RE: Grey Box To Conquer Black Box
Wednesday 8th August 2007
This could save you lots of cash. Or put in you prison. Your call...We all know road pricing is on its way, but someone has come up with a great way to get around it. Sort of.
Grey Box To Conquer Black Box
Little grey box jams tracking sat nav signals
This could save you lots of cash. Or put in you prison. Your call...
This £700 little grey box plugs into your car’s cigarette lighter socket and emits a signal that blocks out any sat nav based tracking systems.
Sat nav based systems broadcast their position to satellites, which logs a vehicle’s location at any one time to an in-car black box. The box then relays the information back to a monitoring station via a mobile phone.
However, this grey box actually blocks the signal entering or leaving the car, so as far as anyone is concerned the car is stationary. Clever, no?
A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said: “There is no point in using one of these devices because while they may block the satellite signal they do this by broadcasting their own signal which can be easily detected.”
He also said that a draft Local Transport Bill would look to making using such devices a criminal offence.
Source: Auto Express
Discussion
I also wondered about the implications for Tracker.
More interesting I think is that already there is a proposed solution to avoid road pricing. If we finally do all end up with black boxes in our cars it seems like it's going to be pretty hard to police! No doubt later vresions of this device will get cheaper and more sophisticated etc etc....
Road Angel Satnav signal blocker anyone, or perhaps one that simply changes the signal to say your car is travelling at the speed limit and not your actual speed?.... not that I am advocating speeding.
More interesting I think is that already there is a proposed solution to avoid road pricing. If we finally do all end up with black boxes in our cars it seems like it's going to be pretty hard to police! No doubt later vresions of this device will get cheaper and more sophisticated etc etc....
Road Angel Satnav signal blocker anyone, or perhaps one that simply changes the signal to say your car is travelling at the speed limit and not your actual speed?.... not that I am advocating speeding.
article said:
Sat nav based systems broadcast their position to satellites, which logs a vehicle’s location at any one time to an in-car black box. The box then relays the information back to a monitoring station via a mobile phone.
I find that extremely hard to believe. Surely the "black box" uses GPS to determine it's own position via satellite and then calls in the information? Therefore all the jammer would need to do is disrupt the GPS signal enough to prevent it getting a lock-on to the satellites and therefore not knowing that it's moved.Can see it working quite nicely thank you very much and in a way that this:
A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said:
There is no point in using one of these devices because while they may block the satellite signal they do this by broadcasting their own signal which can be easily detected.
...would be rendered a load of hot air.qube_TA said:
I thought 'sat-nav' GPS devices only received data that was used to work out where you are rather than actually upload anything.
Can't see one broadcasting anything to a satellite though without having a dish on the rood of your car.
This box sounds like BS to me.
It is. Sat-nav systems only *receive*. The tracking data is sent by GPRS, which is part of the cell-phone system and has nothing to do with GPSCan't see one broadcasting anything to a satellite though without having a dish on the rood of your car.
This box sounds like BS to me.
Zumbruk said:
qube_TA said:
I thought 'sat-nav' GPS devices only received data that was used to work out where you are rather than actually upload anything.
Can't see one broadcasting anything to a satellite though without having a dish on the rood of your car.
This box sounds like BS to me.
It is. Sat-nav systems only *receive*. The tracking data is sent by GPRS, which is part of the cell-phone system and has nothing to do with GPSCan't see one broadcasting anything to a satellite though without having a dish on the rood of your car.
This box sounds like BS to me.
Zumbruk said:
qube_TA said:
I thought 'sat-nav' GPS devices only received data that was used to work out where you are rather than actually upload anything.
Can't see one broadcasting anything to a satellite though without having a dish on the rood of your car.
This box sounds like BS to me.
It is. Sat-nav systems only *receive*. The tracking data is sent by GPRS, which is part of the cell-phone system and has nothing to do with GPSCan't see one broadcasting anything to a satellite though without having a dish on the rood of your car.
This box sounds like BS to me.
Tadaa, jammed... Lonestar style
Dave
Mr Whippy said:
Zumbruk said:
qube_TA said:
I thought 'sat-nav' GPS devices only received data that was used to work out where you are rather than actually upload anything.
Can't see one broadcasting anything to a satellite though without having a dish on the rood of your car.
This box sounds like BS to me.
It is. Sat-nav systems only *receive*. The tracking data is sent by GPRS, which is part of the cell-phone system and has nothing to do with GPSCan't see one broadcasting anything to a satellite though without having a dish on the rood of your car.
This box sounds like BS to me.
Parrot of Doom said:
qube_TA said:
Can't see one broadcasting anything to a satellite though without having a dish on the rood of your car.
You've obviously not seen a satellite phone then. Although they do require line of sight.Misleading Liar from DoT said:
“There is no point in using one of these devices because while they may block the satellite signal they do this by broadcasting their own signal which can be easily detected.”
He also said that a draft Local Transport Bill would look to making using such devices a criminal offence.
Why make it a criminal offence if there is 'no point in using one of these devices'....He also said that a draft Local Transport Bill would look to making using such devices a criminal offence.
As already mentioned tin foil will happily block GPRS signals as does hills, tunnels, building and a million other things. Am I right in thinking that these black boxes are going to save data to them and then transmit it when they are able to rather than being a live system. The whole idea is so open to abuse it begs belief that it's even being considered. How long will it take before there are online services offering to spoof these boxes?
Bing o said:
Expect mass ANPR to pick up the people using jamming equipment to cross reference against the GPS location.
Road charging - just another tax upon a tax upon a tax - anyting to try and fix the pensions crisis eh Gordon, you big blind cripple...
And who foots the bill for the 'broken' GPS? The road user or the government supplier (that the Transport Minister has shares in Road charging - just another tax upon a tax upon a tax - anyting to try and fix the pensions crisis eh Gordon, you big blind cripple...
)It's all a big con really isn't it. Doubt it will ever materialise properly as opposition will increase as it approaches to the point that it would be political suicide (imho).
Opposition now is small as the threat seems small, but when people are literally priced off the roads to earn a living then the sleeping giant will wake up!
Dave
While this particular story does smell a bit of BS (the description implies some sort of white noise generator that masks real signals by blasting out random crap on the same frequencies which would be very easy to detect), I did have another idea...
This box could be a femtocell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_point_base_station) which is basically a highly minaturised mobile phone base station. What if you had one in your car say, one that allows the tracking device to connect and merrily post its location data via GPRS, one that then discretely throws that data in the virtual bin? It'd be totally undetectable as it's a receiver not a transmitter...
Now there's an idea
This box could be a femtocell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_point_base_station) which is basically a highly minaturised mobile phone base station. What if you had one in your car say, one that allows the tracking device to connect and merrily post its location data via GPRS, one that then discretely throws that data in the virtual bin? It'd be totally undetectable as it's a receiver not a transmitter...
Now there's an idea
Forums | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff