Recently, my sisters car was stolen from her place of work, and used as a battering ram in order to break through the wall of a local computer warehouse (not shop) and was pretty much totalled. Im angry. But besides this it has raised some quesitons, mostly about those hugely expensive vehicle tracking systems.
The fact is my sisters car was nice, very nice, something a teenager rarely has without rich parents (shes 19 with a 4x4) yet weve worked for this and the car in question isnt worth much, or at least not enough to warrant an £800 sattelite tracking system, but its worth too much to lose on the eyarly basis we seem to run through vehicles (my scooter was totalled last year by my next door neighbour, so was my brothers a short while before that), so bringing this to computers, I was pondering some alternative theories to tracking, and came to the conclusion a mobile phone could easily be hidden in a car, hidden so theives could not find it. Now this is great, with the right mobile phone (with GPRS, Bluetooth etc) it means that once your vehicle is out of your hands, you have a communication link to your car pretty much wherever it goes, via GPRS or even by ringing it, now this doesnt solve a lot of problems but it tackles it, because only your operator can track your phone so it doesnt help a great deal.
I was wondering if you guys thought it was possible, if somewhat unrealistic to mod one of those semi working laptops to use the phone as a modem and have a program written so communication could be established with the car at all costs, naturally this would not offer a great deal of information, and is probably terribly unrealistic, but I bet someone somewhere has the skills to take the situation even further and allow the system to interact with the cars own systems, stop the theives in their tracks perhaps? Or even simpler, broadcast an SSID around the vehicle with its registration plate and :STOLEN in 15 meters. Just a few thoughts, bluetooth could be utilised too. Whats your 2 cents? Does the situation warrant such drastic action?
The fact is my sisters car was nice, very nice, something a teenager rarely has without rich parents (shes 19 with a 4x4) yet weve worked for this and the car in question isnt worth much, or at least not enough to warrant an £800 sattelite tracking system, but its worth too much to lose on the eyarly basis we seem to run through vehicles (my scooter was totalled last year by my next door neighbour, so was my brothers a short while before that), so bringing this to computers, I was pondering some alternative theories to tracking, and came to the conclusion a mobile phone could easily be hidden in a car, hidden so theives could not find it. Now this is great, with the right mobile phone (with GPRS, Bluetooth etc) it means that once your vehicle is out of your hands, you have a communication link to your car pretty much wherever it goes, via GPRS or even by ringing it, now this doesnt solve a lot of problems but it tackles it, because only your operator can track your phone so it doesnt help a great deal.
I was wondering if you guys thought it was possible, if somewhat unrealistic to mod one of those semi working laptops to use the phone as a modem and have a program written so communication could be established with the car at all costs, naturally this would not offer a great deal of information, and is probably terribly unrealistic, but I bet someone somewhere has the skills to take the situation even further and allow the system to interact with the cars own systems, stop the theives in their tracks perhaps? Or even simpler, broadcast an SSID around the vehicle with its registration plate and :STOLEN in 15 meters. Just a few thoughts, bluetooth could be utilised too. Whats your 2 cents? Does the situation warrant such drastic action?
