Satnav theft

[thermidorthelobster]

BBC News are reporting ways to keep your satnav safe.  (Unusually, they don't find a way to link it to evil 4x4s, as they do with most other negative stories involving transport.)

But I'm a bit surprised by this sentence:

Detective Sergeant John Agar from the force's vehicle crime team explains: "Thieves at the moment are using the latest technology, which can track a sat nav system even when it isn't on display in a vehicle.

"So, for example, if your car is parked up and the sat nav is locked in the glove compartment, thieves can still tell it is there and will break into your car for it."

You what now?  How do they do that then?  Sounds suspiciously to me like somebody's commented that thieves look for the suction cup patterns on the windscreen, and somebody else has totally misinterpreted it as the thieves having some magical high-tech way of scanning the interior of your car.  "The latest technology" is a humungously vague phrase, rather reminiscent of "for tax reasons".

Or does yer modern lowlife scum walk around with tens of thousands of pounds worth of x-ray detector, in the hope of nicking a £200 satnav?

 :?

[Thrasher]

It's because the "unwashed" think a sat-nav is something that tells people where it is, not something that *knows* where it is using triangulation of satellites......

[landyman37]

You what now?  How do they do that then?  Sounds suspiciously to me like somebody's commented that thieves look for the suction cup patterns on the windscreen, and somebody else has totally misinterpreted it as the thieves having some magical high-tech way of scanning the interior of your car.  "The latest technology" is a humungously vague phrase, rather reminiscent of "for tax reasons".

Or does yer modern lowlife scum walk around with tens of thousands of pounds worth of x-ray detector, in the hope of nicking a £200 satnav?

 :?

Is the blooth tooth still active when the thing switched off?

[mmgemini]

I watched that report this morning.
I too wondered how they knew that you had left the sat nav in the car apart from either the marks or the mount.

[Magnum335]

Dont use bluetooth. Its evil. sheeeer evil i say. Makes you prone to viruses and everything. Easiest way round it is to take your nav and valuables out with you.

[thermidorthelobster]

Dont use bluetooth. Its evil. sheeeer evil i say. Makes you prone to viruses and everything.

I hope that was tongue-in-cheek?  Cos Bluetooth has nothing to do with viruses!

[Snooky]

A friend had her laptop nicked from the boot of her car and the police told her the same thing, they recon it's something they use which detects electrical stuff in cars, so I guess it must point to the boot or the interior as to the location of such items.

I still think it's crap and they just pic on certain cars  

[thermidorthelobster]

OK, let's think this through.

How would they detect an electronic device switched off in a car?

It's not going to be emitting anything electrical or magnetic when switched off.

It is going to disturb a magnetic field;  but then, so is the tonne or so of metal which surrounds it.  So a metal detector-type device is going to be a bit of a waste of time.

It'll stop x-rays.  Providing you have an emitter on one side and a detector on the other.  Not very practical for your average scumbag;  and to show up on a live sensor (rather than being recorded on a sensitive film) it'd need to be a pretty large and powerful x-ray emitter, so you'd need to bring your generator with you.

Gamma's not got the range;  radio waves are going to be affected but not in a predictable way;  so what are we left with?

At the moment all I can think of is magic pikey fairies.  Either that, or maybe the police are talking hogwash.

I'm dying to know what this "latest technology" can be.  Either I'm going to have a flash of enlightenment or it's going to be very disappointing and revolve around smeary circular marks on windscreens.

[Lord Shagg-Pyle]

As someone who is dealing with the thieveing little scrotes day in and day out,believe me most of them haven't got enough brain cells to think of doing something that clever.
They look at any vehicle and if they think that there may be something valuable in it they'll put the window through.
Simple!
Please don't give these brainless, selfish, thugs any more credit. If you leave a handful of loose change in the car, they'll have that away.
I can think of a way to stop all theft from cars, but it is slightly illegal and would be frowned upon by my bosses.
Think about this logically.
Toughened glass can be made. Why is it not fitted? Because the manufacturers wouldn't make money from spares.

[thermidorthelobster]

If you leave a handful of loose change in the car, they'll have that away.

Some little toerags broke into my old Volvo to get some spuds and bread off the back seat.  Of course, it cost me 50 quid excess, plus several hours of time and a lot of hassle.  With hindsight I'd rather have given them 50 quid and saved the hassle;  or, better, run them over.

[Magnum335]

Dont use bluetooth. Its evil. sheeeer evil i say. Makes you prone to viruses and everything.

I hope that was tongue-in-cheek?  Cos Bluetooth has nothing to do with viruses!

Bluetooth has nothing to do with viruses? Where'd you hear that? Ever heard of Cabir....?

[thermidorthelobster]

Bluetooth has nothing to do with viruses? Where'd you hear that? Ever heard of Cabir....?

I didn't make the point very well, but Bluetooth doesn't actively "give" you viruses;  it's a communications format.  You've given an example of a virus which can use Bluetooth to spread, but running Bluetooth on its own isn't going to suddenly give you a virus.  It's a bit like saying air gives you viruses;  viruses can use air to propagate, but you're not getting the virus just because you're using air, and you wouldn't want to stop using it just in case you got a virus.  In practice you take precautions.

And in any case, in order to contract the Cabir virus on your Symbian mobile phone, you have to willingly accept more than one warning message from the phone that something is trying to connect to it and propagate...  don't you?

In the context of GPS units, unless you happen to be running satnav on a Symbian mobile phone, I'm not aware of any virus which is likely to affect you, through Bluetooth or otherwise.  I'm sure there may be PocketPC viruses which can spread via Bluetooth too but I don't think they're commonplace?

[Magnum335]

No not really lol!

I'm not sure if you had to accept the incoming or not, i think alot of people have theirs set to autoaccept, which was how the virus is spread.

Its not a very common thing but it is an unprotected (ie not firewalled) way of annoyances to spread.

Admittedly it is useful  but its something to think about, such as the thread topic.

Is everyone of the lelief this is hogwash then?

[Range Rover Blues]

Anyway if theiving little scrotes do atart carrying X-ray equipement about it will make them infertile and stop the b*****ds from breeding :)

[DiscoveRay]

In my days as a 'sweeper' we used a non-linear junction detector to search for dormant electronics, at £15,000 each, I think it's unlikely to be used by a car thief (unless he's nicked it!).

Ray

[DarrenG]

A friend had her laptop nicked from the boot of her car and the police told her the same thing, they recon it's something they use which detects electrical stuff in cars, so I guess it must point to the boot or the interior as to the location of such items.

I still think it's crap and they just pic on certain cars  

It is utter bo**ocks!