GPS Tracking ROI Link-a-Bits 25 Jan 2008

Lesson of the day: Some opportunities may be better left un-seized.
A Riverhead man with a felony record learned it the hard way when he jumped in an idling Suffolk County-owned van and took off, only to be arrested minutes later. Turns out the vehicle was equipped with a GPS tracking device…

Actually, there are two lessons here … for Mr. Davis … a life of crime is not for you, dude!  What does this make, arrest number 18?  You better just stay straight after you get this case resolved, because you have a large target painted on your back.

And to those reading and wondering about GPS savings … the prime cause of this mini-drama was a city employee doing what we have all been told not to do … leaving a vehicle unsecured, inviting theft and, certainly in this case, wasting precious $100 a barrel fuel.  Commercial and government vehicle theft and idling fuel waste are no small matter in today’s world.  trust but verify and do your job … protecting assets rather than just hoping the police will be able to do the job for you, after the fact.

Islip officials used a hidden GPS device to catch Long Island MacArthur Airport’s operations manager using his Islip Town vehicle for personal use, and found him ducked down in the backseat of his car, idling in a hotel parking lot on his day off, town sources said.
Islip sources said the town concealed a second global-positioning system device on the underside of Emery Dicey’s town car after Dicey bragged that he could circumvent the town’s vehicle monitoring system. He told airport employees that he could beat the system by removing the GPS device from his car and leaving it at home in his garage, town sources said….  more here

Oh this one comes under the heading of ‘told ya so’.  I get dozens and dozens of searched here at GPS Tracking ROI under the subject of "defeat GPS" or "hide from GPS" etc.  One always wonders how many of these queries are from people with perhaps legitimate privacy concerns and how many are from employees who just want to steal from their bosses.  Face it people, a job is a deal where the employer is supposed to pay you and you are supposed to give a day’s work … and follow the rules.

here’s a guy who has been milking the government for 30 years … probably ready for retirement … who not only has decided he doesn’t have to follow the rules, but can’t resist bragging about it to peers and underlings.  Another Darwin Award candidate .. what a bullshit artist.  If you read the story between the lines he might (just my speculation here) be both a philanderer and a cheap skate … took his girl friend to a motel but did it in the back seat instead and then hurried home to dear old momma.  But maybe he was in the back seat by himself, we’ll probably never know.

Lessons here:  Employee vehicle use abuse is endemic.  And many municipalities actual enable bad behavior by assigning and monitoring vehicle use by miles traveled … nothing an errant employee would like better than driving around to the bars just to build up miles for the sake of miles.  (You might like to read my tales of November 4 series)The second lesson?  Portable GPS units, particularly cell phone units are no good for real-world tracking.  Ner-do-wells leave them in fixed locations, hand them to confederates, etc.  When you make the investment in GPS tracking, be sure the system you buy is permanently mounts … a hidden mount is even better.

Students Debate Cell Requirement

A school-mandated purchase of a GPS-enabled cell phone has stirred cries of “Big Brother” from some students, but in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre last spring others find it comforting that their whereabouts can be tracked., reports the Associated Press…. read more here.

This is a pretty well-balanced piece about an innovative program at Montclair State (New jersey, alma mater of Bruce Willis and Carmela Soprano).

It points up one of the big problems in any sort of system designed to protect young people … everyone is invincible up until age 25 or so … it can’t happen to me, therefore I have no use for it.

On the other side of the coin I like the idea behind the system … rather than trying to monitor the location of everyone, all the time … which may have too many privacy concerns but is without a doubt an administrative nightmare, this system attempts to use the GPS tracking feature only when it is needed, and under the control of the user … which I think is a refreshing and intelligent idea.

There is a grave tendency to ignore the amount of data that GPS tracking units collect.  This can be an advantage for data mining purposes, but if the developers of the system don’t carefully plan, in advance, what they are going to do with the masses of data and how they can be analyzed, stored and recovered in the future a GPS tracking system may turn into a huge millstone around the originator’s neck, rather than a tool to help.

I couldn’t resist the picture of the pretty girl that was in the article … whatever is she made up for?… I get the idea we don’t have to worry about her safety in a dark alley, but rather the safety of anyone who went down the alley with her … thank God I didn’t have to raise any daughters ….