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Wireless, GPS-Loaded 'Bait Car' Traps Thieves
captainClassLoader writes: "The Washington Post is reporting that a late-model car, loaded with wireless surveillance gear, a remote kill switch and GPS, is being left (unlocked, presumably) on the streets of the Washington, D.C. metro area as 'bait' for car thieves. This article reports that they've just made their first bust with the vehicle."
Who pays the parking tickets on these?
GPS: "Help! I'm being towed!"
This
They've had that here (Hamilton, Ontario) for a while... they leave them in movie theater parking lots.
Thieves in my area steal the cars with OnStar right off the light...sure, they catch them but usually it's a little too late.
keys in the ignition also?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
right on, maybe people will think before taking other people's stuff.
You could get more thieves if you had a beowolf cluster of those.
Now I'm only waiting for the bicycle version. I lose at least one bike a year in the mean streets and garages of San Francisco.
It catches car thieves, but only car thieves. This is one of the few uses of technology that has zero probability of catching "the wrong guy".
I wonder if this technology would be extended to the private consumer level?
If I weren't nailed to the penis, I'd be pushing up the daisies!
Sounds like more of a "Candid camera" type gag to me.....let thieves start car and run for 3 seconds, then kill the engine....repeat as necessary.
Seems to me that I have seen this done on the TV show COPS more than once and for a while now...I'd say they are slow on the news today.
You presume the car was locked? What kind of wussy criminals do you have in the US, anyway?
This almost reminds me of the First Death Wish movie where he baited the guys to car jack him only to kick their asses a second later.
Seriously though, I can't wait hearing from the car thief's legal team trying to get him off because methods like this are "unconstitutional"
I am sure the scumbag lawyers will have a field day with this one.
-Mod me up, I need the karma
were going to see a mydrid of posts condeming this as entrapment. No one forces these people to commit these crimes. So what have we to fear?
BASE Conflict for Quake 3
Doesn't this constitute some form of entrapment? And what if I were to place a valuable item out on the streets with the intention of having it stolen? Is the person who takes it guilty of theft?
Why bother.
Happens all the time here in Philadelphia.
I am not a lawyer or even a person familiar with the law in any way, but isnt there something about entrapment in there. I personally agree with this idea, it's great, but my legal spidey sense is tingling on this one.
Sir Timbly of Cannatuna, offical Knight of the Heptagonal Table
It certainly is in the UK. It's called entrapment I believe.
The problem with entrapment is, where do you draw the line? Is it ok the leave the door unlocked? Is it ok to leave the keys in the ignition? Is it ok to have the engine running and $10,000 in used banknotes scattered around inside the car?
I'm sure everyone of us could be encouraged to do something illegal if the setup was correct.
to the 12v car battery. Build it into the car seat. Of course, you'd put warning stickers on the windows. Save the court costs and stop recidivism.
So instead of investigating existing car robberies, they use our tax money to buy a car that is meant to be stolen. Great.
I mean, yes, they find a guy who is stealing cars and take him off of the streets, but he or she will be back on the streets within a few years (if it is their first offense), probably doing the same thing. And yes, there is a CHANCE that they may find some kind of organized crime going on, but there is publicity for this car being left in the open to be stolen, so anyone in the area stealing cars that can pick up a newspaper is going to be on the lookout for it, so mostly, this is just a bunch of cops sitting around fishing for dumbass.
But I'm surprised the headline wasn't: Grand Theft Auto Illegal in Arlington, VA (yro, games)!
sulli
RTFJ.
Who's going to come to my house today to build a device to scramble GPS/Cell Signals in a 50 meter radius? We'll go on a car stealing spree, they'll never know what hit them.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
There is a television show that exhibited one of these bait cars in action. Was two or three years ago, however. Good news stories this is not.
I would much rather have a car thief steal the "bait-car" rather than yours or mine, right? Why does /. consider this a "Bad Thing"?
...and I am driving you to the nearest police station where you will be handed over to the authorities. Thank you and have a nice day!
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
If you read the article:
He does not anticipate any successful challenges from defense attorneys that the tactic is entrapment.
"Entrapment is where the government plants the seed of a crime in the mind of individual who would not otherwise be criminally inclined," Trodden said. " . . . We don't want that. But if we had somebody who was out there, ready to steal something . . . it's good police work."
BTW, Jose doesn't look happy in his booking photo.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
I can already hear the cries of "entrapment" about to spring up all over this article, so I'll point out this definition of entrapment, which would seem to indicate that this method (placing a "bait" car in likely spots) is NOT entrapment. I imagine that a court would actually need to rule on this (IANAL), but it's fairly clear-cut to me. Simply placing a car in an area where it is likely to get stolen would not, to any reasonable person, qualify as "government agents [persuading or talking] the person into committing the crime".
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Its only a matter of time before thieves figure out how to disable it...
Click here or here.
I'm so glad that the people on Slashdot read the article before posting.
"Entrapment is where the government plants the seed of a crime in the mind of individual who would not otherwise be criminally inclined," Trodden said. " . . . We don't want that. But if we had somebody who was out there, ready to steal something . . . it's good police work."
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Cars can't talk.
Why don't they 'salt' a few 1982 Lotus Turbo Esprits? Don't those blow up when you break into them?
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
I remember seeing something similar on Donahue about 10-12 years ago. The guy had a recumbinant[sp?] bike with a ton of computer equipment on it, and he rode around the country, if someone tried to move the bike when it was locked down, it would call 911 and give its location.
I think the bike was called Behemoth, I think that was an acronym, but I don't remember what it stood for.
My other sig is extremely clever...
Why don't they put a buxom blonde in the car to increase the steal metrics?
RE: He does not anticipate any successful challenges from defense attorneys that the tactic is entrapment.
"Entrapment is where the government plants the seed of a crime in the mind of individual who would not otherwise be criminally inclined," Trodden said. " . . . We don't want that. But if we had somebody who was out there, ready to steal something . . . it's good police work."
Doesn't this depend on the car they actually use?
The guy stole the car. It happened to belong to the ACPD. And it happened to have fancy electronics in it. But he still stole the car. So he's toast.
sulli
RTFJ.
Now thanks to the Wasington Post, I know there are a bunch of cars sitting unlocked, and all I need to do to steal them is bring some radio jamming equipment! Sweet!
This is not news in any sense, except possibly in the "local news sucks" sense. Slashdot... Maybe you ned to get a few more people with a bit more ability to discern what are actually important changes & announcements in technology and what is merely recycled "Real-People" "stories".
-- "If I can't Dance, It's not my revolution" - Emma Goldman
Are the lawyers who are going to claim 'entrapment' and get these criminals off...
"A person is 'entrapped' when he is induced or persuaded by law enforcement officers or their agents to commit a crime that he had no previous intent to commit; and the law as a matter of policy forbids conviction in such a case."
The guy they arrested was arrested with burglary tools on his person. So quite obviously he did in fact have previous intent to commit, and enrapment won't be an issue.
I posted to
" In addition to facing a grand larceny auto charge, Gonzalez, 40, was charged with possessing burglary tools" [emphasis added]
Burglary tools = slim jim & other sorts of unlock tools. I'll bet nickles to quarters that the car was locked, and this guy jimmied it open somehow.
Leaving a car on a street unlocked with the keys inside is entrapment. This isn't.
AMCGLTD.COM. Where cats, science fictio
...to track my teenage son!
I especially like the remote kill switch.
(This sig intentionally left blank)
...but it probably wouldn't go over well and might be difficult to implement.
Instead of GPS trackers, the cars could be rigged to explode when the ignition was started. Of course in this case you need failsafes to make sure that nothing else will set off the bomb. You also need to worry about collateral damage and it'll get expensive after awhile...
...then again, it is government spending. And it will insure a low repeat offender count.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Most interstate truckers these days have satellite tracking devices. The primary use of the satellites is mondane stuff like tracking shipments, filling out driving laws, routing and the like.
One of the first four trucks my company installed the system on was stolen. After stealing the truck, they drove it to several warehouses; so one GPS/Satellite unit took down both the thief, but several chop shops and stolen goods warehouses.
Having even a small percentage of cars with tracking devices will take a big bite out of car theft. It would be cool if someday we did the same thing with bikes; Then I could ride my bike to University without having it or its parts stolen.
I can see it all now...
thief: "Really officer, anyone dumb enough to leave their car unlocked in DC is just ASKING to get their car stolen. I didn't WANT to do it. The car made me do it."
Your actions on earth echo in eternity.
...selecting from among the most commonly stolen vehicles. Nationally, that list includes Toyota Camrys, Honda Accords and Oldsmobile Cutlasses.
Great, if this works, thieves will stop picking on the most commonly stolen vehicles, thereby increasing the risk that my Kia Sportage will get stolen!
Who am I kidding, I could leave that thing in a dark lot with the engine running and the doors open and nobody would touch it. Bad, bad Kia.
Learn from my mistake. Don't buy a Kia, kids.
--blob
All sweeping generalizations suck.
How long until thieves break in to the cars to steal the gps and wireless equipment?
I think I'll stick with my "bottle-of-poisoned-whisky-in-the-glove-compartmen t" system.
I am a Karma Library.
..and if I see this thing parked in front of my apt, it's so keyed.
More danger to people when they're entering/leaving the car if this gets really popular because the thieves will stop trusting the free standing car. I can imagine the thieves resorting to using a gun to get the person out of the way and then steal the car.
Also I suppose the thieves can just observer the car for a while. If no one uses it for 2 or 3 days then it's a given that's a bait. The cops might have to have people using the car in some realistic way.
d.
I hate the fact that you people don't salute me
They designed it poorly. The damn thing should not just shut off with the kill switch, but lock the dumbass in.
It should take still photographs of his face with a hidden camera, while he's in the act.
Hell, the thing should have external hidden cameras, so that it can take pics of vandals.
If they wanted to, they could make this car a REAL pain for criminals.
I forget what the original name was but the Ricochet modem was used in NYC so taxi companies could track down stolen taxi's. Later that system was purchased by Metricom and reworked to become the Ricochet wireless system we know today. Even after Metricom purchased it, there were times it was used to track things like stolen customer laptops, cars, basically anything that was attatched to it could be tracked.
uh.... doesn't that constitute entrapment???
I'm no legal expert, but that seems a bit over the line to me.
The dashpc has this functionality. If anyone would like to contribute to the proejct, please feel free to.
The cameras, cut off switch, auto lock mechanism are nothing new. This has been done for several years by several major metropolitan cities (And I'm sure a few smaller ones). The only thing new is the use of the GPS so police can be sent. In the past when this was done it required police be watching to make the arrest.
So I guess at least it free's up a couple officers who otherwise would have to be posted for survailance.
Not necessarily. At least in most jurisdictions, "Entrapment" is law enforcement officers inducing or encouraging a person to commit a crime when the potential criminal wasn't inclined to commit the crime. Like many crimes, intent is important.
For example, if the cops are doing a drug sting, in which an undercover agent is selling drugs on the street, if a customer merely comes up and buys drugs, it's usually not entrapment, since the guy would've bought the drugs if the seller wasn't a narc. But if the agent pressures the buyer if the buyer wasn't already motivated to buy drugs, then it probably is.
In this case, it would be argued that the person stealing the car was already inclined to steal a car, so there would be no entrapment.
But yes, there is a lot of grey area here.
(No, I'm not a lawyer)
Next years budget:
$1,600,000 for a few sports cars that can be driven around by officers and used as "bait".
"Yeah but look how many idiots we caught with the peice of junk we used last year"
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Does this article qualify? With the number of definitions and cries of said procedulral error I've seen posted, you'd think so.
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
Entrapment is the act of enticing people to commit crimes by making exact request for them to commit the crime and catch them.
A easy example of entrapment in a sting is classic prostitution sting. If the police woman offers "The John" money for sex that is entraping. However if the police woman implies that she is there as a prostitute and "The John" comes forward and offers money for sex that isn't entrapment.
Leaving a car out on the street to see who will steal it is a great way to setup a clean sting. As long as the police never suggest that they want someone to steal the car then the car is stolen by a person of their own modivation.
If I leave a wallet on the sidewalk with bills hanging out and someone picks it up and walks off with it, they've committed no crime. If they walk up to my unlocked car with the keys in it parked legally, they break the law as soon as they open my door. I'm not required by the law to lock it. Temptation isn't entrapment.
Entrapment is my promising to send you pictures of hot chicks, then sending you pictures of little kids, then arresting you for having them. You have been persuaded or coerced into committing a crime, whether you'd have committed it yourself later or not.
I saw something like this on TLC a couple of months ago. I think they were operating in DC, Detroit, dunno, some big city. The difference there was that they didn't allow the thief to STEAL the car, they just lock the bastard in the car and radio police to come pick 'em up (or the cops are watching from across the street).
Really fun to watch those stinkers learn they've walked into a trap! Lots of different reactions -- all amusing.
This was also the plot of a Knight Rider episode.
The Daily Build
I'm pretty sure all this will teach thieves is to not steal Mercury Grand Marquis.
They have the Internet on computers now?
... the Recording Industry Association of America was widely condemned by popular geek discussion forum Slashdot.org for its practice of offering illegal mp3 downloads and then prosecuting takers.
...it's a good way to catch crooks. Look at what Jose got slapped with: Possession of burglery tools. He had to break the lock on the door, and somehow get the igition going with his theft tools. Police didn't make it easy at all - it was just another Toyota in the parking lot from anyone's point of view.
Whether or not it's new, it's a law-enforcement application of technology that doesn't run the risk of trampling civil rights. Well, OK, not much risk, anyways, since I certainly don't view car theft as a civil right. ;-)
"Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information." -Samuel Johnson
I live in NYC and nothing turns my stomach more walking down the sidewalks is seeing a bike chained to a pole stripped everything attached with a bolt. I am an avid cyclist in the city and I would never, ever leave my bike outside because of theft. Cops don't even care. They don't seem to realize that bikes can cost hundred and hundreds of dollars or like my Specialized, thousands. It is a big deal monetarily.
ABC had a 20/20 episode where they had a hidden camera and a bike chained to a post. It took only 5 minutes before the thieves went after it every time they set it up. Typical response of the thief was "Oh, I thought this was my bike. Sorry!", then they would run away.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Now, where can I buy the fake stickers that read:
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Why bother with all this electronic stuff when a few kg:s of C4 under the seat will do the job as well, just connect the primer to the ignition in the car. Of course the car will be totalled too, but hey, at least you don't have to feed them crooks in prison. As an added bonus big explosions look cool too!
Minneapolis and a few other cities have had a similar program running very sucessfully here over the last 5 years. I believe a couple of the people who were busted even tried to use the entrapment defense, which was summarily shot down in the courts since no one made them steal the car, or even gave them the idea to.
I do not want my tax dollars paying for a car to be used as bait. I do not want to pay for cops to pretend to be drug dealers to catch would-be customers. I don't want to fund cops' propositioning prostitutes, and I don't want to pay for gigantor magnets that pull the guns out of people's pockets.
Someone needs to rein these guys in.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
As soon as Mr Gonzalez gets out of jail (or whatever his sentence) or even in jail, he'll tell everyone the details of the car. They'll have to keep rigging up new cars to prevent the local car thieves from identifying them and avoiding them.
It is only a matter of time before the average crook figures out how to jam GPS. The motivation (jail) is certainly there to learn how.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Ok so its not entrapment, so what are they going to do next?
Parade nude chiks on the road and then arrest ppl. for watching "offensive material" in public places??
-- everyones not everybody and neither is everybody like everyone.
You sure don't see many technological innovations being directed at automated crimefighting in boardrooms. Those boardmembers sure hate the idea that someone would inconvenience them by taking their stupid car, though.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Leaving the car out there as a tempting target doesn't constitute entrapment. Even having an officer in plain clothes tipping likely thieves off to the fact that the car is easily stolen doesn't count.
...any more than it is to have undercover cops posing as hookers to catch the johns. Maybe it would be if they put a sign that said "steal me" on the car (I don't know what kind of sign they would put on the hookers, but that's a different story).
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
Would it be stealing if I hopped in the car and drove it back to the police station?
Since this news is now out in the public, I'm sure the Washington DC police are already working on other secret plans for catching "the bad guy". Kinda like military technology documentaries (propaganda) that supposedly show the latest in military technology... fact is, they're showing the latest *declassified* information, which means they're already truly onto bigger and better things.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
that way the Police cant aford them and you know its safe
"why is it bad unlocking codes are all the same we need to get into the cars and we are the only ones with the key"-- rep
Porsche has a dealer code for the unlocking IR that you can clone and get into all 1998 models funny as fuck to watch peoples face when you open their car via your watch (-;
regards
john jones
Then wouldn't setting up a honey-pot on the internet also be considered entrapment?
while i find this absolutely fascinating and think it's really neat, doesn't it kind of defeat the purpose of the whole operation if you publicise that you're doing it in the Washington Post?
or are they trying to use this as a *deterrent* to car theft, by sending signals out to car thieves that "hey, perhaps when you jimmy open that car YOU ARE WALKING INTO A TRAP! maybe you should just go back home and yell at your sister instead." that actually would make a lot of sense, now that i think about it..
on the other hand, either way maybe its a moot point, since i guess car thieves aren't *that* likely to read the washington post.
meanwhile, does anyone else find it hilarious that half the threads thus far in this slashdot story concern entrapment, but none seem to acknowledge that the next to last paragraph in the washington post story *directly addresses* the legal entrapment issue? c'mon, people, read the fricking article.. when will you find out the slashdot burbs neither try nor pretend to be accurate representations of the story?
Fine, Jose is going to jail but remember that no "important" white guy from Enron will ever see the inside of a prison cell, no matter how many lives he wrecked with his corruption. Also remember that you have been, and will be, the victim of more white-collar crime in your life than any other form. Personally, I'm more worried when my government gets hijacked than when my car gets ripped off.
"Steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and they make you king." - Dylan
The ones who get caught stealing the car will spend a night or two in jail, get probation (maybe), and get another line added to thier probably already long list of offences to society. Then they'll be back on the street.
In the meantime people are getting locked up for writing software that the MPAA and/or RIAA (or Adobe) takes offense to. Or for smoking a plant. Or for consentual activities between adults.
The wireless GPS car is all very well and good, but taking thousands of dollars worth of property that is not yours is an offense that, IMO, should land someone in jail for a time on the order of decades, not days. But we all know exactly what will happen to those who are arrested.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
They've been doing this sort of thing for a long time now. They'd sit on the street in another vehicle while watching the bait car. When someone stole the vehicle, the cops would hit a button on a remote thereby disabling the vehicle. Then the cops gingerly stroll up to the car, arrest the guy, and repeat the process...
Of course, now, maybe they don't have to watch the vehicle with the GPS and other equipment they have...
I guess that means 'wildest police chases' won't be getting much new footage from DC
... you get a GPS into the bargain, too!
Do they really need to say "Wireless"?
Was there a (not-so-successful) previous attempt at this, but with wires coming out of it?
m00.
I remember that. I think it was the Descovery Channel.
I think that's awesome when they lock the guys in the car automatically and they can't get out. It's even funnier when the cops are calmly walking towards the car and the theif's panic level starts to hit maximum.
A hidden alarm/alert and a locking door system couldn't cost more than $5k. I think they should put these in lots and lots of places. It might actually put a dent in the car theft business.
It won't be long now until Ron Popeil has an infomercial for the:
AutoTrapp (extra 'p' for a catchy name)
Along with a has-been or no-name actress and a paid audience with great clapping ability, you too can find out how you can get this remarkable device (which also cleans vinyl records) for,
Not $3000,
not $2000,
not even $1000,
but for 4 easy payments of $99.95 (plus $78.34 S/H)
Otherwise, while it might be temptation, it ain't entrapment.
Run a car thief ring? Sick of that snot-nosed punk that thinks he knows everything and has asperations of taking over your "business"? No problem; just tell him about this "hot item" that's a cinch to steal.
This is also great for getting rid of rival car thiefs.
LoJack
This tracking technology has been available in the states for some time. It actually uses the police radio networks directly, unlike the on*Star systems.
This is absurd. You post what is your honest opinion about something, and if a moderator so much as disagrees with it, it's a troll?
How about "war parking"?
How did this get moderated 4, Interesting?
steal it and you'll not only get a new car,
but new surveillance gear and new gps in addition.
and thus a quite different animal to a criminal prosecution. (BTW, references please?)
My guess would be, if this story is true, that the car's owner simply had a crappy lawyer defending him, or none at all. That won't be the case in criminal court, where the prosecution tend to be fairly good at getting people busted.
I think that'd violate the Constitutional restrictions on cruel and unusual punishments.
Best Slashdot Co
Just release cyanide gas on the driver.
Arlington Commonwealth's Attorney Richard E. Trodden ... does not anticipate any successful challenges from defense attorneys that the tactic is entrapment.
"Entrapment is where the government plants the seed of a crime in the mind of individual who would not otherwise be criminally inclined," Trodden said. " . . . We don't want that. But if we had somebody who was out there, ready to steal something . . . it's good police work."
ReadTheFoookinArticle
HNY POT ?
GPS
With GPS will be easy to track him down to some cheap Hotel.
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
It's not a GPS-based system. It doesn't even use the cell phone network, relying on its own infrastructure. It's based on car units and direction-finding receivers in police cars. Each car unit has a transmitter and receiver, but doesn't normally transmit. The unit constantly listens for a message on an FM broadcast station subcarrier. On receipt of the proper message, the unit starts transmitting the "I'm stolen" signal, which is received by receivers in police cars. The signal doesn't contain any positional information; somebody has to do the direction-finding job the hard way.
Lojack covers major metropolitan areas in about a dozen states. It requires cooperation from the local cops, so it takes a major marketing and negotiation effort to get it into a city.
Normal people don't pay for sex, so if a cop offers a prostitute money for sex, that's entrapment.
Normal people do leave their car's in places where the car can be stolen, the fact that the police can track this particular car just improves the chances of the police catching the criminal.
Put another way, if you had a phat car and left the doors unlocked, keys in, engine running with a wad of benji's hanging out of the glove compartment, and I stole your car, I would not have an entrapment defense.
My other sig is extremely clever...
GPS
You are a fucking moron. Cops exist not only to solve existing crimes but to deter future ones. They are doing their jobs in each and every case that you listed and we are all better off because of it.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Whether I agree or not is irrelevant. The post led me down a path of thought I might not otherwise have walked, and I was interested in that path, and the post.
The path of thought is something like this: It's not a waste of money because
a) a thief who steals a bait car will (hopefully) be easier to convict
b) a stolen bait car does not lead to a day, week, month or more without a car for someone.
c) no insurance money is spent replacing a stolen (GPS transpitter equipped) bait car
d) the car WILL be recovered and re-used, so its cost can be amortized, unlike the costs of regular stolen cars
But as I thought these things, I also thought, "why is this different from other crimes and crime prevention methods?"
a) The actual crime of stealing cars is NOT a victimless crime. The owner is of the car is the victim. This is (arguably) not the case with sex or drug transactions between consenting adults.
b) This method of crime prevention only works on criminals! It is impossible for anyone to claim they accidentally broke into a bait car, or were convinced to do so by an agent.
My conclusion is that I'm in favor of this method of counter-acting the destructive nature of theft, but I wouldn't have as clear of an idea why had it not been for the post complaining about it.
So yeah, it interested me.
Car rental places in South Africa are even offering the option of renting cars with or without the flamethrowers installed.
Thanks for trying to display the auto theif in a sympathetic light. In any case some people's lives are truly fucked up when their only means of transportation is stolen. It has a big effect on OTHER poor people, you know the law abiding ones.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Cars do talk, or did at one time. Back in the 80s there was a fad of sorts of cars telling drivers status updates and safety warnings: "Please fasten your seatbelt," "A door is ajar," "Please refill the oil," etc. They drove owners nuts and didn't last long. But they lasted long enough for Eddie Murphy to do a very funny bit about them - I can't find a transcript on google, but I bet someone has it.
sulli
RTFJ.
The police won't catch anyone with bait cars if no one is willing to steal the cars in the first place. I much prefer this to waiting for a thief to steal a citizen's car and then trying to find and prosecute the theif. This "bait" method is much more likely to lead to a conviction (more evidence), and if the theives know this is going on in an area they will be a lot more careful about which cars they try to steal.
:)
To protect myself, all I have to do is make my car look like bait.
the sword which takes life, gives life...
while you may have valid concerns about what constitues crime, your post is patently stupid. are such vehicles stolen because they are so enticing, or because someone was *looking* for wheels to swipe?
if such a car is stolen, might not that mean your car is left untouched on the same street?
protecting the law abiding is impossible if you maintain a purely defensive posture. even aikido which eschews harming any attacker includes strikes.
I tend to agree that it isn't entrapment. But depending on what they do, it may be dangerously close and set a bad precedent for other areas of law. Also, if they leave the key in the ignition, they will probably end up catching many more low-level crooks that might otherwise not steal cars.
it's for tracking him back to the chop shop. that's where you can do some longer lasting damage to the criminals.
extrapolate to the most obvious point.
Hmm, maybe they could do the same thing with planes lol.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The Minneapolis / St. Paul Police departments have been using this for at least two years. Wireless kill switch and viedo included. They flip a switch the car dies the doors lock and the lights start going nuts. Surround the car and BUSTED... But seriously nothing new to see here.
Hey... people throw trash out on the side of the street, and they leave their cars on the side of the street. You could just say they were leaving it out for the trash guys, makes sense.
--JonnyBlog
I say we go get the motherfucker!
Best Slashdot Co
there is publicity for this car being left in the open to be stolen, so anyone in the area stealing cars that can pick up a newspaper is going to be on the lookout for it
Yeah, the cops are so incredibly stupid that they are going to put the exact same car on the front of the paper out to catch thieves.
Meanwhile, at a Dunkin' Donuts:
"Hey Steve, I just came up with an idea, I think the criminals have noticed our specific car, and we might need to move all of the electronics to A NEW CAR. That way they won't know that it is the rigged car."
"Buddy, you just made detective."
They've been doing similar in the UK for many years. You don't need the GPS rubbish either, you just arrange that the car doors lock the moment someone shuts them, and don't provide any means to open the doors or windows from inside.
To cause the car break down... Do they install windows in the car's computer?
(ianal) actually in my state (Louisiana) the car is an extension of your home(as is the area within the home's fencing). so if someone breaks into your car you can shoot them under self-defense
Please keep in my that my ADHD keeps me a little scatter brained and I sometimes can't focus long enough to
... is to put tasers in the vehicles so that even if someone tries to steal something from your car (ie. car stereo/cd/mp3 player) they get zapped and just lie there quivvering until the authorities get there. Of course, in this case, the vehicle should probably call the paramedics as well as the police though.
Karma: NaN
I have seen a similiar car used in California. They had the police footage on one of those "real video" shows. The car has cameras inside the vehicle showing the thief in action. After the car is stolen the Police activate a starter kill switch that not only stops the car but locks all the doors and prevents the windows from being rolled down. The video footage of the theif trying to get out is very entertaining. One car theif actually punched out the drivers side window at was half way out when the police caught up and arrested him.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
So, like, if I live in DC and my personal automobile is the same make and model as the bait car, then perhaps I could expect my car theft susceptability to decrease?
If they used enough of these of particular kinds, then I'd expect it to show up in the car insurance actuarial tables.
Unfortunately, the bait car is probably not a car that I would be likely to own. Mebbe a mid-1980s orange Yugo?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
It catches car thieves, but only car thieves. This is one of the few uses of technology that has zero probability of catching "the wrong guy".
I'm now waiting for the first action movie out of Hollywood that features a tough, no-nails cop breaking into an available car to chase an escaping murder suspect, only to be stopped in traffic two minutes later by a different part of the department.
I knew there was a reason we needed a mod along the lines of "Stupid".
I mean, not to flame this guy or anything, but dang!
Isn't this entrapment?
The police trying to get someone to commit a crime and then bust them when they do.
Sounds fishy
It's not the OS it's the user that sucks. If it's user friendly, you get stupider people. - clinko
When the thieves get into the car, the doors and windows lock. The car then drives itself for a few miles before smashing the occupants into a specially built brick wall. The car would be a write-off and the police could remove all the devices, then claim insurance for theft and damage. The thieves would be dead so it wouldn't fill up the prison system or waste the time of overworked judges. Also, you would be using different cars each time, and the thieves wouldn't be able to tell anyone about it (they are dead) thus, no-one will catch on.
Or, failing that. you just chase the stolen car, surround it and OH MY GOD HES GOT A GUN!!!! shoot the *armed* thieves.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
So you posted at +1. Big whoop. It's more effort to turn it off than it is to leave it turned on. That troll just made it sound like you went to all this trouble to post at +1. Bah. Just ignore 'em.
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
Now if they will just make atm machines with super glue and stun guns.
....is burn em up!:-)
What does it mean to wake out of a dream
and be wearing someone else's shorts?
BNL, Born on a Pirate Ship (1998)
Using bait cars that can be disabled remotely to catch car thieves is nothing new - video from these cars has been on many of the countless police videos shows that were big before the more recent "reality" shows. The new thing is the use of GPS to track the cars, eliminating the need to keep police officers sitting around watching the car. This frees them up for other things while the car thieves still get caught.
How long until somebody complains that this is a blatant violation of privacy?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
It explicity explains why this is NOT entrapment!
in one of the movies they had this fake commercial where the criminal was trying to steal the car and the the cars active defense was locking him in and electrocuting him. Then all you had to do was open the door, let the BG fall out of the car and drive away.
Sometimes it feels like we are heading that way. They now have the option of adding flame thrower type stuff to cars in South Africa to prevent carjackings.
Car Wars, here we come.
so what about this grey ford taurus that's been parked in the same spot at church for almost a year now? the windows are turning brown and their is dirt and pine needles under and around the wheels...is that abandoned?
What is your Slash Rating?
http://www.jabootu.com/deathwish3.htm
The next morning, Paul and Rodriguez are on patrol when the Giggler grabs another purse. They give chase, but are soon outdistanced. (We only see Bronson running in very short clips. This helps imply that his character is running the whole distance, without causing Bronson's heart to explode in his chest.) "This Wildey friend of yours," the disgusted Rodriguez asks, "can he catch this guy?" Kersey nods yes. Back at the apartment, Bennett asks who Wildey is. "You'll see!," the impish Kersey replies. Next we see Kersey accepting a cake box sized parcel at the mail service shop. Laying the package on his table at home, Kersey looks up, and we see that all his neighbors are in attendance. "Wildey's here!," he tells them. Oh, boy! Finally, we're going to meet Wildey. Man, after all that build-up, this is going to be great!
Needless to say, it's not. Wildey turns out to be a gigantic semi-automatic pistol manufactured by Wildey, Inc. "Real stopping power," Kersey notes. Then, like some transparent audience shill in an infomercial, Bennett pipes up. "Is that like a .44 magnum?," he asks. No, Kersey replies.
The .44 is a pistol cartridge, the Wildey magnum is, "a shorter version of the African big game cartridge." (Whatever that means.) You know what
that means, right? Kersey's packin' bigger than Dirty Harry! You go, Dude! ('Dude'? I've got to stop doing that.) Anyway, it's reassuring that
Kersey will be toting the kind of firepower that you'd use to nail a rhinoceros or elephant.
Now comes the movie's low point, surprisingly revolting even for a picture like this. Maria is assaulted by Fraker and three more of the gang. Almost immediately, her shirt is ripped opened, as this scene is being used as an excused to bare some breasts. (This is why the almost pathologically modest Maria isn't wearing a bra; it would get in the way of breast baring.) Frankly, I had thought that the reprehensible practice of using rape scenes to inject some 'sex' into a picture had gone by the boards, even in exploitation flicks. Unfortunately, this film proved me wrong. My only advice is to have your remote ready when this scene begins.
We cut to Rodriguez, crying in his apartment. You can tell that it's his because of the decorative sombreros (!) on the wall. Kersey and Bennett are there to provide comfort. The report has come in: Maria was raped, but her physical injuries are restricted to a broken arm. Kersey orders a taxi and takes Rodriguez to the hospital. Meeting with her doctor, they learn that Maria has in fact died. The arm was badly shattered, resulting in blood clots that broke loose and made their way to the heart.
Back at Kersey's apartment, he's lovingly assembling new cartridges for his Wildey. Then, tucking the piece into his waistband, he heads out for the street, grabbing a camera case. (Unsurprisingly, a big logo for Nikon is quite noticeable - this is a classic example of produce placement, even though in this case I suspect it was arranged by the Pentax company.) Kersey walks down the block to the local grocery, and buys himself an ice cream bar. He also tosses one to that kid who gave him the power salute earlier. Back on the street, he spots the Giggler, and lazily hangs the camera case over his shoulder. Sure enough, the Giggler takes the bait. This time, however, Kersey is ready. He pulls out the Wildey and blows him away. This leads to an uproar of applause and celebration from the locals, as 'triumph' music plays in the background.
The next morning the rest of the gang is bummed out. "They killed the Giggler!," one sensitive young hood cries. "They had no business doin' that," Fraker agrees. Meanwhile, Shriker shows up to check out the crime scene. A woman, one of the celebrating citizens from the previous evening, runs over to give him her two cents. "I'm glad he's dead," she shouts. "He took my pocketbook three weeks ago!" (Wow, talk about a law and order mentality!) Shirker pulls back the sheet to examine the corpse, complete with a neat circular 'wound' through his chest. "There's not much left of this sucker, is there?," he inquires. Well, yeah, actually. Pretty much all of him, save for the part of his chest through which the bullet passed. I mean, they're not going to have to collect his remains with a sponge or anything.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
They'll make everyone want one of these, and since they conveniently can't tell you where the device is that triggers this event because then the burglars would know, they could monitor you at any time. What's to say that they don't set it off saying "Hey..I'm going over the speed limit here. Come arrest me".
And of course we can't put these things into computers first or some other segment of society where there might have been a chance of the person getting nabbed wasn't brown. Let's exploit minorities even further. Yay. Now, I know that maybe -- just maybe he would have taken a car no matter what, but you could make the argument that maybe crack wouldn't have been such a hit if we didn't push that into the black community too, or maybe they would have found it anyways and exploited it on their own.
And why don't we do this with guns? Things that kill people, so we could know where they were at all times, but I'm sure the NRA wouldn't hear of that.
I think this is going too far.
Then they could have gotten a whole nest
of the bastards. Maybe the car was going
to a chop shop. Maybe the car was going
to a drug meet. Maybe the car was going
accross state lines.
Sounds like a great use of technology
though.
Yes, if it does not belong to you, you may not claim it. It is theft, plain and simple. Some folks think the phrase possession is 9/10ths of the law, means that IF they have it, then there is a 90 percent chance that it belongs to them. Actually, it means that if you have a piece of property that is missing, lost or stolen, then you are guilty of theft unless you can prove otherwise. Simple common sense would show this to be true. No reciept, you stole it. One cannot borrow anything WITHOUT asking.
Did you use a Commodore 64 to post that?
What's with the 40 columns?
if you keep it shiny washed and waxed, it'll stick out as a police car...think about how many average cars on the road are washed and how many have pollen clinging to them?
What is your Slash Rating?
It's not a new idea, but it IS a good one. Not sure what I was watching, but they showed video from a camera inside that caught the bust, it was classic! ^^ A bunch of teenagers pile in, ready for a joyride, they get going and then, confusion.... The car stops working, and glides to a halt as police officers surround the vehicle (Meanwhile the stupid kids are freaking out, and trying to bust out the windows (Did they mention it also LOCKS ALL THE DOORS when they hit the killswitch? ^^ )
And if you want to cry entrapment:
A) I'm pretty sure it isn't.
B) Keep complaining about things that actually CATCH people, and sooner or later, someone's gonna drive off in YOUR car!
But, as always this is just my 2¥
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Now let's have the same idea applied to laptops--leave trackable portable computers unattended in airports and hotels as bait.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
It hasn't been answered enough times yet. Tell me again.
Help Michael! I'm being stolen!
I think the crooks will catch on once they notice the red LED strobing light at the front of the car.
I actually seriously considered buying a crossbow, so i could sit atop my condo building at night and wait for some asshole to come along and fuck with my car. I figured I wouldn't kill him - but a leg shot would be satisfying.
I have no clue why anyone would sympathize with car thieves. This program does nothing to hurt honest people who are living their lives. Maybe you've just got a knee-jerk reaction to The Law, but in this case, the cops are doing something that helps make normal people's lives easier.
Considering how pathetic the District cops usually are, this is a good sign.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
keying the car is vandalism...but then...I guess you don't support the boys in blue...
as for the ac troll...it was pretty harsh, yeah, but that's why you ignore ac trolls...if they don't have the guts to show who they really are, it really isn't worth your bother to get upset...indeed, if you spend any amount of time on slashnet, you get used to flaming them right back
What is your Slash Rating?
<exhales
you can claim the insurance money and buy a toyota :)
then again...wasn't it kia that was advertising how great their cars were in terms of warranty/price/etc compared with everyone else? my thought seeing those commercials was "that's the only way you're gonna sell those pieces of junk"....but then...I'm biased...I got a Volvo.
What is your Slash Rating?
I wonder if that's considered entrapment and consequently how it holds up in the courts?
Not only that, but at the local sev, they got rid of Cherry and introduced Sour Cherry at the same time the new WWF inspired flavor came out. Now I am stuck drinking my specially ordered caffiene free Dr Pepper with real sugar.
Lasers Controlled Games!
My impression was that if you had Onstar, and your car was stolen, you could call them and they'd kill the engine remotely.
But I could be wrong, I don't have the service. Would someone who has details care to comment?
There's always one more bu6
You can do something nearly simliar with your own car if you want to pay the monthly service charges on CDPD or a similar packet data network. Basically grab a CDPD modem that is capable of telemetry. Tie a NEMA capable GPS receiver to it. When you need to know where your car is telnet to the CDPD modem on a particular port and watch the NEMA stream. Heck, redirect it to something like Delorme AAA Map'n'Go and watch your car drive down the road. I imagine it would be a simple exercise to direct the police to your vehicle.
Now, this working as an effective recovery device depends on the car being able to acquire a GPS signal and maintain it, ability to communicate on the CDPD network, and finding out your car is stolen before it is stripped or the battery is disconnected.
This also opens up the possibility of not only catching the thief, but also the chop shops. Thieves are born every day with the promise of quick money. If you kill one chop shop, you stop the source of money for a number of thieves.
assert(expired(knowledge));
I had my car stolen in DC (Georgetown) one night and it sucked. I was on a great date with a woman I really liked and everything was going great. I parked down near the waterfront under the whitehurst freeway. I never felt so confused as I came back and saw my car gone. I thought they might have towed it, maybe I drank too much and forgot where we parked. I didnt think anyone would steal it because the car was a POS old 190k mile camry and I parked it next to the quite common for Georgetown range rover. It ruined the date but it taught me to park in safer places. I eventually got it back but it was never the same. The thief had took the radio and CLEANED the car. It had no dirt in it and was actually cleaner than when I had parked it. I only found an empty 40 oz of old english and a baby toy in the trunk. God only knows what they where doing.
As for the DC police and your negative attitude toward them I can kind of relate. After speaking with them about the car and getting nothing but attitude I was surprised when it turned up about 3 weeks later. I thought they would simply dismiss it as another car lost. I've had other encounters that are just as bad but not worth mentioning.
But I don't think this entraps anyone. Car theives are POS that don't really care that they took part of your life for a joy ride. I have never seen anyone accidentally steal something.
If GEICO, Allstate and a few other biggies were smart, they'd foot the bills to equip various police departments of large metropolitan areas.
For example, here in the D.C. area, it might be cheaper for said insurance companies to help equip the Montgomery & PG county police on the MD side, rather than have to reimburse owners for stolen Lexus', Hondas and Toyotas (even though they rarely, if ever give you the full value).
It might also save them the costs of having to repair stolen vehicles that are recovered.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
For saying "Sweet!". Don't feel bad. The guy who said "It's all good" got a boot to the crotch!
**>>BELCH
They even mention Minneapolis as the place where they got the idea. You do have to read past the first page to see that, though.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
if they would put the gang bangers who involve innocents in "drive bys" straight to the chair, we will be in good shape. This is a good thing...Less tolerance and smarter tactics for taking down the slugs of the world. Score 1 for the good guys.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
read the article shit for brains.... entrapment.. what a noob...
I don't know if this is still on the market, but I heard of it ten years ago. It isn't completely automatic for reasons that will become obvious.
When your car alarm goes off you get paged. If it was indeed stolen, you dial a number which activates the system. The next time the car comes to a complete stop the engine dies, the windows roll up, the doors lock, and a 95db alram goes off inside the drivers compartment.
Nothing like instant justice.
cheers
I park for half an hour at Auburn University's student health clinic in the "A" zone and still get a ticket even though I'm getting an antibiotic shot in the butt....it takes them three years and threats of legal action, even with copies of the receipts, to get the stupid ticket and charge revoked.
What is your Slash Rating?
I've just GPL'ed my Delorian.
had such a system when they stole it three weeks ago :-(
The article also has a very dramatic Quicktime movie of it in action.
Have you tried the Mormon Bike Protection Plan, one very long chain and a big old lock. I grew up in Jamaica where they regularly did their rounds. what was funny was how paranoid they were. They would at each stop even if the were standing there chain their bikes to the the biggest heaviest thing that was cemented in the pavement
Well, DUH....
http://www.boomerangtracking.com
Because of this system many car thiefs in the Montreal area are working differently. Now they steal a car and will leave it in a public parking for a day or two. If the car is still there, i.e. the police did not pick it up, then they will steal it for good.
When you have an annoyance, you use the appropriate tools to deal with it. Bravo.
I make these: http://beatseqr.com
Are you thinking of entrapment , "A person is 'entrapped' when he is induced or persuaded by law enforcement officers or their agents to commit a crime that he had no previous intent to commit."
or... unreasonable detention (this is probably what you are thinking)
or trapping?-- As in do the police officers lock him in, skin him, scraping the skin to remove fat and flesh, wash it, and treat him with a series of chemicals that soften and preserve, or tan, the skin?
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
Descovery Channel.
you should be watching Sesame Street not D i scovery!
Anyone remember this argument. The Rental car
company w/ the GPS speed monitor, which gave
fines to the renter when a certian speed was
exceeded. This is something I'm more concerned
with.
article from wired
They need to come out with a bait women to catch rapists.
My friend told me about a similar car (a Honda Accord) owned by the Ventura County Sheriff that would stall, lock all the doors, roll up the windows and call the police a few blocks from whereever it was stolen.
In most Southern California towns it lasted about two hours before someone came by and drove off.
In his town, after two weeks of sitting at the side of the road, unlocked, with the keys in the ignition, it still hadn't been stolen. OTOH, this was in Simi Valley, a town (and I am not making this up) that has a Denny's that closes. Every night.
My friend took this as an omen and a few months later decided to move.
rtstyk writes:
This has already come to pass. One reason for the surge in carjackings was that more and more cars have factory installed alarms and anti-theft systems that prevent quick hot-wiring of unattended vehicles. It's a big jump from stealing an unattended car while the owner is gone to armed robbery.To quote RazzleFrog (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=31300&cid=336 7016):
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Of course, these people aren't stealing the Honda Civics either...
While working for a tracking company, 3 years ago we had this same technology exactly. The Vancouver Police trialed it, but the monopoly vehical insurance company (ICBC) would not allow it. We had the vehicle tracked in realtime to a cop car using CDPD modems. We also had an applet so that you could watch the chase in real time on a kick-ass map and monitor the status of the headlights, door locks, and engine. Alas, the technology was shelved by the company that bought us. :(
"they also had the technology to disable the vehicle -- stopping it in its tracks."
That is dangeorus. It could cause an accident involving innocent people in other vehicles. I hope they use it only when the police have the vehicle in sight and can control the disabling precisely. If they have to relay a message over the radio to a central location to get somebody there to send a signal back to the car, that's too much lag time. The situation could have changed from a safe time to disable the vehicle (traveling slowly, nobody nearby) to a fatal time (entering highway).
I want to see a web site with a rendered map of the city. Then, I want to see a red pulsing dot that is the stolen car. Then blue dots representing the police, chasing said car. Maybe, as the police get closer, it could speed up the music that plays too. Perhaps a selection from the "Looney Tunes" library would be apropos... This could revolutionize the media coverage of high speed chases! Imagine the revenue possibilities in L.A. alone!
/. community by mentioning "revenue"? ;) )
(Oh, wait... Did I just offend the
"Goodness, how did you people live long enough to invent tools?" -Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher)
Some people also use them as "detection" or early warning devices, e.g. the low-hanging fruit idea: if you have a vulnerable system amongst several real production systems, hopefully the honeypot will get compromised and you'll be able to detect the intruder before he gets to the real targets. Interesting to see the same thing done here...
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
How does the kill switch work? Is it a poisoned needle or electroshock?
which is realitivly down the street from Jamaica. Anyway, he didn't get a bike but the guys before him got stabbed by some bike theives.
He had to walk.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
I guess I'll have to check to make sure the next car I still isn't emitting any oddball signals. This will be about as effective as the club.
I am so glad to see this stuff happen, using technology to fight crime. Now they need more stings on houses setup for burglars, bikes with C-4 in the bike seat, I want a whole world setup like this to fight lame ass criminals
I had my car stolen from me once. When you work your ass off to pay for and maintain a vehicle, you feel totally violated to have some piece of shit come along and take it from you. My car was everything I owned, everything I had worked toward... then some son of a bitch stole it.
I have no mercy for those assholes.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Amateur radio has lots of digital modes you could use to have your car send you a radio "instant message" when it thinks it's being stolen. Connect a GPS receiver to it, use something like APRS, and you can have it broadcasting its position to you digitally. You could even rig a "kill switch" function into an APRS message, so long as you don't mind the fact that any other amateur radio operator can send the same message. (Encryption is a no-no.)
In Malta this is already available for anyone willing to pay for the service.
The system records the car's position every 5 minutes or so (they keep a complete log for quite a long time). If it is moved without permission (i.e. without key) like pushed or towed or stolen then it triggers an alarm at the local police station who will pinpoint the car in seconds.
Unlike this system though, it doesn't use GPS so the price per unit is quite cheap. Furthermore, insurance companies are already offering a discount to whoever installs one of these units.
For those of you interested in doing something similar with your car, consider getting yourself an amateur radio license, buy some hardware, and have your car broadcast its position. Do a net search for "APRS car" for information, or check out http://web.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/aprs.html. I might recommend the Kenwood TH-D7AG radio, which has most all of the functionality you would want in a hand-held package.
Here are some:
Cellular Phone & GPS Jammers
I thought the Upstanding Citizen thing to do was to take it and turn it in to the Police Lost & Found??
Can the street cleaners pick it up, or is it just supposed to sit there until it rots from exposure?
To be less glib, I guess the distinction is the "for your own use" part. It seems like you could always claim you were on your way to the police with it though.
Entrapment is the police GET you to do a crime and then charge you for it. The kind of crime you would not have committed were it not for their interference.
Parking a car in an area known for car theft and waiting for it to be stolen is not entrapment, it's fishing. I believe as long as they can show the crime would have happened anyway.
Going undercover, going up to a street kid and telling him there is a car 2 blocks over with the keys in the ignition, THAT is entrapment.
Actually, LoJack doesn't use anything fancy like cellular triangulation- some cops in areas that are lojack covered have LoJack recievers on their dashes that give a signal strength and direction of any lojack signals being recieved.
Its pretty unfancy, but it occasionally gets the job done.
" It is a legal requirement that pre-installed operating systems remain with a machine for the life of the machine. " where did they come up with that legal requirement. even if it is a contractual requirement it is not a legal one, and a school is not bound by a contract between microsoft and some other random pc donator.
For years... I live in Mpls, MN (usa) and they have billboards everywhere with different peoples mug shots with the caption 'Caught by a bait vehicle'....
And dont they do a similar thing in anti-hacking tactics... set up a computer that looks easy to break into, but it is really a bait box... they see who breaks into that, and then block their IP addy so they wont be able to break into the rest of their network
unless they are as 3l337 as I am.
or you are >:-)
--No sig here, move along
My solution to not having my car stolen, is not living in an area populated by our african american citzens, who I must say are all upstanding folks.
(falls on floor laughing).
The point was that the cars in the top 10 most stolen are more likely to be stolen since they're so common. If there are a billion camrys and 10 corvettes, and 5 corvettes are stolen and 50 million camrys (camries?) are stolen, Camries would cost more in terms of payouts and would blow the corvette out of the water in therms of numbers stolen. But you'd be a fool not to realize that corvettes have a higher chance of being stolen and should be more expensive to insure.
Statistically speaking, a stolen car has a higher chance of being a camry than a corvette in this case, but that shouldn't translate into higher premiums for camry owners, for the above reasons.
I guess I don't understand why the vast majority of the posts I am reading here are long the lines of: "Cool, using technology to nab the bad guys!"
However, I would wager if this were a story about red light cameras catching those who ran red lights, or underpass speed detectors catching speeders and mailing them a ticket, you'd be decrying it as an invasion of privacy or whatnot.
I guess I fail to see the difference, other than in the former case you're not the bad guy and in the latter you might be.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
MTB's get nicked from my school very night. It must run to a couple a thousand $ per week. The sods in administration won't let us bring 'em inside or provide a lock up for them...
So I get myself a drinkbottle, a 108db car alarm kit with motion sensor, a radio tracking device, and an extra lock for the disc brake. And of course a d-lock and cable lock
The best solution is avoiding the situation altogether. The next best is deterrent. 3 rd is scaring the fsckers sh*tless with a LOUD noise, and if they keep going - send 'em over the bars when the front wheel locks up.
The radio transmitter can locate them pretty fast in the sity.
Too bad that there's no place to lock these people up since all our prison space is taken up with tough, career criminals like pot-smokers and ecstasy users.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
honeypot
can't wait to see the logs from these babies!
MURS is license-free and content unrestricted. You can even use encryption.
They tried this but the CD player broke due to licensing issues.
Arlington is actually a county, not a city. In Va. there are many "free cities" not part of a county, such as Alexandria, Falls Church, and Fairfax City; there are also counties big and small, some with towns in them; and one of them (Arl.) is so small it doesn't have any towns in it.
sulli
RTFJ.
Take a GPS jammer with you when you go car-jacking.
Might want to take a spread-spectrum radio jammer too, but it might be possible to track that down. But with a full-spectrum jammer, you don't have to worry about the kill switch either.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Also, what are the odds that two identical cars parked in close proximity will also have keys which work for both...
Didn't think so too...
-----------
I sig, therefore I was.
the ability of humans to rationalize behavior. "got screwed over" translates to "got what he deserved". Since I'm ranting, the earlier posts the losers whined about entrapment were total crap. You do a crime, you pay the price, regardless if the cops set it up or some old lady is losing her life's posessions. To answer the question about someone telling me an ATM is kicking out $10,000.00 accidentally, YES I would have the ability to not go steal. You act like it's something out of the ordinary. Well it's not. You sir are a loser, and run in a loser crowd. Nuf said.
They've been doing this for a year or more in Los Angeles. In some of the high-crime areas, car theft for joy-ride purposes is incredibly high. They leave the car unlocked with the key on the dash. Some nights they get 10 separate "bites."
I spent a lot of time in these areas, and when I saw this on one of those "COPS" type shows, I just laughed. I have often walked by a car in those neighborhoods one day, and the next day the same car in the same place was burnt to a crisp (Molotov cocktail? I honestly don't know.) There are some scary places in this world, many of them in Los Angeles and D.C., and I am very thankful I don't live there.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
I have to reply to this troll!
"off the streets for a few years..." Well DUH! How many cars do you think a professional thief would get in a few years. MAN you are so dumb. Splat! Sorry guys... I had to run over that troll in the road.
Now what about all the car thieves in the DC ghettos that read slashdot!? Now they all know! You just ruined the whole plan!
Come on guys, THINK!
When the "remote kill switch" is mandated in all new cars sold, it will not longer be "worthwhile technology".
The comment about "entrapment" wouldn't be so laughable if theives hadn't already tried, and I believe succeeded, in using the fact that the homeowner had a "Welcome" mat as a defense. "They invited me in!"
Lastly, on the stacking of charges, just what is a "theft tool"? ViceGrips? Hammer? Screwdriver?
Which begs the question, what are "hacking tools"? Keyboard? ADSL?
Prosecutor: Your honor, the defendant is guilty of 27 counts of having been in posession of criminal tools: Books.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Can the LoJack system be defeated with a bollix or 'noise generator'?
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Hello America? Am I missing something here? We have had this system in Europe for the past three years and it is called ViaSat, it costs about €1150 with a monthly subscription fee of €35. It has crash sensors which alert police or paramedics when your car has crashed, but it also alerts police when the vehicle has been carjacked. When a carjack occurs you just push a button or call the alarm central afterwards.
If you fail to secure your property, it is no longer your property. Simple as that.
How we know is more important than what we know.
In Germany, Mercedes and BMW are two major brands. They are in the top-ten stolen vehicles in Germany.
It's common to have a Benz or Beamer lifted and on it's way to (insert your favorite eastern European country here) at warp speed. It's even better if you do the thief a favor and go to Poland to do some shopping.
But the market's not just Eastern Europe. As I heard someone say once "I could have that car on a boat to Brazil in 6 hours".
"captainClassLoader writes:
... car, loaded with wireless surveillance gear, a remote kill switch and GPS ... as 'bait' for car thieves.
... they've just made their first bust with the vehicle."
So, are the thieves killed or are they arrested ?
....for the last few years in Orange County California with the Prosecuting Attorney's office.
Honda donates this car the police department, and they use it in areas that have high reports of car theft. The only new thing in this article is the GPS system. In the past, if the car lost the police, it would simply die because the signal turns off the ignition if out of range.
The interesting thing is that the police really try to almost entrap someone into stealing the car. They stage a fight in front of the car in the busy neighboorhood with high car theft, and one of the actors drop the keys next to the car on the ground. Then the cops wait till someone picks up the keys and steals the car. What usually happens is that the keys will find their way to professional car theives, and at that point they tail the car.
There's a microphone in the car, and the police will listen to the bad guys discussing where they will sell the car and everything is recorded.
At some point, the cops will remote control the car, and the radio, and tell them to pull over. The cops can lock the car doors and slow down the car gracefully, however in some cases, the bad guys will simply kick out the window and try to escape. But the cops only do this when the car is complete surrounded, so no one has escaped yet.
He says that's the funniest part, cause the theives freak out at the voice on the radio, and try to change channels. Then they try pumping the gas pedal to keep the car going.
After cops do this for a while, the rate at which white honda civics get stolen is almost zero, and then they have to get a different model.
Add a digital camera and you've got the car I wanted for our neighborhood a few years ago. Somebody (99% sure it was neighborhood kids) was stealing cars, like one or two a month, in our subdivision.
Have something that flashes some light on the dashboard when it kills the engine and taking a few pictures when they look down to see what's wrong.
Maybe the cops can't bust him for stealing the car, but I sure as hell could post his picture all over the neighborhood so somebody could call the cops any time he walks out of his yard.
Even thought it would be a good business opportunity to rent the car to a neighborhood association for a month or two until it gets stolen. Cheaper, and probably more reliable, than having security guards or boosted police patrols. Hell, the car would probably be the cheapest part since I don't care how well it runs, it just has to get there.
A GPS jammer would only need to block, or confuse, the signals from getting into the car. It wouldn't need to be that powerfull.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Like the BMW and others the MB has a microchip in the key that uses a rolling code system in addition to the physical key to start the car. Stored in the microchip are 2 billion binary codes of fixed length. When you place the key in the ignition the engine management system sends a request for the proper code from the microchip in the key. The microchip then serves up what it thinks is the right code. If the code is correct only then will the EMS send fuel to the engine and power to the starter. To further secure the system, the engine management system then transmits a new code to be used the next time the key is used. So, unless the would be car thief has your key he(or she) is completely out of luck if they are trying to steal your vehicle.
The first year BMW introduced this system their car thefts went down by 83%. Pretty damned effective if you ask me.
The great thing about LoJack is that when you call to report your car stolen 90% of recoveries are made within 20 minutes of the call. This means those rotten bastards that stole your car have a good chance of doing some time.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
There are 3 types of car theives:
:-)
Those who steal whatever is handy and easily accessible, for joy riding, etc.
Those who steal civics/camries and chop them
Those who can steal anything, in a frighteningly short period of time.
The 17% left over is probably from category #3, which are like the good crackers of the world - you just can't stop them. LoJack has 30 standard spots, and the people who can steal anything know those 30 spots and can check it before it even gets the first signal the car has been stolen. I knew a group of people in the bay area that did this kind of thing for a living. A very good living at that. Not the type of people to make friends with, but they were surprisingly nice. It was mind blowing to see some of the things they could do. The club and other things, they had time tests to see who could get them off faster - all under 10 seconds. Their average rate for break in to drive off: less than 30s. Now I'm sure some flags have been set off - but to clear my involvement, I haven't talked to these people in over 3 years
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.