31–40 of 141 posts
TL;DR a prior dealership had installed it as part of an anti-theft add-on before selling it to a different dealer who ultimately sold it to the supporter. The investigative effort they put in was quite good.
Dealers do this to aid in repossession in case of non payment.
Over here in the EU any cellular device should contain a SIM card which must be registered to someone or some company, therefore it can be used to track the owner; is that different in the US? The article doesn't mention any SIM card present. If I discovered such a tracking device in my car I'd immediately look for the card, get its number and find the owner. Also, it would be nice to fool the GPS through a jammer th…
First : don't confuse jamming with spoofing. Jamming is extremely easy to perform by any idiot, while spoofing GPS is significantly harder https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/sdr_gps/
Second : keep in mind that both of them are actually illegal in most countries, and besides unless you exactly know what you are doing it's fairly easy to jam/spoof on much larger areas than you would intend to ! (and GNSS is not restricted to consumer products and maps but are used in a lot of industrial/serious applications so it can actually have consequences)
Over here in the EU any cellular device should contain a SIM card which must be registered to someone or some company, therefore it can be used to track the owner; is that different in the US? The article doesn't mention any SIM card present. If I discovered such a tracking device in my car I'd immediately look for the card, get its number and find the owner. Also, it would be nice to fool the GPS through a jammer th…
> " Also, it would be nice to fool the GPS through a jammer that emits false signals in order to make it report a fake location, after placing cameras at that place to record whoever shows up. " First : don't confuse jamming with spoofing. Jamming is extremely easy to perform by any idiot, while spoofing GPS is significantly harder https://archive.fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/sdr_gps/ Second : keep in mind that bot…
You are very wrong. Spoofing GPS is downloading a file, and then running a commandline program with a hackrf attached. The *only* hard part is getting a HackRF or other TX capable SDR.
Download and compile https://github.com/osqzss/gps-sdr-sim
Download today's ephermis https://cddis.nasa.gov/archive/gnss/data/daily/
run:
gps-sdr-sim -e $EPHERMISFILE -l $LAT,$LON,$ALT
And, if you're nearby an airport, you're violating felonies with FCC AND FAA.
I had a mystery tracker installed in a car I purchased as well: https://fccid.io/2AEB4AMV01/User-Manual/Users-Manual-3928375 The dealer even added a $250 fee to "remove" this device, but I found it was still installed, so I think I ended up footing the bill for the device itself. The device is ostensibly to protect inventory from loss, but it seems like they are incentivizing dealers to leave these in cars to capture…
Where did you find the tracker in the car?
If I saw this device under my seat I'd assume it was part of some electronic system and never touch it. The only thing that I'd see that would make me go "huh" would be CDMA – and even then I would probably assume it was part of my car's infotainment system like my old Saab's OnStar that used a Verizon 2G CDMA network that died before I purchased the car.
I have a pretty good mechanic as well, and unless I was complaining about a jammed seat adjustment, he wouldn't be down there to see. I wonder if he'd even be able to eyeball it as suspicious as he's an independent; who knows what kinds of things get hooked up below seats.
Assuming this part isn't narrative, kudos to those who found it. Now where should I go look?
I love that the skills I learned in the 80s are still relevant today. Interacting with serial ports. AT commands. This stuff hasn't changed much.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple Maps keeps working fine when I invariably drop my phone under the seat in my car. GPS receivers are pretty good these days and are capable of picking up very weak signals.
Is the Maps application getting the position data from GPS alone or rather from accelerometer plus earlier good reading (using GPS or cell tower known position) or some fancy sensor data merging (Kalman filter)?
It's possible to make good guesses, but it's a pain, and they're still guesses. (Well, they were at my level anyway)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where did you find the tracker in the car?
Connected to the OBD port with an OBD splitter to make it look like there was nothing installed there. They didn’t secure it well though, so I saw it dangling by the brake pedal. https://imgur.com/a/MSGmfRt