Student finds a FBI GPS tracking unit in his car...

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Ex-wife bashing thread is now open in the MUG.

Have there been any further comments from either party on this case?

 

I read an 'update' story on it yesterday that was basically just a re-hash. The FBI is not likely to disclose anything more.

 

Legally speaking, if a citizen finds a tracking device on his car that he did not authorize, then I would guess that he has the right to destroy it, because as far as he knows it could belong to the Mafia, a nosy neighbour, or whatever. I believe this fellow would have been within his rights to smash the thing with a sledgehammer -- if they dragged him into court on the matter, he could say, honestly, "I had no idea at the time that the device was government property." No jury would convict him - - - I hope!

 

I would suspect you're right LKD. They showed a picture of the device on the one news story, and there's no way to tell where it came from. It's not like the FBI would label them: "US Governtment Property - FBI Tracking Device".

 

Am I the only one reading this and thinking "The FBI are crap"?

 

I have two responses to that:

1: SOMEONE on the FBI is crap. He probably was distracted, interrupted, or just plain stupid and botched the installation of the device.

OR

2: They deliberately botched it as a warning to the guy -- as in "We're onto you, buddy, better stay on the straight and narrow . . . "

#2 is highly unlikely, but I'm not an intelligence officer, I don't know how their minds work.

 

The FBI? Full of crap?

Why, that's almost worthy of a thread in the AoDA......

 

The "Don’t worry, you’re boring“ comment made me smile. I guess coming from an FBI agent it's not a bad thing.

It seems rather naive to think that government agencies (and not just American agencies) don't monitor people (especially people they consider to be suspicious).

I guess that we would all be shocked by the sheer amount of data government agencies have on regular joes. I don't want to sound too paranoid but I remember people being shocked when they found out about the Stasi (I'm not saying the FBI is as bad as the Stasi by the way) but what I'm pointing out is that it's doubtful that Big Brother isn't watching us (wherever we are).

I'm just surprised that the FBI didn't have a better way to track him down. The device seems a bit low tech for 2010.

 

I thought the same thing - it's rather bulky and obvious, although they did not say where the guy actually found the device - just that the device was on his car. If it was somewhere on the underside of the car - a place where you are extremely unlikely to look - I guess it would make sense. It would be really silly if they just popped your hood and attached it somewhere inside, where you could find it just by opening the hood.

Everyone opens their hood every once in a while. Even if you don't check your oil much, I imagine everyone has replaced windshield wiper fluid at some point in their lives. Then again, a lot of people know jack when it comes to cars, and even if there was an unusual looking device in there, it wouldn't look suspicious surrounded by two dozen other devices that the average joe has no idea what they do.

 

Am I also the only one who finds it strange that the only source for information on this is "wired.com" ?

every website which mentions this quotes wired as their source

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/student-tracking-device-fbi/

"says a report at Wired.com."

http://theintelhub.com/2010/10/09/student-finds-tracking-device-on-his-car-fbi-demands-it-back/

"planted the device, and demanded it back, Afifi told Wired."

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/10/08/1413240/College-Student-Finds-GPS-On-Car-FBI-Retrieve

"mngdih writes with this excerpt from Wired: "

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_new...emands-gps-spy-gear-return?commentId=18280958

"themselves came a-knockin', according to Wired.com. They wanted their toy back"

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/muslim-student-discovers-fbi-tracking-device-on-his-car/

"They shook his hand and left, Wired reports."

somewhat dubious. especially since the tracker is a guardian ST820 which is severly out of date (since the 90's), modern tracers are much smaller and do not have a seperate battery pack (normally you'd connect it to the car's own battery), likewise modern tracers do not use cellular signals which interfere with other electrical equipment (its a dead give away when your car radio is making a repetitive bleeping noise) - this tracker that we see a picture of has probably not been used by an FBI snoop squad since the last century - I think this is a hoax

 

I don't know that the installation was botched. It's not like the device fell out or anything. The use of tracking devices always carries with it the risk of detection. Seems routine to me.

They tend to stay in circulation for as long as they're serviceable.

They said it was near the right rear wheel and exhaust. They're generally placed on a stable location (on top of the inside of the bumper, etc.) on the undercarriage somehwere if battery-powered, or inside the passenger area if wired to the vehicle's battery. Each make/model of vehicle has a preferred location if placed in the undercarriage, based on their structure.

That's not really true - both types remain in use, although a 90s unit does seem pretty old. As far as powering options go, that's almost entirely dependant on availability of the vehicle. If you have extended access, you can wire a unit to the battery at your leisure while having coffee and discussing sitcoms. If you have 45 seconds to attach the unit, it's going to be self-powered. Those units vary widely in battery length and tracking capabilities ... some can last for up to a couple weeks, some much less; some report in real-time, others report only every 5 minutes, etc., etc. It all depends on what they want it for specifically (and no doubt what's available at the time).

 

Try CNN. The story is legit, and they did a hell of a lot more research on the matter than Wired.com did. Wired.com is of course given some credit in this article too, and for good reason. They broke the story, and failure to give credit where credit is due would constitute plagiarism.

 

did they? the article is almost Identical to the wired article, you can even quote identical paragraphs:

no, scratch that, I think the 2 articles are identical

this is an old tracker, these things go missing all the time, they are sold on the black market and quite easy to get a hold of

and practical for their means, this tracker is outmoded for use as a tracker for a car, it could be found by any routine maintanence, theyre not used anymore.

its not a big job, 10 mins at most. to that Ill put this point, how often would a modern tracer be used if this was the case? you rarely get a car off the road to spend plenty of time wiring it up. modern tracers have rechargable lithium batteries built in, similar to an MP3 player of mobile phone, you can connect it to the lights, indicators or brake lights are ideal as they see more use, just for small periods of recharge.

 

People somewhere in the world actually USE indicatiors? Good grief. On the cars round here they appear to be optional extras!

 

LOL, thats my biggest pet peeve, youll often hear me shouting at cars which dont indicate.

My wife and I had a taxi one night going to the pub, the driver pi$$ed my wife off big time because he was sexist, saying that these young girls driving dont have a clue, they dont know what theyre doing. We didnt tip him ofcourse, my wife was fuming, I said to her, that he cant comment on others driving, through the whole trip he didnt indicate once.

 

Shoshino, you're right that they're the same article. I got thrown off by the formatting and the fact that I read that article in great depth whilst only skimming the wired article. Nevertheless, I did some digging on Kim Zetter, the author of the article, and I'm inclined to doubt she would have made this up.

Zetter is a widely successful and well respected freelance writer whose work is regularly featured in such publications as the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Jerusalem Post, San Jose Mercury News, Detroit Free Press, and the Sydney Morning Herald. She has served as both a writer and editor at PC World as well as a guest on NPR and CNN, but is best known for her reporting for Wired, where she has served as a staff reporter and written more than 100 articles. She's scooped the mainstream media before, too. Her work dealing with the security problems of electronic voting machines and public interest in the Kryptos sculpture weren't covered in the mainstream press until months later. Her writings have won several awards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Zetter

She's the real deal.

 

I didnt say she made it up, I think he and his friend did even if Im wrong ant the FBI are a decade other agencies they have at the very least have spiced it up

 

If you mean that model in particular, that may well be true. If you mean self-powered GPS units in general, that's just not true.

Like I said earlier, there's always the risk of detection, even with smaller units. The older larger units were just as likely to be detected in the past as they are now, and that didn't stop them being used then.

Ten minutes is an eternity underneath someone's car in their driveway at 3 o'clock in the morning. Or in some parking lot at 3 in the afternoon, for that matter. If the installation is surreptitious, it generally needs to be done rather quickly. Seriously, under those conditions, they are usually installed in less than a minute, and most of that time is spent situating the unit correctly and applying adhesive, not connecting to exterior power sources.

There are numerous scenarios where tracking devices are used, including in cooperation with owners of company vehicles, if the person under investigation is suspected of wrongdoing while operating those vehicles. In those cases, you would have all the time you wanted to install the GPS units, in a well-lit garage, with a tool chest nearby, etc., etc.

That's interesting ... are they illegal in the UK?

 

Law enforcement and millitary devices, yes. the civillian market has plenty of legal trackers.

 

Well, not to be too much of a necromancer, but a federal appeals court just upheld the 4th amendment:

Yay for us!