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Irrigation Controller Stolen, Wirelessly Rescues Itself
wooferhound sends along an amusing piece about thieves who got run over by technology and never knew what hit them. "A Rain Master Eagle-i Irrigation Controller recently stolen out of a housing development just outside of Tucson traveled nearly 80 miles before rescuing itself. The smart controller is now back in place on the wall where it was originally pinched... In this day and age, something that may look passive like an irrigation controller may not be so passive. The thieves didn't realize they were removing equipment that features 2-way wireless communications via the Internet. Three weeks later, the unexpected happened. The Maintenance Supervisor noticed a signal coming in from the stolen controller. He thought it was kind of odd that it was up and running... Whoever had stolen it had plugged it back in."
Can someone tell me why this is interent enabled? Or what is so magical about it that someone would actually buy one, and secondly, steal one?
Phoned home.
Belthize
The controller didn't "rescue itself", it did not provide its GPS coordinates, or address. They just found its wireless signal using the cell towers. Duh.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The owner also found a post-it from his brother stating "Hey, you don't mind if I borrow your sprinkler for a couple of weeks?"
Product placement on Slashdot? Who'd have thunked it?
Irrigation may require placing a lot of these in the field, and sending someone around to check and see if they are functioning properly is pretty expensive. Plus, it makes reprogramming the water flow much easier when it can be centralized. Couple that with some moisture sensors and the resulting data can allow for the optimal planning of irrigation patterns to maximize yield and minimize wasted water.
Using the net makes sense too. It is a lot less costly than pulling wires to all of these devices or setting up a massive Frame Relay WAN.
Guess the thieves never realized that they should reprogram the thing before putting it back in use.
it pays to RTFA.
/* continues to rock chair
This isn't "something to plug onto the end of a hose". It's Tucson, desert country, and that fancy name-ama-jig costs like a thousand or more, that could land the thieves in jail for Grand Theft, the first two words of that game you're playing now. Know what that means, doncha?
For those who are wondering WTF this thing is, here's the product page.
"The RME Eagle combines evapotranspiration (ET) technology with its already intelligent design providing a variety of ET-based scheduling features that will reduce water usage, save time and money, and optimize the efficiency of water resource allocation for any irrigation application. Additionally, an optional communication card provides central control capabilities via The Internet!
"The "RME Eagle" can measure flow and take corrective action for station breaks, main line failures, or unscheduled flow. It supports either normally open or normally closed master valve operation, pump operations independent of the master valve, cycle and soak or conventional programming, and a flow totalizer to monitor total water used. The "Eagle" watches your prestigious landscapes 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, providing insurance and protection from catastrophic field related failures."
All it doesn't do is yell at the kids to get off your lawn.
Any electronic device that cost several thousand dollars will be expected to be wireless and have GPS. You'll be able to login and check to see that your air conditioner, refrigerator and water heater are still at your house.
Instead of being caught with incriminating lock picks and bolt cutters, crooks will have their anti-GPS and anti-wireless equipment trip them up.
Bigtime Consulting - "We're the best because we cost the most"
Thieves will now have to block the antennae of their purloined plunder. But how's this for an idea: geo-locking hardware like this? "Here's your GPS coordinates. Stray outside of this area, you stop working." Thieves will soon learn that taking something like this will brick it.
I also like the idea of equipping cars with wireless stuff like this. The owner reports it missing, the car starts reporting its location to the cops and they can nab the perps.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Hm, I thought Fallout was meant to be postnuke RPG, not postindustrial .
If he could control the thing remotely, I would have sent a signal to flood the crops during the night, that way the next morning the theives would have had a nasty little suprise :) Then you go in and get it back.
Nice to see that there is a shameless plug for the product in there that has nothing to do with the actual incident.
Crap like this makes me wonder if the story is really just candy coated viral marketing:
"Why are Smart Controllers so smart?" - The Eagle-i combines an intelligent design with evapotranspiration (ET) technology, providing a variety of ET-based scheduling features that optimize the efficiency of water resource allocation for any irrigation application
how they will visually identify the stolen property, call it in, and then leave and expect it to just stay there until they get back with more badges.
I've read about this scenario repeatedly, though this is the first time I've heard of it being voluntarily returned later. Being that stupid about it they didn't deserve to get it back.
Putting on the "wild speculation" hat, I'd say that since they were obviously tipped off, that it was likely whoever was sent out to identify the item was told to leave by his commanding officer, who then tipped them off "we're coming back in 30 minutes and it better not be there when we return". Gotta love how things like that work in rural towns. Any competent law enforcement would have left the stolen property under observation until the badges showed up.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
What concerns me is that someone knew the police were coming for the unit. This was almost a petty theft case, sure significant to some but not really a major crime issue.
What if it were a more serious case? The police here should be really concerned about their information leaks and integrity of their investigation system.
does it run Linux?
SARAVA!
I was totally let-down by the end of the story. This was a perfect example of amateur sleuthing, which should have resulted in a thief being apprehended at the bottom of the hour, only to mutter "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for you pesky kids and your ubiquitous ad-hoc wireless networking."
They can just remove the battery or hit the reset switch to remove the Wireless reporting.
Stolen equipment gets recovered via cell phone signals all them time. The whole thing sounds like a PR fluff piece.
The real tidbit of interest here is this:
Smart controller 'internet' technology, first patented in 2003 by Rain Master, automatically adjusts water usage via a 2-way wireless communication system.
The company has a patent on controlling the sprinkler system remotely. This kind of patent is stupid and evil.
But how's this for an idea: geo-locking hardware like this? "Here's your GPS coordinates. Stray outside of this area, you stop working." Thieves will soon learn that taking something like this will brick it.
GRM...Geographic Rights Management.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
After I RTFA, I have the bitter after taste of an advertisement snuck in as a news article.
Sure, gps and two way communication on a device and how it foiled crooks is a cool geek story, but do we really care that 1/4 of the article emphasizes all its features, how it's patented, how they're the first company to do it, etc.
Well, ok, perhaps you might. I sure don't.
Say for instance your grandfather has a pacemaker with wireless.
$>ping grandpa
No Host Found.
Oh no, GRANDPA!!!!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Anyone else read the article and thought it smells a lot like it was written by the PR department of the company that manufactures those things? Lots and lots of talks about the great and unique features of the device, very little details on the alleged crime.
If this were ZiiTrend, I'd vote 70:30 that the story is fake and PR.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I think the real crime is that the fools in Arizona continue to waste perfectly good drinking water
on lawns, golf courses and man made lakes. These areas are meant to be desert.
I'm surprised I only saw about one other comment pointing out that this whole thing is most likely fake. At best, it was a real story that was published by marketing department for the parent company.
I hope it was at least something real that they chose to embellish and propagate. In either case, it all feels rather sleazy.
If you have doubts - read the story again and notice how many times the article has to mention the company that makes it by name, and how often they have to tout the various features of the device.
Brings a new twist on the old "Is your refrigerator running?" prank call:
"Running? Let me check... why yes, about 30MPH it seems on 6th avenue. Thanks for the heads up!"
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They returned it because it's been reprogrammed.
So when it starts trying to take over the world, don't say you weren't warned.
Have you ever bought anything from ebay? Or another auction? Out of the paper? From a pawn shop?
There's plenty of ways for a thief to wash the goods, as long as they're reasonably generic.
Sure, the final recipient is on the hook for giving it back - and has a legitimate suit against whoever sold it to them(on up the line to the criminal).
But causing lots of damage isn't fair. Well, unless you have PROOF it's the criminal that actually stole it(or knows it was stolen), but at that point I'd rather the courts figure it out and use the resources that would have been ruined to pay restitution fees.
I don't read AC A human right
Is that you?
You'd better get back here or Uncle Owen is going to have a fit.
Frink: Why it's the AT-5000 Auto-Dialer. My very first patent.
Aw, would you listen to the gibberish they've got you
saying, it's sad and alarming. You were designed to alert
schoolchildren about snow days and such. Well, let's get
you home to Frinky. Hope your wheels still work, bw-hey.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I know the article makes this assumption, but I see no proof of it. "After sending a signal to the controller to go into rain shut-down mode" So he turned the thing off remotely, that kind of tips them off doesn't it? Or perhaps they just thought it was faulty and had removed it, then when the police showed up the light bulb went off and they brought it back.
Putting the value of the equipment aside, I would say that having an officer remain on site for a few hours in order to bring a thief (grand theft, remember, not just petty theft) to justice would be worth the use of his time (barring another priority or emergency situation that required the county's full resources).
That said, I suppose if you replace "irrigation controller" with "laptop", it does sound unlikely that police would try too hard to catch the culprits. Still, if it were my laptop, and I knew who had it, I'd be pretty upset with them if their clumsy investigative work tipped off the thief, and then they sat on their hands long enough for the thief to cover their tracks.
Phony alarm signs are just stupid. A few years back, I was walking by a house near me and saw water coming out of the garage, down the driveway, and into the gutter. Nobody answered the door. They had a big sign for an alarm company, so I called the number on the sign. The alarm company told me they'd never had service there. One window had a sticker for a different alarm company. That, too, was phony. They even had a "Protected by ELECTRONIC alarm system" sticker, the one you can buy at Radio Shack.
I called the water utility emergency service number; they cut off all water to the house and left a note on the door.
From My Fake Version Of The Article:
The Maintenance Supervisor of of the Moisture Farm noticed a signal coming in from the stolen controller. Interestingly it was coming from the Sandcrawler of the Jawas who had just sold him a bum R2 unit...
Huh?
Internet-enabled central irrigation control PN/6,823,239
I lived in Continental Ranch for 5 years in the late '90's. The developer previously used solar panels to power the irrigation controllers for the common areas, but most (panels and controllers) were stolen by the time I moved on. I moved to CR from Simi Valley. I had no idea Rain Bird had a plant there. Prolly after my time.
BTW, belated kudos to thousands of screwed senior citizens for the fine Continental Ranch flood control system Charles Keating built with your nest eggs, before his house of cards fell down.
Luke, help me take this mask off