Recently, according to the BBC, West Yorkshire police arrested a car theft gang and found a device that looked like a Nintendo Game Boy handheld in the "secret compartment" of its stolen vehicle, and found the operating status of the device on the mobile phone of one of the thieves. The gang was caught by the police after stealing a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, and the "real identity" of the device was subsequently revealed.
It is understood that this "Nintendo Game Boy" is not really a game handheld, but an illegal decoder with a Game Boy shell, worth 20,000 pounds (about 176,500 yuan). This device can not only bypass the vehicle's anti-theft system, but also directly start the engine, making it easy for the thief to drive away, and the whole process only takes a few seconds.
The decoder looks like a Game Boy, but in fact it acts like a car key, and as long as it is close to the target vehicle, the car will mistakenly think that there is a car key nearby, and then "open the door" to the thief. However, this decoder is not strictly a "master key" in the strict sense of the word, it needs to be rigorously customized to match the safety system of a particular vehicle. Therefore, this theft gang can only bypass the anti-theft lock of Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV.
It is worth mentioning that this gang stole a total of 5 cars, all of which were Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. The reason why the decoder is disguised as a Game Boy, the thief probably thinks that the handheld shape is not easy to attract the attention of others.
Xiao Lei found that this decoder was actually modified from some kind of car repair tool and used by criminals as a "car key" to achieve the purpose of stealing vehicles. These devices can directly control the car's safety lock, and can even interfere with the instructions of the original remote control, so that it cannot lock the car. According to the police, these decoders are very effective against cars that do not need keys to unlock now, and the ways to sell these decoders are also very extensive.
In the past, car owners could also prevent thieves from easily leaving the parking lot after "getting their hands on" through parking access vouchers. Now the parking lot has introduced a smart parking system, only need to identify the license plate number can be "free" in and out, expect the parking lot staff to help the owner to stop the stolen vehicle opportunity should be small.
Of course, in order to avoid this kind of theft, it is not practical for consumers not to buy a remotely unlocked car, and Xiao Lei believes that the police should vigorously crack down on the industrial chain of this crime tool and cut off the source of "scientific crime". In addition, car companies should also start to upgrade the car's anti-theft system so that thieves cannot easily crack through existing decoding tools, so as to avoid the recurrence of vehicle theft.