GPS Tracking ROI

By now I’m sure many have had enough pf looking at hardware and discussing the good, the bad and the ugly about GPS Tracking. And you should be in a better position to weight the ROI (Return On Investment) both personally and business-wise.

But as I promised, there is much more to the tracking/privacy/worker autonomy/big brother issue than GPS. In fact, if a magic wand were waved and GPS was turned off tomorrow, we, as world citizens, would still have a big problem. here’s just one news item this week … there are many more, believe me:

Defense Workers Warned About Spy Coins

(01-10) 15:56 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) —

Can the coins jingling in your pocket trace your movements? The Defense Department is warning its American contractor employees about a new espionage threat seemingly straight from Hollywood: It discovered Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters hidden inside.

In a U.S. government report, it said the mysterious coins were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada…. Full Article Here:

Upon careful reading this incident which is totally possible using existing technology has a narrow focus. The coins use passive RFID chips (you can read more about RFID here and here). This means, among other things:

• There’s no easy way to detect them … they don’t emit signals unless scanned.
• They have infinite life … there’s no battery to discharge
• They’re totally innocent to most observes .. who’s going to be suspicious of a common coin?

I’ll also chose to differ with one of the article’s points … where it’s alleged that the idea is flawed since coins could be so easily passed on from the subject person to someone not “of interest”.

US Readers, quick now, you recognize this coin? Of course you don’t. It’s a “Tooney” as used in the scheme referenced. Can you spend it in the US? Not hardly. This is what makes me a lot more convinced the scheme may be real and not some PR stunt. The coin was found on US defense contractors. It’s an attractive coin and unusual to US eyes and it’s worth enough that the average person isn’t going to throw it in the wastebasket as he’s packing. She is going to carry it along as a souvenir of the trip. It only makes sense. Given the task of putting something on the person of a target group a coin certainly has potential value.

I didn’t decide to make this post, however, to enter into the laws of probability, human nature or even numismatics.

What I did want to say is that GPS and the possible harmful uses of GPS are certainly a subject that ought to be in our minds and that we clearly need some answers in a hurry. But again, the issues of GPS use are merely the tip of the iceberg.

Can I buy the data from Safeway for your use of the discount card and thus learn what brand of hamburger extender you use instead of cooking real meals? Can I buy your cell phone records from an online service and reconstruct the who, when and possibly the whys of your phone calls? Can I take pictures of your license plate with an automated ALPR and continually search for data on you just because you happened to drive down the road I was monitoring?

GPS is one issue, but I submit there are one heck of a lot more issues out there and I see little or no effort on the part of “watchdog” organizations to educate and mobilize. What are your thoughts?

Clandestine GPS Tracking …that’s the generally accepted legal`term for tracking someone’s position without their knowledge. This can be particularly hard to defeat, and purposefully so, because it is often used by law enforcement, private investigators or even suspicious spouses to learn where people go and what times they do so.

Devices have become so much smaller and cheaper over the past few years that cost or convenience hardly enters into the mix any longer.

Units like the one above, or even smaller versions such as this:

are readily available for a few hundred dollars.

Now from a technical standpoint, the ability to conceal these devices varies depending on the access one has, physically and legally to the vehicle or some object in the subject person’s possession. Units such as these must have a view of the sky. They will easily work through non-metallic surfaces, such as a car’s dashboard, but to place them there you have to have physical access … and you almost certainly need a court order to place them … unless you are the owner of the vehicle.

A good background on the legal issues of attaching and tracking devices is this article. It’s more than a year old, but very, very little has changed legally today. About as clear as mud, isn’t it? The police either can or can’t track without orders … take your pick … and the law a sit applies to [private citizens is even more obscure.

OK, what is you don’t have or don’t choose to obtain physical access? How about this little puppy:

Costs about 5 times as much, but the capabilities are outstanding. Notice the little round circles on the unit and the battery pack? Magnets. Just reach underneath and “click” it’s attached to any metal part. Battery lasts several days and additional packs can be chained together for more battery life. The unit reports back to the owner over both older analog cell phone systems on the newer digital GSM/GPRS services. Monthly cost is about $60 bucks … 2 bucks a day to track nearly anything or anybody.

Am I in favor of this sort of use for my favorite technology? yes, I am, if it’s not used improperly. Now, how do I define “improperly” and how do you define the same word? As Shakespeare (or someone using his name) once wrote, “Ah, there’s the rub.” My only purpose in writing these scribbling’s for the world to see is to inform and awaken thought.

Who did you vote for in November’s election? What’s your candidate’s position on use of these devices by, say, an employer to track employees? By a jealous husband to track his wife? By parent to track a child? Did your candidate even have a position?

Probably not. Most haven’t thought GPS and other, more insidious forms of surveillance through very thoroughly … and if they have, they likely have fallen into the trap of ‘If it might catch a terrorist then we have to live with it’. Sorry, but my own view is that enslaving the innocent majority to possible catch the guilty minority is not right. What’s your opinion?

A lot of recent searches have involved ways to defeat GPS tracking and ways to avoid being tracked. As many of you know I am an advocate GPS tracking technology and made my living in that field for a number of years. I must be getting a reputation as an advocate, Tim Hibbard over at “Where’s Tim” called me “Mr. GPS” in his blog. Well, hardly. I couldn’t make a pimple on the butt of a real GPS engineer or scientist, but I have been around the program since the days when there was only one GPS satellite in orbit, so I have seen a lot of experts come and go and heard a lot of pros and cons thrown about.

OK, I’ve confessed my enthusiasm, but I’m a fair-minded guy. I can see a lot of reasons why people would worry about being tracked and I certainly don’t trample on anyone’s right to dissent. So I’ll give out a few tips and some practical advice.

First of all, in the majority of cases avoiding being tracked in your own vehicle or in a vehicle supplied by your boss is easy, from a technology standpoint. The vast majority of commercial tracking units have visible components. factory installed systems such as OnStar, a product either on or available in nearly all GM vehicles has two major components that look a lot like this.

You can find a wealth of information on line about how these systems operate and even how to hack them. Google is your friend, I’m not going to make a day out of researching this, but disconnecting any of the components will certainly stop tracking.

Other, third-party tracking solutions take the form of internal “black boxes” or roof-mounted “hats”, like the EMS PDT-100

or the under-the-dash GeoTab I used to sell.

Any of these units can be disabled by disconnecting power cords, pulling a fuse, or, for units that use a separate GPS antenna. simply disconnecting the antenna.

And for the “black helicopter” crowd’s benefit, yes, putting a piece of tin foil over the antenna will also disable it, in most cases. GPS signals don’t don’t penetrate metal very well.

Now, of course, do you really want to take these somewhat extreme disabling measures? well as they say here in the Philippines, “‘Sup to you”. In almost all cases the unit will record an error message when it no longer sees the sky. Most units are continually storing data so if you yank the power cord the boss is going to know where and when the unit ceased to function. He or she probably doesn’t have to be too much of a Sherlock Holmes to figure out who had charge of the vehicle when the signals quit. But if you think it’s advisable, go ahead, it’s not that hard to disable known unit tracking.

Tomorrow I’ll show you some clandestine units that you are not so likely to detect. You’ll have a bit more trouble finding them and if you have an undercover unit on your vehicle there’s liable to be a reason for it more serious than I want to get into.

In part three of this series I’ll tell you a few of the tracking issues you probably haven’t thought of and discuss why GPS Tracking is one of the least of your worries.

Light years ago, when the ‘Net was young I heard about a fellow name of Brendon Sinclair who was selling a complete kit to success in the business of web development. When he started a blog I became a regular reader and over the years we’ve had some interesting information exchanges. Brendon’s current pet project is a 1000km (621 miles to the metrically challenged) bike ride for an excellent cause …keeping at risk kids off the street. You can read about it here. You can donate here: Brendon would be happy if anyone felt like making a donation, but my purpose in writing this post isn’t to drum up money, it’s to air my hare-brained idea that the ride ought to be GPS tracked for the benefit of the charity and us spectators. Something like this would do it: I’ve already talked about this with Brendon, I’m wondering what other people’s thoughts are? Leave a comment, write me direct at davestarr (at) gmail (dot) com or call me at 1-719-423-8872

XM to Introduce First Personal Weather Tracking System, Demonstrate In-Car Video and More at 2007 Consumer Electronics Show

Posted on : Wed, 03 Jan 2007 19:11:00 GMT | Author : XM Satellite Radio

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — XM, the nation’s leading satellite radio company, will display a concept vehicle with XM’s latest technology at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) January 8 through 11 in Las Vegas, Nev.

The XM vehicle will feature the first personal weather tracking system for GPS navigation. The system tracks specific, real-time weather conditions between your current location and your final destination. Plus, it provides the near-term weather forecast for your personal path. Rather than simply give general weather conditions for a region, the system focuses on the weather on your individual route. The weather information is continuously updated and delivered to the navigation system via satellite.

The weather technology, which is expected to be introduced in summer 2007, is developed by XM and its weather solutions partner Baron Services. XM and Baron, through its division WxWorx (pronounced “weather works”), currently offer professional weather services for airplanes, boats, and emergency responders, which have set the standard for mobile weather solutions in these markets… Rest of Press Release Here:

OK< it’s no secret I am not much of a media person. When I buy a new car I always ask if I can get a good deal on something without a radio (I’ve owned several new cars and trucks sans noise boxes). I don’t own a TV and got a kick out of a recent blog post that questioned prospective blogger’s willingness to give up TV time to blog. I have time management problems too, but TV and broadcast radio never contribute to them.

Satellite radio services have done little to change my preference for quiet … they do have the advantage of near perfect continent-wide coverage but I’m not much in the mood to pay for something I don’t care for when it’s free. But this aspect of satellite broadcast radio could really change my mind.

This is a view you really don’t want to see in your windshield, unless you are a storm chaser.

• If you drive long distances, and especially if you operate a fleet .. salesmen, buses, field service technicians, commercial trucks, you need this service. This is not the silly, hard to interpret endless loops of NexRad images you get on the TV news or the Weather Channel. There’s some information, of course in those images but they aren’t easy for a pilot, driver or boat operator to interpret, they only tell about precipitation, which isn’t all the weather to consider and they are not location-based.

The XM service provides:

• Lightning
• Surface Winds
• Winds Aloft
• County Warnings
• Surface Analysis Weather Maps
• Sea State Conditions
• to name only a few

See the complete list and explanations here:

This service isn’t cheap but I do feel it’s one of the most important safety and business investments ever to derive from our investment in satellites. I can not see a trucker, for example, not being able to get a rapid return on investment (TOI) with this system.

N.B. I do accept clearly marked advertising on this site but I am not affiliated in any way with XM and none of these article links are affiliate connections nor do I profit in any way not clearly obvious to the reader.  I’m somewhat ambivalent to the “paid Post” issue currently going ’round the ‘Net, but if I ever do accept pay for a post the reader will be given full and adequate notice.

Here’s a nice topic suggested by recent queries (search engine questions) which “landed” here at the GPS Tracking blog.

Dictionary definition: A combination receiver, frequency converter, and transmitter package.

OK, that told us a lot, right?  Well transponder is one of those terms like “wireless communication” that covers so much ground the average person doesn’t really want to know the answer to the question they just asked.

Transponder came from the concept of automatic response to a signal.  In the earliest days of “wireless” there would have to be a dedicated transmitter and a dedicated receiver in order for a signal to effectively cross the “ether”.  (Not Ethernet. that came along much much later ;-)).  If someone directed a signal be sent … perhaps a “radiogram” to a ship at sea, there was no way of knowing the message was received unless the ship had a functioning transmitter and a radio operator to key a response back.

So from the very early days of radio (wireless) various schemes were introduced that would let a receiving station autonomously send back some message when messaged to, or even queried for their status, by a transmitter.  A response to a transmission in other words, shortened by common usage to a transponder.

In the modern world, when a technogeek is talking about transponders, s/he is most likely to be talking about one of three things:

• A transponder on a communications satellite (often a TV broadcast satellite).  because of a number of physical factors commercial satellite communication usually involves the uplink (data going to the satellite) being on a different frequency that the downlink (or broadcast) signal beaming back to earth from the space vehicle.  Communication satellites typically don’t send out signals on their own, they act as mirrors for the programming uplinked to them.  Thus an individual broadcast channel selected on your set top box is typically being broadcast by a dedicated transponder on the satellite that receives the broadcast from the ground, converts it to a different frequency and sends it down to your very own babble-box.

• A device on the ground that interacts with a satellite or a ground-based radio frequency (RF) signal.  two typical examples are the transponder on a vehicle being tracked that responds to a communication satellite when asked its position, or the radar transponder in an aircraft that sends back an identification code when the aircraft is “painted” (queried by a radar transmitter.

• (most likely reason this question “landed” here) A device attached to a vehicle (little box on the windshield, perhaps) that is queried by a toll gate transmitter and responds back with the vehicle’s ID and toll data charge information.  Also a similar box on perhaps a piece of cargo, and ID badge or even a cardboard carton at Wal*Mart.  Typically this type of transponder is part if an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) system.

Hope that’s been of some help to the fellow or gal with the question … as always I welcome blog comments, direct email at: dave (at) satviz(dot)com or voice at: 1.719.423.8872

For a couple weeks now I’ve been reading a lot of blog posts regarding a popular meme (by the way I’m so clueless I never even really knew what “meme” meant. It’s kind of appropriate:

As defined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976): “a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.” “Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.

We’re all imitators to some degree or another and I have been hanging around the periphery of problogging for some time now. Hero worshipping some of the big names and, at times, shamelessly trying to do what they do.

Anyway, the baton has now been passed to me. Tim Hibbard, world famous (literally) for his “Where’s Tim?” site has been kind enough to “tag” me. Thanks, Tim (I think).

Why the hesitancy regarding the “thanks”? Oh it’s not from being bashful about writing about myself … that part comes easy … it’s about how much my mind is occupied with trying to think of five more people to tag at the end of the post. I’ve just been engaging in a back-channel conversation with Brendon regarding recent post he made about relationship building, and in the course of writing an email and doing some thinking on the subject I realized just how rotten I have been myself on that subject. I’m not big on new years resolutions but here’s a great start at keeping what should have been one of my most important ones for 2007.

1. As Tim mentioned about himself, I’m a terrible salesman. I tried selling GPS systems as a paid career for about a year and had zilch success. My wife and I ran our own sales business for a couple years and we did OK, but if I had to depend on selling to feed me, I’d be skinny as a rail.
2. I am a great procrastinator. This has caused me a lot of problems in life, but the salvation will come at the end … I know I’ll be late to my own funeral. I plan to organize and get rich from a dies-paying International Procrastinator’s Society one of these days now … as soon as I can get around to it.
3. I was a computer “geek” long before most computer folk these days were thinking in ones and zeros. If you know what core memory is, can set the read, write and inhibit currents in a core unit, or you know how to tell the difference between Teletype paper tape punched in ASCII or Baudot code, then you are a contemporary. EBCIDIC anyone?
4. My first job for the USAF involved crawling around inside the wings of B-52s to fix fuel leaks. Did you know an early model B-52 has more than 76 individual rubber fuel cells? Did you know that every time Dubya flies Air Force One to Saudi Arabia for lunch with his old business partners the fuel burn is in the neighborhood of 35,000 gallons, each way?
5. Next to my lovely wife and my children my great love is aviation and airplanes … I started my first aviation-related job when I was six, wiping oil off the bellies and landing gear of airplanes owned by the fellow who maintained this plane: (note, this is not the airplane she was flying when she disappeared)

6. I’m a big fan of Microsoft’s Live Writer blog management software … it’s not just for their abysmal “Live Writer” blogging service, it works better than any other product I’ve found for Wordpress on my own leased server.

Ooops, that’s six. Well consider the sixth one a penalty item imposed on me for tardiness.

Now for the hard part. I hereby tag the lovely and delightful Unofficial Cook, Brendon, Aviatrix, Sean and a player to be named later.