edit: on a more serious note, I figure I won't own a nice car till I move somewhere nicer
What the bad guys do is steal the car, then leave it somewhere as soon as possible and see if anyone comes for it.
Not that I'd find that idea pleasant, I just think the ship has sailed.
[1] Even though data brokers have been used to find out the medications of a German MP, for example. https://www.techradar.com/news/even-your-deleted-secret-web-...
> or do you believe you can hide from a stalker if everyone else under the sun knows you location.
I’m not sure anyone is claiming that the detection methods described in this study are going to make you completely undetectable to any party at all times. Again, not sure what point you’re trying to make here and it feels irrelevant to the larger thread. The original comment seemed to indicate that the article hadn’t been read at all.
Knowing where you _aren't_ is equally useful.
I can imagine half a dozen ways to use this data against you in all kinds of settings. Sales, divorce, employment, espionage against your employer, burglary, and basic blackmail.
Very similar to how we lost a ton of civil liberties because shows like 24 bombarded the country with ideas that the only way to stop terrorism was torture.
Unfortunately, a good number of people will happily sacrifice liberties that will be abused simply because it might catch a single bad guy.
Genuine LOL
Here we have the GDPR. It works. (Contrary to much tech-bro propaganda spouted on here).
For everyone it else there are ways. Read about the six legal bases for processing personal data, especially consent and legitimate interest. You will be surprised.
When it's only governments and major corporations that can do something, political will can probably stop it.
When every tech hobbyist with $100 to spare can build their own, I don't know how it can be policed.
It isn't that hard, but people are lazy as hell and love convenience.
For me it's about car theft, so all I am defending against is what thiefs have access to. If I can detect a scanner popped on a car at a car show before heading back to storage, I am at a huge advantage.
Any more info on this?
Bluetooth beacons would need to add an accelerometer, but that undermines their use in pinpointing an object at rest.
https://www.gpsworld.com/gps-circle-spoofing-discovered-in-i...
I wonder how easily GPS can be spoofed, locally ...
https://rntfnd.org/2021/10/28/cheap-and-easy-gps-gnss-spoofi...
Seems someone already had the idea:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hardwarehacking/comments/10na5c8/sp...
Don't go spoofing or broadcasting your own GPS signals unless you have a decent legal team behind you.
The cheapest in terms of power consumption is a simple Accelerometer/Gyroscope component. The difference can be months or even years in longer battery runtime compared to GPS.
I've been working with (non-covert!) tracker devices for a project, and use exactly this approach, when stationary the tracker goes into low-power mode and sends position once every 12 hours to preserve battery life. When motion is detected, we send regular updates.
Diesel's going back 20+ years still have ECUs as well, not to mention the rest of the vehicle's electronics could be at risk. So it would have to be a properly old or unique vehicle.
It's usually plugged into your OBD port. If your car has API features, some EV owners have graphed their electricity usage and shown drain/spikes at intervals and led them to find these devices. The consumption from the 12v battery causes the larger EV battery to charge the 12v battery, showing these charging/discharge spikes. There's also sometimes a sticker next to your tire pressure label on the driver's side door mentioning the installation of such a device.
I guess get rid of it if you care to.
https://aprs.fi/#!lat=37.25320&lng=-80.43470
So that 1979 Ford F150 can be tracked too ;)
goda90•1d ago
ge96•1d ago
sodality2•1d ago
ge96•1d ago
ty6853•1d ago
stackskipton•1d ago
Spooky23•1d ago
This stuff started with "drug corridors". Police and Feds can and do track vehicles on the I-95 corridor from Maine (and Plattsburgh to NYC) down to Miami as early as 12 years ago. NYT covered it a few years back -- basically they get multiple LPR hits and are usually able to do facial recognition on front seat passengers. If you driving Florida->NYC and stop for a cheesesteak in Philly, you may get some attention up the road.
There's also a growing network of commercial LPR services. Most tow trucks, many parking garages and some delivery vehicles scan and correlate license plates -- repo guys can find wanted cars in hours these days. Also, most traffic cams are saving 24x7 video with LPR.
potato3732842•1d ago
EGreg•1d ago
Spooky23•21h ago
I’m sure as part of one of our many states of emergency in the United States deployments will be accelerated. NYPD has an extensive camera network in Manhattan that probably does this.
potato3732842•1d ago
Jalad•1d ago
potato3732842•21h ago
toomuchtodo•1d ago
https://docs.flocksafety.com/developer-hub/docs/introduction
https://www.flocksafety.com/devices/flock-nova
Lammy•1d ago
Source: the privacy policy of the shopping mall near me, who installed these things even before the city did.
arwhatever•1d ago
closewith•22h ago
manarth•21h ago
Driving into a supermarket carpark? Most will have time-limits controlled by private ANPR cameras.
closewith•19h ago
zikduruqe•21h ago
"Retail giant Lowe’s is another customer, according to two former Flock employees and confirmed by the company. Scott Draher, vice president of asset protection at Lowe’s, said in a statement that Flock cameras are “just one example of a multifaceted approach” to combat shoplifting. He declined to comment on how many of its stores have Flock cameras or if it provides camera feeds to law enforcement."
https://ourcommunitynow.com/P/americas-biggest-mall-owner-is...
defsectec•1d ago
So I would assume those two things are directly connected.
Just speculation though. Don't have time to verify currently.
77pt77•1d ago
Like all cars have one and if should be detectable.
Also, most recent cars have DCM which are always sending data, including position to the car maker.
toomuchtodo•1d ago
https://www.ryanohoro.com/post/spotting-flock-safety-s-falco...
https://www.cehrp.org/dissection-of-flock-safety-camera/
reactordev•1d ago
sodality2•1d ago
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38252566
77pt77•16h ago
This has not been my experience.
GJim•23h ago
Oh dear.
I think you will find a directional antenna can rather increase this by several orders of magnitude.
77pt77•16h ago
Those overpass things with cameras and transponders can definitely still pick it up within this range.
Plus like many have written, it's not even difficult to extend that range with cheap hardware.
justinc8687•22h ago
The real fun part at the time was that every Bluetooth device pretty much was always in pairing mode, and that MACs didn't rotate...
Eventually those both happened, but in ways beyond my comprehension (I worked on the software side), the hardware guys could still pick up the signals to track cars.
77pt77•16h ago
reactordev•12h ago
speedgoose•1d ago
77pt77•16h ago
Didn't even cross my mind...
xhkkffbf•10h ago
BobaFloutist•14h ago
What possible reason is there for them not to just be plugged into the car's power and computer? I'm sure there is a reason, but it never once occurred to me that that would be the case. What a strange system.
rolph•14h ago
mrguyorama•13h ago
The part where they are a sensor in a wheel and therefore have constant turning. Are you interested in engineering a system that can cheaply and reliably provide power and signal through a constantly and one direction turning joint? That's not a trivial problem, and most solutions are things like contact brushes on a turning bearing surface which would instantly foul in a tire and brake dust filled environment or a sealed puck of mercury channels that nobody wants to install on every single car in the world.
There are two ways tire pressure monitoring is done. The normal way is to piggy back on the tone wheels that ABS uses to monitor wheel rotation speed, as a flat tire has less circumference and therefore rotates faster. This has the down side that you need to "calibrate" it and people suck at doing that, it can't tell you raw pressure values at all, and for a while it wasn't normal for cars to have 4 independent ABS tone wheels so you couldn't always pinpoint which tire was flat. This method has no consumable parts, has no batteries, and sends no radio signals so is not trackable.
The other method is putting a battery powered pressure sensor and radio in the valve stem of each wheel. This method is retrofittable, will always give you raw pressure values and doesn't need any calibration (but does need pairing). However, the parts are more expensive, they are somewhat consumable and make tire changes more expensive and time consuming, and are constantly sending trackable signals that can be automatically dragnet surveilled. Don't buy this method.
EGreg•1d ago
chneu•1d ago
extraduder_ire•1d ago
chneu•21h ago
b8•1d ago
SchemaLoad•1d ago
potato3732842•21h ago
The fact of the matter is that the powers that be can't overtly use the dragnet in the way that the "how dare someone skip a $2 toll" and "muh two ton death machine" crowds would like to see because the other 99.5% of the public will be all "hey WTF" and politicians will pass laws to pander to those people. The dragnet operating powers that be would rather retain the ability to use the dragnet unfettered even in bad ways so they normally reserve its use for "serious" things.
euroderf•18h ago
You mean like James Bond's rotating license plates ? Got a pointer to this stuff ?
77pt77•16h ago
I found video review of $80 in seconds.
There's also videos online of cars flipping it right before they cross a toll by plate.
I would not do this. This is serious fraud and antisocial behavior.
BobaFloutist•14h ago