GPS is starting to get scary. Jealous spouses can buy trackers for less than a $100.
Employers are putting them on company cars.
Now, it turns out car dealers are secretly installing them to repossess cars. A disgruntled employee at a dealer disabled a 100 cars using the internet. A few mouse clicks and your car won’t start. :eek: Apparently it doesn’t matter where the car is.
I don’t find it surprising the people are fighting back with GPS jammers. It’s illegal in the U.S. to even own one. But, with the privacy concerns, people may have to consider getting one.
Interesting that this article only focuses on possible terrorist threats. What about the 99% of people that want privacy?
I see benefit with GPS, but am concerned with the growing abuse. Using them to disable cars at the whim of a creditor seems extreme. What if there’s a legitimate dispute about a payment that didn’t get posted? What happens after the car is paid for? Is anyone going to bother removing the GPS black box?
Um, there IS no repo man - that’s the point of the system. GPS is not required, either. You need to read the articles you post. It’s in the second paragraph, so it’s not like it’s buried deep. Here’s the relevant part:
GPS has a lot of positive uses. It’s significantly reduced civilian casualties in wars. It’s also helpful in locating people that are injured. That’s why it was put in cell phones. I carry a GPS when I go hunting. It guides me to my deer stand and then back to my truck. I love it. It also has an off button.
My concern is the abuse of the technology. For $50 a jealous gf or spouse can buy a tracker online and track you. Now, reports are coming out that auto dealers are putting the technology in cars. The technology is being abused.
Sorry for the cite confusion. Here’s a better one that mentions repossession. This was the article I originally read.
My county is furiously trying to buy 100 GPS based transponders for emergency equipment so it can be tracked real-time by our brand spanking new enhanced 911 system. I approve of this wholeheartedly.
GPS is a data stream from a satellite that is nothing more than a time code and a data table of the positions of the satellites. That’s simplified, but that’s the gist of it.
All of the stuff you and others complain about is not a GPS function. Clandestinely track a car? That’s the tracking box using GPS data, not the GPS satellites doing the work. Your beef is with the guy(s) designing the black box, not the GPS system.
It’s a fact of life that any technology developed will be abused about 10 seconds after it hits the market.
I would consider the case in his linked article, in which an employee apparently disabled cars/set off horns just for the hell of it (as a “harmless prank”) to be a good example of abuse.
It’s impossible for anyone to track anything surreptitiously with the use of GPS by itself, because GPS involves one-way signals from satellites to the GPS unit. Any signals from the unit to a tracker are outside the scope of GPS.
Does this count as an abuse of GPS? At least it’s filing a false police report and tricking the police into using GPS to track a “suspect,” but GPS and abuse are both involved.
Truck driver Brye gave 3 weeks’ notice that he was leaving his job as a truck driver for Interstate Van Lines, and apparently a contract dispute arose.
Sheesh! Is nothing sacred anymore?