[HN Gopher] Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter's Car
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Mystery GPS Tracker on a Supporter's Car
Author : cooperq
Score : 83 points
Date : 2022-03-28 18:05 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eff.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eff.org)
| egberts1 wrote:
| Spireon bought out Inilex who bought out Sky-LINK.
|
| So, there's plenty of technician's manual out there under those
| former and current M&A names.
|
| Also, FCC ID is a great starting place, just don't forget merger
| and acquisition as well in the business world during your RE
| effort.
|
| Also identifying RF frequency in FCC filings will help narrow the
| cellular coverage. If it's CDMA, then it's obsoleted.
|
| - https://loginping.com/inilex-gps
|
| - https://www.automotive-fleet.com/130525/spireon-acquires-gps...
| mig39 wrote:
| I love that the skills I learned in the 80s are still relevant
| today. Interacting with serial ports. AT commands. This stuff
| hasn't changed much.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| TL;DR a prior dealership had installed it as part of an anti-
| theft add-on before selling it to a different dealer who
| ultimately sold it to the supporter.
|
| The investigative effort they put in was quite good.
| jmole wrote:
| I had a mystery tracker installed in a car I purchased as well:
| https://fccid.io/2AEB4AMV01/User-Manual/Users-Manual-3928375
|
| The dealer even added a $250 fee to "remove" this device, but I
| found it was still installed, so I think I ended up footing the
| bill for the device itself.
|
| The device is ostensibly to protect inventory from loss, but it
| seems like they are incentivizing dealers to leave these in cars
| to capture location data, for whatever reason.
| netsharc wrote:
| TL; DR:
|
| > Sarah [not real name] also mentioned that the car had been
| transferred from another Audi dealership in Orange County,
| California, when she bought it. Could they be the culprits? We
| called the original dealership and asked if they were familiar
| with this hardware or if they install GPS devices in their
| customers' cars. The dealership told us that they used to work
| with a company called Sky Link to install anti-theft devices, but
| didn't activate them unless the buyer paid for the service. Could
| this be an explanation for this rogue GPS device?
|
| [...] Turns out, it had. The GPS device was bought by the
| dealership, but it was never activated. At last, we had proof
| that this was a device installed by the dealership.
|
| It feels like there are several "layers" to this story, putting
| all of them in one probably just confuses a lot of readers. In
| other contexts the UART pin-outs and bit-banging would be
| interesting to me but I just wanted to find out whodunnit.
| revicon wrote:
| Wow, didn't know EFF went so deep on investigations like this.
| Top notch!
| dmitrygr wrote:
| This is not really deep, TBH. This is 5-6 minutes of work for
| someone who does this habitually. They didn't even dump the
| firmware of the PIC running in there to share it for some fun
| RE.
| more_corn wrote:
| You should reach out and give them some pointers for next
| time.
| bragr wrote:
| Gotta agree with you there. "Connect to the UART, remember
| UART requires a ground, throw some AT commands at it, give
| up, and ask the company about a serial number" hardly seems
| like a deep dive.
| kortex wrote:
| The reporter clearly does not do this habitually, as it took
| them several (frustrating, from the sound of it) days to
| figure out what they did. Sounds like it was in large part a
| learning experience for them.
| Mo3 wrote:
| I mean, the author even stated clearly that it was a great
| learning experience and that the EFF couldn't do this for
| everything. So all of this discussion is somewhat redundant
| squarefoot wrote:
| Over here in the EU any cellular device should contain a SIM card
| which must be registered to someone or some company, therefore it
| can be used to track the owner; is that different in the US? The
| article doesn't mention any SIM card present. If I discovered
| such a tracking device in my car I'd immediately look for the
| card, get its number and find the owner.
|
| Also, it would be nice to fool the GPS through a jammer that
| emits false signals in order to make it report a fake location,
| after placing cameras at that place to record whoever shows up.
| kn0where wrote:
| Last I checked, you could activate a prepaid SIM without any
| proof of identity in the US. We don't have a national ID card
| system. Postpaid does involve a credit check.
| mig39 wrote:
| The photo in the article shows "P/N: CDMA"
|
| So if it was a CDMA device, then it probably doesn't use a SIM.
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