Hacker News Reader

This adds complexity and with complexity there comes a price tag. That would make the key fob more expansive. It also adds higher power requirements this then comes with new requirements for the battery.

View on HN

Re price tag: you can buy a smartphone for 100$. Surely it is possible to mass produce cheap key fobs with send/receive capability and a tiny crypto module.

Re power: Key fobs already do some form of crypto and broadcast. Adding reception capabilities ought not to be that power hungry.

Even Better, they can use a smartphone app. We already have a battery-powered device that can emit radio signals in various frequencies!

I've got an even better solution: Picture a piece of metal, cut in a specific way as to allow metal "tumblers" inside a small cylinder to turn, engaging and disengaging the locks and/or ignition, whereas other pieces of metal, cut differently, would not allow any motion. I know, it sounds far out there, but we should give it a shot.

That doesn't sound very secure at all. I've heard there are little known techniques called "lockpicking" and "rakes" that make such technology practically useless.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com