You can't outrun a GPS receiver.
October 29, 2013 7:52 AM   Subscribe

Police firing GPS tracking 'bullets' at cars during chases. The GPS Launcher sits behind the grille of a police vehicle and deploys tracking tags onto fleeing vehicles. The launcher is activated by a control panel (located inside the vehicle) or by a remote key FOB. The launcher, containing two tags, is activated by a control panel (located inside the vehicle) or by a remote key FOB. The system also includes an on-board air compressor. Installation required. Starchase: The Pursuit Ends Here.
posted by three blind mice (61 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
What a weird article. Is there any indication that these are actively in use as opposed to this article just basically being an ad for the things?
This seems so blindingly intelligent -- at least until miscreants catch on -- that there can't be a drawback.

There is one. The system costs $5,000, and each bullet sets the taxpayer back $500.

As usual, a wise accountant and a conscientious bureaucrat will huddle together to see if it's all worth it.

However, for the passerby, won't it be fun to see police car grills open up and bullets being shot out of them?
I see a big market for people who can drop the "bullet" price below $500. Heck I'd think you could make something similar with magnets and rubber bands and make a killing.
posted by jessamyn at 8:00 AM on October 29, 2013


But how long before they add an explosive option to their little grill-mounted projectile launcher?

Anyway, this will be obsolete when they start requiring every car to have a GPS squealer module built in.
posted by pracowity at 8:00 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]


For clarity, certainly not an ad for the thing on my part. Just more of the best of what's on the web. So to speak.
posted by three blind mice at 8:03 AM on October 29, 2013


What's the turnaround on a warrant? The Third Circuit Court recently said they need one for this kind of thing.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:10 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


Came here to ask the same, but I'm guessing they feel it would fall under probable cause or plain view. Whether or not it does is for someone else to say.
posted by yerfatma at 8:13 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


Whatever events give rise to a chase are going to be enough to justify tracking via GPS, at least until the car is stopped and searched.
posted by skewed at 8:15 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]


jason_steakums: "What's the turnaround on a warrant? The Third Circuit Court recently said they need one for this kind of thing."

This is a good point but that case seems to be about surreptitiously installing a tracker in the car of someone the police think might have been involved in a crime, more like wiretapping or other surveillance, whereas in the chase situation the police have already made the decision that they want to detain whoever is in the car. So the question is between having a potentially dangerous chase or dropping a tag and following some other way (helicopter?) at a slower pace. Obviously the potential for misuse is enormous, but then it always is.
posted by chavenet at 8:19 AM on October 29, 2013


pracowity, my stomach lurched when I read your comment - I think it's inevitable and horrifying.

I can still hardly believe there's no simple 'Turn Off Tracking' option on all cellphones. Silly me, questioning our capitalist overlords.
posted by j_curiouser at 8:20 AM on October 29, 2013 [6 favorites]


This seems so blindingly intelligent -- at least until miscreants catch on

I don't know, seems to me that the kind of criminal that gets involved in highspeed car chases is generally not that bright to begin with.
posted by IndigoJones at 8:27 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]


There is one. The system costs $5,000, and each bullet sets the taxpayer back $500.

GPS jammers cost about $40. Just putting that out there.
posted by mhoye at 8:29 AM on October 29, 2013 [5 favorites]


This makes me think of the time we rigged a paintball gun under a friend's hood that shot out through the grill. Not for tracking purposes, but just as a "Fuck you for cutting me off" thing.
posted by Samizdata at 8:30 AM on October 29, 2013 [8 favorites]


Anything that can get American police off of their insane predilection to engage in high-speed chases that put innocent lives at risk is a good thing.

Indeed, occasionally innocent lives in other countries.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:30 AM on October 29, 2013


I can still hardly believe there's no simple 'Turn Off Tracking' option on all cellphones.

Airplane Mode.

What, you still want to use the phone as a phone? It isn't particularly hard to use a pair of cellular towers to triangulate on its position.
posted by LogicalDash at 8:30 AM on October 29, 2013 [9 favorites]


Finally, the police have caught up to Spider-Man.
posted by snottydick at 8:33 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


Looks like Togusa finally found a use for that Mateba...

I'll let myself out quietly...
posted by whittaker at 8:36 AM on October 29, 2013 [9 favorites]


So trying to get my news director to get on the phone with the Iowa State Patrol to try and get a demo, I want to see one of our station vehicles get tagged.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:38 AM on October 29, 2013


The projectile is not small, and if you watch the video on their site it shows an officer just pulling it off with his hand, so the glue must not be that strong. All you'd have to do is pull over long enough to yank it off and you can go back to evading the law. And even if it was permanent glue, it would only take a sheet of aluminum foil crumpled over it to shield the antennas and render it ineffective. This completely depends on the ignorance of the suspect.
posted by Rhomboid at 8:43 AM on October 29, 2013


Came here to ask the same, but I'm guessing they feel it would fall under probable cause or plain view. Whether or not it does is for someone else to say.

Yeah, I'd guess the same thing. At the point where you're engaged in a car chase, you are already attempting to arrest the driver and seize their car (at least temporarily). Whatever warrant or warrant exception allows you to do that will probably also allow you to hit them with a tracker in the meantime. (The Supreme Court case about planting GPS trackers was partly decided based on the idea that planting a tracker is a "seizure" of the space the tracker takes up, if I'm remembering this right, so if you're attempting to seize the whole car anyway that might not be a big deal.)

The interesting bit will be situations where it's less clear that you had the right or intention to arrest them in the first place -- for example, if after planting the tracker you decide it's actually better to let them get away and see where they go.
posted by jhc at 8:44 AM on October 29, 2013


I can still hardly believe there's no simple 'Turn Off Tracking' option on all cellphones.

When a call is routed to a cellphone, it goes through the nearest cell tower. In order for a cellphone - not a smartphone, mind you, but any cellular phone - to work at all, it has to be able to see signals from cell towers, and have an understanding of their relative signal strength and assert that it's connected to one of them. Once you've got that from more than one tower you've got triangulation, and then you've got location; GPS is so that your phone can know where it is to within a few meters, but the phone system already knows to within a few tens of meters where the phone is. The systems that negotiate that log their systems and interaction history, and who throws out logs?

All cellphones are tracking devices.
posted by mhoye at 8:51 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]


Apparently there is only one cruiser in Iowa that has this system. It's very much a trial run kind of thing.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:00 AM on October 29, 2013


...or by a remote key FOB...

You'd think they'd use domestic keys, or at least keys that had been in the country for a long time.
posted by gurple at 9:01 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


Wait for the price to come down, or someone to make a homebrew, and people will be planting these things on the police cars instead. Its the inevitable escalating GPS wars!
posted by Joh at 9:04 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


Austin is using them.
posted by sublivious at 9:06 AM on October 29, 2013


Someone alert Section 9, and tell Togusa to switch to an automatic.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 9:06 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]


Is there any indication that these are actively in use as opposed to this article just basically being an ad for the things?

Well, it's definitely making the rounds on the local action-news as a "new tool for law enforcement" time-fillerfeature.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:08 AM on October 29, 2013


Since they seem to think "fob" is an acronym, I wonder what they think it stands for. Fiddly object ballast?
posted by Pre-Taped Call In Show at 9:19 AM on October 29, 2013 [4 favorites]


it would only take a sheet of aluminum foil crumpled over it to shield the antennas and render it ineffective.

And they told me this tin foil hat was useless.
posted by dirigibleman at 9:20 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]


Didn't both Spiderman and Batman use versions of these multiple decades ago?
posted by Old'n'Busted at 9:23 AM on October 29, 2013


Finally, the police have caught up to Spider-Man.

Unfortunately, these days they're probably getting inspiration from The Superior Spider-Man.
posted by straight at 9:24 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


Looks like Togusa finally found a use for that Mateba...

Speaking of which has anyone seen the latest incarnation of GITS?
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:44 AM on October 29, 2013


There is one. The system costs $5,000, and each bullet sets the taxpayer back $500.

Any accidents caused during the chase would dwarf the latter cost.

And police chases are one of the major causes of traffic fatalities.

These sound downright cheap.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:46 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]


LogicalDash: "It isn't particularly hard to use a pair of cellular towers to triangulate on its position."

[pedant]
Triangulation requires knowledge of angles against a baseline which these towers can't provide.
Locating a cell phone based on its signal exchange with nearby towers is done using multilateration.
[/pedant]
posted by Hairy Lobster at 9:50 AM on October 29, 2013 [10 favorites]


Interesting that this technology is being deployed here in St Pete where we have a mayor who instituted a chase policy that has been highly controversial.

If this technology works and results in fewer injuries and deaths due to fewer pursuits I'll be happy to see my tax dollars go towards buying $500 sticky "bullets."
posted by photoslob at 9:50 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


Silly me, questioning our capitalist overlords

what does capitalism have to do with it?
posted by Dr. Twist at 10:27 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


When a call is routed to a cellphone, it goes through the nearest cell tower. In order for a cellphone - not a smartphone, mind you, but any cellular phone - to work at all, it has to be able to see signals from cell towers, and have an understanding of their relative signal strength and assert that it's connected to one of them.

receive signal strength won't get you anywhere near even hundreds of meters. cellular base stations predominantly use Time-of-Flight measurements for multilateration.
posted by Dr. Twist at 10:36 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


I understand that there's the technical ability to 'multilaterate' or whatever the mechanism is called. What I am saying is, 'I should be able to opt out. Don't capture the NMEA stream, don't capture the raw coords, don't triangulate, don't log.' That's what I mean by 'turn off.'

If I can click 'ok' on a website to order a feature, it's absolutely feasible to click 'ok' to cancel one.

Yeesh, literal much.
posted by j_curiouser at 10:41 AM on October 29, 2013


what does capitalism have to do with it?

the telecoms aren't tracking you for fun. it's because there's money in it. Aggregated location data to infer your personal routines.
posted by j_curiouser at 10:43 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


What I am saying is, 'I should be able to opt out. Don't capture the NMEA stream, don't capture the raw coords, don't triangulate, don't log.'

I'm all for privacy, but this seems like asking for the features without having the system. Do you want to be able to use the highway without being seen as well?
posted by yerfatma at 10:55 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


he telecoms aren't tracking you for fun. it's because there's money in it. Aggregated location data to infer your personal routines.

AT&T lets you opt out of that. I got a letter from ATT informing me that they were going to begin selling my location data, and if i wanted to opt out to go to their website.
posted by Dr. Twist at 11:05 AM on October 29, 2013


'I should be able to opt out. Don't capture the NMEA stream, don't capture the raw coords, don't triangulate, don't log.' That's what I mean by 'turn off.'

they cant turn it off by law the ToF is part of the E911 requirements.
posted by Dr. Twist at 11:12 AM on October 29, 2013


The telecoms aren't tracking you for fun.

They're tracking you (mainly) for network management purposes. Every cell site broadcasts a Cell_ID which is associated with every cellular phone communicating with that particular tower. The network operator knows where its cell towers are located (as does everyone else) and this is used to roughly locate a cellphone. Depending on the cell size the precision is from a few hundred meters to a few kilometres. This is good enough for hand-overs and the like.

Cell_ID has been used (and still is in many places) by 112 (and 911) emergency services. Some networks have the capability of triangulation, but this is NOT ordinarily done because it takes network resources and for most purposes Cell_ID is more than adequate. When you make an emergency 112 or 911 call the network forwards location information (either the geographic coordinates associated with the tower, or where available the triangulation data) to emergency services which is required by law.

Otherwise the network is happy with Cell_ID and indeed in many jurisdictions the network is not permitted to track you with any more accuracy. GPS is another level of precision which does not require the participation of the operator.

So yeah, all cell phones are tracking devices, but in most cases you can only be roughly located.

This little gizmo the police are developing allows them to track you without the participation of the network operator.
posted by three blind mice at 12:08 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


I understand that there's the technical ability to 'multilaterate' or whatever the mechanism is called. What I am saying is, 'I should be able to opt out. Don't capture the NMEA stream, don't capture the raw coords, don't triangulate, don't log.' That's what I mean by 'turn off.'

If this bothers you, you're in for a painful future. Imagine a time when not only your phone is talking to the internet, but your refrigerator, plants and medicine bottles are as well. The Internet of Things is coming, quicker than you think. This means that anything and everything can be tracked and analyzed. The width and breadth of devices is staggering - if you can think of it, someone is probably out there trying to connect it to the internet and make it 'intelligent'.

There is no getting away from it...
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 12:09 PM on October 29, 2013


The Internet of Things is coming, quicker than you think

I hope so, because at this point I think it's going to show up right around the time the Semantic Web sorts out RDF queries.
posted by yerfatma at 12:20 PM on October 29, 2013


There is no getting away from it...

yes, and I think that is a terrible direction culturally. I'm capable of seeing where the ship is going even if I don't care for the destination. I'm neither a Luddite, nor a technophobe, fyi.

Do you want to be able to use the highway without being seen as well?

'being seen' != 'being-filmed 24x7x365 and-archived-indefinitely'

So yeah, all cell phones are tracking devices

it's possible to anonymize the logs after the immediate call. possibly no one thought of that? guess not.

Long story short: none of us signed up to be perpetually, incessantly on JenniCam for the rest of our lives (and after, as well). The commercial world and security state seem to want that awfully badly. I don't like it.

fin
posted by j_curiouser at 12:24 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


If you are close enough to get the target vehicle with one of these, you should be able to hit the sucker with a rocket-propelled-grenade. (Surely they are already working on this at the Los Angeles P.D.)
posted by bukvich at 12:26 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]


Do you want to be able to use the highway without being seen as well?

Sure, sign me up!
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:45 PM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]


There seems to be a large disconnect here. Several of us who have some glimmer of how telecommunications actually work are trying to explain how vague, nearly useless location-information can be gleaned as a side effect of the very service you're trying to access.

Others, who are dead certain that The Man is behind all of this, are insisting that they don't want this, and the system should be redesigned so it doesn't have this side effect (and most seem to think it's not a side effect of getting a clear phone call when you want it, but some sort of government plan to track us all). You don't want your cellphone to tell the police you're about a mile west of cell tower #115-J28, give or take a few hundred yards? Use a land line. Blame yourself for this problem; if you'd just tolerate a lot more line noise and more dropped calls, the phone companies would not have needed to build all this fancy tech. That's right - it's not the government; you did it.

But it's not that accurate, folks. We aren't through that looking glass yet. Your local police cannot tell that you left the kitchen and are heading into the bathroom right now, because of your cellphone in your pocket.

According to this source, when the phase-III plan is implemented everywhere (which will take another 5 years), accuracy will still only be "50 to 300 meters". You can't even absolutely determine which house you're in, with that accuracy. They'll know you're on the south side of the block. That level of accuracy is an added feature from the government, and it's explicitly aimed at helping with 911 calls. That's not to say it won't be abused - it will be, of course.

Now, GPS, that's another game. The FBI can (AFAWK) turn on your GPS remotely - at least, we've heard suggestions that this is true - and as long as your phone is powered on (which for iGadgets is: always), its location can be known. That is avoidable: don't use a phone with a GPS.
posted by IAmBroom at 1:07 PM on October 29, 2013 [5 favorites]


I guess I'm a little concerned that if a criminal discovers one under his car, it will be Walter and he'll realize that Hank is on to him.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 1:11 PM on October 29, 2013


GPS jammers cost about $40. Just putting that out there.

And I'm just saying the kind of people who lead police on high-speed chases are generally not the kind that a) even know what a GPS jammer is and b) have the foresight to have one in their car.
posted by zardoz at 2:01 PM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]


j_curiouser: "what does capitalism have to do with it?

the telecoms aren't tracking you for fun. it's because there's money in it. Aggregated location data to infer your personal routines.
"

And enhanced 911 services also.
posted by Samizdata at 2:33 PM on October 29, 2013


If this bothers you, you're in for a painful future.

TIL I'm in for a painful future.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 3:59 PM on October 29, 2013


But the present hurts so much already!
posted by orme at 5:18 PM on October 29, 2013


$500 is a drop in the bucket of high speed chase costs. This is so brilliant I'm really surprised it isn't in place already on at least pursuit vehicles or as a hand held device.
posted by Mitheral at 5:22 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]




Stopping needless high speed car chases = good.

Continuing the expansion of surveillance systems without a pause to reflect and consider the implications = bad.

Having the legal system keep up with technologies accelarating rate of change = hard.

Our current level of public discourse = insipid.

Political will to rein in the expansion of state power = non-existent.

Someone upthread "rigged a paintball gun under a friend's hood that shot out through the grill" = awesome.

Thanks Samizdata, I was getting bummed.
posted by skepticbill at 6:50 PM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]


If this bothers you, you're in for a painful future. Imagine a time when not only your phone is talking to the internet, but your refrigerator, plants and medicine bottles are as well. The Internet of Things is coming, quicker than you think. This means that anything and everything can be tracked and analyzed. The width and breadth of devices is staggering - if you can think of it, someone is probably out there trying to connect it to the internet and make it 'intelligent'.

There is no getting away from it...


Sure there is. Don't buy that dumb fridge.
posted by srboisvert at 8:17 PM on October 29, 2013


Anything that can get American police off of their insane predilection to engage in high-speed chases that put innocent lives at risk is a good thing.

The Russian dash cam sites have some awesome police chase videos, if you ever get tired of the American ones.
posted by stbalbach at 8:29 PM on October 29, 2013


> There is no getting away from it...

Sure there is. Don't buy that dumb fridge.


Actually, buying a dumb fridge is probably better advice in this case.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 8:47 PM on October 29, 2013 [4 favorites]


[/pedant] … [/pedant]

<pedant>According to RFC 1866 Section 3.22, this tag must be enclosed in angle brackets to conform with the HTML standard.</pedant>
posted by zippy at 11:16 PM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]


skepticbill: "Stopping needless high speed car chases = good.

Continuing the expansion of surveillance systems without a pause to reflect and consider the implications = bad.

Having the legal system keep up with technologies accelarating rate of change = hard.

Our current level of public discourse = insipid.

Political will to rein in the expansion of state power = non-existent.

Someone upthread "rigged a paintball gun under a friend's hood that shot out through the grill" = awesome.

Thanks Samizdata, I was getting bummed.
"

Glad to oblige. There was a time in high school we rigged all kinds of stupid crap to cars for prankish purposes.
posted by Samizdata at 11:04 AM on October 30, 2013


you'd have to be pretty high not to hear it when it hits the trunk..
posted by 3mendo at 1:44 PM on October 30, 2013


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