Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

LoJack used to be the go-to company for this. No more.

Classic LoJack had good privacy. It's a box hidden somewhere in the car, with a connection to vehicle power. It has a transmitter, but normally doesn't transmit. If your car is stolen, you report this to the police, which report it to LoJack. That broadcasts an ID over a subcarrier of some local FM broadcast station. The receiver in the Lojack unit listens for those IDs, and if its own ID comes up, it turns on. It starts loudly transmitting to units in police cars, giving approximate direction and range. If you see a police car with four short whip antennas on the roof in a square pattern, that's a Lojack-equipped vehicle. It's uses radio direction finding. The vehicle box has no idea where it is. It's a totally independent system - no cellular, no GPS.

So this only tracks vehicles which have flagged as stolen. It's not constantly phoning home.

Classic Lojack is a one-time charge, with no annual fees.

The current product, LoJack AnalProbe™, which they call "Connected Car", constantly phones home, reporting your location, battery level, etc. to the mothership. There's an app to review where you've been. And, inevitably, the EULA says that Lojack may "share information with LoJack’s affiliated companies, Service Providers and/or third parties in conjunction with the Software and Services and for the purpose of providing You with any promotional offers and marketing materials as may be permitted by applicable law."

You get to pay a subscription fee for this.

Today you see four antennas on police cars for digital diversity reception, originally desirable for minimizing multipath issues but today just about required for P25 "phase II" operation of multiple repeaters on the same channel. These are usually 900MHz radios, one of the factors in the decline of traditional Lojack was many police departments shifting to 900MHz for P25 and no longer equipping all vehicles with VHF radios. Depending on the department, vehicles may not have any radio capable of receiving Lojack transponders. Whether or not they're programmed for it is also a question.

When direction finding was used Doppler DF based on multiple antennas was rare due to the high cost of the electronics package, which also consumed a lot of trunk space. Most police departments did it the old fashioned way with a handheld log periodic they waved around. Another part of the decline of the original Lojack system was the high price of providing good DF receivers to police departments, so not many had them. LoJack never got big into having their own DF "hunters" on staff like other companies using transponders did.

The issue with the old lowjack is that whilst it was better for privacy it was far worse for actual recovery.

Cars that were outfitted with low jack would have the devices removed or disabled before the tracking could be enabled and as they didn’t report their position the police would have nothing to go by.

Whilst I agree that the information sharing is pretty despicable since you are already paying for that service the new model is more useful at least in a situation where the police actually has resources for recovery instead of doing the bare minimum because most vehicles are insured.

There probably is a market for a solution that would be more reliable than an airtag but one that you can control.

One can probably build one fairly easily with a low power SBC with cellular capability and one of those IOT global sim plans.

I assume the "LoJack Inside" window sticker is the main technology you really want? Suggest the thief go steal a different car?

Negative externalities Co.

The whole thing about the mayor and NYPD telling everyone who watches or listens to the news to buy a 30 dollar gps patch that someone can put under some car carpeting anywhere in said car should be enough to discourage most car thieves with 2 or more active brain cells, but hey, I'm an idealist.

On Amazon I see them as low as 5 for $13 {GPS tracking tags. No need to buy Apple}

I'm not sure what you're seeing but you're definitely not seeing genuine AirTags 5 for $13. More likely you're seeing the AirTag holders for that price.

>> No need to buy Apple

> you're definitely not seeing genuine AirTags 5 for $13

I didn't see anything in the comment which suggested they were. It is specifically points out there are devices not produced by Apple. Third parties can create compatible devices:

https://developer.apple.com/find-my/

The advantage of AirTags is the large phone tracking network: every recent iPhone defaults to tracking them. That's hundreds of millions of devices globally, with probably even more density in the US. The main competitors (Tile and Samsung) have much smaller networks. I'm not sure what network you'd get with generic "Bluetooth Tracker" tags: technically it could be Apple but I can't find any evidence for such products online.

I am convinced you are not reading the things you reply to.

That person specifically noted and gave you a reference to how those 3rd party tags use Apple's own network.

> That person specifically noted and gave you a reference to how those 3rd party tags use Apple's own network.

What is the clear reference? One person said they searched GPS tracker tags on Amazon and the other gave a link to Apple’s licensing program which in turn links to NDAs and contractual agreements as well a multi-step design and approval process. There seem to be some knock-offs claiming they work with Find My, but there’s all sorts of weird counterfeit crap on Amazon. Do you have links to a product that’s actually licensed/supported by Apple (ie works and will keep working), because that’s what surprised me.

https://chipolo.net/en-us/products/category/chipolo-spot

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HQF72ZM/A/chipolo-card-sp...

I own one, and it works just like an airtag and appears in the find my app. It doesn't have precision feature but everything else works(like using the apple/iphone network to find it)

Is a Apple device required to actually find the tag? Is there an Android app?

The off-brand ones lack a sufficiently large network to be used for tracking. They're only good for finding stuff in range of your own phone.

What do you mean? They can use the same network of Apple devices.

How? Airtags only work because Apple uses any iPhone with BLE support as a detector, whether or not an app is installed. An off-brand BLE beacon would require an app to work at all, and I highly doubt Apple would make it easy for a third party app to run all the time in the background.

According to https://developer.apple.com/find-my/ manufacturers of third party hardware CAN leverage the iPhone BLE network to connect to the FindMy network.

That's pretty neat. I wonder, is the user experience any worse than using airtags? Or is it functionally the same?

Link plz?

Yeah I investigated a few. The ones I checked were Bluetooth and used your phones GPS to mark their location.

So like, if you left your keys somewhere, you'd know where they were when you walked away, but not where they are afterwards.

I've been using atuvos tags, which work on the find my network (no third-party app required) and appear to work exactly the same as airtags with the exception of the LF radio for precise location finding - you just don't get the radar mode in the find my app.

They cost half as much as legit airtags

Only if the police were actually interested in seeing the location of your stolen property & going there to look for it, which is not a typical experience when reporting a theft to an urban police department.

For what it's worth my car was stolen last year and the Orlando police response was swift, professional, and effective.

I called in with my report, dispatch quickly verified that the car had not been towed then asked me some preemptive questions to make sure it really was stolen (no one else had keys to it, etc).

My car a tracker that the thieves disabled but I sent the dispatcher the last known flair location before the tracker shut off.

The police sent one officer to get my statement while three other cars of officers canvassed the area around the the flair location building by building until they found the car inside of a gated community.

Then they took me to it to confirm it was mine, dusted everything for fingerprints, and gave me a business card with the officer's name, department, etc. and a case number I could use to for reference with insurance or to follow up and see if they managed to catch the people who stole it.

The entire process only took about an hour and the police went above and beyond. I'll forever be grateful for their efforts.

> …should be enough to discourage most car thieves with 2 or more active brain cells, but hey, I'm an idealist.

With all the dubious “stalkers put an airtag on my car” stories from a while ago they are also trivial to find and disable.

Apple isn’t stupid, they are good for finding your lost keys but not for finding your lost girlfriend.

I don't know anything about the trade of stolen vehicles and the people who do it, but i imagine advertising that will let smart thieves and chop shop types know what to look for and quickly remove.

From that perspective it's probably better for people to not know you have lojack, conceal it, and make them work harder to check for it.

The function of the sticker is to make the thief look for an easier target.

Might work for opportunistic thieves, but not for modern steal-to-order gangs.

>but not for modern steal-to-order gangs

Then get a second hand Shit-Box 2000 like I do. Nobody will ever steal it, as no self respecting thief will want to be seen driving that, and it costs me less to buy and own.

Win-win I'd say.

I'm struggling to understand why people who aren't Bezos wealthy buy expensive cars. The depreciation is insane and you're always anxious someone will steal it or ding it in a parking lot. But then if people weren't frivolous with their money, half of us wouldn't have jobs ;)

It ain't about $$$ value. Your shitbox could* be stolen if at any point that platform or it's parts become desirable for any context whatsoever.

for example, the fabled acura integra. While not cheap, it's certainly not going to make a thief rich. At the end of the day it's a vtec honda civic with 2 doors and standard transmission.(I'd argue that a 97 Acura Integra IS your definition of a shitbox.)

Because of that desirable engine, they are still the most GTA vehicle in US.

Used cars are actually much more likely to be stolen, especially if lack modern features like chip keys, immobilizers, and GPS tracking services. In US cities, the most stolen cars are all 15-20+ year old models. If you buy a new Toyota for instance, you don’t need an AirTag because it comes with location tracking services built in.

https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/most-stolen-cars/

https://wblk.com/most-stolen-vehicles-ny/

Just because most stolen cars are used, that does not necessarily mean that a used car is more likely to be stolen than a new car. You've got to consider the base rate, otherwise, you're committing the base rate fallacy. Since most cars are used, of course it's not surprising or meaningful that most stolen cars are used.

It doesn't take comprehensive statistical analysis to conclude that a brand new car that comes with an electronic immobilizer, alarm system, and remote GPS-based location monitoring is less likely to be stolen than your 1999 Honda Accord, 2001 Subaru Forester, or 2020 Kia Soul that comes with none of those features. The advice to buy a used car to avoid theft is demonstrably stupid.

I suspect people at multiple points on the 'car cost ladder' look at everyone who has perched higher up on it with that same level of bafflement.

I have purchased a couple new cars in my life, but in the sub-$35k range. While, looking at the amount a payment would be on an $80,000 car, I'm aware I could definitely afford it -- especially at that 6-7 year term that is so popular now -- it is wild to me that anyone would derive enough marginal utility to justify the cost. I'll take my car plus a briefcase full of money over a Mercedes, thanks.

It's possible though that the person with that $80k car also thinks they're quite rational and only the person with the $150,000 car is a lunatic.

Or just put the sticker on it but not have the actual thing in there so they can't find it?

Your alignment is 'Chaotic neutral'

"Warning: Small active tracker device hidden somewhere in the car. Good luck!"

thieves spend 3 hours literally tearing the car apart and then give up but your car is ruined anyway

The first one is... incredibly convoluted. Like reaching your right arm over your head to touch your left esr (try it!). The second one sounds like it sucks.

With the pay-once AirTags you can just find the car thief yourself and shoot them.

https://nypost.com/2023/04/02/texas-man-used-apple-airtag-to...

That's probably the only solution because from the stories I've seen, when someone has something stolen that's airtagged and they tell police, the police basically just tell them to fuck off

Police will take more notice if they get to charge someone with Grand Theft. Tracking down a thief for a low-mid dollar item is seen as a waste of time because they'll be back out on the street in no time.

Definitely not, I've heard the same thing about car thefts. The person who has their car stolen is basically told "good luck with that"

Wikipedia:

"In March 2016, the company was acquired for $134 million by CalAmp, an Irvine, California-based provider of Internet of things (IoT) software applications, cloud services, data intelligence and telematics products and services.[4]

In March 2021, the vehicle intelligence company Spireon announced it had acquired the LoJack U.S. Stolen Vehicle Recovery business from CalAmp, joining LoJack users with "nearly 4 million active subscribers from over 20,000 current Spireon customers".[5]

Under Spireon, LoJack technology moved from RF-based location to GPS and cellular-based technology, growing availability of the solution throughout the U.S. and Hawaii and expanding the solution from only stolen vehicle recovery into connected car technology for both dealers and consumers."

> If your car is stolen, you report this to the police, which report it to LoJack.

By which time it is already chopped up for parts or, in the case of places like Phoenix, is already in Mexico.

I used to have a roommate who grew up in NYC, had a somewhat dubious past and was talking about LoJack one day. He claimed it doesn’t work well enough in dense urban areas to get a precise location fix to actually impede theft. IIRC they would have enough time to disable it as long as they stayed around tall buildings. Something like they would park the car in an alley between buildings and find the LoJack before doing whatever with the car.

I’ve known a few youthful car thieves over the years with some interesting stories.

> “park the car in an alley between buildings”

Fun fact. Very few alleys in NYC

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortlandt_Alley

I really just remember the part about LoJack not working in urban areas so I probably just interpreted that part. Or it could have been all made up, who knows?

Like this whole Kia Challenge thing, I’m sure a bunch of them are going to grow up and say they were crack auto thieves because they got six months community service for jacking their neighbor’s car with a usb cable.

Just a thought here... Why not just write a simple script that collects GPS location, host it on a private server, point an old Android phone at that page, and wire the phone under the dashboard?

That could work fine, but dedicated GPS tracker hardware isn't that expensive and will be more robust and reliable than an old phone (simpler software, heat and vibration tolerant) - plus there's usually IOT-NB/LTE Cat-1 support so you can use less expensive cellular providers and most trackers have at least one dry contact output for remote immobilization. The main downside to hardware GPS trackers is that they're mostly sold "to the trade," so you get a reference manual for their often AT-based communications protocol and you're left to your own devices. There are open-source backend servers around but I feel they're often too genericized to work well with the features of any one tracker, so big incentive to write your own software.

Don't even need to write a script, just provide the storage. Eg https://www.gpswox.com/en/mobile-apps/android-gps-tracking-a...

Those apps appear to share your location data with the company.

My boy had this in his integra ,it got broken into the other day, he has a kill switch on the ignition though, so the thief kinda just sat there in the car.

Kick your local thief in the face, ya?

It could be far simpler than that, effectively a stripped basic currently available phone wired into operating power that could be called to send GPS payload via SMS. It would simply power up on start and only ever send the coordinates based on an authenticated call or sms itself.

do you know if the legacy system is still in use?

my first 'nice' car had lojack installed in it. i remember it was about $200, and that's all, but this was 10+ years ago. i wonder if it's still out there...

Can you even get a car in the US these days that doesn't have a GPS and cellular connection? My 8-year-old BMW has both even though they're not exposed as features in the head unit. (I know because the thing malfunctioned last year, called the cops, and gave them my GPS coordinates.)

> The current product, LoJack AnalProbe™

Outstanding name! Their marketing team has a wicked sense of humor.

Wow, the police allowed their entire fleet of vehicles to be used by a private company? And taxpayers considered this ok and not blatant corruption?

Capitalism, you scary.

Wait till he finds out that police departments don't build their own cars, or sew their own uniforms.

What a silly comment. Those are assets purchased by the cops to enable them to provide the services they do to the public.

On the other hand, we have a private for-profit company that is piggybacking off the cops vehicles in order to make profit for it's shareholders. That would never be allowed in any democratic country, but then neither would bribery/lobbying so [insert shrug emoji]

I especially hate all those private for-profit police scanner making companies like motorola that piggyback off the cops.

This seems more like a company was providing a service to the cops. I assume the police departments had to buy the lojack receivers, but after that it probably doesn't cost them anything. No different than the cops buying any product or service that helps them do their job.

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