Slashdot Mirror
GPS Trackers Find Novel Applications
Pickens writes "Inexpensive GPS devices like the Zoombak (which costs just $200 plus $10 a month) have becomes so prevalent that some people are using them routinely to keep tabs on their most precious possessions. Kathy Besa has a Zoombak attached to the collar of her 5-year-old beagle, Buddy. If Buddy wanders more than 20 feet from the house, she gets a text message on her phone that says, 'Buddy has left the premises.' The small size made possible by chip advances over the last two or three years is enabling many novel uses of GPS tracking. An art collector in New York uses one when he transports million-dollar pieces, a home builder is putting them on expensive appliances to track them if they disappear from construction sites, a drug company is using them after millions of dollars in inventory turned up missing, and a mobile phone company is hiding them in some cellphone boxes to catch thieves."
$200 + $120/year? Not "inexpensive" enough for me to stick onto my dog!
... no potential for abuse whatsoever!
I caught the Mountain Wumpus! He gave me his treasure chest ($100) to let him go free again.
GPS is passive so probably not. You might be able to detect it sending but if it uses GSM or the old pager network you'd be flooded with noise.
You could (if you are that paranoid) block GPS traffic.
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.3623
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.8758
An RFID tag can't be used to track something very far from the RFID tag reader, let alone globally.
My blog
How come there is no first post? I'm confused.
I work for what's left of a company that actually managed to go bust developing this stuff.
We faced several challenges with the technology. Power consumption gave us ulcers, as did mobile network coverage. This is a non-issue in the city, but just wait until you're out of town.
GPS wanders around enough from fix to fix, even with WAAS, that it can be tricky to compare fixes to detect movement, or to track movement of less than 50 meters. Oh, and the GPS needs to be able to hear satellite signals. Good luck on that.
Finally, once you have a fix back at your server, you need to make it meaningful to the user. They do not generally want a bare latitude and longitude. They want to know what street their car is on. When the parents want to know if the kids take the car too far from home, they want to enter a street address, not a latitude and longitude. This is harder to get right than it looks.
Favourite application: tracking sub-prime used cars so repo men can find them.
...laura
It's funny how the Times' editors felt it necessary to punctuate each letter in "G.P.S.". What is this, the Man from U.N.C.L.E.? Maybe some year they'll realize that GPS is regular everyday stuff. You know, like A.T.M. machines and D.V.D. players.
Anyway, I read the article to our beagle and asked her opinion. She points out that beagles do not run away, they are called away on urgent tracking business. She feels that any human that hangs out with beagles and wants to attach tracking boxes to them is a distrustful person who possibly lacks the right spiritual qualities. She also reminds me that she can detect a beagle treat coming out of the bag across three fields, and that in any case anyone who has trouble with beagles taking off is simply not taking them for sufficiently long walks. She thinks I should notify the ASPCA before relations completely break down between this unfortunate beagle and its lazy, distrustful owner.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Ok, say I'm paranoid. Is there anything on the market that can detect these devices?
Use anything that can detect a nearby cell signal. If you think your car is bugged, take it through a few tunnels or parking structures so it re-connects to a cell tower. (turn off you phone first) You can only detect these either by the GPS Local Oscillator (if you know the frequency) or detect them while they re-connect to a cell tower. Detecting the local oscillator of the GPS isn't easy as it isn't strong and is often well shielded. The cell module on the other hand is designed to transmit a signal to a cell tower, but it isn't on all the time. The trick is to make it turn on so you can find it. Causing a signal loss and then returning to cell tower range is a way to get these to announce to a tower, I am here. That's how you find them.
The truth shall set you free!
actually, the nursing home my grandma lives in uses this sort of thing for their advanced alzheimer's patients. they implemented it after one of them wandered out last winter and died from exposure.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
We're developing a system which makes this very easy and free (except phone bill) on bliin.com (or m.bliin.com on your mobile), and we've noticed that people are rarely bothered by the privacy issue. The coolness of seeing yourself and your friends live on the map tends to outweigh paranoia.
It's called LoJack and I have it installed in both of my cars. You get a break on your insurance and in the even the vehicle is stolen and not recovered within 30 days you get a refund of the purchase price. However, they have a very good track record of recoveries, usually within a couple hours. I talked with two police officers before buying it and they both said it was great to have. Only works if the police closest to your car have the equipment but it's become standard with most cop shops so that shouldn't be a problem.
They also have an early warning system which I have on one of my cars and it's more annoying than anything. Basically if your car moves without the little box you keep on your key chain being present within the vehicle, you get a phone call / email / or text message (your choice) alerting you. The only problem is you have to change the battery every couple of months or you get false positives.
After having my neighbors truck stolen from right next to my open bedroom window one night, I decided I wanted something more than just a normal alarm (he had an alarm, his truck was locked, we never heard a thing and he never got his truck back) so I went with LoJack.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
I haven't used a radar detector in a long time, because in my area they were using switched radar units. I had a better chance of visually spotting a speed trap than detecting it first. One thing I had observed though was, some of my radar detectors would have false alarms because of other radar detectors. Some of my friends and I had tested it, where we'd turn our units on and off to see who's would set off false alarms based on who's units. We concluded that yes, some units would make other units beep that there was a radar source present.
The same applied to some home alarms, and automatic doors. I had more false alarms than real detection, which was another good reason to stop using them.
Building a GPS receiver detector would be a bit trickier, because the designs are so varied. I would think the best way to detect one would be a wide radio spectrum analyzer, and a very careful examination of the object you think may have a tracker on it. I believe you'd be looking for the same or similar frequency as the GPS signal is, and you'd always have some signal from the satellites. A very directional antenna may help.
It was my understanding that every cell phone sold in the last few years had GPS capability for e911 service, although they may disable the GPS service for any user interfaces.
I found this page which says Verizon Wireless has GPS service in all wireless voice devices, to assist 911 operators in finding a victim. I know this isn't exactly true though. My stepson had a medical emergency about a year ago in the car (see my journal). I called 911 from my Verizon Wireless phone. I knew what road I was on, but since I was in the middle of my trip, I wasn't absolutely sure what the last exit I passed was. I gave the road, direction of travel, side of the road I stopped on, and a close reference to the nearby exits. I gave it to them within a couple miles. I was on the side of an interstate, with clear view of the sky in all directions, and there hadn't been any clouds in the sky all day. You can't ask for better reception for GPS.
We waited 15 minutes, with no callback and no emergency vehicles showing up. I gave up, decided he was stable enough to transport, strapped him back in the car, and drove as fast as I could for help. There was one of the radar speed signs on the side of the road, which flashed 99 as I passed it. I was going for help, and would have been satisfied to get pulled over.
I found a deputy with a DUI pulled over, and he helped us. He called for an ambulance, and apparently emergency ops didn't know where we were. No one had been dispatched.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
My GPS Tracker sent me this, about Buddy:
"Buddy has left the preferences"
"Buddy is in the neighbor's trash"
"Buddy is running into the street"
"Buddy is in the same position as a Chevy Suburban"
"Buddy is stopped on the street"
"A google satellite photo is attached with a picture of Buddy"
"Google Adwords has selected "Shovel" as something that you might need with Buddy."
This is my sig.