was able to hack the swipe cards (the same as the type used in London for Oyster cards). There are different ways these things can work, but basically if you know the "master code" you can then intercept and decipher the key and re transmit it, opening the car, or even starting it. As I understand it, its one of the earlier versions of this encryption that's been hacked and newer cars use an as yet uncracked security master code.In relatively simple terms, if you think about it like wireless on your computer. Back in the day, WEP was the standard encryption that was used to connect wireless devices until it became so easy to hack it was pointless using it. Then we moved to WPA which was better but again has been hacked albeit it takes a bit of time so is still safer than WEP, now we are using (or should be using) WPA2 which so far hasn't been hacked (or at least not that anyone is admitting to)
speedbird591 wrote:Don't worry, Dave. When the Romanians arrive, they'll take it off your hands. Just put a Trabant badge on it so they know that it IS a car
OOOooooo Tell em like it is [will be] Ian.
Roger,
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
speedbird591 wrote:As far as 'annoying' emails go, you could easily be as smug as me by putting Snopes on your favourites bar. With just a couple of clicks you can check the veracity of all these urban myths and return them to your friends with a note saying 'Everybody knows that old chestnut. You really shouldn't be so gullible!'
I'm a sort of 'bury my head in the sand' sort of chap who works on the philisophy 'it won't happen to me' so by and large, I ignore them anyway.. however well meaning 
