Comment by soneil | Hacker News Reader

Comment by soneil | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I'm not sure I'd be so paranoid. We've read of people managing to hack the key openers, etc. They're an attractive target.

I mean, if you were going to leave a box containing $30,000 on your doorstep. A box not only containing 30k, but a box that was labelled that it contained 30k. How would you protect it? Put a serial number on it so you can prove it's yours? A bike lock? A motion sensor? Cement it into the ground?

What lengths would you expect someone to go to, to try to walk away with this box? Just give it a little kick to see if it moves? A screwdriver or a pry bar? Angle grinder?

Once you divorce yourself from the commonality of a car, it's quite bizarre to think that not only do most people leave their second most valuable possession (or most valuable, if you rent your home) on their doorstep .. but that they just assume it won't happen to them. It doesn't take a targeted attack for someone to realise that that exposed, valuable, mobile asset is .. well, exposed, valuable and mobile.

$30k in cash is not the same as a $30k car. A $30k car that's been stolen is not worth $30k, then there's liquidity, risk and a bunch of other things. Having your car parked outside is not at all like having a box containing $30k outside your house.

well then is it closer to having a box with $15k? $10k? $5k? In all these situations, the incentive is still there.

Probably $3-6k but with the associated risks and punishments of a $30k crime, and much more if you happen to have a firearm on you while committing it.

This is Europe, nobody stealing a car is carrying a gun.

I have to worry about a $1,000 bicycle. For some reason it's just socially accepted that this will happen to a $1,000 bicycle. But park a car worth an order of magnitude, and the level of worry actually goes down. That's the bit that throws me for a loop.

I'm not trying to argue that anyone should live in fear. Just that assumptions of state-sponsored action severely overestimate which ballpark this lives in. This is more complex than an opportunistic thief, but well within career criminal - and probably well below "steal to order".

That's because most of us recognize that 20 seconds with angle grinder will make that $1,000 bicycle disappear. 20 minutes at a stolen bike dealer - which are everywhere - will turn it into $50.

20 seconds with an angle grinder will not make a $30,000 car disappear. Selling it on the black market is also a much bigger pain in the ass, then selling a stolen bicycle.

People leave $300,000 dollar homes unattended all the time - protected by nothing more then a flimsy lock, and a few panes of glass. Yet, most of the time, people don't worry about someone stealing their house.

A bicycle is also often more than an order of magnitude easier to steal; you can't just pick up a car, and a bolt cutter won't cut it even for a car worth $5,000.

Presumably it takes a business and facilities to to realize its value, so the barrier to entry is high. Like the thief needs access to a shady used car dealer or shady used parts business, unless it's a low volume rural thing where they can strip cars in the backyard and sell parts on eBay.

Assuming the 30000$ car is one ton, that's only 15$ per pound of car... Not too valuable.

Amsterdam to the Polish border is 8 hours. Do you think it'd be worth $1000/hour?

(Yes, this is perpetuating a horrible stereotype. Nothing personal, Poles, you just happen to be the closest border for this particular stereotype.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com