Central locking used to break into a car?

[MagicRat]

Hi, folks,
This evening, I parked my 1997 Cadillac Deville for about 4 hours in a part of town I don't often visit. I left the car securely locked.

When I came back to my car, I found my trunk lid and my fuel filler door wide open and all my doors unlocked. There was no sign of forced entry.

Initially I thought someone might have opened a door (slim-jim the lock) then pop the trunk release to look for valuables ..... but why open the gas filler door?

These are all the items that can be opened by the factory key fob remote. However, I had no remote with me, so I could not have opened anything by accident.

Is it possible a random electrical malfunction opened everything? (Its never happened before) Or are these older GM cars vulnerable to bad guys with electronic devices that can open everything via the central locking system?

[shorod]

Did it appears as though anything had been ransacked, or was anything missing that you've noticed? If not, I'd suspect you experienced an electrical issue as I doubt someone would unlock and open everything just because they could. The open trunk lid would just draw attention to them as well, so I wouldn't think they'd leave that open unless they were scared away.

There are "only" like 3 billion codes for the hopping key fobs, maybe you happened to park near someone on the same code. Is there an "open all" feature on the fob, or would opening the doors, trunk, and fuel filler door require at least 3 fob button presses?

-Rod

[MagicRat]

The trunk was empty except for my handy milk crate of car stuff (spare coolant, oil etc), so nothing seemed ransacked.

It just seemed odd that the car is parked at my house a zillion times with no events.... I go elsewhere just once and this happens. It seems like too much of a coincidence, but the car does have the occasional electrical issue, mostly due to poor weatherproofing of electrical connections, particularly under the hood, around the main fuse panels.

I'll just see if it happens again.

Thanks

[RidingOnRailz]

Originally Posted by MagicRat

The trunk was empty except for my handy milk crate of car stuff (spare coolant, oil etc), so nothing seemed ransacked.

It just seemed odd that the car is parked at my house a zillion times with no events.... I go elsewhere just once and this happens. It seems like too much of a coincidence, but the car does have the occasional electrical issue, mostly due to poor weatherproofing of electrical connections, particularly under the hood, around the main fuse panels.

I'll just see if it happens again.

Thanks

This has been news for at least 5 years: The frequencies at which keyless entry fobs operate have become known to individuals outside of the manufacturers.

Those individuals are known as THIEVES. Or best case - pranksters with too much spare time. All they have to do is just drive by a parking lot, garage structure, or area with lots of curbside parking, and they are in Six Flags as far as potential valuables is concerned. And yes, sometimes unintended doors open - such as the fuel door.

Welcome to crime - 21st century style!

[shorod]

Originally Posted by RidingOnRailz

This has been news for at least 5 years: The frequencies at which keyless entry fobs operate have become known to individuals outside of the manufacturers.

Those individuals are known as THIEVES. Or best case - pranksters with too much spare time. All they have to do is just drive by a parking lot, garage structure, or area with lots of curbside parking, and they are in Six Flags as far as potential valuables is concerned. And yes, sometimes unintended doors open - such as the fuel door.

Welcome to crime - 21st century style!

It's been more than 5 years ago that this would work. Years ago there were just a few channels in a frequency band that were used for garage door openers. One frequency for open, a slightly different frequency for close. That was pretty easy to defeat and only required a frequency counter to be present when the target opener were used. A sweep generator could also be used to open the doors then, but this took time. The amount of time was reduced if you knew the brand of opener that was installed. But as openers became more common, then automotive remote keyless entry, code hopping was implemented. The carrier frequencies are shared among many users, each with their own codes. You no longer can just select a frequency and work a modern keyless entry system. Code hopping has been commonplace in these systems for at least 10 years, probably more like 15-20 years.

-Rod

[jdmccright]

There are instances where sunspot activity and solar weather produce enough stray radiation to cause garage doors to open/close randomly. It's happened to my garage door and it is a code-changing model. So, my guess is a similar event occurred that just happened to "hit the number" with your car's remote code.