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Crime Transportation

Can The Police Remotely Drive Your Stolen Car Into Custody? (thenextweb.com) 217

Posted by EditorDavid from the riding-remotely dept.
In 2009 GM equipped 17,000 of its units with "remote ignition block," a kill switch that can turn off the engine if the car is stolen. But that was just the beginning, according to a story shared by long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo: Imagine this: You're leaving work, walking to your car, and you find an empty parking spot -- someone stole your brand new Tesla (or whatever fancy autonomous car you're driving). When you call the police, they ask your permission for a "takeover," which you promptly give them. Next thing you know, your car is driving itself to the nearest police station. And here's the kicker -- if the thief is inside he will remain locked inside until police can arrest them.

This futuristic and almost slapstick scenario is closer than we think, says Chief Innovation Officer Hans Schönfeld who works for the Dutch police. Currently, his team has already done several experiments to test the crime-halting possibilities of autonomous cars. "We wanted to know if we can make them stop or drive them to certain locations," Schönfeld tells me. "And the result is: yes, we probably can."
The Dutch police tested Tesla, Audi, Mercedes, and Toyota vehicles, he reports, adding "We do this in collaboration with these car companies because this information is valuable to them, too.

"If we can hack into their cars, others can as well."
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Can The Police Remotely Drive Your Stolen Car Into Custody? More

Can The Police Remotely Drive Your Stolen Car Into Custody?

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  • Um, no (Score:5, Insightful)

    by arth1 ( 260657 ) on Sunday November 25, 2018 @11:39AM (#57696992) Homepage Journal

    When you call the police, they ask your permission for a "takeover,"

    They would ask your permission? In what universe do you live?

    • Would be a good feature if it is under the owner's control. For example: the car comes with a PIN code in a sealed envelope (or the owner sets a PIN); the PIN is unknown to the manufacturer or the dealer. The police can take over the car remotely, but only after supplying the correct PIN, given to them by the owner.

      Of course thieves will try and thwart this: they can already jam GPS trackers so presumably they can jam or shield against remote control. Or they send a number of incorrect PINs to the car

      • Re:Um, no (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Pentium100 ( 1240090 ) on Sunday November 25, 2018 @12:03PM (#57697096)

        And there would be a second PIN (unknown to you) in case you insulted Dear Leader and needed to be transported to a gulag. Or Dear Leader wanted you to accidentally, due to inattentiveness, drive full speed into a tree.

        • The parable of *RoboCop* exposes this well. Rococop had 4 directives.

          "Serve the public trust"
          "Protect the innocent"
          "Uphold the law"
          "Any attempt to arrest a senior OCP employee results in shutdown"

      • Re:Um, no (Score:5, Insightful)

        by arth1 ( 260657 ) on Sunday November 25, 2018 @12:04PM (#57697104) Homepage Journal

        The problem is that law enforcement and politicians would demand a backdoor.
        That opens up for abuse both by the government, corporations (in the countries where the two are separate) and by other criminals who manage to hack/steal/cajole access from the key holders.

        • The problem is that law enforcement and politicians would demand a backdoor. That opens up for abuse both by the government, corporations (in the countries where the two are separate) and by other criminals who manage to hack/steal/cajole access from the key holders.

          Yes, but it would be kind of fun to be able to remotely lock the doors and windows and have the thing drive the thief straight to jail.

          • it would be kind of fun to be able to remotely lock the doors and windows and have the thing drive the thief straight to jail.

            But marginally less fun to find gangsters have used the feature to abduct your daughter.

        • Re:Um, no (Score:5, Insightful)

          by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday November 25, 2018 @03:14PM (#57697940)

          The problem is that law enforcement and politicians would demand a backdoor.

          The system, as described, is already a back door.

        • Who the simple fuck needs a backdoor when:

          1.) You agree by contract to reveal your personal information and use habits to the vendor.

          2.) Those vendors are, by way of the same contract, sharing with third parties.

          3.) Those third parties are all the people you list and all the people you didn't list, except the people who are categorized as, "you?"

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Okind ( 556066 )

            Who the simple fuck needs a backdoor when:

            1.) You agree by contract to reveal your personal information and use habits to the vendor.

            2.) Those vendors are, by way of the same contract, sharing with third parties.

            3.) Those third parties are all the people you list and all the people you didn't list, except the people who are categorized as, "you?"

            Anyone in Europe, as:
            1. the data sale you mentioned is not reasonable for making the car work, it's just to get more money, and
            2. even the car manufacturer itself doesn't need (and thus doesn't want) to use you personal information; anonymized driving habits are sufficient

            As a consumer, I really love the GDPR. It's just a shame that enforcement is probably understaffed, like the police is as well.

      • Of course thieves will try and thwart this: they can already jam GPS trackers so presumably they can jam or shield against remote control.

        A GPS or cell jammer is like a giant homing beacon. A police drone could easily detect and follow the emitter. Also, with GPS and cell signals blocked, the car will likely refuse to move. The thief could still use a tow truck or flatbed to steal the car, but that is a significant barrier for a meth-head teenager.

        You don't have to make a car impossible to steal. You just need to make stealing it difficult enough that the thief steals your neighbor's car instead.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          GPS jammers are quite common and only need to be very low power as the signal is so weak, so are rarely detected. People use them to block trackers in rentals and commercial vehicles.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Oh, and if the vehicle won't move without a GPS signal you are going to have a problem the first time you park underground.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 )

        The police can take over the car remotely, but only after supplying the correct PIN, given to them by the owner.

        Which, 99% of the time, will be stored, by the owner, in the glove box. Because it's car and car stuff goes in the glove box.

      • Of course if you finance the car you would need to make the PIN available to the repo man. In fact, repo men would become obsolete, they would just call the car in fro the office.
    • The key part of that phrase was "When you call the police..." The problem would be al the times they would take over your car when you had not called them first. Of course, when they were called on it, they would say, "Well, wasn't it VIN XXXXXXXX that we took over?" And it would turn out that VIN XXXXXX was just a couple of digits off from your car and just a couple of digits further off from a car which had actually been stolen. Or, perhaps they would have "credible reports" that your car had been invo

    • so that you, not them, are responsible when it goes up in flames after it can't manouver automatically some place and can't fallback to user control either and can't let the passenger out.

      look this idea is SIMPLE AF, but the FUCKING PRACTICALITIES ARE IN IT'S WAY. this is whats wrong with modern inventions mostly. that they are neither modern nor practical.

      anyhow. the whole asking for permission, calling the police etc - that's a distraction to sell this idea as something new. here is what the idea is, in p

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Askmum ( 1038780 )
      Why would you have to ask the police to do that? It's my car, why can't I direct the car to go where I want it?
      Even more: why can it be stolen in the first place? Why can't I put a software immobiliser on it saying it should remain in place during specified hours? Why would car theft still be an issue with these kinds of connected cars?

  • And of course... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 25, 2018 @11:41AM (#57697006)

    This means any regime in the world can kidnap anybody in its own car, anytime.

  • Make sure you steal an older car, or wrap the new one in foil

  • Remote theft. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Sunday November 25, 2018 @11:50AM (#57697036)

    If the cars can be remotely controlled then they can be remotely stolen. This means that there will be cars that drive themselves to a destination where they will be stripped of the remote capability by non-thieves (via firmware update) before driving off, never to be seen again.

    This may all but halt low-tech theft but it will dramatically increase the potential for high-tech. I expect to hear about thousands of cars being stolen in a single day due to a zeroday exploit.

    • It would be even more interesting if the terrorists hacked the cars and told them to drive into a tree at full speed. That would cause much more terror than flying airplanes into buildings or planting bombs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by arth1 ( 260657 )

        It would be even more interesting if the terrorists hacked the cars and told them to drive into a tree at full speed.

        s/tree/crowd/

      • quite true there, at least once those cars become common, Much lower death count, but much higher psychological effect, 4 or 5 cars take suicide dives and hit a couple pedestrians on the way, everyone second guesses every car they get in and every approaching car they see. Most of the theft methods could have counters (extra hidden gps trackers, say placed in unexpected places that don't start transmitting until an hour after the main gps turns off.

    • That's what I was thinking. They can drive themselves right into a metal shipping container. Shut the doors, and that car isn't going to talk to anyone. Pop it onto a truck, and you're going to be able to ship it wherever you need it to go.

      However, unless you can remotely turn off it's GPS reporting, it's not likely that thousands could be stolen in a single day. The cops would probably be able to figure out what was going on when the manufacturers tell them that even ten cars all showed up at your warehous

      • That's what I was thinking. They can drive themselves right into a metal shipping container. Shut the doors, and that car isn't going to talk to anyone. Pop it onto a truck, and you're going to be able to ship it wherever you need it to go.

        The wealthy would stop buying them in a heartbeat after the first remote kidnapping.

  • Assumes car ownership (Score:3)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@keirstead . o rg> on Sunday November 25, 2018 @11:53AM (#57697052)

    None of this is relevant because very shortly after autonomous cars become mainstream, personal car ownership is going to fall off a cliff faster than you can say "autonomous". I fully expect that my child will never personally own a vehicle.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/busin... [bbc.com]

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      ..and why do you consider this a good thing? It's not like it'll be cheaper.. It'll most likely be more expensive, especially once the transportation service providers have us over a barrel.

  • No one will steal any of these cars. There's nothing worthwhile to do with them after they are stolen, and the thieves would get caught right away.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday November 25, 2018 @11:58AM (#57697070)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:friendly howto for new car owners (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Sunday November 25, 2018 @12:20PM (#57697164) Journal
      A less complicated way to accomplish this (especially if they change the way the system is designed) would be to identify the antenna cable, disconnect it, and install a 50-ohm dummy load onto the transceiver end of the cable. This will prevent any wireless communication between the vehicle and the outside world, without causing any collateral dysfunction of the vehicle or damage to the transceiver; reception will be impossible, and any transmissions the transceiver attempts will just be dumped harmlessly into the dummy load without causing any standing-wave damage to the RF power amplifier in the transceiver. The system would just interpret the loss of wireless connectivity as not being in range of any towers it could connect to.

      Disabling GPS is similar, although since GPS is receive-only, disconnecting the GPS patch antenna should be sufficient.

    • Re:friendly howto for new car owners (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Cbs228 ( 596164 ) on Sunday November 25, 2018 @02:47PM (#57697796)

      This may well work for OnStar devices. For Fiat Chrysler vehicles which use the "UConnect" system, the process is much more difficult. Old forum threads [ramforumz.com] suggest that the radio's "head unit" itself is a self-contained spy device.

      The head unit has a cellular modem which is physically soldered to the rest of the system. This makes it difficult to remove non-destructively. One can't simply remove the SIM—there is none—and the modem has an on-chip antenna which similarly cannot be unplugged. It might be possible to replace the "radio" with an aftermarket part, but said part would also need to manage the climate control and other passenger comfort systems.

      I can understand how having fewer boxes and plugs can streamline the assembly process and improve reliability. In this case, however, I can't help but wonder this is a deliberate, anti-consumer design choice. At the very least, these systems ought to include some type of "RFKILL" switch or functionality.

      If this sort of thing is important to you, research carefully before you buy.

  • Let them try and hack it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )
      I know you're joking, but cars that old don't have the modern pedal arrangement. Unless the thief has experience with driving that model of antique car, it's an even better anti-theft system than having a manual transmission.

      • Well not about having the Model A. It only goes to car shows though.

        And about the controls there were lots of Model A's that were made into hot rods back when I was a kid. Heavily modified and souped up. In my case it's what I first drove and learned Auto Mechanics on. It's the perfect thing to teach the basics because it's so much simpler than one of todays cars and everything is out in the open.

  • I was always under the impression that most professional car thieves (not the ones in the movies, obviously) take the cars using a tow truck. This can be done with the excuse that the car doesn't start or its being repossessed. Once they have the cars, they're either chopped for parts or sent overseas with new locking mechanisms.

    • When I learned to do repos my trainer proved alarms are nearly useless. If you drive into most parking lots with a tow truck the first thing you'll see is nervous looks from bystanders, but once they see it's not THEIR vehicle on the stinger they ignore you.
      Alarms were ignored and when we dragged 'em off private property (to release the e-brake and secure the wheels to the stinger) the cloud of tire smoke didn't matter either.
      Fun fact:
      Many repo drivers don't know what Claim of Delivery paperwork is or which

  • Smart thief leaves stolen car parked inside sturdy garage.

  • Sweeet (Score:5, Insightful)

    by llamalad ( 12917 ) on Sunday November 25, 2018 @12:09PM (#57697132)

    A feature I've really been missing in automobiles is a mechanism whereby the ignition, steering, gas, and brake can be remotely disabled. Especially when that same mechanism can ensure that I'm hopelessly trapped inside the car the whole time.

    Nope, can't possibly see how that could ever go wrong.

  • I'm not sure I want Donald Trump to be able to drive my vehicle remotely, even if Jeff Sessions has signed off.

    Just think how useful it would be for all people to have to wear TMS helmets that would intervene if we had bad thoughts. Why, Bob Mueller would have cleared Trump long ago, homosexual thoughts would be eliminated in Mississippi, and we would never again have to endure all this bureaucratic bullshit about, you know, rights and freedoms. Yay, technology.

    • You used to have "freedom of", now you have something better: "freedom from".

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsqr ( 808554 )

        You forgot the "Handmaid's Tale" attribution. Expect an instructive visit from Aunt Lydia.

  • Wait'll the idiots behind swatting find out (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Sunday November 25, 2018 @12:25PM (#57697180)
    Then the story will be about how you're driving your family for a nice relaxing Sunday afternoon at the park, when suddenly the car goes crazy. All the doors lock and windows close, and the car refuses all driver input, insisting on going to its own destination. Eventually you find yourself parked in front of a police station, where you and your wife are handcuffed and booked, your kids taken from you by CPS and placed into foster homes, your dog is put in a shelter (where its euthanized after 3 days), until you eventually manage to convince a judge that it was in fact your own car. You do a little research after being released, and figure out that some bozo you accidentally fragged a couple times in Fortnite precipitated the entire mess.
    • If your car attempts to abduct you, pull out the fuses from the fuse box. No power to computer means car stops.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dargaud ( 518470 )
        In my car you have to unscrew the driver seat first (with a custom tool) before you can access the fuse box...
  • If your vehicle is entirely 'fly by wire' (i.e. steering, accelerator, and braking are all just 'video game controls' and the on-board systems actually control everything based on their input), and you have cellular wireless connectivity built in to the vehicle, then it's highly likely that the vehicle can be controlled remotely without permission of the owner. With the advent of so-called 'driver assist', 'self-driving', and advanced 'cruise control' systems that rely on cameras and other sensors installed on the vehicle, suddenly not being in control of the vehicle at all while driving and having the vehicle directed somewhere other than where you want to go becomes a reality. The only way to prevent this from happening is to disable any and all transceivers within the vehicle's systems by disconnecting their antennas and terminating the antenna cable(s) with dummy loads. Of course by doing this there will be a loss of some of the vehicles' accessory features, but since there's no other way I'm aware of to disable outside tampering with your vehicles' systems, that's the price you'll have to pay.

    What's really needed is a hardware switch that disables transceivers that can be used for remote access to the vehicle, but I'm sure that governments, and law enforcement in particular, would fight tooth and nail against such a thing. They'd rather have the ability to control any vehicle at any time without any need to get 'permission' from the owner or occupants, regardless of what their reason for it is, and regardless of your rights as a citizen. The fact that criminals can (and WILL) be able to also hack into vehicles for purposes of theft, kidnapping, or terrorism, is irrelevant to them, so long as they have this power over your vehicle and, ultimately, you.

  • is a cheap standard transmission.

    Most impulsive car thieves can't drive stick, even better, if your car has some autonomous capability, leaving it in neutral with the parking brake on would create little or no opportunity for remote driving exploits.

    If the car is all fly-by-wire and there are no actual physical controls, good luck.

    • This'll only work for North American car thieves, out here in Africa and likely Europe and Asia as well, everyone drives stick except for the larny folks with road tanks.

      One of our radio DJ's did a classic phone prank on the topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYsTw3PQKYA [youtube.com]

    • Most impulsive car thieves can't drive stick, ...

      Neither can my 17-year-old nephew, who asked, "why do they even make cars with manual transmission?" (sigh) I hope correlation doesn't equal causation, 'cause he would make a horrible car thief - impulsive or otherwise. :-)

      All my cars have been manual, including my current 2001 Honda Civic EX and 2002 Honda CR-V EX -- as will be any new cars I eventually buy.

  • And here's the kicker -- if the thief is inside he will remain locked inside until police can arrest them.

    More likely, you'll find one of your windows or the sunroof broken or kicked out and the car empty.

    • What self-respecting car thief doesn't carry "Ninja Rocks" -- aka pieces of spark plugs hard/sharp enough to break a tempered glass window?
      • Hell, I keep a knife in my car with builtin seatbelt cutter and window breaker. You never know when you will be in/witness a wreck and need to get yourself/someone out of a car quick and the doors/seatbelt are jamned

    • Probably the guy broke the window getting in, so they could just get out that way...

      Also if a thief found himself trapped inside a car, very likely he would totally trash the interior - at least.

      Now if you want to start building binding systems into the seats to keep thieves strapped in an immobile, you might have something. Could also be used for kids that will not settle down so it's not like it will never be used.

  • Pull over to the shoulder safely and lock the car and wait for the cops to arrive at the scene. Can be done much sooner. Elon, are you listening? Expect a tweet "Already done, next software update will have this feature" soon
  • I had also thought that this invention for self driving cars would put the repo man out of business, but what about chop shops? Stolen cars could be broken up for parts sold to repair shops or car owners. It'll take some years for new cars to need worn out parts but if chop shops can find cars with parts that have been replaced with fairly new ones there's a business opportunity. Need a several thousand dollar replacement battery for your Tesla, it may be readily available for much less than at a dealer.
  • The car kills a mother and child because signal was lost or because of latency issues. Or any other fatal or embarrassing fuck up that is a completely predictable outcome from this. Good luck with the fallout from that.

  • The kidnapped wife and kiddy script pretty much writes itself.

  • "If we can hack into their cars, others can as well."

    Suppose, a similar technology existed to remotely disable your gun. Suddenly, the same people denouncing such control over cars have second thoughts.

    And then conclude, that, not only would they welcome such feature's availability, they'd like it to become mandatory [theguardian.com]!

  • Car thieves will just adapt and find a way around this. Police powers have never done anything to reduce crime. The primary purpose of the police is to keep the population under control, in the west mostly by occasionally demonstrating that those on power have the big stick ready when needed. Also nicely explains why they are so ineffective against crime.

  • this will go well (Score:4, Informative)

    by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Sunday November 25, 2018 @02:51PM (#57697820)

    Mother will safely buckle her child into rear baby seat, then car takes off and drives miles away, in 100 deg heat with no air conditioning. Child dies of heat stroke on way to the police station 25 miles away.

    hilarity ensues

  • There's two things that you don't ever take away:
    1. Emergency stop
    2. Emergency exit

    What do you do if the car has some kind of hazardous short circuit, sensor damage, loss of control, driving right into a tornado or some other oddball emergency? There should always be a big red button to make it stop dead. There should always be a safety hammer to get out. What do you do if the captive thief sets the seat on fire? We don't allow death traps, even when they can only be triggered by someone breaking and enteri

  • they can get in and out of it. Even if there's some software that allows takeover from whatever takeover the thief used, they can always kick out a window and exit the car before it gets anywhere near a police station.

    The software backdoor that allows police remote control is probably the backdoor that thieves will use to steal the cars. Imagine, they don't have to go anywhere near the car to steal it, just drive it to a remote location and onto a ship for overseas transport.

    Nothing good will come of this

  • This is just a silly what if that won't ever happen. We already have laws that make sure you can get out of a trunk, the manufacturers would never make any design that would at anytime prevent someone from getting out of the car. The liability would be way too high.
    Note police don't disable cars (or actually tell On-Star to) unless they are behind the car and know its safe. Again the liability of disabling a car on a freeway and causing an accident is way to high.
    Then there is the problem that you could nev

  • And what if you're falsely accused of a crime? (Score:3)

    by Uberbah ( 647458 ) on Sunday November 25, 2018 @03:52PM (#57698096)

    It's not like police would limit this ability to just car thefts, they'd use it for active warrants on car owners as well. And police fuck up and kill innocent people all. the. time. Hell, just within the last week, cops have gunned down two "good guys with a gun" - a security guard and a man fleeing a shooting [huffingtonpost.com] at a mall without warning.

    So lets say the case of Brandon Mayfield [theregister.co.uk] happened today instead of 2004. Mayfield was falsely identified by the FBI as being a suspect in the Madrid train bombings via supposedly infallible fingerprint matching. The FBI takes remote control of Mayfield's Tesla, drives it a certain location where he is promptly shot and killed by federal agents. And the public goes on thinking that an innocent man was guilty, as he's no longer around to challenge the evidence against him.

  • My car doesn't have that capability.

    I only use it to get updates to my fax machine.

  • ... by outfitting all cars, boats, motorcycles, trailers and shit like that with embedded GPS.

    Car chase? Easy peasy. When the perp is in a location of opportunity, kill a nearby security guard who's trying to help.

    Stolen car? No problem. We know right where it is. Drive right to it and kill a nearby security guard who's trying to help.

    Not a perfect solution for a nearby security guard who's trying to help, but that's why God made the phrase, "collateral damage."

  • Your own car can now serve:

    1- As an automated kidnapping device
    2- As a weapon in any violent crime
    3- As a bargaining chip against you in any negotiation

    It can also handily be repossessed easily, all of the above at a small cost in hacking. Basically a terrible idea.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Can an occupant of the car force open a door or window in the event the car is suffering severe electronics failure?

    If yes: Any halfway-competent thief will realise what is going on and be out the car when it arrives. Car reclaimed with some damage, thief gone. Better than no car, at least.
    If no: Then there is the risk that an occupant may be trapped in the event the car is involved in an accident, is on fire or drives into water - all circumstances in which the electronics may fail in a manner that prevent

  • Banks, finance companies, auto companies can just tell the vehicle to come home LOL. Here's an easy way to stop that...park your car INSIDE your garage LOL. Oh, I could see this pan out to the ultimate...Smart house, smart car. The bank etc...wants the car back, it tells the smart car to return, and has the smart house open the garage for you. Park your car inside a faraday cage LOL.

  • Clearly this is an utterly insane idea if there is any chance of unauthorized parties taking over cars and say driving them into rivers, or each other by the tens of thousands or millions. Talk about a terrorists dream.

    So I assume the there is some perfect security solution that makes this all work. Tesla and the like must be much better at security than say the NSA - which got itself badly hacked a while ago.

  • TV: Bad buy hijacks car remotely, locks doors, passengers helplessly ride to their doom.

    Reality: when I pull the interior door handle, the doors (which were locked automatically when I started driving) unlock and open. There's a mechanical connection between handle and door lock.

  • sure (Score:2)

    by sad_ ( 7868 )

    the criminal will stay in the car and waits until he gets driven to the nearest police station and arrested.
    he can't escape because the car is locked...

    and those windows are unbreakable.

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