Homemade trackers found on show cars

[MartG]

I just came across this on Facebook - don't know any details but thought it is something that needs to be shared just in case...

"Homemade trackers found on cars after Sundays Ford Fair Silverstone - have a wee look under your car on the way home from shows..... you just never know .... I believe the police are now being involved and a return trace may be taking place so hopefully the people will be caught. Pictures of the device that was found,"





Presumably used so thieves can locate particular cars selected as targets while at a show

[eltax91]

That's one hell of a dastardly plan

[rb5er]

Scumbags. I was at that place with the nerds on Sunday.

[Dr Doofenshmirtz]

Did they find a white chalk cross on their house as well?

[Dinoboy]

Stick it to the back of a circle bus.

[DegsyE39]

Thats mental

[Iva Barchetta]

Had a look at Escort Cos forum,the word is out on many Ford forums.

[anonymous-user]

Dinoboy said:

Stick it to the back of a circle bus.

Or the back of a police car

[mybrainhurts]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

Dinoboy said:

Stick it to the back of a circle bus.

Or the back of a police car

Or the farmer's muck spreader.

[essayer]

I'd pop down the nearest fairground and fit it to a suitably sized lorry.

[k-ink]

This is well worth posting on every car forum you visit.

Presumably this could be done to interesting cars in the public car park as well as the display cars.

[mybrainhurts]

Can these things work on anything other than the mobile phone networks? If not, it must be a simple process to make a hand held detector, as it must be transmitting a signal.

[AlexRS2782]

This happened at a number of big shows last year too iirc I think an EsCos owner found one stuck in his rear arch, a guy with an RS500 found one stuck at the bottom of his engine bay and there were reports of other marque related shows having similar issues at shows too

[CoolHands]

But why would they be homemade? Seems a bit odd when you can simply buy them...

[myvision]

CoolHands said:

But why would they be homemade? Seems a bit odd when you can simply buy them...

Improve battery life?

[silentbrown]

Looks like a TK102 with an external PP3 battery - probably a half-assed attempt to increase the battery life. The 'other' PCB, I have no idea about.

Assuming TK102, yes it works off the mobile phone SMS system. You send it a text, it replies with it's GPS position and speed.

[carl_w]

What's in the box? Presumably a GPS, a mobile phone chipset and a SIM? Surely the perp can be identified by the SIM, as I believe that in the UK you either have to pay for a PAYG SIM with a credit/debit card or provide verified name and address if paying with cash?

Worst case -- get the SIM out and make some free calls

[mybrainhurts]

Zulu 10 said:

I suspect that the only way to beat this type of thievery is to entice the scrotes to a rural pig farm where the target car is suitably rigged, and the pigs are hungry...

We might be on to the makings of a great sport here...

[silentbrown]

Zulu 10 said:

I bet they're not so stupid as to need it to be asked where it is, surely better to wait until it knows it's been stationary for a couple of hours, and then upload its GPS coordinates to some anonymous IP address...

A true data connection requires a lot more tech. Cheap off-the-shelf SMS ones are available for under 15 quid on the bay of evil. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/231255563769

But with a 1000mAh internal battery, why faff adding a 500mAh PP3 onto it?

[R8Steve]

carl_w said:

What's in the box? Presumably a GPS, a mobile phone chipset and a SIM? Surely the perp can be identified by the SIM, as I believe that in the UK you either have to pay for a PAYG SIM with a credit/debit card or provide verified name and address if paying with cash?

Worst case -- get the SIM out and make some free calls

They'll have sent some poor mug into a small phone shop to buy a load of them I'd guess, I can't imagine it would be hard at all to get a payg SIM card without your details attached to it.