{"id":168177,"date":"2023-07-23T21:55:11","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T02:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/low-tech-secret-handshake-box-tests-99-9-effective-against-car-theft"},"modified":"2023-07-23T21:55:11","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T02:55:11","slug":"low-tech-secret-handshake-box-tests-99-9-effective-against-car-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/low-tech-secret-handshake-box-tests-99-9-effective-against-car-theft","title":{"rendered":"Low-tech secret handshake box tests 99.9% effective against car theft"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With US car thefts up 25.1% since 2019<\/a>, it\u2019s clear that high-tech key fob immobilizers aren\u2019t cutting the mustard. But this might: UMich researchers have created a charmingly low-tech anti-theft device that turns the whole car into a security keypad.<\/p>\n

Keyless entry and ignition are a brilliant step up in convenience from the old \u201cstick key in hole and turn\u201d method of starting cars, but thieves and hackers with a bit of know-how and some specialist gear are finding late-model keyless cars quick and easy to break into and steal<\/a>. Between this kind of thing and Tik Tok car theft challenges<\/a>, criminals are having a field day in the post-COVID era.<\/p>\n

A team at the University of Michigan has come up with a fun solution that doesn\u2019t use wireless signals at all. The \u201cBattery Sleuth,\u201d as they\u2019ve called it, sits between the car\u2019s battery and its electrical system, and measures fluctuations in voltage, looking for a specific set of voltage changes that act as a secret handshake of sorts between driver and car. Only when this handshake is complete will the device let the full power of the battery through to fire up the starter motor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With US car thefts up 25.1% since 2019, it\u2019s clear that high-tech key fob immobilizers aren\u2019t cutting the mustard. But this might: UMich researchers have created a charmingly low-tech anti-theft device that turns the whole car into a security keypad. Keyless entry and ignition are a brilliant step up in convenience from the old \u201cstick [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1492,1491],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}