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Comment by midas | Hacker News Reader

I've heard rumors that lots of stolen bikes are exported on container ships leaving the US. The argument is that the shipping is basically free, since most ships are carrying large deliveries to the US and are empty on the return trip.

Does anyone know if this is fact or fiction?

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I was at a Wal-Mart in Shenzhen China and noticed a lot of used bicycles. I couldn't explain why they stocked used bicycles. Could have nothing to do with what you're saying, or they could have been stolen bicycles from somewhere else. In the US, bicycles sold at retail stores like Wal-Mart are new. http://www.flickr.com/photos/andyatkinson/392577801/

Not terribly hard to find out -- the bike generates its own power, and is run outside. A few bikes with GPS and call-home device (powered by the bike) would draw traces to their destinations pretty quickly.

Would love for someone to do a long form sting. Install gps on 10 bikes and follow them as they get stolen and passed around.

I now have napkin designs of just this.

I got hit by what seems to be some kind of paradox: old casual bikes are targeted more often than expensive flashy ones.

Me too. Especially of it were a factory installed option. You could probably encapsulate the electronics in one of the frame tubes, which would mean it would be welded in to the bike. Impossible to detect casually, and nearly impossible to easily defeat without destroying the bike itself.

Given the ratio of hours ridden to power draw of a small tattletale device, you could probably put a couple of magnets on the crank assembly (inside the tube the connects the crank to the frame), along with a couple hundred coils of wire and create a very nice charging circuit. It might take even 100 hours of riding to build up an initial charge, but I'm guessing that would be no problem in a typical scenario, even if it took 2 weeks to get there.

Isn't this something that would be trivially bypassed by passing a big spark through the frame? Burn out all electronics, without harming the rest of the bike.

Good point, but how much current would it require ? wouldn't this be too big to carry noisy and even smelly ?

Most likely not.

First, how you are going to pass a "big spark" through the frame? Carry around a big ass battery while you're on the hunt for bikes?

Secondly, the current would follow the path of least resistance, through the frame itself. Unlikely to really affect a module inside the frame, especially if that module is wrapped in an insulator.

I imagine it wouldn't be done on the spot - pedal to where you parked your theftomatic van, which comes with a nice, big battery pre-installed.

Metal tubes make a nice Faraday cage.

For a reason I can't reply to you brk but I used the same ideas.

My last question was about communicating openly or not about it.

    - Openly would make robber aware and probably come up with attacks 
      or blocking means, but that would surely render their activities 
      a lot more complicated. Could be mass-produced.

    - Secretly a few people would have it and use it as bait, and 
      authorities being aware of the scheme would casually catch robbers 
      later. No mass-production

Oh one more thing, I was thinking about using a cellular module with custom firmware to reply to text messages with gps position but I'm not sure it's feasible.

Sometimes I don't see a reply link on certain comments; clicking on the direct link for those comments, though, shows me the "reply" button.

I tried that, without success. It's probably a karma related behavior

Actually, it's time-related and everyone sees it. Deeper comment threads have a timer that prevents comments for several minutes. It's to give people arguing with each other time to cool off.

Are those rules written somewhere ? I like the tree pruning effect of this one

http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html has some of them, but not nearly all of them.

The cellular+GPS is a commercial product:

http://www.spybike-gps.com/products-gps-localization/top-cap...

Outside Magazine had a story about doing just that: http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/biking/Who-Pi...

This has been implemented in Madison, WI and is supposedly effective.

http://www.uwpd.wisc.edu/crime-prevention-bait-bike-program....

Agreed. I would fund this on Kickstarter, such stings should be positive externalities in the metro they are set up in. I wonder if there have been any sting initiatives on Kickstarter thus far and what laws would allow for (it's been done before, to catch a predator, anyone?)

A pair of low-res cameras - one pointing forward, and one pointing upward - would result in some fantastic shots as well. (Though there may be privacy and legal concerns.)

With recent circuit sizes we could all turn our bikes into wheel powered google cars.

    distance sensors
    front,back,driver cameras
    automatic brakes
    gyroscope balancer
    whatever ...

I think a bike is already a gyroscope balancer. And I do not want my bike to put on the brakes for me - that seems like a great way to send me flying into whatever obstacle it detected.

Right but it can only do so much. I was just wondering how far could we go, a foot driven segway ?

Speaking of cameras: I wonder if bike theft is lower in the UK because of widespread CCTV surveillance?

Almost everyone I work with in London has had a bike stolen (or a least a wheel or two), and everyone I know who owns a bike also has insurance. Not great evidence, but I'm not sure theft is any lower.

Is all the cameras in the UK effective in any way? I mean, to know that the criminal wore a black hoodie and black pants at the time of the crime doesn't give more information than maybe sex, hoodie, pants and maybe a rough estimation of age.

Is it a potent law-tool for Londoners? What was the reasoning for getting so very many? How do people generally feel about them?

From the article: it’s heartbreaking to find out someone stole your bike; bikers love their bikes

Sounds like your idea addresses a real need. I wonder why I haven't heard about this kind of thing already implemented?

Price maybe? http://www.gizmag.com/spybike-gps-tracker/22999/ says $153.58 plus a pay-as-you-go SIM card.

Also http://www.zoombak.com/products/service-plans/

I wonder what it would take to make it more economical.

These guys are doing that and making a tv show about it: http://www.tocatchabikethief.com/

A bike doesn't generate it's own power. An in-hub generator is rather expensive and thus rare, so might serve as a hint to the sophisticated thieves to check the bike for the phone-home device.

I doubt they would think of it. Mind you they should sell those generators with GPS included, sealed in. I would buy one.

it's very common for the US to export scrap metal back to China (or any number of manufacturing countries)-- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/13/business/china-s-need-for-...

When I was younger, I worked for a company that exported cardboard back to China.

I've heard that was a very lucrative business for a while.

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