Careful What You Post, the FBI Has More of These 761
jamie writes "A comment posted to a website got its author's *friend's* car an unwanted aftermarket addon. The Orion Guardian ST820, a GPS tracking device, was attached to the underside of the car by the FBI. No warrant required. The bugged friend, a college student studying marketing, was apparently under suspicion because he's half-Egyptian. As Bruce Schneier says, 'If they're doing this to someone so tangentially connected to a vaguely bothersome post on an obscure blog, just how many of us have tracking devices on our cars right now ...' The ACLU is investigating." This follows up on our earlier mention of the same student, who turned the tracking device over to the FBI.
get a lawsuit (Score:4, Informative)
Re:get a lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:get a lawsuit (Score:4, Informative)
I'd recommend you go look at the pictures of the device that have been posted. It will not be hard to recognize. And this is not a thing they can easily disguise, the biggest part of it is a battery.
http://www.google.com/images?q=fbi+tracking+device&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1600&bih=1047 [google.com]
Re:get a lawsuit (Score:5, Informative)
A former FBI agent commented on one of the stories that this is a rather old model, the newer ones hook in in the engine compartment directly to power and don't need batteries, so it might be harder then you think.
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A former FBI agent commented on one of the stories that this is a rather old model, the newer ones hook in in the engine compartment directly to power and don't need batteries, so it might be harder then you think.
Well, to get to the power they would have to patch into some wires, or go in through the hood. Ignoring the fact that they do not own the gasoline that powers my vehicle, the interior of my vehicle is not a public place.
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you can access the engine compartment from the underside of the car...
Not every car.
I know of several models where you have to have a pit or ramps to do anything significant under the vehicle. Sure, if you can find a person who is less than about 5" thick, they could get under the car, but that doesn't mean they could do any real work.
Also, the last few cars I have owned have skid plates [wikipedia.org] that basically cover the entire bottom of the engine compartment. Removing them without putting the car on a lift means that you're going to be taking over an hour to plant the tracking dev
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Except the positive lead to the starter is only live when you're starting the car.
Siphoning enough current off it in four or five seconds to run a GPS unit for a couple of hours would cause problems, especially in older vehicles and/or cold climates.
Personally i'd probably go for the fuel pump power supply, although newer direct-inject vehicles with an HPFP may be more sensitive to voltage drop
Better yet, any accessible line to a tail lamp (esp. the license plate bulbs) would be most excellent.
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it's incredibly easy. Why would they have to have it hooked straight up the the battery? They can splice a wire and have it run off, and if it's hidden anywhere you pretty much wont' see it.
This is not complicated, but it is pretty scary and definitely something we should hope the supreme court will strike down soon.
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I'd recommend you go look at the pictures of the device that have been posted. It will not be hard to recognize. And this is not a thing they can easily disguise, the biggest part of it is a battery.
http://www.google.com/images?q=fbi+tracking+device&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1600&bih=1047 [google.com]
There was a quote from an ex FBI guy in the gizmodo article. He was saying that normally they're much more well-hidden. They know you may go to the mechanic or whatever, and don't want to be found. He said something to the effect of: if they install it right, you won't find it.
Spooky.
-Taylor
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Re:get a lawsuit (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:get a lawsuit (Score:5, Interesting)
Ideally, if they install one, they'll put it somewhere that you'll never see it. There are plenty of wonderful places to hide objects on cars. Ask any mechanic if they've ever lost a tool in a car. If they say "no", they haven't been doing the job very long, or they're lying. Those are just the places that things can fall to.
Most cars have plastic/rubber bumpers. Behind the bumper is some sort of material that will crush on impact. Some used hard plastic honeycomb pieces. Some use styrofoam. Those don't always fill all the space, which leaves nice gaps to hide things in.
I had to change my turn signal housings about a year ago. They were cracked. To remove them, the electric raise headlights had to be removed, and some other plastic removed. Only then could I see that there was a space on each side of the front of the car large enough to put a shoebox.
On a car with a grill, how many of you have looked behind the grill to see what may be lurking? I know most people don't. It gets warm there, but it also leaves a nice spot to leave something in plain sight.
For the power wires, that's not really very hard either. Slip the wire into an existing loom, or put an oem-ish one in.
I was helping a friend do some significant changes to the interior of his SUV. As we were pulling stuff out, we came across several boxes of unknown origin. I'm sure they were there since the truck was manufactured, but no one had seen them since. Who pulls the headliner, and all the interior trim parts out? Not too many people. We searched the part numbers, and found that they were indeed factory pieces, but they were for options that weren't included on this particular truck. Behind the radio and throughout the dash has many gaps that you'd never notice. I was installing GPS tracking devices for a fleet (perfectly legitimate, the owners and vehicle operators knew they were there). Most of them had spots that I could mount the oversized box in very nicely, and hide all the wiring away so you'd have a really tough time finding them. I could set up a private or commercial vehicle in about 15 minutes, but I was taking my time and doing everything right.
But, there are plenty of mystery boxes that you simply don't know exist, or you don't know what they do. In 2005, 65% of new passenger vehicles had EDR (Event Data Recorders), which store the last few seconds before an event (i.e., crash). 2006 on, it was suppose to be 100%. I haven't heard too many people asking "What's this box do?". They just accept that it's a piece of the car. In reading up on it, some vehicles may become disabled if it's removed. If people aren't finding or questioning this standard equipment, would they ever notice an extra piece? Probably not unless you duct taped it to the windshield with a note that said "This is a government tracking device, do not remove under penalty of law"
How well it's hidden directly relates to how long the person installing it believes they have, and how adept they are at getting around a security system. If you can disable the alarm and unlock the doors, in most driveways you'd have from 1am to 4am (climb inside, and work with the doors shut). Mounting it outside just adds visibility. Sure, you can put it on, but will a neighbor or passer by stop to find out why you're crawling around under the car in the middle of the night? Surely if a fed was doing it covertly, and the local police spotted him, it would ruin the covert part of the operation.
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Plenty. But a lot of them aren't so good for a tracking device which must get GPS input. Lots of wonderful places to lose hardware and tools under the engine and accessories will si
Here's a story about this from August (Score:5, Informative)
The link can be searched on Google: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599201315000 [google.co.uk]
Here is the text from when it was active as the best I can do:
The Government's New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements. That is the bizarre - and scary - rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants - with no need for a search warrant. (See a TIME photoessay on Cannabis Culture.) It is a dangerous decision - one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich. This case began in 2007, when Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents decided to monitor Juan Pineda-Moreno, an Oregon resident who they suspected was growing marijuana. They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle's underside. After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA's actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand. (Pineda-Moreno has pleaded guilty conditionally to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and manufacturing marijuana while appealing the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained with the help of GPS.) In fact, the government violated Pineda-Moreno's privacy rights in two different ways. For starters, the invasion of his driveway was wrong. The courts have long held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the "curtilage," a fancy legal term for the area around the home. The government's intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy. The judges veered into offensiveness when they explained why Pineda-Moreno's driveway was not private. It was open to strangers, they said, such as delivery people and neighborhood children, who could wander across it uninvited. (See the misadventures of the CIA.) Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month's decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people's. The court's ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night. Judge Kozinski is a leading conservative, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but in his dissent he came across as a raging liberal. "There's been much talk about diversity on the bench, but there's one kind of diversity that doesn't exist," he wrote. "No truly poor people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for that matter." The judges in the majority, he charged, were guilty of "cultural elitism."
I don't know how well this stands, but hey, it's something!
Re:get a lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what the retarded thing is? The friend's comment that supposedly aroused suspicion is completely innocuous. All he's doing is pointing out how easy it is to attack the 99% of targets we haven't tried to harden, rather than the 1% we have, and concluding terrorism isn't much of a threat as a result.
Agree with his conclusions or disagree, it's hard to shake the idea that the FBI is punishing him because he had the nerve to think rationally, and point out how retarded our whole "anti-terrorism" thing is. How dare he see through the farce?!
Re:get a lawsuit (Score:5, Interesting)
I need to point out that we actually don't know why the FBI is tracking this fellow. Every single reason anyone has given for the tracking has been pure speculation. In the original reddit post, the kid even said "we were high when we found it so we thought it was a bomb." So, for all we know, the FBI is tracking him related to a drug sting. There is no indication that blog posts or Muslim community connections had anything to do with it.
Re:get a lawsuit (Score:5, Informative)
Re:get a lawsuit (Score:5, Informative)
That presumption of innocence exists in court, and nowhere else. If it existed outside of the court, there would be no way to conduct an investigation - if you presume someone is innocent, how can you justify a warrant? Suspicion can only exist if there is no presumption of innocence. They are mutually exclusive. In court, the presumption exists until the prosecution proves otherwise.
There are, however, rules about how an investigation can be conducted, and apparently for the time being attaching a tracking device to a person's car is legal.
To me, it seems borderline at best (i.e. without the device they'd just have a cop tail his car all day), but still I'd rather see a warrant for it, at the very least so that there is a public paper trail.
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Right, which is why police don't need a warrant to search you unless you are in a courtroom. Oh wait. Never mind ...
Re:get a lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to get a warrant, the cop has to swear to the judge that there's probable cause to believe there's some connection with a crime.
The 4th Amendment was written for situations like this and civil asset forfeiture. Our legal system has gotten turned completely upside down. Judges have forgotten that they're supposed to protect innocent victims, whether the perpetrators were other civilians or Congress.
Yes, there is the point about having a cop follow the suspect around all day. But cops are always short-handed, and technology like this lets them crack down tighter on the whole "Big Brother" thing. If they have to have an actual person dedicated to following the kid around, odds are they'll limit themselves to suspects who are actually worth investigating.
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And, like it or not (and I don't), the Ninth Circuit has declared this to be consistent with due process, thus they are gathering evidence perfectly legally.
Of course, as many here like to point out, legal != ethical, and I think the Ninth Circuit judges have too many cops up their collective asses to see rationally, but as the law stands at the moment, there doesn't seem to be a problem with due process here. I'm not a fan of the ACLU very often, but I'm cheering for them on this one.
Re:get a lawsuit (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think it's cops up their asses. I think it's the same old tired kneejerk "TERRIST!" reaction we've seen ever since 9/11. Any time someone wants to do something that's blatantly unethical or illegal (like, say, waterboarding people, or kidnapping them, chaining them to the floor of an airplane, flying them to Syria, and having them tortured with methods up to and including administering electric shocks to their genitals) (Yes, this actually happened, many times - research "extraordinary rendition") they just run to a judge who may not particularly like the cops, but who is terrified of the terrorists, and claim that what they're doing might prevent a terrorist attack.
Well. Yes. It might. Hell, nuking the whole planet would prevent them too, but no one's suggesting that. Why not?
And then after they've been doing the waterboarding or the extraordinary rendition or the illegal surveillance, they say "Well see, we haven't had any terrorist attacks and therefore it must be working!" which is a completely illogical train of thought. We haven't had any dragon attacks either, but that doesn't mean that the little boy 2 houses down from me who keeps waving a plastic sword around to drive the dragons away is actually having an effect.
Yes, terrorists are out there and yes, we need to do everything we can to prevent them from pulling off another attack like that, but it has to be both logical and consistent with the laws of the land. To suddenly declare private property as public-property-for-the-purposes-of-government-spying goes against every founding principle of this country. To follow people around because of something they said in a political discussion on a message forum, or because they're not white enough, is un-American, unpatriotic, and anyone doing it or authorizing it should be jailed.
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From what I can tell, the FBI's only reason to place this bug on the guy's car is that he's "half Egyptian".
I suppose next is having your car bugged if you're half-Mexican (in Arizona) or half-a-fag, or half liberal, or have uTorrent installed on your computer, or don't go to church on Sunday or if you don't have a little metal fish attached to the back of your car.
What a second-rate nation the US has become in the past thirty years.
Re:get a lawsuit (Score:4, Insightful)
Or do.
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Haven't you heard, the US is a "Christian Nation"!
Re:get a lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't believe that's true.
Yes, we are a nation made up of people who predominantly self-identify as "Christians" when asked in a poll question, that's not really the best way to count. I would bet that if you asked people if they were "moral people" or "ethical people" we'd probably get 95% of people saying that of course, they were. That would hardly mean that 95% of Americans were either moral or ethical. Just that we like to think of ourselves that way.
On the other hand, if you were to ask people if their neighbors were "Christian" you would get a much lower number than you get when people are self-identifying. It's because calling yourself a Christian or a "person of faith" is a long sight from actually being so.
If you were to observe the people who call themselves "people of faith" you'd find that only a fraction of them really are. Most would probably turn out to be people who say a little prayer when they're betting on red or when they're afraid their wives are going to find out they've been banging the neighbor or when they're running for office.
But I agree with you that to even suggest that "half-Egyptian" means you deserve to have surveillance put on you (even if your dad did die last year on a trip to Egypt) is to suggest that the American experiment is a complete failure, which it may well be.
I think the main takeaway from the past few decades is that the United States has turned into a second-rate nation. And not for the reasons that the Tea Party would have you believe. It's because we've turned over our society, our culture and our government to investors who have not turned out to have our best interests at heart. We knew going in that multinational corporations were going to put profits ahead of the best interests of the country, so we shouldn't be a bit surprised. We knew going in that "supply-side" economics was a scam to concentrate wealth in a very few people. But apparently, the siren song of cheap consumer goods and E-Z credit was much stronger than our desire to fulfill the promise of our Founding Fathers. So corporate governance needs fear of the "other" and a selfishness that masquerades as "Liberty" to stay in power, which has begotten "libertarians" and the "tea party", so we end up, paradoxically, with a country that's on lock-down both physically and intellectually, where everyone is more worried about the abstract "national debt" than the very real credit card balances they've been racking up. Misdirection. Promoting make-believe Liberty in order to enslave a people is not a new idea, but in the hands of big money and corporate media, it's effective beyond belief.
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If there is any way to evaluate the "truth" of a religion, I would say "based on the behavior of its adherents" is high on the list.
But of course, you and I both know that evaluating the "truth" of a religion is like evaluating the mass of a poem.
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Re:get a lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, but at least most Americans until the '80s had a reasonable expectation that their kids would have a better life than they had, which for a parent is as much as one can hope. Whether you're talking about financially, or civil rights, or education, or however you measure "quality of life", things were getting a little bit better for each generation.
Starting in the early 90's, after supply-side economics really started to do it's dirty work, the realization set in that our kids would not have it nearly as well unless you were a member of the top few percent. The trend accelerates.
Re:get a lawsuit (Score:5, Insightful)
and get it to the supreme court. if they say this is legal, burn it down. simple really.
Too late. SCOTUS has already changed the meaning of the Second Amendment to something the Founders never intended. The purpose of the Second was so that those that carried arms could organize and could protect others from our own government. Now, it means self-defense. From selfless to selfish in just two, well-publicized cases.
got spyware? (Score:5, Funny)
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Try this on my property, you WILL get shot. No warrant, not invited, attempting to tamper with something of mine means risking lawful execution by Castle Doctrine law.
Ignore the Constitution by taking some judge's opinion over the written law at your own risk.
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What a gentle and meaningful way to solve a problem!
Instead, why not drive a bugged vehicle to some interesting destinations?
After all, a paranoid Castle Doctrine threatening to execute federal workers or contractors wouldn't get you under any kind of real suspicion, would it? After all, this is just between us, right?
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Yeah, because the FBI sucks at finding good times to do these things. Good luck with that. They'll shoot you dead before you make it out your front door with your gun. Unless you happen to be that one navy seal who posts on slashdot, you lose in this confrontation.
Re:got spyware? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, because the FBI sucks at finding good times to do these things. Good luck with that. They'll shoot you dead before you make it out your front door with your gun. Unless you happen to be that one navy seal who posts on slashdot, you lose in this confrontation.
He's not a Seal, but he's logged about 5,000 hours on Halo II in his mom's basement, and since he's 28 years old now, he could actually buy a firearm. So you shadow-government federal toadies better watch out, man.
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Wait, now we're in the same thread... crapcrapcrap....
Re:got spyware? (Score:5, Insightful)
People like you are an embarrassment to those of us who work hard to get things like Castle Doctrine in place, and then you interpret it, in complete ignorance, to mean that you can kill any person for any reason so long as they have a foot over your property line. I wouldn't be surprised if you were a false flag plant of gun control advocates out to make gun owners look bad.
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If it happened at night and in Texas it just might. Note the section on criminal mischief:
Sec. 9.42. DEADLY FORCE TO PROTECT PROPERTY. A person is justified in using deadly force against another to protect land or tangible, movable property:
(1) if he would be justif
Re:got spyware? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have seen two people in Austin misconstrue Castle Doctrine. The first was someone who shot someone who was entering a neighbor's house. The second was someone who tried to shoot at another driver due to road rage.
Both people are facing heavy duty felony prison terms.
To get a concealed weapons permit in Texas requires to take (and pass) classes and be able to at least hit a target which shows that you know which end the bullet comes out of. These classes include knowing that discharging a firearm can bring a lot of charges, even if it is plinking in the air for a new year's celebration. Shooting at a person will be an attempted murder charge, and an assault with a deadly weapon charge on the spot unless there are real special circumstances (self defense, defense of property).
Don't assume Texas is a gun happy, lawless place. Yes, we have concealed carry laws and castle doctrine, but judges here will throw the book at anyone who does not follow the CHL laws to the letter. And yes, even the type of handgun is considered, as there is a CHL for a revolver, and a CHL for a semi-auto.
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You don't always have to fire a firearm for it to be effective protection. The answer is to call 911, point the rifle at them, and yell, "You are under aim. Put your hands up, palms forward. Slowly back away from the vehicle. The police are on their way."
If they make any sudden movements while you have them at gunpoint, then you can probably assume they are armed and mean you immediate harm at that point.
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lawful execution by Castle Doctrine law.
Can you tell me the last time a citizen was able to successfully use weapons to defend his property from 'intrusion' by any determined authority, local or federal? Rambo fantasies are so lame.
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Can you tell me the last time a citizen was able to successfully use weapons to defend his property from 'intrusion' by any determined authority, local or federal? Rambo fantasies are so lame.
The Branch Davidians stopped the initial attempt [youtube.com] of the authorities to enter their compound using their weapons. We'll never know how long they really could have held out - assuming the fire was started by them.
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While I haven't been able to Google it, I recall one instance where a homeowner shot two police officers who were in his garage. The court ruled in favor of the homeowner.
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It greatly depends on what state you are in.
In Texas [state.tx.us], for example, if you saw somebody tampering with your car at night you would be justified in using lethal force to stop them in many cases.
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Hell yes. I wouldn't give it back either.
I would disassemble it and post it on youtube. Or try to hack it and see if I can come up with a neat use for it.
Why give it back? If they put it on your car, do they still own it? I'd like to think not.
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That said, the FBI should really put a sticker on the things that says something like "Property of the US Government, if found, call 1-800-XXX-XXXXX".
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They're going to bust you for destruction of federal property. You can argue that it was put on your car on your property, but I wouldn't expect to get very far.
The lesson here is do not post to the internet about the issue until you've fully taken it apart and documented it.
Then post anonymously via an internet cafe or an unsecured wifi access point.
But please do make the effort so that the rest of us can find out as much about it as possible.
Re:got spyware? (Score:5, Funny)
You should attach it next to the one I stuck on Carly Fiorina's campaign bus.
Re:got spyware? (Score:4, Funny)
This is just paranoid (Score:5, Funny)
Operation: Fearstorm (Score:5, Interesting)
Mainstream media coverage of the fiasco will show just how stupid and bust-desperate the Feds are. And, of course, the most dangerous are the informants and provocateurs [globalresearch.ca] working for the feds. They should be rounded up and beaten brutally.
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I think the point of the article is that you've probably just earned yourself a tracking device, thanks to this post/idea. Enjoy that.
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I'm sure he will, he can sell it for a lot on ebay.
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Re:Operation: Fearstorm (Score:4, Funny)
Screw with them (Score:2)
This makes me want to screw with them. Get their attention - get a tracker installed. Find the tracking device, duplicate it and its signal and start sticking them on strange things like freight trains, ships, delivery trucks, send one to space on a weather balloon ...
I wonder what RF they use. If it's cellular that could be a problem. But also not a particularly reliable situation for the FBI.
I am a Muslim (Score:2, Insightful)
.. and most of my friends do not care about this. It's part of the religion to care less about possible adversities as a result of your good action.
Albanian emigrant - one of those that were trapped by FBI via Egyptian scumbag into the army base plot - famously said to that informant at some point (pre-arrest, of course): "I do not care if you work for FBI, I will do what I have to do". (something to that avail).
That's the attitude unbelievers should learn from Muslims: if you stand for something right, do
Re:I am a Muslim (Score:5, Insightful)
Think bigger (Score:5, Interesting)
Religious extremism is merely a tiny subset in the world of extremism. What all extremists have in common is that they employ an initiation of physical force (coercion, not persuasion) as a means to their end. Indeed, it isn't their ideology or motive that makes them evil; it is precisely the initiation of force (or threat thereof). It is the initiation of force itself that is extreme, and the acute observer will realize that the label "extremist" applies to anyone who resorts to coercion as a means to an end, including schoolyard bullies, thiefs, and (get ready for this) governments.
Many people are fond of claiming that money is the "root of all evil". On the contrary, it is coercion which is the root of all evil, because coercion is the one absolute prerequisite of all forms of injustice.
Re:I am a Muslim (Score:4, Insightful)
if you stand for something right, do not be afraid of adversary consequences.
Actually this is the attitude of all religious nuts. Extremist Christians blew up a Planned Parenthood in California last month even though it is clearly illegal. Israeli Extremists are occupying the West Bank, because they think it was given to them by God. All religious extremism has this same type of stupidity.
You interpreted his statement 180degrees. He was saying "Don't be afraid of what others will do to you" (ie expect to be brutalized for what you believe because people will misunderstand) Of course, he chose one of the _worst_ possible examples since the FBI clearly understood correctly that the dude wanted to attack an army base.
Re:I am a Muslim (Score:5, Insightful)
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Er, wouldnt you do what you think is right, irrespective of what others think about it? If thats the definition of a religious extremist, I would be an extremist too.
Re:I am a Muslim (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand the Holocaust was enabled by conformism.
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So your suggesting that If the people writing the laws tell you and action is wrong, that makes it intrinsically true? He said nothing about ignoring popular opinion, only that his ultimate choice of the correct course of action was not based on the personal consequences of said decision.
I hate to pull a godwin, but if you'd lived in Nazi Germany would you have sided [ethically] with the Nazis, simply because theirs was the prevailing ideology?
Re:I am a Muslim (Score:5, Insightful)
and most of my friends do not care about this. It's part of the religion to care less about possible adversities as a result of your good action.
Yeah. See, *sane* people fight for the fucking rights their government is supposed to guarantee them. Shrugging your shoulders, grinning, and bearing it because you feel it's some tribulation placed upon you by god is a brilliant way to ensure your continued persecution at the hands of those who would use you as a scapegoat in an ugly political climate (like, say, a period dominated by a weak economy, a couple of ugly wars, and a highly divided populace).
You help *no one* with your high-minded apathy. All you do is enable the bigots and the opportunists, implicitly validating their actions by refusing to fight against them.
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Stop kidding yourself. You're living in an extremely sinful country (according to Muslim beliefs) and enjoying its benefits. You don't want to move because of the adverse consequences to yourself. You said as much by saying, "it's not a very easy decision the last half of your life".
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Pascal's Wager for the Paranoid (Score:3, Interesting)
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Hah! Worlds largest etch a sketch. Draw on the FBI's maps today!
Bzzzt. Wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
Well, this article doesn't "follow up" on jack. It's just less informative and more inflammatory than the original.
He wasn't being tracked becasue of a blog post at all. His father was a notable political figure, and he travels and sends money to suspicious locations. From the article linked on the original slashdot story:
Re:Bzzzt. Wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Obscurity (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Obscurity (Score:4, Funny)
That just shows how much more secure Schneier's site is than Reddit.
Legal tracking. (Score:5, Interesting)
One interesting thing from TFA is that newer GPS trackers are installed under the bonnet, and powered by the car battery. I can sort of see how one might say you can track cars without a warrant using magnetic, battery powered GPS trackers (like the one in the article), but how on earth can breaking into the car not require a warrant?
Re:Legal tracking. (Score:5, Insightful)
Possible easy means of detection. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Too many variables. 1/2 gallon of gas either way would more than make up the difference.
Rules... (Score:5, Interesting)
If the government has a warrant to track your vehicle with a GPS device, I'm fine with them tracking it.
Some caveats.
1) They should _not_ be allowed onto private property to install said devices. That's a slippery slope. If your property is not private, then what is? If I'm on my driveway, apparently it's fair game "because the UPS driver can walk on it". But what if you park in the yard because too many cars are in the driveway? What if you park around back? What if you park in a car port? What if it's in the garage but the door is open enough to get in? What if... No. Follow me and tag my car when it's in a public place, again, if you have a warrant to do so.
2) If I find a device on my car and I don't know you put it there. It's mine, period. Now, if you tell me its there and that's its government property and I'm legally obligated to leave it there, fine. I can rent a car (I guess that's why they don't tell you). But you can't expect me to just inherently know that the device isn't mine when I had no idea you put it there without my knowledge. For all I know it's a part of the car right out of the factory.
This BS with agents/contractors going onto private property installing devices and then threatening you when you find it... It has to stop.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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If I find a device on my car and I don't know you put it there. It's mine, period.
You can safely assume that if I find a device on my car, it's going to "fall off" on some heavily traveled road. If it happens to be a GPS tracking device, then you'll know exactly where to look when you want to collect data about its durability.
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Not sure about getting this to the SCOTUS (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that the 7th and 9th Circuits have OK'd warrantless tracking, I am unsure how quickly the Supreme Court would grant cert on this issue. And given the current members of the Court, I might not like their decision.
Strange (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that to the court's thinking, there's no "expectation of privacy" in a driveway unless there's obvious effort that's been placed at excluding random passers-by: e.g., fencing, and a gate. The thinking being, "Well if you care about keeping your driveway private, you should have made an effort to make it so people can't access it."
The dissenting opinion (interestingly from a fairly conservative judge appointed by Reagan) actually cited the fact that this creates an economic imbalance - poor
Motorcycles (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a lot harder to hide anything on a motorcycle than it is to hide something on a car.
Eh, sort of. When's the last time you looked at the underside of your engine block? While there are fewer places to hide things on a bike, even one is enough if you don't check it.
Revenge Of The Nerds (Score:3)
Search your car for the tracking unit. Remove it and try and be creative by placing it on a taxi or other highly mobile vehicle. I do wonder how long it would take the spooks to figure out they were accumulating data on the wrong car.
I found one (Score:3, Funny)
I found one of those electronic thingeys in my car, with lots of wires plugged into it, so I ripped the sucker out. Then, according to my mechanic, someone stole my ECU, which cost me $300 to replace. And those damn FBI agents also snuck another one of those devices into my car. Talk about your bad luck. I'm off to get rid of this new one, so wish me luck.
Makes you wonder (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW, this particular device is a few generations out of date; now the Great Protectors of Our Rights have much tinier Boxes of Freedom that are surreptitiously powered via the cars' battery cable.
Dear FBI (Score:4, Funny)
I am currently seeking an IT position, and have over 35 years experience in Wintel servers, clients, and especially automated rollouts, OS, and application customization. Full resume upon request.
HEX
Muslim Bomb Cell Biological Illuminati President Obama Genius Terrorist Ground Future Star 911 Zero Alien Black Helicopter Tracking Bazinga
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My keysoard ib fucked up bo pleabe excube me.
I think right now Osama is the right man to fix America. Libtening to everything he bayb, you know he'b right, and I agree with everything he'b done. Go Osama Go!
Man, gotta fix get my b and s keyb fixed!
How can the GPS work under a car? (Score:4, Interesting)
How can the GPS work under a car? I'd think with all that metal on top, the GPS signal would be pretty attenuated.
Maybe if it was near the edge of the bottom of the car with an antenna that gets a sideview, even then I'm not sure it would see enough sats to get a fix.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
RF doesn't get blocked by metal and other surfaces. Rather: sometimes it reflects off in some other direction, and sometimes it gets absorbed and turned into (typically a very tiny amount of) heat or electricity, and whatever is left passes through with whatever amount of attenuation.
The ground/asphalt/bitumen/tarmac/concrete under the car is no exception to this: some signal bounces off of them. Reflected signals tend to be less accurate than direct line-of-sight signals, but then fixing a GPS position
"Stolen currency tracking" device (Score:5, Informative)
The device shown has the FCC ID number "O9EQ2438F-M" on the outside of the box, as required by law. FCC ID numbers can be looked up in the FCC database, [fcc.gov] where details of the device and pictures of the electronics are available. It's a cell phone module, of course. The FCC was told it was for "stolen currency tracking". The maker was Wavecom, since acquired by Sierra Wireless. The unit dates from 2005.
That's just a standard RF module. That application covers the addition of a spread-spectrum module to upgrade the cell access to support PCS networks. The base device, according to the FCC application, is FCC ID NBI-MTAG216. This is more interesting. It's a "Trac Pak V", from "Spectrum Management LLC" of Carrolton, TX.
When the spread-spectrum module was added, the company issued a press release about it. [findarticles.com] "Spectrum Management, L.L.C. [sm-ets.com], a global provider of innovative physical and electronic security products which include its proprietary asset tracking and management systems, announced today the completion of its TracPac CS Tag and the development of an all-new web-based tracking and location system. Spectrum has combined technologies with Wavecom, a leading provider of pre-packaged wireless communications solutions for automotive, industrial and mobile professional applications, with a wide range of fully integrated modules and modems. The new Tag design pairs Wavecom's Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) module with GPSOne, and Spectrum's proprietary VHF homing technology to provide a wide range of Location Based Services (LBS). Spectrum Management expects to offer similar tracking and location services on Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications by simply substituting Wavecom's plug-in compatible GSM module."
Spectrum Management's predecessor company was ProNet, which was a public company in the 1990s. [sec.gov] They were acquired by Metrocall, and the tracking business was split off as Electronic Tracking Systems. They started as a pager company, but branched out into tracking devices. From their SEC filing: [sec.gov] "In 1988, the Company began to apply advanced wireless technology to the security business by marketing radio-activated electronic tracking systems to financial institutions. At December 31, 1996, the Company's security systems consisted of 29,501 miniature radio transmitters, or "TracPacs," in service." Most of these were leased to banks, and attached to items of value or hidden in bundles of currency. The 1990s model was a pre-GPS technology; they had to get local cops to install receivers (like LoJack does) for this to work. So it only worked in a few markets, and they were having trouble expanding, from their SEC filings. The newer technology doesn't have that limitation.
So it's a stock piece of law enforcement equipment, circa 2005.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Don't you hate pants?
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I'd bet that the FBI has no idea why the FBI bugged the man, except that some lazy SAC got a boxful and decided to put them on the car of anyone with brown skin or a middle-eastern name.
Remember, the burden of proof for why this tracking device was placed is always on the authorities who placed it. I really don't think you want a situation where someone has to explain why they should not have tracking devices on their car.
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I normally don't respond to Anonymous Jackoffs, but do you know anything about the Muslim Community Association? They're the largest Muslim community group in the US and there has never been anything that shows they have any ties to any t