Comment by brookst
9 hours ago
How do you validate “the real owner” if having the keys isn’t enough? That sufficient to steal the car.
You could do a PIN/password, but if it is never used during operation, nobody will know it. Ask anyone who’s had a head unit that needed a PIN after losing power.
Mere possession is also enough for someone to steal your laptop, but that still shouldn't allow them to trivially install a secret persistent backdoor, or break your disk encryption.
Agree that a PIN/Password would have usability problems with a car. Since no car manufacturer intentionally permits you to install software you want, there's no standard mechanism. But if this was standard I think an owner-set PIN would be very reasonable.