Feeling of insecurity

On Tuesday night my Audi A6 was broken into whilst parked on the street outside my house. I discovered this on Wednesday morning when I went to get into the car and, on pressing my remote's un-locking button, I heard the distinctive sound of the central locking trying to open an already open car. I was surprised and confused by this as there was no sign of a forced entry nor any form of damage to the car and I knew that I had locked the car the night before standing, as I always do, next to it until the alarm LED in the door had started flashing. The only evidence the car had been burgled was that the contents of the storage areas were strewn around the interior. Having reported this to the local police, a Scenes of Crime officer visited and advised that I should contact my local Audi dealer, since there has been a spate of car burglaries where the car has been opened without any sign of forced entry. He commented that, "there can't possibly be that many people forgetting to lock their cars". I checked with a friend who is a senior SOCO and he has confirmed that there has been a large number of this type of break-in on high-value cars: Land Rovers, Mercedes, Audi, etc. are all vulnerable. Apparently the criminal fraternity have acquired or developed a form of scanner that allows the car's security code to be scanned and activated thus disabling the central locking and alarm system but not the immobilizer - although this can only be a matter of time. Your comments appreciated.

Asked on 24 January 2009 by

Answered by Honest John
Almost anything is i-technically possible these days. Just guessing, but I think what they do is find a way to confuse the can-bus electrics. Can-bus is a means of supplying power to various components down a single cable (instead of individual cables) and distributing the power electronically at the component ends. If the codes for that can be cracked then the crooks can get into the cars without activating the alarm systems.
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