US carmakers and auto-mobile insurers are unshakably certain that vehicles protected by “transponder immobil-izers” can’t be driven without the proper keys – or, at least, that circumventing those transponder systems takes more sweat and money than most auto thieves are willing to expend. So car companies advertise their security systems as unbreakable, insurers and consumers believe these assertions, and then folks like Wassef find themselves engaged in all-out war when their cars vanish.
The insurance companies have good reason to be suspicious. They lose $14 billion to auto fraud every year in the US; by some measures, 20 percent of all stolen-car reports are trumped up. But when it comes to transponders, their faith is misplaced. Auto antitheft systems are usually secure for only a few years, until thieves crack the system. “The carmakers are calling these passive antitheft systems, but they’re not,” says Rob Painter, a Milwaukee-based forensic locksmith who has testified in dozens of auto insurance court cases, for both sides. “They are just theft deterrents. Tell me a car can’t be stolen and I’ll show you how to do it.”# posted by
Gerry Canavan @ 5:16 PM
|