[Chris2048]

Perhaps, or perhaps not.

It has to be hard enough it can't be done in the street (without getting attention), but maybe it could be easy enough to do in a garage.

But even if it is expensive, the result would be that either people with take more care, or they'll lose their car.

Maybe it's not a bad thing that people who can't manage a key are less likely to be on the roads - or that its more likely they lose access to their car then it ends up in the hands of criminals. A car can be a dangerous thing, even an inexpensive one.

[kube-system]

Yes, but this wouldn't prevent dangerous street criminals from stealing cars. Many of them steal the keys with the car. They go down to the gas station, and wait for an old lady with a nice car to pull up to the pump, and when she hops out they hop in.

The criminals doing more skilled attacks typically aren't joyriding or using it to commit other crimes, they typically doing it for financial gain: they want the car, its contents, or its parts.

Ultimately the overlap between the violent street criminals and those skilled at attacking digital security systems is not much.

> But even if it is expensive, the result would be that either people with take more care, or they'll lose their car.

The entire reason keys were explicitly designed with the functionality to program new ones is because that's not considered by most to be an acceptable solution.

[Chris2048]

That kind of expands the scope of this conversations to mugging/carjacking, which also comes with a higher penalty, and probably higher priority to the police.

And, it involves interacting with someone, who presumably can call the police afterwards, and activate any lojack / immobilisation device before it can be removed. Presumably the appeal of stealing a parked car it may be a while before it has been discovered and reported stolen.

Also, doing such a thing in a gas-station where there are likely cameras and even other people / attendants make it seem pretty risky to me. Are these dudes just hanging around the pumps in masks? What country is this?

> not considered by most to be an acceptable solution

Things change, but also, it's as much up to the government and/or insurance corps what's acceptable.

[kube-system]

The only reasonable way to evaluate risk is as a whole. Real world attackers pick whichever realm is easiest to exploit, they aren't going to waste their time doing something difficult when there are easier ways to accomplish their goal.

> who presumably can call the police afterwards, and activate any lojack / immobilisation device before it can be removed.

Yes, people who carjack usually aren't looking for a nice daily driver to hang on to for the next 3 years. Usually they want to joyride, or use the car for some other crime, in the immediate term.

> Also, doing such a thing in a gas-station where there are likely cameras and even other people / attendants make it seem pretty risky to me. Are these dudes just hanging around the pumps in masks?

Stealing a car, and being in possession of a stolen car, is pretty risky already. I think someone who does this type of crime is probably not very risk averse. Wearing masks is a pretty common way to thwart cameras when committing a crime in many places, I don't think this potential security issue is specific to certain countries. I think what you might be hinting at is that fewer people want to do carjackings in different places, but the same applies to canbus exploits. Nor do I think anyone really needs to "hang out" to find a car at a gas station. Many have cars filling up at them regularly throughout business hours.

> Presumably the appeal of stealing a parked car it may be a while before it has been discovered and reported stolen.

Yes, and while there are some instances of this happening electronically, I don't think closing those avenues will change anything, because towing cars is neither difficult nor suspicious in many places. Again, security is only as good as the weakest link. Nearly all criminals cut locks, even ones are very easily picked.

[Chris2048]

> people who carjack usually..

No idea, but my point stand on how they achieve this in the first place..

> towing cars is neither difficult nor suspicious in many places

because it's not a recognised method of theft. Also, buying a registered tow truck to commit a car theft doesn't sound easy to me.

[kube-system]

Buying a tow truck is no different than buying a truck just about anywhere. Or one can simply buy a regular truck and bolt on a towing attachment to make their own tow truck.

e.g. https://liftandtow.com/

One can also purchase, rent, or steal a trailer and attach it to a vehicle. There are several types of trailer which can haul a car, which are all widely available to the public.