Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car • Hacker News Board

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#131

Post by namecheapTA » Tue, Mar 29, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

mike_d wrote: post #66

namecheapTA wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With 10 years of dealership experience, I can promise this is not at all common. First off, very few dealerships finance your vehicle, instead they simply facilitate the paperwork through any bank thats competitive. Other than for some incentives with the bank over time, they couldn't care less if you default on your loan. They sure aren't going to get involved at all in assisting the repo process. What you're referr…

> With 10 years of dealership experience, I can promise this is not at all common. First off, very few dealerships finance your vehicle, instead they simply facilitate the paperwork through any bank thats competitive. Well kinda. I've helped investigate high end auto theft rings, and I can tell you almost all luxury cars have tracking built directly into the infotainment system. Only manufacturers and a handful of pe…

Turning on a feature at the manufacturer level sounds like a different discussion than car dealerships installing GPS trackers into cars.

There's no way anyone at AutoNation or Penske Automotive knows how to do this.

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#132

Post by FFRefresh » Tue, Mar 29, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

kogepathic wrote: post #130

teknopaul wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interpreted it as the author and car owner had fear uncertainty and doubt, about what the tracker was for. As we probably all did when clicking the title. And they dispelled it. The case they investigated was one that came to them, from one of their own, they explain that. Research costs time and money. I don't think you should _expect_ that donors money is spent, when after investigating this isolated case, nothin…

> I interpreted it as the author and car owner had fear uncertainty and doubt, about what the tracker was for. Something between two private individuals, which was resolved through the subsequent investigation. No need to write an article about this. > As we probably all did when clicking the title. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a ma…

> No need to write an article about this.

To clarify your underlying principles here:

Are you broadly suggesting there should be rules for what type of articles can be written on the internet (presumably that align with your values)?

Are you suggesting that EFF should not have written this article (because of the $/time cost?)? And that it's okay if someone else wrote the article?

Are you suggesting that EFF should not have done the investigation in the first place, because of the $/time cost?

As an EFF supporter myself, I enjoyed the article. I liked the walkthrough of the investigation, and all the steps they used to deduce the source of the tracker. It was interesting on its face, and also educates on a methodology for making deductions for other things.

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#133

Post by mkhpalm » Tue, Mar 29, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

jmole wrote: post #68

mkhpalm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The car dealerships put these things on cars in the event that you finance through them. They are able to make you pay for the device they use to track down vehicles they want to repo. Since they splice into the harness and it takes time to get back in there its actually more problematic to remove than to just leave it. You're paying for it, one way or another.

Not spliced, they used a splitter with an OBD port on either side. I did finance through my own bank though, which might explain the "removal fee".

Depends on the place, most that I've ever dealt with were spliced into the harness. You got off lucky if they went the extra mile and used the less intrusive option. Those aren't as common.

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#134

Post by mkhpalm » Tue, Mar 29, 2022, 5:47 PM UTC

Hamuko wrote: post #74

londons_explore wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're normally wired in somewhere behind the glovebox or steering column, and can be pretty hard to find. I had one on a car I bought, and it kept draining the car battery whenever I left it more than a few days. I wasted many hours buying new batteries, testing alternators, and tracking down leakage currents before finding it consuming nearly a watt continuously.

Do they split the OBD signal behind the glovebox or the steering column? If so, then I imagine they're much harder to find. But if they do it on the actual OBD2 port, then I imagine they would be rather easy to spot?

They only need a power source to stay powered to give up their location. Most of them don't splice in nicely using the OBD ports.

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#135

Post by godshatter » Tue, Mar 29, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

namecheapTA wrote: post #54

supportlocal4h wrote: post #49

It is common for car sales to add a tracker to a car they finance. It is very helpful during the repo process. Many of them pay the owner to allow them to recover the device when the loan is paid off.

With 10 years of dealership experience, I can promise this is not at all common. First off, very few dealerships finance your vehicle, instead they simply facilitate the paperwork through any bank thats competitive. Other than for some incentives with the bank over time, they couldn't care less if you default on your loan. They sure aren't going to get involved at all in assisting the repo process. What you're referr…

How do these "remote disabling devices" work? Hopefully they aren't remotely disabling a car that is in the middle of switching lanes on a busy freeway.

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#136

Post by namecheapTA » Tue, Mar 29, 2022, 10:36 PM UTC

godshatter wrote: post #135

namecheapTA wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With 10 years of dealership experience, I can promise this is not at all common. First off, very few dealerships finance your vehicle, instead they simply facilitate the paperwork through any bank thats competitive. Other than for some incentives with the bank over time, they couldn't care less if you default on your loan. They sure aren't going to get involved at all in assisting the repo process. What you're referr…

How do these "remote disabling devices" work? Hopefully they aren't remotely disabling a car that is in the middle of switching lanes on a busy freeway.

The easiest way would be to disable the starter circuit. But that would be easy to bypass. So hopefully they disable something much more critical and harder to bypass. I don't think it would be hard to make a relay wait til it has lost power for some time before switching it to off permanently. Thus it would be disabled the next time the car is shut off.

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#137

Post by namecheapTA » Tue, Mar 29, 2022, 10:38 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #63

namecheapTA wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With 10 years of dealership experience, I can promise this is not at all common. First off, very few dealerships finance your vehicle, instead they simply facilitate the paperwork through any bank thats competitive. Other than for some incentives with the bank over time, they couldn't care less if you default on your loan. They sure aren't going to get involved at all in assisting the repo process. What you're referr…

> They want to motivate the owner to make their payment, which disabling it usually does. Poor people are a great source of extra income through fees for exploitative companies. I bet re-enabling the car costs a significant fee...

You're right. They should get rid of these buy here pay here dealerships and let these people walk.

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#138

Post by kogepathic » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 2:03 AM UTC

FFRefresh wrote: post #132

kogepathic wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I interpreted it as the author and car owner had fear uncertainty and doubt, about what the tracker was for. Something between two private individuals, which was resolved through the subsequent investigation. No need to write an article about this. > As we probably all did when clicking the title. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a ma…

> No need to write an article about this. To clarify your underlying principles here: Are you broadly suggesting there should be rules for what type of articles can be written on the internet (presumably that align with your values)? Are you suggesting that EFF should not have written this article (because of the $/time cost?)? And that it's okay if someone else wrote the article? Are you suggesting that EFF should n…

> Are you broadly suggesting there should be rules for what type of articles can be written on the internet (presumably that align with your values)?

Yes, the EFF should not be promoting FUD.

As I have stated several times in my comments, if the EFF had chosen a less sensationalist title, there would be no grounds to label this as FUD.

> And that it's okay if someone else wrote the article?

Yes, if someone had written such an article for their personal blog, or as a private individual on a site like hackaday, then it wouldn't have the endorsement of the EFF.

> Are you suggesting that EFF should not have done the investigation in the first place

No, however their choice to pulicize an otherwise unnoteworthy event was in my opinion, an extremely poor choice.

> As an EFF supporter myself, I enjoyed the article. I liked the walkthrough of the investigation, and all the steps they used to deduce the source of the tracker. It was interesting on its face, and also educates on a methodology for making deductions for other things.

That's fine, and I'm not here saying "the EFF should not be doing this" I feel I've been very consistent in saying:

* the title is sensationalist and this is bad for the EFF's credibility

* the methods in the article are very amateur, a more detailed investigation and/or a discussion about the privacy and legality of vehicle tracking would have been much more in keeping with the EFF's stated mission

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#139

Post by teknopaul » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 5:31 PM UTC

kogepathic wrote: post #138

FFRefresh wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No need to write an article about this. To clarify your underlying principles here: Are you broadly suggesting there should be rules for what type of articles can be written on the internet (presumably that align with your values)? Are you suggesting that EFF should not have written this article (because of the $/time cost?)? And that it's okay if someone else wrote the article? Are you suggesting that EFF should n…

> Are you broadly suggesting there should be rules for what type of articles can be written on the internet (presumably that align with your values)? Yes, the EFF should not be promoting FUD. As I have stated several times in my comments, if the EFF had chosen a less sensationalist title, there would be no grounds to label this as FUD. > And that it's okay if someone else wrote the article? Yes, if someone had writte…

Re: "No need to write an article about this."

I think it is within their remit to discuss such issues.

I enjoyed reading it, I feel it received quite a harsh critique for a short article that was well written and engaging.

If the goal was to get people thinking about the privacy implications, it worked. Here we are talking about it on HN.

With the suggested title "a car dealership installed a third-party GPS tracking device in a vehicle" I doubt I would have read it. If it hadn't been by the EFF I doubt I would have considered the privacy implications.

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#140

Post by skibbityboop » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 7:34 PM UTC

m000 wrote: post #89

skibbityboop wrote: post #42

> Is the sky-link GPS device still sending location data back to a Sky Link server? As someone who used to work in that industry, no, it's not sending location data. You don't activate the SIM until you have someone who is going to pay for the service, otherwise you're losing money for no reason. We'd get that question often though, someone activating a device hoping they'd be able to see everywhere it was for the la…

Still not clear. GPS can work without a SIM. Is the device logging locally when the SIM is not activated or not? If it is then we have a concealed tracking device that can be used against the interests of the car owner at any time. It just happened that EFF didn't have the know-how to extract the logs.

Great question, and yes, some of the better devices implement a small buffer so may be able to keep a day or even two in memory while they're out of cell coverage. If you activate the SIM you might get a small data dump.

GPS doesn't need a SIM, and indeed the devices will have a fix all the time whether activated or not. They do require cell service to send their updates anywhere. They're all simple GPS receivers, not transmitters, thus require an active SIM.