Mazda Switches To USB Keys 623
kv9 writes "The new Mazda Sassou while being 'cool and promoting a positive state of mind' has a most important feature, that every geek will love. Instead of the classic key it uses a usb flash drive for starting up. The key can also be used to transfer things like driving instructions or music to the car's hard drive."
Reliable? (Score:3, Informative)
Great, but its a concept... (Score:3, Informative)
This is a "concept" car... get it? (Score:1, Informative)
What happened to RFID? (Score:5, Informative)
Or, it could have all been a dream.
My first written complaint about /. (Score:5, Informative)
Um, no.
Mazda put a USB key in a freakin' concept car. There's no USB keys in any Mazda at any dealership now. It might happen some day down the road.
"Switches" my ass. "Tries out"? "Messes about with"?
Come on guys.
Re:great, another point of failure (Score:5, Informative)
I've gone swimming in the lake with it in my bathing suit pocket, worn fuzzy sweaters on thick carpet, and accidentally slammed it against some concrete (swinging it on a cord when the cord broke).
The thing is really durable, and I'm certainly not gentle with it.
Still works beautifully. YMMV.
Better than most. (Score:5, Informative)
I've actually found a color/key collision before when I was a kid. My mom and I almost drove off with someone else's car until we realized it was WAY too clean to be our car and we were in the wrong one.
Thats also why you can go online and order key dupes using the number stamped on the key or in some cases the VIN.
(Not many people seem to know all you need is the VIN and a contact at a dealer to get a key, as well... and the VIN is visible on modern cars through the windshield)
There is no real security with cars. If someone wants it, they can take it.
Re:What happened to RFID? (Score:2, Informative)
Renault (Score:2, Informative)
I have the model you have to put in a slot and it has worked reliably for the last two years.
Server down, here are some other news sites (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Security? (Score:5, Informative)
What you do is you send a challenge (random bytes) from the car to the token. It encrypts (read: signs) the challenge with the private key. Now the encrypted challenge can only be decrypted by the public key. The car does this and if it finds the challenge it knows that the token has the secret private key of the public/private key pair.
These chips can keep the private key pretty safe, so safe that it is really, really hard to get it ever out of the chip, even in a big lab. And with USB it is pretty easy to put some MB's or GB's next to it.
All this said, such a key would be easy to loose (forget you put it in a computer somewhere), and USB has not such a strong connector (even if better than most computer connectors). I hope they used one that was designed from scratch. It's not so much the security that I worry about.
Re:Hot Wiring: No Match for a Thief (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What happened to RFID? (Score:4, Informative)
The dongle is about the size of a standard remote, and has the same buttons on it (lock, unlock, open trunk, panic). The difference is that while carrying it in my pocket, putting my hand on the inside of the door handle unlocks the car. Touching a raised dimple on the outside of the door handle locks the car.
Other features:
Misleading Title (Score:2, Informative)
"What? Mazda is using USB keys in all their cars??"
Ummm, no. Mazda experiments with USB key in concept car would be A LOT better.
Re:We don't need software to start cars (Score:4, Informative)
Assuming, of course, they can get past the physical layer to actually access the ignition system. This is a USB to start the car, not to open it. Since the other site was alread
Fact is, they need physical access to steal your car, and it's not difficult to implement the system so making a "copy" of the key would be very difficult.
But this is a larger problem than meets the eye. If software is used to start a car, how long until government gets creative? What kinds of algorthims can be put in the car computer?
* If there is a gas outage, the new flash only allows the car to be driven 100 miles per week, then you can't start it until next week?
And they'll upload this into your physical device how, exactly?
* Since there is an algorithm that makes each car unique, how long until the car broadcasts its VIN number to anyone who wants to listen? Will cops knock on your door because you parked in a mall, next to a store that had shoplifters?
That's seperate from a USB car key, now isn't it. Putting a transponder on a car is ALREADY being done. That's essentially what a FastPass is now. Ping it, and it gives you a serial number.
* How long until my car decides I am driving to fast, and calls the police to mail me a ticket. Before you write this off as never_gonna_happen, consider that many highways now have radar guns attached to cameras, and they mail out tickets in the mail.
You mean like an automated radar system that takes pictures and sends you a ticket? Old news. Plus (as others have noted) some rental car companies already do that with GPS now.
* And how long until a bank robber and hacker changes your flash to mask the car that robbed the bank. Imagine the extra people the police will need to hire to straighten out the messes. And imagine how many more tickets they will need to write to pay for those new employees.
How, exactly, do they change MY flash to mimic their car? How is it going to take "extra people to sort out the mess" when this magic transponder is tracking two cars at the same time, one of which is obviously mine because it's the one parked at my house, while the other one obviously ISN'T mine because it was busy robbing a bank at the time.
The only good thing for software like this is we can keep track of kids. We can program cars that are started with certian USB keys, that the car will stop if it drives to a certain area. For example, we can have zones the car is not allowed to enter. We can also have software on the computer, to know what family member has the car, and where they are. Maybe we can even set up cars, so if the 16 year old daughter is going out with her friends, that the radio really listens to what is going on in the car to make sure she is not picking up a 18 year old drop out weed head. And if we hear something we don't like, we can drive to where the car is with out shotgun and have an old fashioned lynching.
Ok, repeat after me. "USB is not GPS." If you're going to get paranoid, at least keep your technologies straight. You're essentially ranting here and it doesn't wash. Numerous manufacturers already use microchips in their keys to effectively make sure they're the right key for the car. This USB key is really nothing more then adding some accessible memory to an existing technology.
Insightful?
Paranioid.
Mazda's doing something reasonably cool here. There's nothing wrong with it.
Re:Hot Wiring: No Match for a Thief (Score:2, Informative)
or the fuel pump or the electronic transmision or the radio!!!
Re:Hot Wiring: No Match for a Thief (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Security? (Score:3, Informative)
security is about planning for the worst (Score:5, Informative)