Hacker News Reader

> I have the patent(s) to show it.

> I developed

> Ultimately, it comes down to fairly tight timings, the speed of light and the rules of physics, but we could restrict things such that the cryptographic handshake would fail if you were more than about 30 meters away, corresponding to a timing window of about 0.0000001 seconds.

Prior art! ;)

https://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles

(Yes, I realize your comment was tongue-in-cheek)

There are actually a lot of patented ways to prevent relay attacks, mine is only one of them. And most of them are patented by NXP :)

Ultimately, this is a failure of prioritization on behalf of the car companies, or a sacrifice of security for usability, or both.

I was trying to learn more about the problem as two of my colleagues were victims of relay attacks, allegedly. Stolen cars were Mazda and Kia. I found claims that only Jaguars and Land Rovers have been resistant to that kind of attack thanks to precise time measurement - similar solution to your description.

I don't have any links and found only [1] this one quickly.

[1] https://teamtalk.jaguarlandrover.com/news/jaguar-land-rover-...

IIRC this is how the Apple Watch's feature that unlocks your Mac works. It's not vulnerable to repeaters and only works within ~3 feet of the watch and the Mac.

I’ve found the range for unlocking your phone with the watch is even tighter. When I’m on the subway it’s less than six inches, presumably because of local radio noise.

Yep. The reference I saw actually says ~3 meters, but even in seemingly ideal conditions, I don't see it reliably work except within probably just one.

> We offered to license the technology to car companies, but they weren't interested.

Well, I'm sorry for your tech, but you're kind of making OP's point:

> Yes, 99.9% of consumers really like keyless entry and don't care too much about the potential of theft. For most, that is what insurance is for.

I think the point is we can have both, but it requires more expensive hardware to be able to do the handshake fast enough that it doesn't cause accidental failures and ultimately irritation for the user.

It refutes the part where they said: "No, we can't solve this"

Try selling it to insurance companies? Manufacturers who refuse to use it could have their drivers paying higher insurance rates

I agreed with the GP but you certainly made them sound like a bag of hot air. What a pleasant reminder that security can be bona fide engineering. It's too bad we live in a world that doesn't always want problems solved.

Where can I learn more about this technology and explore licensing opportunities?

I am no longer involved in the company. Here is one of the related patents: DE102012104955A1; send me a message/email and I could potentially make a connection.

How hard is it to integrate the key into phones? If it uses a separate UWB radio it must add some cost and power drain.