Comment by salgernon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by salgernon | Hacker News Reader

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http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21582041-rich-world-s...

"But thanks to central locking, alarms and circuitry immune to hot-wiring, stealing a car is far harder than it was. In New York City the annual number of car thefts has fallen by 93% over the past 20 years. According to Graham Farrell, of Simon Fraser University in Canada, reducing car theft may have had broader knock-on effects than just restricting getaway options. Stealing a car for a joyride used to be a “gateway crime”, which would lead teenagers on to other crimes; now such escalation is restricted to Grand Theft Auto games (which, at least one study suggests, may themselves be reducing crime by keeping feisty young men occupied)"

So, video games have made criminals into lazy slobs. I don't buy the car alarm thing - in the 20 years that they've been common, I don't believe anyone has ever called the police when they heard one go off. I'm willing to bet that car thieves are able to disable car alarms faster than the car owner, that can't figure out what button to press on the fob.

The anti-theft measures are really effective. Even if you have the technical know-how to defeat the protections, which most people don't, and requires significant time and/or money, this made many cars completely unattractive to thieves, even in the third world. It is easy to equip even cheap cars with not so cheap security. Ford does it, and probably many others.

This backfires if the country is not safe overall. In that case, it leads to an increase in armed robbery, as they have to get the car keys from the owner. Taking said owner hostage is a common escalation.

I think you may be underestimating how easy some old cars were to steal. Alarms aren't perfect, but they're noisy and paranoia inducing. In some cases starting an old car could have been a matter of opening the door with a clothes hanger (these things weren't sealed too tight), pulling out the key thing, moving it aside and using a coin or something to turn the ignition.

They were also worth something. It just isn't as easy in most places to flog a stolen car. At least not factoring for inflation or something, I guess. The economics of crime shift just like everything else.

Sometimes stuff police or politicians or somesuch do helps too. Anything is possible.

And turning the alarm off typically comprised popping the bonnet once in and just yanking the cables out of the aftermarket crap.

I went through a phase of buying 80's cars, and had to disable more than a few weirdly installed aftermarket alarms the violent way - even did so once in a sainsburys car park, and managed to break the window as I slammed the door in rage at the fucking thing - and nobody batted an eyelid. Could've been stealing it, no problem. Or maybe it was the suit. Nobody suspects the guy in the suit.

> I think you may be underestimating how easy some old cars were to steal.

Or as a certain trio of Brits would say, in the olden days, this is how you stole a car:

https://youtu.be/VNdygguAMQA

>> Alarms aren't perfect, but they're noisy and paranoia inducing.

One of my favorite jokes from a local comedian was this gem: "My neighbors car alarm went off last night. Scared me so bad I dropped all my tools."

Those old ones are still the ones being targeted, they're now worth something again [0]

0: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35716456

Like everything else, crime has moved online.

"circuitry immune to hot-wiring" might have more to do with it than the alarms...

The real issue is as cars become more dependent on software, it plays right into the hands of the software hackers.

High tech car theft: 3 minutes to steal keyless BMWs: http://www.networkworld.com/article/2222742/microsoft-subnet...

High-tech thieves use laptops to steal cars: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/13507939/ns/business-autos/t/high-...

Gone in 60 seconds--the high-tech version: http://www.cnet.com/news/gone-in-60-seconds-the-high-tech-ve...

This is probably a fantastic example of the ability to solve a problem without implementing huge Silicon Valley style privacy issues. Sadly, most startups today immediately think the best solution to the problem is to transmit data to the Internet.

Grand Theft Auto games [may] be reducing crime by keeping feisty young men occupied"

Blasphemy! It is a mere training ground for these soon-to-be criminals.

Which, incidentally, is why Google won't be installing joypads in their self-driving cars.

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