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."

Comments

Arlington, VA

[sulli]

My hometown! Well done guys. Arlington is cool in a number of ways - many police officers live in the county, so they drive their patrol cars home and keep them in the driveways. When a cop is your neighbor you can have a better relationship with the PD.

But I'm surprised the headline wasn't: Grand Theft Auto Illegal in Arlington, VA (yro, games)!

Re:I wonder....

[marauder404]

Many cars, including some current Mercedes Benzes, detect the car being towed, notifies MB Customer Service, which in turn calls you. Leave your cell phone number with them in advance, and they'll reach you by cell phone, telling you that your car is either being stolen or towed.

Bike Theives Must Die!!!

[toupsie]

Amen!

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.

Doing this yourself...

[slykens]

There is a guy out in Washington I think that has done something similar with his car and what I base this post on...

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.

Re:I wonder....

[jrp2]

LoJack apparently has a better signal strength and doesn't rely on GPS, but rather on cellular triangulation. Many police departments have cars equipped with LoJack tracking systems as well. There's no subscription fee, just the purchase of the unit itself (around $600) which is covered for the life of the car. The only drawback is ....

Actually, Lojack blows. I bought that line of crap and purchased Lojack. My car was stolen in broad daylight from a bank parking lot. I was only in for 15 minutes, so I know I caught it in a reasonable timeframe. I called Lojack, they said just report it to the Chicago Police and the system will be activated. Not true. It got activated 4 hours later when the record was transferred from the Chicago computer system to the Illinois computer system. By then, the car was stripped and the Lojack disabled.

What I also learned in the process is the way Lojack works. When it gets activated it starts emitting a signal. When it gets near a lojack equipped cop car, the cop gets a signal then triangulates in on it. If they do not come near a cop car with the right gear, they are free and clear. If they steal it out of your garage at 11pm and you don't discover it until 7am, you are also SOL.

If any of you are thinking of this kind of thing, look for something that is more proactive like periodically (every half hour or so) sending in your location to a computer. Or, even better, sending in the location every minute when an alarm (possibly a silent alarm) has been triggered as this kind of minimizes privacy issues. This kind of thing would allow you to track after the fact where it is (or at least where it last sent a signal from).

Hopefully with GPRS (and/or "3G") packet oriented services this will be cheap to do, and even pretty easy to DIY as you could have it just send the data back to your computer.

Bottom line, Lojack failed me, the process is full of holes well beyond the obvious ones. Also note, their "guarantee" is not for life, only the "service" is. When I tried to collect, they said I was out of warranty and the fact it was not triggered in time was the fault of the Chicago Police, not theirs. It is a typical good idea, poor execution.