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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.
You presume the car was locked? What kind of wussy criminals do you have in the US, anyway?
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.
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.
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
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!
Are the lawyers who are going to claim 'entrapment' and get these criminals off...
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?
I wonder what it would take to entrap you? We all have our limits. I bet it would be possible to devise a situation in which you would knowingly break the law. Where do you draw the line?
"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.
There's much worse than that in Death Wish. Bronson walks around with a camera hanging from his shoulder, the target (a pickpocketer) runs from behind him, grabs the camera and keeps running in front of him. Then he gets his BIG GUN and shoots the guy DEAD IN THE BACK! How's that for punishment fitting the crime? I was expecting him to shoot his leg. Note, this is not just "shown", this is ADVERTISED AS THE RIGHT AND HEROIC THING TO DO!
The bait described in the article, on the other hand, is 100% correct and clean. I wish "real" cars had that too.
Technically, it does not mean the legal requirements of entrapment (which boil down to the cop egging you on, saying, "Go ahead and do it."), but yes, some lawyer will probably try and play that card the first time someone caught with this tech manages to get someone besides a public defender.
Hell(tm), it will probably happen the first time some "otherwise upstanding citizen" does it.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
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.
Do the police not have enough real crimes to solve that they have to manufacture them? Comon now...
Stealing a car is no longer a real crime?
It stands to reason that someone who tries to steal these "booby-trapped" cars has also stolen other cars in the past. This seems like a good way to stop these people.
..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
. I bet it would be possible to devise a situation in which you would knowingly break the law.
Devise a situation, I'm curious. (One that doesn't involve my MP3 collection, please - I'll admit to much of that being illegal.)
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.
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.
How is it entrapment? If an undercover cop went up to a guy and said "Man. Look at that car. It would be so easy to steal" then that might be entrapment. But leaving a car parked on the street with tracking hardware is hardly encouraging somebody to commit a crime they may not have committed otherwise.
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.
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
Devise a situation, I'm curious.
Well of course I don't know much about you, but I think many educated people who consider themselves law-abiding would be tempted by a "white-collar fraud" where the rewards are big and the chances of getting caught very small.
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.
In this case, it's more like the crooked Quickie-Mart mart employee walking up to random 16 year old and trying to sell her some cigarettes and then getting busted.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
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
"Entrapment is where the government plants the seed of a crime in the mind of individual who would not otherwise be criminally inclined,"
So lets do a little review:
1) They are using a car from the most stolen list.
2) The electronics are OBVIOUSLY not visible.
3) It is doctored with trash, etc. To make it look normal to the area.
So Joe Blow is walking through the parking lot, and thinks to himself...DAMN! That looks like one regular car! Now, I'm not one who would ever think of stealing a car.... I mean the keys aren't even left in the ignition, but I just can't help myself. The seeds are planted....can't control self...MUST....STEAL...CAR!
Yep, must be entrapment.
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?
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?
This demonstrates perfectly how the job of the police has gone from "protecting the law-abiding" to "hunting down criminals."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't one follow from the other? Last I heard, an ounce of prevention was worth 0.454 Kg
ACHTUNG! Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
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
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'm not sure how common this is in other states, but here in Pennsylvania, it is a standard practice for the police to send a 16-yr old into a Quickie-Mart to try to get the clerk to (illegally) sell them cigarettes.
I know this is a little off topic, but how is that not contributing to the deinquency of a minor? Do police officers really have the priviledge of ignoring laws that aren't convenient? Is there anything on the books that keeps them from being prosecuted for things like this or for speeding while trying to pace a care?
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)
The problem would be that such a system would have to distinguish between a car being stolen and being driven off by the owner. The police's system just needs armed, and they walk away. As far as consumer devices go, some areas support lowjack or similar systems.
Why isn't that "someone" you?
I was expecting the same thing. People tend to cry entrapment whenever police come up with a way to catch them doing something illegal. I think the whole entrapment law is kinda fuzzy. If the cops leave something lying around and you steal it, your guilty of theft. Just because it was left by the police instead of a private citizen doesn't make you any less guilty.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Otherwise, while it might be temptation, it ain't entrapment.
In this case there is a BIG difference.
The theft of our "dummy" car is a victimless crime. No one suffers when it is stolen. Not all "criminals" cause damage to "innocents".
I pay the police through my tax dollars because they are a reasonably strong deterrant to criminals who would otherwise harm me. I don't pay them to encourage a crime so they can swoop in and bust (and make $$$ from) the perps.
This behavior is disgusting.
I could see if they left the keys outside of the car with a sign that said "TEST DRIVE ME", and then busted them for stealing it as being a manufactured crime, however this is a car that only the owner should be getting into and driving off in. If you drive off in a car that's not yours that's theft whether it is 'booby trapped' or not.
That's actually more like a bank robber trying to get the evidence of the video tape thrown out because finances are a private matter and they therefor had a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' and should not have been video taped. Come on.
They are not enticing someone to steal this car anymore then John Doe is enticing them to steal his own car.
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.
So what exactly was wrong with that? Seriously, the guy was a thief, knew what he was doing was 100% wrong. You really want this guy around? A little chlorine in the gene pool if you ask me!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Uh-huh, yeah. Since when did watching "Clerks" become research for a post?
How about "war parking"?
How did this get moderated 4, Interesting?
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
If they are arresting these people and putting them in jail. Then these thiefs aren't out stealing your car. Therefore its called 'crime prevention'.
Protecting the law-abiding sounds like 'Pearl Harbor' mentality. Don't do anything unless bad things start happening.
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.
The whole purpose of this car is to deter other car thefts from happening. Once word gets out on the street that if you steal a car, the car may turn you in. Would be thiefs will think twice about stealing a car.
now that the police have put this fear of being caught into thier heads, car thefts will drop (and car insurance will drop). the police can now concentrate on other crimes.
the next car they don't steal may be yours.
I think that'd violate the Constitutional restrictions on cruel and unusual punishments.
Best Slashdot Co
HNY POT ?
All your other exmaples of what you want the cops doing are hard to lump together with car theft. Car theft is a crime that results in a loss to its victim. Drug use and prostitution are somewhat victimless crimes. If you don't have problem with people stealing cars, maybe someone should steal your car? Gun ownership isn't a crime outright, so I don't know where you came up with that one.
How the fuck are you supposed to "protect the citizens" if you can't "hunt down the criminals"?
XML causes global warming.
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.
There's no deterrent effect if they can't catch the criminals because they cannot find them, nor is there much evidence to suggest that "bait" cars turn non-thieves into thieves, instead of misdirecting those who intend to be car thieves into stealing the wrong cars.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
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...
You are a dumb ass. Hunting down car thieves lowers the probability that your car will get stolen. Just the fact that it's been done once helps you out. I don't want my tax dollars paying for cops sitting on the road with a radar gun, however I do want them to continue getting real criminals off of the street. Guess what, that's the beauty of the tax system, you can pretend that your money doesn't go to sting operations and I can pretend mine doesn't go to traffic cops.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Me, I'd consider it harmful to have my car stolen, and if the police can reduce the likelihood of such without violating anyone's civil rights (and I don't believe there's a right to steal cars, whether or not the police own them) I'm all for it.
The presence of bait cars may wind up being a strong deterrent to car thieves, since they'll be unable to tell whether a given car will get them caught or not. Even if you say you only want police to act as deterrents, you have to agree that no deterrent is effective unless it bites once in a while.
And exactly how much money do you think they're making from the guy in the article?
XML causes global warming.
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.
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 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.
What's the point? There are a certain number of people who want to steal cars. Given the choice between: 1) Criminal steal bait car, gets caught nearly 100% of the time and is off the streets for at least a short time and 2) Criminal steals my car (or my friends car, or my parents car), gets away nearly 100% of the time, and is able to steal another car tomorrow. I'd prefer the bait car, thanks.
Prostitution and drug dealing is arguably different. If the law and the police weren't involved, everyone involved would be willing to allow the action (the sale of sex/drugs) to occur. Car theft is different. As the owner of the car, I never want someone to steal my car. There are no sane arguments for why car theft is good. Catching someone who steals cars is good. These people are predators who know that they are breaking the law and know that they are depriving another human being of their physical property.
Law enforcement is supposed to product the law-abiding. Protect them from what? Criminals. Catching the criminals before they steal from the law-abiding seems like effective, pro-active protection to me.
I for one hope police use bait like this in more cases, I know too many people who have had car windows smashed and car stereos stolen. I know too many people who have had apartments broken into.
Drug use and prostitution are somewhat victimless crimes.
Drug use is not victimless crime since hardcore users are going to knock people over the head or steal for their next fix. Drug Abusers rarely have jobs that can support thier habit.
The groups that import drugs into this country are most violent and cause a lot of coruption in countries that grow, process and transport drugs. A good example would be Mexico; it would be a much nicer country if their were no drugs flowing through it.
Linux O Muerte!
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.
Their motto might be "to protect and serve", but the police have no obligation to protect individuals. The following web site shows that the courts agree: Public Safety: Fact or Fiction?
Hmm, maybe they could do the same thing with planes lol.
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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
That's a good point. If there were enough "bait" cars around to make it statistically probable enough to make a thief think twice, that's great.
But I think that along with myself, the (grand)parent poster is concerned with the tone of the Washington Post article. The focus is CLEARLY on "catching the perp" rather than "serving and protecting" which, if you take a realistic look at policework today, is exactly what cops are doing more and more.
I am also personally against the practice of officers offering drugs for sale and posing as prostitutes--just my opinion of course. If your conscience permits you to lock people up without even a victim, hey it's your world--I just live in it.
I would ask cops whom my taxes pay to clean up real crimes, rather than providing criminals with more opportunities.
welcome to the world of libertarianism. you are now an official member.
no matter what the law says, everything you said IS entrapment (in my mind, and many others)
car theft has a victim, the cars owner. but in this case, this is a victimless crime. buying drugs is a victimless crime. propositioning prostitutes is a victimless crime.
libertarians = (vicitimless crime != crime)
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
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."
Drug use is more-or-less victimless. Knocking people over the head is not vicitimless. Stealing is not victimless. Drug use != knocking people over the head. Drug use != stealing. Not all drug users knock people over the head or steal. Many drug users have normal jobs. YMMV.
XML causes global warming.
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.
>What is the point of locking up some guy for trying to steal a car that was designed to be stolen?
/.?
You think if this car had not been there he would have gone home and read
The man stole a car. The longer he is locked up, the longer it will be before he steals mine.
Where do I sign up to have them use my car?
this is ADVERTISED AS THE RIGHT AND HEROIC THING TO DO!
In the movie, as set up, it WAS the right and heroic thing to do. The guilty prey on the innocent, and the innocent, in their efforts to show "compassion" for the guilty, let them keep coming back.
I remember a case in Indiana, an old man who had been arrested over a hundred times for drunk driving, most of those (the last 80 or so) for driving without a license, most of them involving personal injury. He couldn't be imprisoned because of some guidelines concerning his age. I personally believe that he should have been shot in the street like a rabid dog the next time he was found behind the wheel.
I think the same way about the three strikes laws for violent and property crimes, even shoplifting. Once someone demonstrates that he will not leave people alone, get him off my planet. We waste law enforcement effort stopping people from destroying themselves (let the addicts poison themselves to death if they insist), and there's not enough left for important tasks.
(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.
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.
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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)
Isn't keeping car thieves off the street "protecting the law-abiding" by making sure my car isn't stolen? So often, the police are accused of being reactive rather than proactive, i.e. "We caught the murderer but the victim is still dead." My favorite thing about honeypots like this is that they get the criminal before they have a chance to steal my car. It will also have the further effect of reducing the number of people who are willing to try to steal cars, as "this might be a cop car!"
modern choral music...
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?
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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.
car thefts will drop (and car insurance will drop).
Sadly, you're probably only half-right. Those fscking greedy insurance companies will find another BS reason to keep rates high.
~Philly
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?
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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
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.
How about if it was unlocked with the keys on the dashboard? My guess is they try to make it look enticing to the thief they are trying to catch, but at what point does it become entrapment (honest question, IANAL)?
According to http://www.lectlaw.com/def/e024.htm , entrapment is based on where the perpetrator got the idea to commit the crime. Providing an opportunity to commit a crime someone was already willing to commit is not entrapment, but encouraging someone to commit a crime they were not already willing to commit is. At what point does "providing an opportunity" become "encouragement"?
Yeah, I know, "but he stole the car". But would he have stolen it if it wasn't set up to be stolen? If the car were no more attractive to steal than the cars surrounding it, then yeah, I don't think it's entrapment.
Just as nobody is completely evil, nobody is completely honest. I'd bet most people could be encouraged to commit a crime if the circumstances were right.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
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
Ah, libertarianism. Looks good on paper, though.
XML causes global warming.
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
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yes, but it isn't the drug use that is a crime. drug useis victimless, in that the only "victim" is the user. The robbery to support one's habit, that's the crime. the violent thuggery in transportation, that's the crime. providing a product to willing customers and consuming that product is no crime.
--
fight global cooling
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.
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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
> I don't pay them to encourage a crime so they can
> swoop in and bust (and make $$$ from) the perps.
Who's encouraging a crime?
and what $$$ "making" are you talking about?
lunky> c++; lunky> do{;}
Nonsense. The theft is not victimless in the mind of the thief, because he doesn't know that the car is 'bait'.
I'm all for elimination of prohibitions on truly victimless consensual 'crimes' like prostitution and (much) drug use. But calling the current case "victimless" is ridiculous.
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.
Except having traffic cops pays for the more serious policework. A lof ot the funding for police officers comes from traffic duty.
Gigantor magnet you say? i could find better things we can use that for than pulling the guns out of criminals pockets... we just fly it around the IRS building, target the hard drives, it would be a much better thing to do.
--JonnyBlog
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?
It is true that by using this car-bait technique the police will effectively rid the cities of criminals (at least car thieves, but there is no reason this principle could not be used to catch other criminals, such as gamblers and pedophiles). In this way, we achieve the ultimate protection. As one reply said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Likewise, the best defense is a good offense, and we should nip these kinds of activities in the bud.
I do no longer mind funding for as many of these sneaky cars as is necessary to finally clean up the streets of America. My one request is that they be utilized only in areas which have a surplus of parking, and that they not be driven during rush hours. Traffic affects us all in more ways than one.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
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.
"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."
nuff said.
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.
I think it would be if they actually let them keep the cigerettes (or alcohol in liquor store cases) but since they confiscate the product I think that is what makes the difference. Then again they do let the kids know where they COULD go without being carded that way.
I also know (from my days working in a convience store years ago) that when they changed the law to where you had to card anyone who looked under 26 they would send in 18-25 year olds and make sure you carded them as well. I know here in Delaware what they also would do is watch the store and if there was anyone the police thought was underage, they would card them in the parking lot and then ask if the store carded them or not.
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.
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had such a system when they stole it three weeks ago :-(
Though it does bug me that speed limits are kept low through the efforts of insurance lobbyists. It's not for the sake of safety, it's been shown that the speed limit doesn't make a big difference in accident rates, in fact in some cases the raising the speed limit has resulted in less accidents. Nor am I happy that the same rules apply to different classes of vehicles. On a motorcycle I am much safer at high speeds than a car, and vice versa in an SUV. It's basically an artificial way to create a crime to generate revenue.
If they want to do that fine, but how about this, allow a high speed license, you can still limit it , but set it higher for those that took the advanced driving course, renew their license every year, and pay extra for the privilege. Then you get my money every year, regardless of whether or not I get caught, plus you can still nail people who are speeding without the license. It's a pipe dream I know, but it's mine ;)
Anyway what I was trying to point out your taxes aren't earmarked for any particular thing than mine are. You can say how much of my our money goes to specific things. If the government had to keep that kind of accounting they'd have to triple taxes just to afford to do that much more work. Besides the fact that if you divvied it up, you'd probably find that a miniscule percentage of you money goes toward any one particular thing. Personally there's a lot of things that my taxes pay for that I don't like, I get raped while people with kids get a break, I get raped because I make too much money to write off my tuition, welfare, ect. But the amount of money I pay probably is well short of the amount needed to fund those things that I do want, national defense, FDIC, ect. Same as everyone else.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
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
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.
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)
no, probably not.
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
Oh, man, I needed a good laugh. I'll keep this in mind when the crack house up the street which is lowering the property values in the neighborhood, sells some bad crack to a pimp, who also happens to beat girls, goes on a tear and kills the next door neighbor.
Guess again. Not everyone would be willing to let all this to happen. Wouldn't this just welcome the return of mob justice?
Law enforcement is supposed to product the law-abiding.
That's what the Bush administration wants you to think.
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.
What the hell is a "mydrid"? Some sort of leaf-eating insect?
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
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.
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. :(
I can picture it now, a scantly dressed 10 year old sitting on a craps table in Time Square asking passerbys to "come play"
"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)
This is clearly some form of entrapment.
Ceci n'est pas un post
Are you from pittsburgh?
Ceci n'est pas un post
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."
I'll keep this in mind when the crack house up the street which is lowering the property values in the neighborhood, sells some bad crack to a pimp, who also happens to beat girls, goes on a tear and kills the next door neighbor.
Again, there are laws against assault and battery and murder. The selling of the drugs in and of itself poses no risk to anyone except the user. (And yes, if someone tries to drive while high, there are laws against that as well.)
And if you live down the street from a crackhouse, move. No one is forcing you to live there.
Just my $.02
Here's an example that happened to me. I was working for a dotcom, and we had a discounted employee stock purchase plan. To participate, we had to sign up through a broker who seemed (to me) incredibly incompetent if not corrupt. But it was use them or don't participate, and since I was only investing a very token amount, I crossed out all the dubious clauses in their contract, and signed up.
Two or three months later I got an account statement that showed me with a balance of $140,000 of stock in a company that I'd never heard of, plus the tiny amount of stock in my own company. I called the broker and left a message that there was a mistake in my stock statement. They never called me back.
A week later, the brokerage was bought out by another company, and all the accounts were transferred. Three weeks after that, my company switched to yet another brokerage after we got acquired, and the account was transferred again.
Throughout all of these changes, all that fully vested stock that I was not entitled to remained in my account. It had a beautiful 52-week graph too, unlike my own company's stock. And I had *tried* to do the right thing.
It was incredibly tempting. I could buy a house. Quit my job and go back to college. Or just leave it there for five years, ten years, and see if anyone ever noticed. After all, the stock had stayed with me through three brokerages. And the first brokerage were idiots, there was probably no trail.
In the end, I couldn't do it. I am very risk averse, and the original broker had always struck me as crooked. I had a half-formed worry that they were using my account as part of some complicated scam, hoping I'd go along with it a la Nigerian money-transfer schemes. I finally took to calling them up saying "There's $150,000 of stock in my account that doesn't belong to me! (its value had gone up by then) It must belong to a different customer! Take it out."
They never even thanked me.
I resisted, but it physically *hurt* to get my statement every month, and a lot of my friends told me I was being stupid to keep trying to give it back. If it would not have tempted you too, you're not human.
Doing my part to piss off the religious right.
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.
This may not be entrapment, but it is dangling a carrot in front of desparate people and bored kids.
Oh sorry, I forgot -- criminals are all inhuman montsters, bent on incinerating your home and slaughtering your grandma. God forbid we think of them as frail human beings, like the rest of us.
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.)
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.
In what way does this constitute a "carrot"? Judging from the article, there's nothing any more enticing about this car than any other random parked car. If that's a carrot, then the streets of most cities are just littered with carrots.
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.
Big spike up the arse.
I'd love to stick a GPS in my mobile that sends in cords when I SMS it.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
" 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
Except that if the car thieves know that bait cars aren't used in places where there's no empty parking (ie, places with lots of cars) they'll just target those areas.
Nice strawman jackass. I never claimed any such thing, or anything remotely related to it. I claimed car thieves rarely do time - and that set you off. The mere implication that car thieves (whether they steal one car or many) should in some way be pusished has set you off in a frency.
Again, a strawman. I never said we shouldn't treat them as humans. But what the fuck do you think we should do? Car theives, whether opportunistic or otherwise, are a huge burden on society. When someone steals my car, it costs me dearly in time and money. It costs everyone money by driving up insurance rates that everyone must pay. What do you propose we do with car thieves? Give them counseling? Because that's about all we do now, and it isn't helping.
And I seriously don't understand how anyone can defend a criminal by saying the crime is opportunistic. All crime is opportunistic. All of life is opportunistic. A person will weigh the risks and rewards everytime the decision to steal a car comes up. Guess what? The rewards are good, and the risks are slim.
Lots of murder is opportunistic, should we not pushish that, you big sensitive idiot?
I just drove home, and I couldn't believe the number of carrots parked along the side of the road. Poor, criminals, all that enticement - what the hell are they supposed to do?
HAND
XML causes global warming.
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.
That is exactly the point: removing drags on human progression from the gene pool. At least temporarily. I know this post doesn't offer much, but I needed to vent. That is all, carry on.
My blog can kick your blog's ass
This is sounding better and better. If lots of cars is already going to mean there need to be lots of bait cars, then the bait cars should help out with some of the traffic problem. Why don't they double as taxis? This would help offset the cost to taxpayers, and give the average working stiff a break.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
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.
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.
>This demonstrates perfectly how the job of the police has gone from "protecting the law-abiding" to "hunting down criminals."
You've got it backwards. The original and correct role of the police force is to catch criminals. When they are very lucky, they sometimes catch crimals before the crime is committed. This is, theorectically, a "protection" function. However, their main function is now and has always been to apprehend those who actually break laws (forgetting for a moment the various sidelines that occasionally pop up such as various forms of corruption and padding the department's coffers with seized assets).
As far as I can tell, the notion that the police are there to protect you is a recent phenomenon (last half of 20th century). I have some theories that might explain where people get such ideas but they should be debated in some other context. Whatever people think, protection is definitely not the main role of the police.
They tried this but the CD player broke due to licensing issues.
And how does that excuse it? If someone date raped your friend because she was drunk would you accept the defense of "Hey, the bitch was drunk and passed out so I figured `here's an opportunity` ripped her panties off and fucked her in the ass"?
This may not be entrapment, but it is dangling a carrot in front of desparate people and bored kids.
Well first of all any kid who wants to relieve his boredom by stealing cars needs to spend some serious time in the joint. There he can relieve his boredom by trying to figure out how not to be anally raped in the shower. Anyone who is desperate enough to steal a car should get to spend similar time in the joint. I view this as a means of punishing stupid people with poor impulse control. Were it up to me the cars would have a claymore mine wired into the dashboard behind the steering wheel. As soon as the car is on a clear stretch of road you'd detonate the mine and let 700 .32 calibre steel pellets shred the fucker who stole the car. This would cost some money, as the car wouldn't be good for much after this, but paying $25,000 or so to eliminate the kind of people who steal cars strikes me as a good bargain.
I have the pleasure of living in King County Washington which has the distinction, dubious, of being one of the highest car theft areas in the United States. Most car thieves in King County do little if any time. Which means that they get out of jail and steal more cars and sometimes these car thieves do things such as run their stolen cars into other people's cars at high speeds, killing the occupants of the other car as happened last December to a couple who was driving home late at night not more than five miles from my house. But we shouldn't condemn them for stealing cars and endangering others and occasionally killing people, we should remember that they're frail and human. And while we're at it we should remember that Ken Lay and those execs at Enron are frail and human, and the accountants at Arthur Andersen are frail and human and the guys who slammed those airplanes into the World Trade Center were frail and human too. Bleeding heart forgiveness for everyone! Let that be the order of the day.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
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.
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.
They didn't 'might' steal a car, they did steal a car.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
But I have to suggest your example, while a great test of morality, ins't that useful a test of legality. I can't see how it would be illegal to withdraw that money.
There are only three outcomes: Either that stock really existed, but it wasn't actually in your name, in which case they wouldn't give you your money, or the stock didn't really exist, in which case they certainly wouldn't give you your money. The last option is that the stock actually existed, and was actually in your name. In which case someone had, for some strange reason, bought stock for you, using someone else's money. And I have to suggest that, legally, they would be the one at fault, not you. You might end up having to give the money back, but you wouldn't get in legal trouble for it, and it's not really a good example of 'entrapment'.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Wait, no, that would be idiotic.
If it was truly as you suggested, why would police stations have written policies about 'lost and found' items? Wouldn't the mere existence of a lost and found encourage people to break the law by picking up other people's property?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
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
Close, but it's not victimless at all. It's a fucking car theft, and cars have owners, and, hence, victims. Sure, it's the city's car, but the city can certainly be the victim of crimes. Or did it suddenly become okay to steal police cars and firetrucks?
They aren't asking for the car to be stolen, they're not making it easy to steal, they're just parking in a bad area. To counteract this, they have had a very very very good cat alarms set up in the car.
The mere fact that no thief is going succeed in stealing this car and getting away with it does not make it any different than any other car theft. It's not a 'trick', it's actual car theft.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
How, exactly, do you "protect" without catching criminals? You ignore them, instead?
I am also personally against the practice of officers offering drugs for sale and posing as prostitutes--just my opinion of course. If your conscience permits you to lock people up without even a victim, hey it's your world--I just live in it.
What on earth does victimless crimes have to do with catching car thieves? Car theft is not a victimless crime, it's one of the most serious non-violent crimes you can commmit, and for a good reason.
I hate victimless acts being crimes. I also would hate for my car to be stolen. Stealing my car is not victimless.
I would ask cops whom my taxes pay to clean up real crimes, rather than providing criminals with more opportunities.
How exactlly did they provide criminals with more opportunities? There were 1,000 cars out there the criminal wanted to steal, now there are 1,001. While that looks like 'more', in reality they only steal one car at a time. They aren't going to walk outside, see no cars they want to steal, and come back later. They'll just look around till they find one.
They is no mathmatical way that more cars can get stolen using this method. Each thief will continue to steal X a day, but this way we'll start pulling them off the street at a rate directly propotional to the amount of cars they steal.
Oh, and, BTW, another job of the police is to deter crime, which this does nicely. Can you honestly say that at least one car thief, since this story has come out, hasn't decided to not steal a certain car, because it might be rigged?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
In other words, every city is eiter doing it and telling people they aren't, doing it and telling people they are, not doing it and telling people they are, or not doing it and telling people they aren't.
And, just to make it more interesting, have everyone change randomly each month.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
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.
"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 ?
No. I don't use drugs.
Wow, yes, that is rough. With that amount of money, though, it would have been really bad if you had kept it and gotten caught. Prison bad.
At least now you have a good story!
So is a cop arresting someone who offers to sell him drugs on the street entrapment? Doesn't seem mush different to me.
How, exactly, do you "protect" without catching criminals? You ignore them, instead?
In this case, it's pretty safe to assume that someone who steals the bait car has stolen cars before. But this is not always the case when police bait for crimes. Say a cop approaches someone who has never bought drugs in his life, and offers him some. If the sale is made, that cop has just created a criminal for the purpose of busting him.
You are also grouping humanity into two categories: "criminals" and "non-criminals". I assume you classify yourself as a non-criminal. Yet the world isn't this black and white. Ever coasted through a stop sign? Ever bought a used car and declared less than it's value when paying the tax? We have all done _something_ that's against the law. So when you say the police's job is to go out and "catch criminals" you may be asking for them to catch you, too.
What on earth does victimless crimes have to do with catching car thieves? Car theft is not a victimless crime, it's one of the most serious non-violent crimes you can commmit, and for a good reason.
Stealing a dummy car whose only purpose is to get stolen, is a victimless crime.
Oh, and, BTW, another job of the police is to deter crime, which this does nicely.
I'm not arguing that. I agree that another job of the police is to deter crime, and these bait cars certainly do. But I'm against the method of deterring crime, when that method involves staging crimes for the sake of busting them.
....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.
I looked into this at the time, and it is illegal to withdraw or even keep the money. There was a case of a woman in New York whose bank account was one number off from that of a UN relief organization. She got stray money into that account for about ten years before someone noticed.
She was prosecuted, fined and I think even had to do a little jail time. Her defense was that she thought she had "won" the money from some sort of sweepstakes. The prosecution claimed that a reasonable person would have known the money didn't belong to them, especially since she had not actually entered a sweepstakes.
In my case, the waters were muddied further by a clause in the brokerage contract. It said that any errors in your account statement that are not challenged by you in writing within 30 days become final, whether they are really wrong or not. This clause was obviously designed for the benefit of the brokerage, and probably not legally enforceable anyway, but by their policy (if not in law) I could have made arguments that the money was mine.
I think the stock was real, but belonged to another person who perhaps had a similar account number. A reasonably competant organization would have discovered the error and been able to fix it. This organization was not reasonably competant. $140,000 is a huge amount of money to me, but it wouldn't surprise me if the brokerage just ate it and got new stock for the correct account, or if they'd siphoned this stock out of a *really* large grant to an executive type who might not notice the "small" discrepency within the 30-day period, hoping to take it back later. But all the brokerage switching that followed immediately after bollixed the plan. No real way to know.
Doing my part to piss off the religious right.
Which, of course, is why that's illegal. The person, whether it's a drug buying bust, a prostitution bust, no matter whether they're buying or selling, the non-cop has to request to illegal thing. The cop cannot offer, or attempt to buy, anything. They just stand around, waiting for someone to solict them to do an illegal activity.
You are also grouping humanity into two categories: "criminals" and "non-criminals". I assume you classify yourself as a non-criminal. Yet the world isn't this black and white. Ever coasted through a stop sign? Ever bought a used car and declared less than it's value when paying the tax? We have all done _something_ that's against the law. So when you say the police's job is to go out and "catch criminals" you may be asking for them to catch you, too.
I didn't ask for anyone to catch anyone. I said it was their job. And, yes, it's the cop's job to catch me when I speed, or run a stop sign, and heaven knows I haven't paid all the taxes I should have. But I'm not an idiot, I know it's the cop's job to catch me.
The mere fact that I personally don't want to be caught has no bearing on their job description, or what they are spending money for.
Of course, I hope they're spending money based on the harm the crime causes society. Me treating a stop sign like a yield sign doesn't cause any noticable harm to society, and stealing cars, like I said, causes a lot more harm, it's one of the most serious non-violent crimes out there. And once you ignore all the silly things that have been given harsh penalties for political purposes, like drug laws, it's one of the most seriously punished, too.
So if the police have 10,000 dollars and can either catch ten jaywalkers or one car thief, I want them to catch the car thief.
But that's not really relevant, I don't make those decisions, the police do. Usually various department's budgets reflect the harm of the crimes, and sometimes they start getting random and the government has to go in and fix them.
If you feel it's not worth the amount of money spent to catch the car thieves, and you live in a community where the cops are doing this, go ahead and complain, see if you can change their mind. But saying 'I break the law too.' is not a useful objection to catching car thieves.
Stealing a dummy car whose only purpose is to get stolen, is a victimless crime.
Howso? the government bought that car, didn't they? They rigged it with a bunch of electronic equipment, didn't they? It's very valuable, probably about the same price as a police car.
The mere fact that you expect a crime to happen does not make it 'victimless'. I have left objects where I would not be surprised if they were stolen, and I would still be the victim if they were in fact stolen.
The mere fact that a criminal fails does not make it victimless, either. By that defination, all robberies that we solve are victimless, because the people usually get their money back. So we'd have to let the culprit go.
Victimless is when all parties consent. The police department is not consenting to have these vehicles stolen. They are expecting to have it stolen, but expectations are not the same as consent.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Well, like I said, errors made in your favor, whether or not it's illegal to keep the money or not, are one the hardest moral test, because you can get away with it. Even if you get caught, you just made the same mistake they did, or you assumed they did it right. (Not in this case, but in the case of someone giving you change for a 20 when you gave them a 10, etc.)
And, of course, there comes a point where it's just silly to fix the error. We had a few incompetant people working at a local Taco Bell, and I've been given an extra dime twice at a drive through window. It would have cost me more than ten cents to drive back around though the line and give it back to them. I've been given the wrong food, demanded the right food, got it, and driven off, then realized they billed me for the wrong food, which cost less than what I ordered and received.
And, of course, no one, no matter how ethical, even attempts to return anything less than a dollar they find laying on the ground or in a change return. It's just not worth it.
Anyway, in most cases, it's not illegal to not report errors in your favor, at least none less than 100 dollars or so. So it's not really a good example of 'People being lured into breaking the law.'.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
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.
I hope not! I've got a refund coming!