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Keyless entry and keyless go, two innovations within the car industry that have raised some dust, to put it mildly.

Keyless entry and keyless go works with the help of a transponder, that you carry on you (in a pocket or a bag). The cars equipped with this technology do not work with a regular, but respond to the transponder. The keyless transponder sends information to the car, once it is within a certain reach of the car. This allows you to open and start the car, without using a key.

One of the advantages that a keyless system offers, is simply the convenience that comes with the system. There is no need to find your keys that happened to end up on the bottom of your purse, or when you’re carrying things that make it inconvenient to have to look for your keys. Also, the keyless system prevents certain mistakes that can be made when using a general key, such as locking the keys inside of the car or forgetting to lock the car. When the transponder is in your pocket and you walk away from the car, it locks itself.

This all sounds pretty convenient and modern, but as with many other technical innovations, hackers have found a way to take advantage of this technology. According to a study done by ADAC (General German Automobile Club), thieves can easily steal a car with a keyless system with the help of two devices, which can be built by the hackers themselves. If one of the hackers takes the one device and is near the signal of the transponder (which can for example be inside the house of the car owner), the signal of the transponder will be captured and extended. If a second hacker takes the other hacking device and stands next to the car, this device will pick up the signal of the transponder and the car can be opened and started. Another study done by researchers from the University of Birmingham, shows that by using equipment which does not cost more than £30, the signal can be received and copied from the original transponder. By doing this, the hackers can gain access to the car from that moment on.

Clear reasons for concern for everyone owning a car with a keyless system, as well as for the companies producing these cars. What do you think, is the future of keyless cars destroyed due to these hackers? Would you see yourself buying a car with a keyless system, or does this news make you stay away?

 

References:

Click to access 332.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/12/cars-risk-keyless-entry-system-hacked-volkswagen

http://chroom.tpo.nl/2016/03/20/auto-is-veilig-zeker-als-keyless-entry/

http://www.autoweek.nl/video/keyless-go-keyless-gone-1/

https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/adac-im-einsatz/motorwelt/test_keyless.aspx

ttps://www.wired.com/2016/08/oh-good-new-hack-can-unlock-100-million-volkswagens/

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In today’s society, it is almost impossible for us to imagine living in a world with no constant access to the internet. Many of us are so used to looking up almost everything online, that we are not even noticing how large the role is that the World Wide Web plays in our lives. When waking up in the morning, I often quickly look up ‘weather forecast Rotterdam’ before deciding what to wear that day. Before leaving the house, Google Maps will tell me which way is the quickest to where I want to go, and during the day, when working on a university project, I am constantly looking up information on the internet. And maybe most importantly, worldwide news is directly posted onto the internet, which keeps us constantly informed and up to date. These are some features of the internet that many of us make use of practically every day. For almost all the questions or thoughts we have, an internet site exists. This can be explained by the enormous amount of registered domains, over 1 billion worldwide.

 

When talking about countries that do not have access to the internet in the same matter as we do, thoughts quickly go towards poor countries that are very behind in technological innovations, compared to the Western world that we live in. Last month, it was revealed that North Korea is one of these countries where people have little to no access to the internet. The reason for this being that the government prevents the country from having access to more internet websites.

 

To be precise, North Korea has exactly 28 registered domains on the top-level domain .kp. On September 19^th, by accident, it was suddenly possible for the rest of the world to gain insights into the list of websites that are registered in North Korea. What is apparent about these websites, is that they are mainly directed towards foreign countries, instead of to North Koreans. Besides the extremely limited number of registered websites, only a few percent of the North Koreans have access to a computer at all.

 

Keeping an entire country away from the internet has an enormous political effect on the country. Knowledge is power, and access to the internet means unlimited access to knowledge. For the North Korean government, this is an important reason to keep a strong control on the internet, as access to all this knowledge would be harmful for the existence of the dictatorship.

 

In these modern days, I wonder whether a country like North Korea can keep on preventing their inhabitants from making use of everything that the current internet era has to offer. In a world where everything is built around the internet, it is very difficult to keep up with other countries, who have adopted the internet entirely. What would happen in the country, if North Koreans would gain access to everything that the rest of the world has been building on the World Wide Web so far?

 

Sources:

https://github.com/mandatoryprogrammer/NorthKoreaDNSLeak

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/09/21/north-koreas-internet-revealed-to-have-just-28-websites/

https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2016/09/26/noord-korea-telt-28-websites-4421325-a1523399