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"... Fortunately for Rosa, the Darlings were also allegedly fencing electronics, allowing the owner of a stolen iPad to track his missing tablet to the same apa

"... Fortunately for Rosa, the Darlings were also allegedly fencing electronics, allowing the owner of a stolen iPad to track his missing tablet to the same apartment via an iPhone app connected to his iPad’s GPS. ..." Would be a nice hack to build something like this. How would you embed a device like this into into a frame & other parts? Comments: "... Ryan Scheel: Might it make sense to put a GPS device in bikes encrypted with a private key that only your computer has access to? ..." RFID inventory of parts unique to a bike? Would be interesting if each (high value) part had a unique serial number unique to the bike. Small RFID devices for the frame, wheels, seat brakes registered to a unique frame? That way each part could be tied to a frame & identifiable to one bike.

jzwinck 12y ago
If you are serious, the answer is to make the device a 1" tube that fits into the steer tube of most bicycles and can receive and transmit RF via the top cap (which would be plastic rather than the usual metal). Easy to conceal, near-universal fit (for bikes from the last 10+ years), sufficient space for a battery, radio, no visible parts. Charge using the tube as ground and the top cap bolt as hot. The problem is, it will cost $150 or so, plus monthly cellular data fees (you can dial 911 for free, but the police will not do anything with this).
- chromakode 12y ago
  I thought this sounded familiar, so I did some searching... here's pretty much exactly that: http://www.integratedtrackers.com/GPSTrack/Spybike.jsp http://www.integratedtrackers.com/GPSTrack/Spybike.jsp
  - jzwinck 12y ago
    Wow, thanks for digging that up. It even costs $152 right now (converted from GBP). Apart from the fact that you seemingly have to remove it to charge, looks good.
- s_baby 12y ago
  >The problem is, it will cost $150 or so, plus monthly cellular data fees (you can dial 911 for free, but the police will not do anything with this). pre-paid sms is cheap.
- bootload 12y ago
  that's a pretty good description & solves find the frame (or potentially the bike) but not the parts being stripped & re-sold. Maybe that's good enough. The 2007 article posted by a reader (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8817800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8817800) mentions the sequence is: Sell complete bike on Craigslist & stripping down as the last resort moving the parts to chop shops. The high cost is another form of insurance especially for USD8K bikes.
- jschwartzi 12y ago
  If you use an M2M or data-only plan, your monthly costs would be around $20.00 a month, not including the server that receives the GPS data. The only problem is that the cops won't do anything even if you provide them with the GPS data.

jzwinck 12y ago

If you are serious, the answer is to make the device a 1" tube that fits into the steer tube of most bicycles and can receive and transmit RF via the top cap (which would be plastic rather than the usual metal). Easy to conceal, near-universal fit (for bikes from the last 10+ years), sufficient space for a battery, radio, no visible parts. Charge using the tube as ground and the top cap bolt as hot. The problem is, it will cost $150 or so, plus monthly cellular data fees (you can dial 911 for free, but the police will not do anything with this).

chromakode 12y ago
I thought this sounded familiar, so I did some searching... here's pretty much exactly that: http://www.integratedtrackers.com/GPSTrack/Spybike.jsp http://www.integratedtrackers.com/GPSTrack/Spybike.jsp
- jzwinck 12y ago
  Wow, thanks for digging that up. It even costs $152 right now (converted from GBP). Apart from the fact that you seemingly have to remove it to charge, looks good.
s_baby 12y ago
>The problem is, it will cost $150 or so, plus monthly cellular data fees (you can dial 911 for free, but the police will not do anything with this). pre-paid sms is cheap.
bootload 12y ago
that's a pretty good description & solves find the frame (or potentially the bike) but not the parts being stripped & re-sold. Maybe that's good enough. The 2007 article posted by a reader (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8817800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8817800) mentions the sequence is: Sell complete bike on Craigslist & stripping down as the last resort moving the parts to chop shops. The high cost is another form of insurance especially for USD8K bikes.
jschwartzi 12y ago
If you use an M2M or data-only plan, your monthly costs would be around $20.00 a month, not including the server that receives the GPS data. The only problem is that the cops won't do anything even if you provide them with the GPS data.