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Comment by bell-cot | Hacker News Reader

It'd be lovely if there were also penalties for the firms which sell those vulnerable cars, so easily stolen if you have one of the now-banned little gadgets.

Oh well. I'm sure the problem will clear up, once all the crooks have dutifully handed their little gadgets over to the coppers.

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I saw an ad recently for a car (Kia?) with a phone app that could sent an unlock/start code to someone else's phone. It was so you could lend your car to a friend without all the hassle of physical keys. What could possibly go wrong?

Assuming your friend has Internet access nothing could really go wrong. If you forget to send them the code they can just watch a short video.

This is using NFC, which is impossible to intercept. So only the person you send the key to can unlock and start your car with their phone, and you need to hack their phone to steal the key, which I believe is impossible given the way that Apple implements it (you need to steal their phone and know their passcode to use the key unless they set it in express, and even then the phone has to be unlocked within a certain time period to actually start the car).

Interestingly this law does not require such a handover.

"the onus will be on someone in possession of a device to show they had it for a legitimate purpose."

"Making or selling a signal jammer could lead to up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine."

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