Wednesday, March 15, 2006
All Cars have Security Problems
This morning I heard in the newspaper and also from this site in California that new car locks that depend on cybernetic means rather that on a metal key are causing lockouts from cars that are impossible for locksmiths to deal with. GM does not help matters any by not giving locksmiths codes that would help people get into cars that they get locked out of.
Why all this concern with security, to the extent of barring people from their own cars on occasion? Why can't they fix existing security problems, instead? All three of my cars have serious security problems:
The default state of the tailgate of my 1998 Plymouth Voyager is unlocked. That is unexpected, and hence it constitutes a serious security problem. People have to remember to check the tailgate to make sure it is locked, becayse of this.
When you use your key to unlock a door on my 1996 Toyota Corolla, you unlock ALL the doors. This means that after unlocking the car to get something, you have to go around and lock all the doors. To me this is a serious security problem.
And there are serious problems with the key, or "fob" as they like to call it, on my 2005 Toyota Prius. If you pull out your keys to unlock your house door, that may cause a button to press on the key, causing the Prius to unlock. If this happens instead in a public parking lot, it could cause you to leave the vehicle unlocked. This is a serious problem with the Prius. I still recommend the Prius because of its excellent reliability and fuel economy, but this and the dinky back window are serious problems with that car.
If all three of my vehicles have serious security problems, it must be the case that there are many vehicles out there that have serious problems like these. The automakers need to go back to the basics, such as buttons on fobs that don't press unless the user wants to press it, tailgates that lock automatically, and car doors that open only one at a time. It seems to me these are the things that automakers should be working on, rather than get involved with high technology gee-whiz playing around with the security of your car.
Why all this concern with security, to the extent of barring people from their own cars on occasion? Why can't they fix existing security problems, instead? All three of my cars have serious security problems:
The default state of the tailgate of my 1998 Plymouth Voyager is unlocked. That is unexpected, and hence it constitutes a serious security problem. People have to remember to check the tailgate to make sure it is locked, becayse of this.
When you use your key to unlock a door on my 1996 Toyota Corolla, you unlock ALL the doors. This means that after unlocking the car to get something, you have to go around and lock all the doors. To me this is a serious security problem.
And there are serious problems with the key, or "fob" as they like to call it, on my 2005 Toyota Prius. If you pull out your keys to unlock your house door, that may cause a button to press on the key, causing the Prius to unlock. If this happens instead in a public parking lot, it could cause you to leave the vehicle unlocked. This is a serious problem with the Prius. I still recommend the Prius because of its excellent reliability and fuel economy, but this and the dinky back window are serious problems with that car.
If all three of my vehicles have serious security problems, it must be the case that there are many vehicles out there that have serious problems like these. The automakers need to go back to the basics, such as buttons on fobs that don't press unless the user wants to press it, tailgates that lock automatically, and car doors that open only one at a time. It seems to me these are the things that automakers should be working on, rather than get involved with high technology gee-whiz playing around with the security of your car.
