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Serious security issue with phone as a key

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Yes, the keycard can get wet, but can it handle fine dust, grit, and mud? I work outside a lot, and the fine, red, iron-rich, dust here gets into everything I wear. It has destroyed several of my credit cards with magnetic strips. I am not sure if RFID cards are safe from this. I am thankful for the key card, just wish I had a real key.

huh. i would have figured you'd be a fan of the keycard, as it most resembles the keys of old compared to fobs and phones. you have to take it out when you get in the car. You have to use it once in the car (unless you start the car within 15 sec). The keycard is not susceptible to the elements, just like your key.
 
Three days ago I rented Model 3 via Turo on my trip from SF to Reno. Since I have my Tesla account on an app on my Phone, the guy who rented it to me logged with his account on my iPad. So I was able to enable iPad as a key to Model 3. It works like a charm and everything is OK with an exception of one thing: when I leave iPad in the car and lock it via key card it looks like locked but it will unlock to anyone (and he/she can even drive away with it).

How to reproduce:
  1. Put your bluetooth device you are using as a key (typically phone) in a car.
  2. Lock your car with key card.
  3. Go away and leave there key card (so you will be sure that car did not react with it in any way).
  4. Go back to the car and try to open driver's door (ignore the fact that car looks locked and try to open it anyway).
  5. The car will unlock itself for you and you will be able to hop in and drive away.
I get that you usually do not do this. I encountered it only because I didn't want to take my iPad with me, so I locked with the key card. And I was very surprised when I came back and "just for fun" tried to open the car. After that, I tried it several times, always with success.

What it seems happening is this. When you try to open the door while the car is still locked, it will actively look out if a bluetooth key is in range. And since it is in the car, it is in range, and the car unlocks itself.

But imagine a situation when you and your wife will have both phones acting as a key. Then you will forget one of them in the car and leave together with just one phone. The car can lock up but will unlock to anyone because phone acting as a key is inside the car. I cannot verify if this can happen as I cannot add another device as a key to the car but I do not see why it will not happen...

BTW, I am not writing this to blame Tesla. I really like and admire how they are rethinking cars and declutter them. And to be honest, I am for years saying that I want my apple watch act as a key to my car (and in case of running out of juice with my watch I would like to be able to manually unlock my car with phone app over bluetooth).
Not going to read this entire thread but you can either
-switch device to your other tesla car then doesn’t act as a key until switched back. Or
-turn ap off or sign out of it
Doing either of the above will allow you to leave in car
 
Even after reading this thread it happened to me today (lol)...
Drove to grocery store, and placed my iPhone in the center console to charge.
Went to get groceries only to remember that I left my phone in the car about 10 min later....
ran out of the store and luckily phone was still in the car (and no one drove off in my Tesla!) :eek:
 
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Even after reading this thread it happened to me today (lol)...
Drove to grocery store, and placed my iPhone in the center console to charge.
Went to get groceries only to remember that I left my phone in the car about 10 min later....
ran out of the store and luckily phone was still in the car (and no one drove off in my Tesla!) :eek:

I did that today too but in front of my house. Went back out in 2 mins.
 
Have a model S loaner. Saw on last update that they specifically only aded one feature. You can add a PIN number for security in order to drive the car? So perhaps this is the only extra security measure to prevent any shenanigans? Not sure if this is on the Model 3 yet since I'm still waiting on mine....but must be universal....
 
Same thing happens when you set your phone to unlock your computer, or your watch to unlock your phone. Don't leave the bluetooth proximity key inside the thing you're trying to lock. Otherwise it's in close proximity and the car will unlock. I'm not sure what I'm missing here, or why this is confusing to people.

As for people leaving phones inside their car, what magical place do you live in where someone won't smash your windows to steal your $700 pocket computer? Leaving anything of value in the main cabin of a car is just begging for the wrong kind of attention.
 
Three days ago I rented Model 3 via Turo on my trip from SF to Reno. Since I have my Tesla account on an app on my Phone, the guy who rented it to me logged with his account on my iPad. So I was able to enable iPad as a key to Model 3.

First of all....that was insanely stupid on his part. That's the primary security issue.

NEVER log someone else in on your account.
 
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Yep
Done that before too. The new horn signal
upon locking has helped. I listen for it as I walk away

Pretty much the only reason I use auto-fold on the mirrors is so I can see if the car is locked. :) But the honk helps, too.

... what magical place do you live in where someone won't smash your windows to steal your $700 pocket computer?

Spokane, WA.

When I lived in rural North Dakota nobody locked their doors.

On my recent road trip in Canada, I had my phone propped up where it was easy to see so I could use Google Maps in an area where the car was not getting a signal. I forgot to take it with me. Came back 20 minutes later. Car was unlocked, of course, and the phone was right where I'd left it.
 
...As for people leaving phones inside their car, what magical place do you live in where someone won't smash your windows to steal your $700 pocket computer? Leaving anything of value in the main cabin of a car is just begging for the wrong kind of attention.
That's a big city concern. There are plenty of rural areas, such as mine, where people don't need to lock cars and houses.

I'd like to visit the Fremont factory but with all the reports of smashed windows in Teslas, I'm afraid to drive in or park my car in the Bay Area! (It isn't as if I could just leave my car empty while traveling.)
 
This horn feature sounds useful but concerns me … is it like the lock/unlock horn on other cars that makes everybody within 20 ft jump out of their skin? Or is it a polite chirp?

When it happens while the car is in the garage and I'm right next to it, it makes me jump. But in an open parking lot when I'm 20 feet away from it it sounds more like a polite extremely quick honk.

Easy enough to try it out, and if you don't like it, turn it off again.
 
When I lived in rural North Dakota nobody locked their doors.

There are no people in North Dakota, so that barely counts. :D

That's a big city concern. There are plenty of rural areas, such as mine, where people don't need to lock cars and houses.

I live in the suburbs. I leave nothing in my cars that would attract any attention ever. Assholes live everywhere, not just in cities.
 
Not to derail this thread but I discovered something else about using the phone with a Model 3. If you turn your phone off while driving and then get out of the car and walk away, the car will not lock. I discovered this on my way to work the other day. My phone was acting flaky so I turned it off as I entered the parking lot, intending to cycle power. I exited the car, walked into the building, and turned my phone back on while out of range of the car. I had assumed that when the car no longer sensed the phone, it would lock itself. Not the case. I checked an hour later and discovered that the car was unlocked the entire time.
 
Not to derail this thread but I discovered something else about using the phone with a Model 3. If you turn your phone off while driving and then get out of the car and walk away, the car will not lock. I discovered this on my way to work the other day. My phone was acting flaky so I turned it off as I entered the parking lot, intending to cycle power. I exited the car, walked into the building, and turned my phone back on while out of range of the car. I had assumed that when the car no longer sensed the phone, it would lock itself. Not the case. I checked an hour later and discovered that the car was unlocked the entire time.

That's an interesting development. Have you filed a bug report? I wonder if they've done that to prevent you from locking your powered off phone in the car, or if this was an oversight. Technically the BLE receivers would issue a notification to the software that the device has gone our of range when you power it off. So I'm wondering if actively driving triggered a not-tested condition.
 
That's an interesting development. Have you filed a bug report? I wonder if they've done that to prevent you from locking your powered off phone in the car, or if this was an oversight. Technically the BLE receivers would issue a notification to the software that the device has gone our of range when you power it off. So I'm wondering if actively driving triggered a not-tested condition.

No, I haven't filed a bug report. I'll attempt to reproduce it and then do so.
 
My guess as to what happened: The car was already locked while you where driving. You turned your phone off. If the car recognized that your phone was out of range, it didn't matter as the car was already locked. You stopped, put the car in park and got out. The car didn't see the phone leave the area so no autolock. Seems normal to me. That's why I've been using the keycard since day one.
 
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That's an interesting development. Have you filed a bug report? I wonder if they've done that to prevent you from locking your powered off phone in the car, or if this was an oversight. Technically the BLE receivers would issue a notification to the software that the device has gone our of range when you power it off. So I'm wondering if actively driving triggered a not-tested condition.

This is not a "bug" in the system; it's an inherent weakness of the phone-as-key system. If the phone is off, the car cannot detect it. Therefor it cannot react to its position.

I just came back from a long trip. I had turned BT off because I didn't need it while traveling and didn't want the added battery drain. When I got back and the car demanded the key card, I didn't think anything of it because sometimes that happens. I went into the store, and of course the car did not lock. When it still didn't lock when I got home the second day, I thought of checking, and saw that the phone's BT was off. The car was indeed acting "properly," which is to say, not responding to the phone because it couldn't "see" the phone. But it left my car vulnerable because I normally don't need BT for anything other than the car.

It's pretty damn good that they only made three stupid decisions when designing this car. (Using the phone as the key, the glass roof, and using AT&T as the cell carrier.)
 
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