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GPS Devices Lead Authorities to Thieves' Home
Radon360 writes "A trio of not-so-bright thieves in Lindenhurst, NY stole 14 GPS position reporting devices used on public works equipment from a nearby township garage. Authorities didn't have to look too far to locate him or the devices, as one of them was still active and indicated the location of his home when it was queried. From the article: 'Town officials said the thieves didn't even know what they had: they thought the GPS devices were cell phones, which they planned to sell.'"
how sweet, the ignorance of youth. They're almost begging for police to come get them. Kind of like the dimwhit students who posted their vandalizing a school on youtube for the whole world, including police to see.
So if the thieves had stolen one less GPS tracking device (as only the one was still on and functioning), the headline would have read:
"Idiot Thieves Somehow Manage to Make Off With Armloads of Location Trackers"?
honestly i'm so sick of all these petty stealing pricks. i got broken into and they stole my aircon remote and a tin of wall putty. if your going to steal things, atleast put some thought into it and steal something worthwhile. like the people who stole a prize winning garden gnome and took photo's of it at places around the world and sent them back to the owner. otherwise your just a dumb punk.
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I think they only do it when in dire need of your coordinates (like when you call 911). Otherwise, it's probably a waste of resources (computing power/network data). After all, how much does the cell phone cost? free w/signing your soul away for 2 years right?
Grump.
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This reminds me of the episode where Dell purchases "a satellite dish" :-) t he-limit/episode/52299/summary.html
http://www.tv.com/only-fools-and-horses/the-skys-
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My (CDMA 2000) phone has an option to restrict the GPS reporting to 911 calls only, but it's not the default.
Otherwise, it's probably a waste of resources (computing power/network data).It wouldn't be that bad. The phone already has to periodically allocate a channel in order report its presence to the base station. Tacking on a few extra bits (probably only when requested by the base station) isn't going to be that much overhead.
As for computing power on the phones, these things can run reasonably complex audio codecs in real time during a voice call. That's a lot of spare CPU power when the phone is on the hook.
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The phone has a GPS receiver, but it's primarily designed to take a "snapshot" of the satellites and send that off to an assisting server for the actual number crunching. I'm pretty sure these assisting servers aren't cheap and the phone company wouldn't spend money buying these servers if they could sell you a new phone instead.
Now, if you implanted one of these phones in your baby called 911 saying I LOST MY BABY! Then I'm sure they wouldn't hesitate to use the gps on the phone to locate the baby.*
But what do I know, it was my roommate who worked in a cell phone shop. I worked on emergency dispatch equipment instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS
Grump
*If child protective services comes after you, I didn't seed the idea!
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Many mobile phones have partial or full GPS receivers. It's one way to meet the FCC's mandates for E911 cell phone location.
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This often makes me wonder how often the GPS receiver in my cell phone is actually working. I have both a Garmin and a Magellan hand-held receiver, each which cost several hundred $, and neither of them pick up any useful signal or work even 10% of the time anywhere indoors, in my vehicle while I drive, or even when I'm under moderate to heavy tree cover or building cover. They stick themselves in "acquiring signal mode" until they return to a relatively clear view of the sky to get signal from at least 3 satellites. My mobile on the other hand, cost $99, has a camera, MP3 player, bluetooth, cell capabilities obviously, and probably several other features I don't know of (Moto e815) as well as this "GPS" feature, so the GPS cant exactly be state of the art or top of the line. I would have to think that 80 to 90 percent of the time, if not more, the phone cannot be getting any sort of meaningful GPS data - so in reality, unless I'm standing out in the open, with a clear view of the sky, with few buildings around, etc. - the GPS isn't actually doing a thing other than perhaps wasting some of my battery life trying to acquire a signal from a few satellites. I have a feeling if I call 911 with it, I'll still be telling them my location the old fashioned way - especially since the cellular tower nearest my location is a good 10 km away and covers an area probably close to 200 sq. km - that sure narrows things down for the emergency crews. Wasted feature if you ask me.