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Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

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Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#51

Post by fargle »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #31
dontcare007 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dealers do this to aid in repossession in case of non payment.

This car wasn't owned by a scummy BHPH lot or rental fleet. It was delivered to an upscale dealer who was installing it as part of an anti-theft package.

dealers do this (basically) as a scam.

- the cost of these units is very cheap in bulk maybe ~$100

- their shoddy mechanics cut into power and CAN bus cables to sloppily and cheaply install them. They're usually zip tied up under the steering column. They tie into CAN so they can also immobilize the car.

- they install them right when the cars come in for their own theft protection and inventory control

- then they try to add anywhere from $500-$3000 onto the car with "theft protection" and 100% recovery warranty add-ons. It sounds like you are getting something built into on-star, but it's not. It's great - they get you to pay them for their own anti-theft and inventory purposes, and can often make several hundred dollars on top of it!

- if you avoid the bait and don't pay, then they just deactivate the unit, but they don't take the time to remove it or fix the damage they did to your wiring.

- nearly every dealer in CA does this. it's not at all just for repos, so especially upscale dealers too.

- which is terrible because 10 years later when you're contorted upside-down under the dash troubleshooting a intermittent CAN-bus problem on your expensive car, and you find one of these things is the problem, you get pretty angry about it.

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#52

Post by sohkamyung »

taldo wrote: post #25

Had they remembered to connect the ground reference for the Bus Pirate, they would've had a much easier time reading the data back :) OTOH: how is that even legal? I can't fully grasp how privacy is perceived as a sacred basic right in the US, but then they have dealers tracking people's cars for repossession purposes...

> Had they remembered to connect the ground reference for the Bus Pirate, they would've had a much easier time reading the data back

I think the EFF needs to hire some hardware people in the future to handle future teardowns. :-)

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#53

Post by AlotOfReading »

jfoutz wrote: post #39
guenthert wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

I've only fiddled with this in a hobby way, but it's tricky to get accurate position information by integration of acceleration vectors. you could use the compass to get device orientation relative to motion, you could look for available wifi names to narrow down localization. It's possible to make good guesses, but it's a pain, and they're still guesses. (Well, they were at my level anyway)

The guesses can get scarily good. Typically you start with the GNSS signal as your initial position/velocity estimate and inertial measurements to estimate travel from that point. With decent sensors and no other constraints, you can get lane level accuracy for upwards of a minute at highway speeds without a satellite fix. However, people (and vehicles) don't have arbitrary paths and the places where they do tend to be easy to get a satellite fix. The kinds of places where you have difficult GNSS environments also tend to have networks of paths and streets that can be used to refine your estimate., a technique called "map matching". In good conditions, you can localize position to within a block inside an entire urban area on that alone.

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#54

Post by namecheapTA »

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 referring to are devices installed by smaller shady "buy here pay here" dealerships that do in house financing for people with bad credit. Even then, gos trackers are extremely rare. Much more common are remote disabling devices. If you make a car unable to function, it's not that hard to find. Heck, they don't even really want to find it. They want to motivate the owner to make their payment, which disabling it usually does.

Finally, what some normal dealerships do to increase profit and ease of making aftermarket sales, is preinstall theft deterents or safety devices to ALL cars on the lot, and then hope they can upsell each buyer during the paperwork process. The reason this is done is because having to bring the car back to the dealership to have your after market products installed is a huge pain, which becomes a major sales objection. Thus, dealerships decided to start installing the devices in every car ahead of time, since they are cheap parts anyway, and using that as a sales tactic to sell you on paying for the actual service contract or insurance (the word used loosely here) as part of the product they installed.

Tldr; dealerships install $39 GPS trackers in every car on the lot. 25% of the time, they manage to extract $500-1000 of profit by selling the service for $1200 to a buyer. This pencils out on the end, thus they keep doing it. Definitely a more sleazy tactic that almost no dealership I worked for used, but not uncommon. Heck, the OP story was done at a franchise Audi dealership.

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#55

Post by adolph »

wallfacer120 wrote: post #43
jmole wrote: post #15

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…

Who is "they"?

The Ciansa folk probably.

http://ciansa.com/

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#56

Post by adolph »

jmole wrote: post #34
brettnak wrote: post #29

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

It actually says “Designed in California,” like it’s a shiney iThing.

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#57

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#58

Post by Bedon292 »

guenthert wrote: post #27
kube-system wrote: post #22

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)?

Location data can come from a lot of things that are being pieced together into a really good guess even when parts are missing. GPS and the other satellites like GLONASS. Nearby WiFi hotspots since they are all pretty much known locations. What cell towers you are connected to, which are also known locations, and the signal strength getting you general ranges. Can even be done with bluetooth beacons within building like malls and conference centers I believe. And accelerometer and compass data to fill in gaps too.

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#59

Post by userbinator »

adolph wrote: post #56
jmole wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It actually says “Designed in California,” like it’s a shiney iThing.

iKnowWhereYouAre

Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car

#60

Post by userbinator »

jfoutz wrote: post #39
guenthert wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

I've only fiddled with this in a hobby way, but it's tricky to get accurate position information by integration of acceleration vectors. you could use the compass to get device orientation relative to motion, you could look for available wifi names to narrow down localization. It's possible to make good guesses, but it's a pain, and they're still guesses. (Well, they were at my level anyway)

They can be quite accurate if well-designed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_Navigation_System
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