[blowfish721]

I remember seeing a french documentary about the french criminal world many many years ago, there they showed a professional car thief using a device bought from Russia that he plugged into the ODB2 port. Once plugged in it reset the car and it could be started with a blank key. A co-workers friend got his Audi RS4 stolen from a public garage with the thiefs using the technique described in the article and that was probably 6-8 years ago so it’s far from new but maybe more widespread now.

[fn42]

I remember figuring this out when I needed to buy a new key for my Audi and the dealer wanted $200 to program it. https://www.audiworld.com/forums/a8-s8-d2-platform-discussio... the software's available online, all you need to do is get access to the OBD port and you can make your car trust a new key!

[kleiba]

Did your friend get his car back after all? Or else how did he conclude which technique was used to steal it?

[sidewndr46]

Yeah I wonder about this as well. It was decades ago that a friends Mercedes was stolen in Poland and the police just immediately concluded that it had been taken to Russia. I'm thinking "well yeah, if you just decide all stolen vehicles go to Russia then they in fact are never found".

[blowfish721]

He never got the car back, don’t know if it was picked apart or they managed to send it abroad. The security footage from the garage caught it on video so that’s how they knew that they went through the headlights.

[gtech1]

I think the documentary was Les Caids des Cites (?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gajW7PNOJKw