Email Hoaxes: Continued

After my little rant on email hoaxes, I received a good one on my work account. I'll post it and see if anyone else can pick up on it:

"Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do

"Have you locked your keys in the car?

"Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday.Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk). Editor's Note: 'It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a cell phone!'"

Before I tell you who sent that to me, let's review the science behind phones and remote keyless entry.

First, like every other microphone in the world, the one in your cell phone works by translating the vibrations from sound into electrical impulses which are then sent to a speaker to be translated back into vibrations we perceive as sound. Pretty cool.

Second, I had long wondered how each key remote could be specific to an individual vehicle. It turns out that they all use the same radio frequency, but they transmit an encrypted "signature" that is unique to each vehicle.

So, pressing your key remote next to a phone (cellular or otherwise) would transmit only the sound of the button being pressed, which is not very helpful at all. For those technically inclined, cell phones operate in the 300MHz range while key remotes use the 800MHz range (which means your phone can't "hear" the signal). Save yourself the embarrassment of holding your phone up to your car the next time you lock your keys inside. I have to wonder if that would be any more or less embarrassing than phoning home to ask someone to press the unlock button into the phone for you... I'm pretty sure the only sound I'd hear would be Dawn's hysterical laughter ("I'd love to help you, but I just can't fix stupid!").

I promised to reveal the sender of this priceless gem, and so I shall. He ranked #242 on Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans (2006) with an estimated net worth of $1.5 Billion (yes, with a 'B'). He has nearly 30,000 franchise locations around the world. That's right, I received this from none other than Mr. Fred Deluca, founder & chief mucky-muck of Subway Restaurants. Who were the lucky receipients of this little pearl? Only every Development Agent and Field Consultant in the Subway system ('every' is a lot...). You'd think that he could allocate some of that $1.5 Billion to get someone to proof-read his emails before they go out...

Related reading:

Snopes article

Hoaxbusters article