Scientist banned from revealing codes used to start luxury cars

Civilized countries have freedom of research written into their constitutions. On the other hand, not every civilized country's constitution guarantees free speech. Freedom of political expression is usually what's protected, there's a difference.

Which is why I added the "marginal cost of duplication" part. I understand that security via obscurity has been practically the only thing that's been happening. Hell, a simple talk to our own parents (mine're 50+, somewhat tech inclined but nothing deeper than the basic word editing, and web browsing) in relation to this reveals that they think "you shouldn't tell your secret to the whole internet", little realizing that publishing it will actually help you plug the holes.

The problem is, as long as it was a physical object it was all fine, sort of atleast. You could put anti tamper mechanism (like safes with relockers) that would destroy the core technology/secret if someone tries to pry it apart. But with computer code and mathematics, it's guaranteed that the attacker/pryer is able to make millions of duplicates at zero extra cost. So if approach #564 doesn't work, all he has to do is cp ../downloads/file ../project/reverseengineer/ and boom he has another copy to work with.

The only thing holding an intruder out of a system is the solidity of the mathematical concept that system is based on. And now that the intruder knows that there's a break, and that he potentially will gain a lot by discovering it, he can continue unhindered.

Obviously I'm preaching to the choir, but if you've encountered such people you should give this analogy. In the real world, the guy needs to buy your widget each time he fails to reverse-engineer the anti-intrusion mechanism, but if he were able to make a 100% replica copy of the widget and work on that copy he could try everything. So if he fails once, he'll just make another copy and try a new approach at opening your widget. He knows it's broken, and there's no real extra "cost" associated with duplicating the widget to try again, there's literally no stopping him until he gives up.

Another thing that crossed my mind was this. The manufacturers would want to keep this knowledge (i.e. that the exploit exists) secret, but ~~if~~ when he discovers the backdoor, do you want to be considered responsible for your car being stolen instead of the manufacturer for the manufacturer's mistake? Would you not prefer that the manufacturer calls you and recalls your car to the garage and replace it with a better part? It's a shame because Bentleys, Porsches, and Audis are NOT cheap. You're paying for the name, and at times like this, when the name comes under fire they should do something and stand by their customers instead of against them.

> They can hire the talent able to figure out decoding these trivial radio signals.

I don't expect even older radio access systems to be that simple to abuse. For example this application note from Atmel[0] describes such a system. It uses an AES-based MAC and a rolling window counter to prevent message spoofing and replay. I wouldn't bet this implementation is actually secure, but it's not so trivial to attack.

Please note I'm not saying that criminals haven't abused vulnerabilities in these systems, just that it's not a simple matter of 'decoding these trivial radio signals'.

[0] http://www.atmel.com/images/atmel-2600-avr411-secure-rolling...

Why not both fully unique and based on information of the car? I could easily imagine a system where [one-way algorithm X] is used to transform the car's VIN into a good cryptographic key, and the dealers then just use some piece of software to program a blank fob with the appropriate key. Done correctly, it would be extraordinarily difficult to reverse engineer.

I don't think such record keeping qualifies as "exquisite" these days, more like trivial. If Apple can store all relevant info for checking the warranty and unlock status of every iPhone they sell, a car manufacturer can pull it off without too much trouble.

The distinction between prior restraints (injunction preventing publication) and subsequent punishment (being prosecuted after publication) actually originates in English common law, as does the view that prior restraints are worse and should generally be disfavored.

Here's what Blackstone's commentaries had to say about it in the mid-18th century:

The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state; but this consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published. Every free man has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public; to forbid this, is to destroy the freedom of the press; but if he publishes what is improper, mischievous or illegal, he must take the consequences of his own temerity.

It's true that the U.S. version of the doctrine has developed in a much stronger form, however.