Slashdot Mirror
"Police Detector" Monitors Emergency Radio Transmissions
schwit1 writes A Dutch company has introduced a detection system that can alert you if a police officer or other emergency services official is using a two-way radio nearby. Blu Eye monitors frequencies used by the encrypted TETRA encrypted communications networks used by government agencies in Europe. It doesn't allow the user to listen in to transmissions, but can detect a radio in operation up to one kilometer away. Even if a message isn't being sent, these radios send pulses out to the network every four seconds and Blu Eye can also pick these up, according to The Sunday Times. A dashboard-mounted monitor uses lights and sounds to alert the driver to the proximity of the source, similar to a radar detector interface.
How do you say "My pig sense is tingling." in Dutch?
our police overlords will have this banned very quickly. Imagine a network of these in a city that can update a location map in realtime. Remember, just because the cops are public officials operating in public doesn't mean they think the public has a right to know about anything they are doing.
We've had this technology in the US since around 2006, however it was restricted to trunk/hybrid, or analogue radio systems and came bundled as part of a radio scanner. Scanners in many states are illegal to operate in a motor vehicle, hence the technology never really caught on. its biggest, perhaps only manufacturer, was uniden with their 'beartracker' feature
in the states many municipalities still use antiquated strobe technology to change traffic signals in the event an emergency vehicle needs to pass. several of our radar detectors alert for these 'strobes' of IR radiation. "Safety radar" was an invention that never saw much usage in the united states but would alert the driver of road hazards and approaching ambulances using dedicated transcievers. its largely been discontinued.
radios in the United States use APCO P25; this change was made largely after 2001. A digital system, it has cryptographic capability and is best-effort in protocol. Gnu Radio projects to capture and decode the unencrypted traffic are successful, and can yield through data capture, ping latency and triangulation a wealth of information such as who is in a given vicinity, their name, their unit number, the radio MAC address, what shift they work, and even their routes. much of this data wouldnt require 'listening' to the communication at all but is, much to our chagrin as slashdotters im sure, metadata
http://www.crypto.com/blog/p25... unrelated but this presentation gives insight into how pointlessly flawed APCO p25 is.
Good people go to bed earlier.
You know the score, pal! You're not a cop, you're little people.
What you said is correct only sometimes. Often, the police are hitting each car that comes by with radar, thus your device will detect them lighting up the cars in front. If traffic is low, you are in more danger of being hit without warning. Or occasionally there is an officer who understands this and he only lights up the cards he thinks are really speeding. In this case he has to watch you, so you might see him before he decides to light you up. All in all, the ordinary radar detectors do work and provide a worthwhile addition to your vehicle. I don't even speed that much, but I know mine has saved me a few tickets.
Because I have better things to do with my life than sit in my car, and because speed limits are always set far below the speed at which I feel safe driving.