The Internet Archive truck has been stolen
twitter.com
twitter.com
(Awful latency tho...)
"@textfiles @internetarchive I just had to move a bunch of floppy disks, I'll have it back by lunch"
Thanks to everyone for getting the word out - it meant a lot. Hopefully the truck didn't suffer too much for its time away and can be back to transporting data and hardware for the archive shortly.
https://blog.archive.org/2013/11/06/scanning-center-fire-ple...
Why has no startup tackled this?
"But thanks to central locking, alarms and circuitry immune to hot-wiring, stealing a car is far harder than it was. In New York City the annual number of car thefts has fallen by 93% over the past 20 years. According to Graham Farrell, of Simon Fraser University in Canada, reducing car theft may have had broader knock-on effects than just restricting getaway options. Stealing a car for a joyride used to be a “gateway crime”, which would lead teenagers on to other crimes; now such escalation is restricted to Grand Theft Auto games (which, at least one study suggests, may themselves be reducing crime by keeping feisty young men occupied)"
So, video games have made criminals into lazy slobs. I don't buy the car alarm thing - in the 20 years that they've been common, I don't believe anyone has ever called the police when they heard one go off. I'm willing to bet that car thieves are able to disable car alarms faster than the car owner, that can't figure out what button to press on the fob.
This backfires if the country is not safe overall. In that case, it leads to an increase in armed robbery, as they have to get the car keys from the owner. Taking said owner hostage is a common escalation.
They were also worth something. It just isn't as easy in most places to flog a stolen car. At least not factoring for inflation or something, I guess. The economics of crime shift just like everything else.
Sometimes stuff police or politicians or somesuch do helps too. Anything is possible.
I went through a phase of buying 80's cars, and had to disable more than a few weirdly installed aftermarket alarms the violent way - even did so once in a sainsburys car park, and managed to break the window as I slammed the door in rage at the fucking thing - and nobody batted an eyelid. Could've been stealing it, no problem. Or maybe it was the suit. Nobody suspects the guy in the suit.
Or as a certain trio of Brits would say, in the olden days, this is how you stole a car:
One of my favorite jokes from a local comedian was this gem: "My neighbors car alarm went off last night. Scared me so bad I dropped all my tools."
High tech car theft: 3 minutes to steal keyless BMWs: http://www.networkworld.com/article/2222742/microsoft-subnet...
High-tech thieves use laptops to steal cars: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/13507939/ns/business-autos/t/high-...
Gone in 60 seconds--the high-tech version: http://www.cnet.com/news/gone-in-60-seconds-the-high-tech-ve...
Blasphemy! It is a mere training ground for these soon-to-be criminals.
Which, incidentally, is why Google won't be installing joypads in their self-driving cars.
It can't be hard to do it better. And if done right there's a massive market. You could get in with insurance companies to cover costs like NEST did with the energy companies. The Business model writes itself.
LoJack is pre-GPS. There's a tiny unit hidden somewhere in the car, connected to vehicle power. Normally it just sits there, transmitting nothing. LoJack has deals with major police departments. When a vehicle is reported stolen, their system picks up the stolen car report, and sends a signal out on a subcarrier of commercial FM broadcast stations, with the ID of the LoJack unit involved. The LoJack unit picks this up, and starts broadcasting its beacon signal, using car power if available and its own battery if necessary. Police cars equipped with LoJack receiver gear (four antennas in a square on the roof) light up a display with direction, approximate range, and info about the target vehicle.
Recovery rate of LoJack equipped vehicles is about 90%. LoJack recovers about 10,000 vehicles per year. It's a 30 year old, effective technology.
I don't know about US market, by in my country an anti-theft GPS trackers sold for about $100 (and about $50 for installation). Not a lot compare to a vehicle cost. Also your need a SIM card (to send/receive SMS by tracker). Even in the US it is not expensive (e. g. T-Mobile for $3/month).
No GPS built in, so you could either add a GPS module or hope that cellular/wifi triangulation is good enough resolution.
I agree this feels like something that should be available off-the-shelf at a reasonable price by now.
Why?
Of course, it comes with its own downsides. For instance you'll lose reporting if they pull in an underground garage. On the other hand, if they ship your vehicle to the South Pole you'll continue to have reception.
http://www.dx.com/p/portable-mini-gsm-gprs-gps-tracker-for-p...
If you want it - it's a commodity, not a startup unicorn (unless you can find a way to give the trackers away, and sell all the tracking data to insurers/local cops/car manufacturer warranty departments...)
Also, it's easy to drive a car into a truck with a Faraday cage making these things almost useless if they did become common.
Real life: dude in a hoodie presses a fake gun into the back of the owner, instructs him to not turn around or call the cops, takes his phone, wallet, and keys, drives off in car with real key. Has a buyer lined up already. Drives car to location and it's promptly put inside a shipping container, which blocks the cell / gps signals by virtue of being made out of steel.
Discussion of this and related concepts on the recent HN discussion of why soap is so frequently stolen from urban markets.
Because we've chosen to use technology for isolated personal enrichment instead of overall humanitarian benefit, we are advancing at a quickening pace toward wealth disparity. Additionally, we've created a religion out of dollars that holds selfishness as a virtue.
It should surprise no one that the selfish actors we've created (and culturally glorified) also behave selfishly when their backs are against the wall.
There's nothing of intellectual interest here, no new phenomenon to comment on, nothing but the tech version of celebrity gossip.
Then don't be that guy. Easy.
I like to read news about things that happen to the organisations I care about, and evidently at least 123 other visitors of this website like that too.