Brad’s Sketchpad

Kind words about my Wired article on transponder-protected cars from Columbia Journalism Review.

In late 2003, our brand new white Honda Civic hybrid - Honky - was stolen from the street in front of our house. We still possessed all three keys, each with an immobilizer transponder chip that made it impossible to start the car without a key. The crime seemed inconceivable, and I wrote about my experience here, for Newsweek.com. 

For the next two years, I received hundreds of email responses about the story. Many messages were from fellow car theft victims, upset that their insurance companies refused reimbursement on the grounds that immobilizer chipped cars simply cannot be stolen without the proper keys.

In this month’s issue of Wired (the August issue), I have finally published my follow-up article. I hope this answers some of the questions I raised in my first story and exposes the insurance industry’s dubious faith in technology that was clearly proven vulnerable by intelligent, adaptive car thieves.

I welcome any and all feedback on this story.

Two short pieces this week. We included the MySpace guys in Newsweek’s annual “Who’s Next” issue, and in this month’s Wired, I have a short piece on Gizmo, a rival to Internet phone service Skype.