Funny how a serial port is suddenly an exotic technology :)
Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car
61–70 of 141 posts
Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car
#62I 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 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.
Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car
#63It 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…
> 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...
Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car
#64I 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.
you configure modems still the same way. you still have modems in IoT devices. what changed are the capabilities, esp. the power states. these trackers can sleep most of the time, only wake up periodically, so they can survive on battery for several years.
most sensors are connected via I2C to the CPU. some weird ones via SPI. most GPS sensors are different, they connect mostly via UART. so you can connect to them directly, bypassing the CPU.
Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car
#65Over 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…
nowadays you'd install an E-Sim, which is just a code, not a physical card anymore.
jamming GNSS satellite connection? only heard of Russians doing that. could be more expensive than exploring this little modem.
Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car
#66It 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…
> 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 people at the largest auto groups can activate it remotely.
Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car
#67Earlier 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
Is that necessarily to “make sure there was nothing installed there”? Or could it be that they needed to keep the OBD port open for normal service purposes?
Yes, for the marketed use case of "put these on the cars in your lot for theft prevention", you obviously want them to be invisible.
But Honda already has telematics in these cars in the infotainment system, and it would be trivial to add anti-theft to the existing system. It all just feels a bit.. fishy.
Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who is "they"?
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".
Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car
#69I 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.
you configure modems still the same way. you still have modems in IoT devices. what changed are the capabilities, esp. the power states. these trackers can sleep most of the time, only wake up periodically, so they can survive on battery for several years. most sensors are connected via I2C to the CPU. some weird ones via SPI. most GPS sensors are different, they connect mostly via UART. so you can connect to them di…
> some weird^W fast ones via SPI
ftfy
Re: Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter’s Car
#70Earlier 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)?
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…
In the famous "big dig" highway tunnels in Boston your phone may be connecting to the 850 Bluetooth beacons stuck to the tunnel walls by Waze:
https://blog.mass.gov/transportation/massdot-highway/highway...