Mark Rober Steals a Car to Prevent Car Theft
This is how thieves use cheap hardware to steal cars and how you can prevent that.
Mark Rober sure loves to include dramatic narratives in his videos, which is why they’re such popular vehicles for real and useful information. His most recent video is the perfect example. The narrative, which includes Rober himself committing a purported car theft, is certainly dramatic. But wrapped up in that narrative is some interesting information about how modern car theft works and how you can prevent it.
Today’s cars are too smart to “hot wire.” That hasn’t been possible on most models for decades, thanks to computerized engine control and security measures like transponder keys.
The truth is that automakers don’t particularly care if your car gets stolen. They do, however, care about whether or not you buy the car in the first place. A car that is easy to steal will have higher insurance rates and that will reduce sales. It is in an automaker’s best interest to prevent theft; they just have to balance that against other consumer demands.
Of those consumer demands in the year 2026, keyless entry and keyless ignition are near the top of the list. Those features are nice, but they also give thieves an easy way to steal a car — all without breaking a single window or even touching a key.
The method demonstrated by Rober works by making the car think the key fob is nearby, so the doors unlock and the thief can start the engine. One person holds a radio receiver near the car. Another person brings a transmitter close to the house (ideally near where the keys are, like by the front door). The car transmits at regular intervals, asking the key if it is close. So, the radio receiver simply records that transmission and passes it to the transmitter to replay. The key then responds and the car acts accordingly, providing complete access.
Thieves can do that in under a minute, using hardware that costs less than used a PlayStation 4.
How do you prevent it? Luckily, Rober explains that, too.
The answer is actually incredibly simple: just prevent your car from talking to your key fob by blocking radio transmissions. You can do that with anything that acts like a Faraday cage, including an old cookie tin. Make sure you do that with any spare key fobs you have, too. It won’t prevent all theft methods, but it will block this particular attack vector and some others, too.