Scientist banned from revealing codes used to start luxury cars

Baserk · Jul 29, 2013

From the UK Guardian link;

-High court imposes injunction on Flavio Garcia, who has cracked security system of cars including Porsches and Bentleys-
A British-based computer scientist has been banned from publishing an academic paper revealing the secret codes used to start luxury cars including Porsches, Audis, Bentleys and Lamborghinis as it could lead to the theft of millions of vehicles, a judge has ruled.

The high court imposed an injunction on the University of Birmingham's Flavio Garcia, a lecturer in computer science, who has cracked the security system by discovering the unique algorithm that allows the car to verify the identity of the ignition key.The UK injunction is an interim step in a case launched by Volkswagen's parent, which owns the four luxury marques, against Garcia and two other cryptography experts from a Dutch university.
...
Garcia and his colleagues from the Stichting Katholieke Universiteit, Baris Ege and Roel Verdult, said they were "responsible, legitimate academics doing responsible, legitimate academic work" and their aim was to improve security for everyone, not to give criminals a helping hand at hacking into high-end cars that can cost their owners £250,000.
They argued that "the public have a right to see weaknesses in security on which they rely exposed". Otherwise, the "industry and criminals know security is weak but the public do not".
It emerged in court that their complex mathematical investigation examined the software behind the code. It has been available on the internet since 2009.
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Dutch Radboud University vehemently denies that the research paper describes 'how to easily steal a car'. RU link
At the same time, Volkswagen has started a separate legal case to ban publication indefinitely, forcing the Radboud University to refrain from further commenting.

CloneRanger · Jul 29, 2013

available on the internet since 2009
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So the cat's already out of the bag !

ALL the companies have had over 3 years to Vastly improve security, but instead prefer to carry on regardless Nice people to do business with, NOT !

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Scientist banned from revealing codes used to start luxury cars

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Scientist banned from revealing codes used to start luxury cars

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