Electronic devices used for car thefts set to be banned

&quot;Making or selling a signal jammer could lead to up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine.&quot;<p>I can understand you like to make some devices illegal. But really, five years prison, unlimited fine. Is everybody insane now.

Did they seriously try to call an RF transceiver a jammer?<p>Also you can literally &quot;jam&quot; anything with anything, I used to have a pair of walkie-talkies from the 70s that were designed to use (what&#x27;s now used as) the CB band... is that considered a jammer now?

How about banning the sale of cars that don&#x27;t use time of flight measurement in their keyless go system?<p>The problem isn&#x27;t thieves using easy to get standard equipment for car theft, the problem is car manufacturers making it pretty easy for them.<p>Remember when you could open cars using an old coat hanger? Did they ban steel wire to prevent this?

I&#x27;m always amused when law makers try to fight crime by making new laws. Because that affects exactly everybody <i>except</i> criminals who - by definition - don&#x27;t care about laws.<p>Like, I can really imagine the reaction of professional car thieves when they heard of this new ban: &quot;Damn, Bobby, let&#x27;s pack it in! I guess we&#x27;re not allowed to use those jammers any more. Too bad, they served us well.&quot;

Oh, thank goodness, they&#x27;re finally banning these evil devices.<p>Hopefully they&#x27;ll move on to bobby pins, coat hangers, screwdrivers, and hammers next.

This is a confusing article. I&#x27;m not sure what &#x27;scrambling&#x27; means here:<p><pre><code> Keyless repeaters and signal amplifiers scramble the signal from remote key fobs inside people&#x27;s homes, enabling criminals to unlock cars. </code></pre> And it talks about banning &#x27;signal jammers&#x27;. How is a signal jammer useful for stealing a car? Wouldn&#x27;t a signal jammer <i>prevent</i> someone from unlocking a car?

&gt; &quot;These devices have no legitimate purpose, apart from assisting in criminal activity, and reducing their availability will support policing and industry in preventing vehicle theft which is damaging to both individuals and businesses.&quot;<p>Now I wonder what devices are going to be banned by this law that have a legitimate purpose which they <i>actually</i> want to ban. Will they use this law to ban SDRs or something?

So this is a change from the status quo where actually transmitting an interfering signal is illegal to one where having a device that might theoretically transmit an interfering signal is illegal? It sounds like ordering all pencils be made illegal because they can be used to write threats.<p>I can see why they might want to make this change but I can&#x27;t see how it can feasibly be defined and enforced without making every LC oscillator illegal. But like most legislation I suppose the reality, and reality of enforcement, don&#x27;t matter so much as having the law to point to. They&#x27;ll ignore it most of the time but chose to enforce it arbitrarily if someone rocks the boat. And it&#x27;s quite a bit of a performative, &quot;We&#x27;re doing something.&quot; move.<p>&gt;&quot;These devices have no legitimate purpose, apart from assisting in criminal activity...<p>Expecting street cops to know RF electronics deeply enough to make these judgements of a &quot;legitimate purpose&quot; is beyond foolhardy and the claims of generalized signal generators as having no legitimate purpose is false. They would certainly consider my amateur radio lab equipment to be illegal.

Real failure is the unwillingness to spend resources to track the stolen vehicles and apprehend the responsible. UK is an island, proper tracking in ports of exit and quick response should be possible.<p>Or just add enough surveillance so you can track the stolen cars to logical points where they dissapear.

It&#x27;d be lovely if there were <i>also</i> penalties for the firms which sell those vulnerable cars, so easily stolen if you have one of the now-banned little gadgets.<p>Oh well. I&#x27;m sure the problem will clear up, once all the crooks have dutifully handed their little gadgets over to the coppers.

They should fine the car manufacturers for ignoring the security flaws.

Ah, those law abiding thieves will surely stop procuring themselves those devices now that they are illegal.

regular key must be replaced with mobile phone based key, because it is more secure