BMW Cars Vulnerable To Blank Key Attack 291
Techmeology writes "Thieves have discovered how to steal BMW cars produced since 2006 by using the onboard computer that is able to program blank keys. The device used — originally intended for use by garages — is able to reprogram the key to start the engine in around three minutes. The blank keys, and reprogramming devices, have made their way onto the black market and are available for purchase over the Internet."
Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only would Google's self-driving car be vulnerable to this attack, it would start driving around itself! And you would be responsible for everything the hacked vehicle did.
I agree with the previous note. It raises some very interesting points and why Google's self-driving cars would be bad. Just imagine if someone hacked your car and it ran over someone.
Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:5, Insightful)
AI car will not be perfect, but I'm sure as hell they will be much better then the regular Joe.
Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not security vs ease of use. It the proof that you should not let a hardware company reinvents itself as a software company. At least not for critical stuff. Whether the car lock is critical or not is another debate.
Look at drivers for printers or scanners, or GC to see that hardware companies have no shame at all when it comes to releasing software that any software developer would qualify as a pile of smoking shit.
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The article is a advertisement soak...
From the article 'I am pleased to say that we have now had further information from our technical team which means that we will be able to offer the same mitigating measures mentioned in relation to X5 and X6, to any concerned BMW owners, starting within the next eight weeks. This will mean that the car cannot be taken using the piece of equipment you highlight. Of course this will not render the car unstealable, but it will address this particular form of attack.'
Meaning they have already rendered this thing useless. Until the criminals figure out a way around it...
Well, I think you mean they *think* they will be able to render this attack useless starting in about 2 months from now, but until their fix makes it into the wild, they really don't know if someone will find an easy way around it.
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Engineering.
Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:4, Insightful)
AI car will not be perfect, but I'm sure as hell they will be much better then the regular Joe.
I can tell you're not a lawyer...
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And when you see a geek, you see a filthy little zero with massive personality disorders, deranged sexual fetishes, completely unsupported arrogance and an impotent, hyper-ideological little shit who deserves to be kicked in the groin or punched in the face (as determined by 20 sided die roll) on an hourly basis as penance for being such an insufferably awful sack of misery.
Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:4, Funny)
And when you see a geek, you see a filthy little zero with massive personality disorders, deranged sexual fetishes, completely unsupported arrogance and an impotent, hyper-ideological little shit who deserves to be kicked in the groin or punched in the face (as determined by 20 sided die roll) on an hourly basis as penance for being such an insufferably awful sack of misery.
So what are the other 18 things that deserve to be done to them?
Actually if you are determining how do beat someone up via 20 sided die roll... you probably are a geek. A geek with a lot of issues.
Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:5, Funny)
BMW driver here. Absolutely correct. I always drive in the middle of the road and I also yell "ka-ching" and "score" when I:
Knock over bicyclists
Clip old ladies
Back up over children
Pass (usually on the right) morons in Priuses, Smart Cars and other econo-boxes like Hondas and Rustangs.
Cut off mom-mobiles where the housewives are talking on the cell phone to their mom.
My driver's seat is usually (partially) filled with a small asian chick with big tits and bigger sunglasses. It is a misnomer that I talk on cell phones while I pass you. In reality, I don't talk on the cell phone because my trophy passenger takes my calls for me.
However, I wouldn't be caught dead on spandex or on a bike. That's who we run over, man. Why would would a predator become prey?
Remember, the difference between a porcupine and a BMW is that with a BMW, the pricks are on the inside. Drive safe! Stay out of my way.
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You forgot that we are required to wear wrap around sunglasses and dress in trendy bohemian casual business.
If you don't dress this way BMW will repo the car. I've seen it happen, Neighbor did not wear the approved clothing and the BMW came and took the car after browbeating him.
Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:4, Interesting)
Geek BMW driver here: I only go to work in T-shirts with game logo's on them and jeans. I can't tell you how priceless the looks are when I get out sometimes. This unruly looking nerd?
BUT, Pro tip: Since driving a 5 I've had multiple job approaches from strangers on the street. I'd go so far as to call it an investment in your career (even if you buy a cheaper 2nd hand one like I did).
That's not the way it's supposed to be, but my RL experience bears it out. Typical convo (I swear on my grandma's grave, this has really happened to me. Even at a funeral - no relation to grandma):
"Hey, that's a nice car you have there"
"Uhh, hi, yeah, thanks"
"What do you do?"
"I'm a software developer"
"Looking for a job? My name is X and I work for...."
I've verified that those I didn't immediately blow off were indeed mgmt at software companies.
So, ya'll have fun bashing bmers!
Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:5, Interesting)
"Hey, that's a nice car you have there"
"Uhh, hi, yeah, thanks"
"What do you do?"
"I'm a software developer"
"Looking for a job? My name is X and I work for...."
I've verified that those I didn't immediately blow off were indeed mgmt at software companies.
So, ya'll have fun bashing bmers!
Are you making this up? Basing recruitment decisions on the car someone drives sounds crazy to me but this is one crazy world.
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No. Grandma's grave. Really happens.
Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:4, Insightful)
Not any crazier than selecting candidates based on keyword matches in their resumes, I'd think.
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You should talk to someone. Someone as in a psychiatrist or psychologist. Do it now, before you snap and your BMW driving boss is the target of your tirade and/or violence that leaves you in prison for a long time.
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I miss driving the 20-year-old BMW I bought for $2,000. Wish somebody would have told me about the trust fund, I sure could have used it!
Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would you be responsible?
Are you responsible when someone steals a normal car?
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It raises some very interesting points and why Google's self-driving cars would be bad. Just imagine if someone hacked your car and it ran over someone.
Depending on who it runs over, this could be a feature rather than a bad thing.
Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:5, Funny)
Just imagine if a locomotive boiler explodes and kill someone. Steam trains are bad. We should use horses.
Just imagine if a house falls down and people get crushed. Houses are bad. We should live in caves.
Just imagine if your laptop explodes and you die. Laptops are bad, we should use abacuses.
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Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:4, Interesting)
Nope. Just look at what happened to Toyota, Audi, et. al. because somebody blamed the accelerator pedal for their inability to drive.
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No.
It's a very, very different thing to get a computer to:
a) Do something it's programmed to do (like start up and drive around safely), but for the wrong person.
b) Do something it has NOT been programmed to do (drive unsafely).
You can't just conflate the two with "hacking the system", as they are COMPLETELY different physically, electronically, logically and mathematically.
Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh. When did Asimov's rules become law?
Also, just FYI, Asimov created those laws to break them down. He wrote a whole collection of stories that examine how the "3 laws of robotics" can fail.
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No, it's impossible. The positronic brain would break down completely before one of the laws could be circumvented.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Imagine if this was self-driving car (Score:5, Informative)
Asimov did study this scenario, and it led to the zeroth law, basically known only to the robots.
0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
As in Star Trek, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one"
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And any number of philosopher types added an even more important law: "A robot shall know it is a robot." After all, if a robot thinks it's human, the 3 (or4) laws don't apply in the first place.
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I didn't say broken or circumvented, I said "fail". "fail" as in they failed to protect humans as they were intended. /.'ers are probably familiar with:
Here is the most obvious example, and the one that most
Humans have both the capability and the tendency to harm other human beings. Even good intentioned humans tend to make big mistakes that either directly or indirectly cause other humans to come to harm. By rule number one, robots may not harm a human, or by inaction allow a human to come to harm. The
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So you never read I, Robot - you just saw the movie.
Pity.
And the question is (Score:3, Funny)
Amazingly, the blank keys and the device are both available to buy at a bit of a price on the internet.
And the question is: how many BitCoins does those cost?
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Re:And the question is (Score:5, Informative)
Ford Comparison (Score:2, Interesting)
I know ford around the same era required other valid keys to be present when the new key was programmed. I'm surprised BMW didn't have a similar requirement
Re:Ford Comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
Essentially no one thinks about security, or more accurately, while one team is thinking about security, another team is thinking about something that totally and completely bypasses that security.
And as for Ford, there was an article in Wired several years ago about the possible failure of immobilizer systems in various Ford/Lincoln vehicles.
In my opinion, if there's a legitimate way to make the vehicle move, there's a way to make the vehicle move. If you don't want the vehicle to move then you need to remove something from it that makes it move, preferably something that a thief wouldn't normally bring with them, like a coil wire on a vehicle with a distributor, or a fuel pump relay or ASD relay, or something like that. Come to think of it, one could probably relocate such a relay to the passenger compartment to allow one to use the relay itself like a key, removing it to immobilize the vehicle.
Either way though, relying on an electronic means from an automaker is foolish.
Re:Ford Comparison (Score:4, Interesting)
There is that, or use security by obscurity. For example, on Ford PATS systems, one can put a switch in on the circuit of the ignition antenna which reads the key's RFID chip.
Flip the switch, and even if a thief was able to clone a 40 (S) or 80 bit (SA) PATS key, they will still be stuck scratching their head as the ignition still wouldn't start.
Of course, this doesn't mean that the thief will not resort to vandalism, but it will mean the vehicle most likely will remain in the same spot unless towed.
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I can't, they've been dead for thousands of years.
Re:Ford Comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
Why so complicated? a simple $3.29 switch that interrupts the power to the fuel pump. Works on 99.98765% of all cars and will foil any thief.
Flip switch under seat, and leave the car. Thief tries to start car and it acts like it is out of gas. No thief will look under the seat for a switch they have less than 30 seconds to get in and get the car moving or they risk getting caught, so if they cant do a fast smash and grab they move on.
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Someone did this in one of my old cars before I bought it. Worked OK until the switch burned out and the car wouldn't start. That left me sitting at the side of the road pulling wires out from under the dashboard, which lead to an interesting conversation with the police when they drove past...
Re:Ford Comparison (Score:4, Interesting)
So put the switch different places in different installs. Under the seat, in the glovebox, and under the dash (above the accelerator) all come to mind. Better yet, repurpose an unused factory switch, or find a factory switch you don't really use, put that elsewhere, and hook the old switch up to the fuel pump. Maybe you have to push the tire pressure monitoring system reset button before the car will start...
This is security by obscurity, but when it's different and non-obvious on each car, it's good stuff.
No, that's not "security through obscurity," it's "security through ridiculously circuitous nonsense."
Most modern cars, i.e. the type to have a tyre pressure monitoring reset button, don't like it when people start hacking up their wiring harnesses. And by "don't like it," I of course mean "will refuse to start until a professional technician fixes all the wiring you fucked up."
Not that a fuel pump cut-off switch is a bad idea, but your suggestions on placement and operation indicate a fundamental lack of knowledge concerning modern automotive systems.
Re:Ford Comparison (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a friend who's car had to have the headlights turned on or else it would honk if you tried to turn the ignition. That was a wacky way to keep people from stealing your car.
Re:Ford Comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
Or security by economy of effort. As it is, it takes 2 minutes to access the port to reprogram keys. If that port and its wires were buried in the engine so that you had to put the car on a lift and take it half apart to access, they'd move on to easier targets.
Being able to create duplicate keys from the car itself is great. The lock doesn't have to be unbreakable, just more trouble to break than it's worth.
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I've seen this technique used before. A landscaper I knew had a hidden key lock than interrupted the electronics on a Bobcat, and my dad's business had some numeric keypad switches that did the same thing installed in some of the business cars they had.
The keypad would be easy to defeat if you had a shop and could trace the wires, but the keypad itself had a bunch of wires in/out that couldn't just be randomly spliced by a thief. I think there might have been some other module under the hood, too, that
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I remember opening a friend's Peugeot with my HP200LX [wikipedia.org] and a TV remote control emulator.
The keys used an infra-red system with a receiver above the rear view mirror.
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I know ford around the same era required other valid keys to be present when the new key was programmed. I'm surprised BMW didn't have a similar requirement
This isn't the same thing. You're talking about a consumer being able to program their own key. Typically, you have to have two valid keys to program a third, so a valet can't do it with one key. But cars typically come with only two keys. If you lose one, you can't program a new one yourself. You have to take it to a dealership who has a backdoor to program more keys through the CAN network. The BMW theives are exploiting this backdoor. Some of these details vary a bit for maker to maker, model to m
So this means (Score:2)
Oh, and i know Nick Cage sucks, but thats my girls favorite movie and it always makes her horny. So yeah, I have seen it too many times.
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This is /. not /b/ (Score:3)
On /b/ you can be certain, he is talking about his kids.
On /. you can be certain, whenever someone is talking about sex, he is lying.
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"A guy came up to me after one of my shows, and said 'I'd like you to meet my wife and sister,' and there was only ONE woman standing there!"
In other news: (Score:5, Insightful)
Highly advanced cyber-thieves discover method to steal cars with a coat hanger and a screw driver! Everyone cower in terror!
Not that this isn't dumb security on BMW's part, but the thing keeping people from stealing your car is their conscience and the police, not your hyper-powerful super-locks. They might keep some dumb teenagers out of your car, but not car thieves who buy blank keys on the black market and learn to reprogram them.
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You're thinking of some organization other than the police. They're just there to fill out the paperwork afterward.
Re:In other news: (Score:4, Interesting)
Why I rarely bother to lock my car. Granted its an older model. Truth is, ya, a determined theif will steal the car about as quickly as I can unlock the door and start it normally with the key. Most people aren't so motivated, and governed by basic morals. As long as the key isnt in the car, and there's nothing worth stealing in the car, and I'm in a reasonably low crime area, the car is gonna be fine in all likelihood. Just as well since hte lock has started acting finicky about 6 months ago. I really need to take it apart and degrime it with some WD or something.
Re:In other news: (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes, but do you think the crook would have broken a window to get your coat?
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Better than having a backseat toilet *and* a broken window...
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A truly motivated and resourceful criminal would just show up with a tow truck. Nobody would even look at a tow-truck taking away a car.
But, the locks keep the casual/incompetent ones away.
Though, years ago I used to have a Jeep ... my friend pointed out that locking it was futile because it was basically a tent on w
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+1 Tow truck theft
That's how I lost my first car (a VW Beetle that would stall at any stop light unless you gently caressed the gas pedal with your toe while keeping the brake down with your heel). Security guard didn't pay any attention to the seemingly legit tow truck that hauled it away...
Re:In other news: (Score:5, Informative)
When the car makers all started to introduce engine immobilizers, the rate of car thefts plunged. (An immobilizer is a device that prevents hot wiring)
If your reasoning was true then immobolizers would not have had any effect.
Yes a determined and well equipped theif will always find a way in. Unfortunately, most vehicle thefts are opportunistic crimes, and it is definitely worth trying to prevent that by locking your car.
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mean the little proximity things? never owned one. and the stories of thieves just snatching out of your hand or shoving you into the car and taking off amuse me. but lotta cars still dont have em, like me wifes new (to us) 2009 jeep. still bypassable from all that i ever read about em. after all, shit happens and you gotta be able to start it somehow. and that knowledge spreads. its not some miracle tech.
and define worth it? whats the worth is taking time to stop something that simply isnt going to happen
Re:In other news: (Score:4, Interesting)
Highly advanced cyber-thieves discover method to steal cars with a coat hanger and a screw driver! Everyone cower in terror!
Not that this isn't dumb security on BMW's part, but the thing keeping people from stealing your car is their conscience and the police, not your hyper-powerful super-locks. They might keep some dumb teenagers out of your car, but not car thieves who buy blank keys on the black market and learn to reprogram them.
The seemingly odd thing is that there are other implementations that work the same way (I have seen this done to Honda cars many many times) but don't suffer from this kind of attack, since the car computer purposefully responds very very slowly to the reprogram command. Leave it to those hyper-efficient Germans to think that reducing the time required was a good thing.
and after the fix all work must be done dealership (Score:3)
and after the fix all work must be done dealership
Dupe (Score:5, Informative)
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We'll stop talking about it when they fix their bloody cars. They're still in "LA LA, can't hear you" mode.
Security and lifetime of your typical car (Score:5, Insightful)
Such timescales are 'forever' in the sense of IT security. Just look at 'recent' examples - WEP was rolled out around 2000 and is now broken in just a couple minutes. Most cars made in 2000 are still on the road.
I'd go as far as saying that it is impossible to secure your car for its expected useful life without the use of physical security.
Re:Security and lifetime of your typical car (Score:5, Insightful)
PGP is over twenty years old, and I'm not aware of it being broken other than by rubber hoses or brute force on short keys.
You don't need physical security, you just need security developers of clue.
Re:Security and lifetime of your typical car (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that PGP has changed its encryption and hashing algos several times. A PGP encrypted message today is safe from prying eyes today; a PGP message sent twenty years ago, with the original BassOmatic cypher, is quite vulnerable given modern hardware.
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It's impossible, barring extreme methods, period. All you can do is make the next car along look like a better prospect.
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WEP was rolled out around 2000 and is now broken in just a couple minutes
WEP was broken before it was ever rolled out. It was designed by people with very little clue.
Hackers don't usually 'break' things, they find holes in designs.
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Its a key recovery problem... (Score:4, Informative)
(Since its a duplicate post, I'm going to include my reply from the last time it was posted)
The basic design flaw is how key duplication/recovery is handled.
On my motorcycle (a Concours 14 with keyless ignition), to program a new key you need an existing key, to tell the computer "hey, this is the new key to use". The disadvantage is, naturally, if you lose all your keys, you need to replace the computer!
But its better than the alternative. On the BMW, all you need to do is plug into the OOBDII port and tell the computer "Here is the new key". This means if you lose all your keys, you don't have to buy a new computer... But it also means that anyone who can break into the car can create a key and drive off.
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Ford is similar to the Concours -- to add a new key, you need two existing keys to the system.
Of course, if one loses a key, one can get a programmer for a Ford. However what the vehicle does to slow down a thief who has two cut keys is force a 10 minute wait cycle until security functions are accessible. Then keys can be added and removed.
The wait time isn't perfect -- someone's car that is tucked away somewhere remote can be accessed, but compared to having to replace the computer [1], it is a decent co
No, it's worse (Score:4, Informative)
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Whoever told you that lied. You can get new keyfobs programmed at the dealer if you have no keys.
Pricey cars! (Score:5, Funny)
They cost between 17,000 and more than 100,000 thousand pounds.
£100,000,000 is too much for any car, let alone one that allows anyone to steal it.
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That better come with the 2 booth babes from the car show. As upgradable parts, too.
Buy vintage BMWs! (Score:2)
....like my personal favorite, the 2002. Sure, it can still be stolen using much less sophisticated equipment, but its arguably cooler than many of the modern iterations and a lot easier on your checkbook.
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I own multiple classic cars, but for your typical "must start every morning" commute use they are not practical. Plus, you have to be technically inclined or filthy rich to keep them on the road.
If you are kind of person that never changed their own oil - classic/vintage cars are not for you.
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If it must start every morning, just get a non-M E30.
Re:Buy vintage BMWs! (Score:4, Informative)
Hell, the old R series motorcycles from the late 60s/early 70s had ONE key for every model! Want someone else's R60? Just use your key and start 'er up.
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Ultimate Theft Method (Score:2)
Push comes to Shove all you need to steal a car is a FlatBed Wrecker with an optional Crane.
Now this is STUPID since it enables you to not need to get to extreme methods to steal a very pricey car.
Stolen in 3 minutes? (Score:2)
All you need to stop this is a car alarm and a .357 magnum.
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All you need to stop this is a car alarm and a .357 magnum.
You really just need the .357 magnum -- if you shoot the car enough times in the correct place, I guarantee a thief will not be able to drive it away.
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I have both.
However it is not legal or justified to kill a car theif for taking your car (even if it is an expensive BMW). It is just property, and killing over it will give you 1) a huge lawyer bill that far exceeds your insurance deductible, and 2) about 15-30 years to think quietly about what you've done (in prison).
The only exception would be something like a carjacking, when your life and safety are physically threatened, and you're in immediate and grave danger (maybe the guy is going to kill you as
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yeah. And if you can get to the ODB2 jack, you can pwn not only BMWs, but Minis, Mercedes, and a bunch of other tasty cars. You download the key, and using the magick of eBay programmers, reset a "blank" key into a new one. Drive away. Try to look dapper.
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Dapper?? does that mean wearing a top hat and tails while stealing one?
Some of us prefer fedoras and wingtips, but yea, that's the idea.
Re:this works great though (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're too much of a lazy fat ass to crank-start your engine and you need to turn a metal key, you deserve to get your car stolen.