A friend of mine had his new F30 broken into the other night. No damage done, nothing stolen but doors and boot left unlocked, glovebox opened and emptied into footwell. Nothing in the boot to nick. Both keys were in the house and he was in the house the whole time. A number of other cars in his neighbourhood also had the same treatment, some gear removed from some. According to the police to whom he reported this to, there have been a spate of these in the area, all apparently caused by a sort of "remote key signal amplifier." So I did a little googling. There are reports of something similar in the USA, although also some doubt that this is possible. See here for example: http://uk.businessinsider.com/power-amplifiers-helping-car-thieves-2015-4?r=US&IR=T Then I found a research paper from ETH Zurich, which is a University with a sound reputation in engineering, which I have attached and does appear to confirm that this type of attack is technically possible. I'm no electronics engineer, preferring engineering of a more chemical type, but I wondered if there were any appropriately qualified folks here who could comment. I don't know what to make of it, perhaps it's just hype and there's a simpler explanation? Meanwhile, it seems keyless entry key fobs will have to be stored in a Faraday cage, which is probably less hassle than removing the battery when not in use....
Interesting. Yes, theoretically, if you can bridge the normal 2ft range of the system and "connect" the car to the key via some form of intermediate receiver/transmitter system then it should unlock. Basically the RF equivalent of two baked bean tins and a bit of string. Or a walkie-talkie.
Is this not what the recent security update is designed to fix, mine has just had it done. Not sure what it does so maybe barking up the wrong tree.
Yes, I heard that there were a spate of car breakins, but that BMW had a recall to fix the problem. Fortunately I didn't spec it for my car - I have to press 'unlock' on the remote. ;)