Credit: HDWallpaper.in

British-based computer scientist banned from publishing an academic paper which reveals the secret codes used to start luxury cars such as Porsches, Audis and Lamborghinis that could lead to theft of millions of vehicles.

Scientist Secret Codes Ruled Ban

University of Birmingham Computer Science lecturer Flavio Garcia cracked the security system protecting Volkswagen-owned luxury car owners by detecting identity of the ignition key from theft using a unique algorithm.

The UK High Court issued an injunction against his paper from being published since could lead to millions of theft cases on luxury cars. Mr Garcia and other cryptography experts from the Dutch University were banned from publishing their academic paper in the well-respected Usenix Security Symposium in Washington, DC, in August 2013.

Volkswagen asked the scientists to publish a redacted version of their paper - Dismantling Megamos Crypto: Wirelessly Lockpicking a Vehicle Immobiliser - without the decryption codes used on breaking the security system; however, the lecturer and his team declined.

"We're responsible, legitimate academics doing responsible, legitimate academic work," according to Mr Garcia and his colleagues from Stichting Katholieke Universiteit, Barig Ege and Roel Verdult.

Their arm was to improve and enhance the security measure for everyone and not to offer a helping hand to criminals into hacking high-end cars, costing their owners at least £250,000.

"The public have a right to see weaknesses in security on which they rely exposed. The industry and criminals know security is weak but the public do not," explained Mr Garcia.

Mr. Justice Birss said he recognised the importance of the right for academics to publish, but it would mean "that car crime will be facilitated."

Megamos Crypto Security System

It is a high-security Read-Write RFID Transponder installed in several luxury car brands which uniquely detects the owner's ignition key.

Features:

- On Chip Crypto-Algorithm

- Two way authentication

- Secret Key programmable

- Device Identification

- Lock Bits to inhibit programmation

So if you own any Porches, Audis or Lamborghinis, do not expect so much confidence on the current security system which was recently cracked by academics on computer science. Always keep your ignition keys in non-vulnerable areas of theft, no matter how expensive your vehicles are.