GPS and Wireless Technologies

Only one or two years ago portable GPS Navigation systems were rather safe in the car, because the general public, and thus thieves, hardly knew what these devices could do. They thought that it was something very complicated for geeks and in the pubs no-one ever talked about them.

Times have changed. Thanks to a lot of publicity and a never lasting stream of new and cheaper models, the great masses become aware of the benefits and ease of use of these small wonders. And behind a beer they talk about it and indicate that they would eventually like to have such a thing, but hey, they are way too expensive yet, aren't they?

Here come in the thieves. They hear the conversations and immediately smell the opportunity. "Tomorrow night, same hour, I will bring you at least 4 or 5 models, so you can choose". Yes, our society has degenerated to this level.

The more prudent of us, who already use portable GPS Navigation devices for several years, hid the beauties in the glove compartment or under a dark cover on the floor. This was good enough, but not anymore.

Thieves now know the signs that indicate the possible presence of a GPS: a suction cup mount or cradle with cables or a beanbag and even the slightly visible round of a suction cup on the front window glass. "In this car could very well be hidden a GPS, let's break a window and have a look".

And even if you took your GPS with you, the minimum damage that you sustain is a broken window. Probably more, because frustrated thieves like to "punish" you.

How can this be stopped?

Rather easy, at least in theory. If the thieves would know for sure that there is no GPS in the car, the phenomenon stops. First of all this means that you have to take your GPS with you when you leave the car. Not most of the time, but always. Secondly you have to leave a small text on the dashboard, stating "My GPS left the car with me".

This system can work very well if every GPS user ALWAYS takes with him Either his GPS receiver OR the text "MY GPS left the car with me". If you leave both in the car, you are sabotaging the whole system and those who consequently follow the rule will still be confronted with broken windows.

Are all systems equally well designed to take with you when you leave the car?

No, not at all. Most actual GPS devices are too bulky and/or too heavy to fit comfortably in your pocket, once out of the car. It seems that most designers did not realize the problem, did not care, or even worse, hoped that their models are left in the car and got stolen. This creates a replacement market.

Our advice

Add dimensions, form and weight to the list of criteria, when looking for a portable GPS unit. It must not only comfortably fit in your car, but also in your pocket.

When leaving the car ALWAYS take with you EITHER your GPS receiver OR your text label "My GPS left the car with me". If you take out your GPS receiver, as you should, show clearly that you put it in your pocket, after all one of the potential thieves is probably spying on you to see what you do with your GPS, which he already noticed when you entered the parking lot.

A very long thread in the usenet groups alt.satellite.gps and sci.geo.satellite-nav showed that it was not a good idea to advice the use of a note in all circumstances.

I would suggest as follows:

If for whatever reason or in whatever circumstance you don't feel comfortable with leaving a note in the car, do not do it.

If you park your car at a "soft" spot, like a tourist parking, shopping center parking or at a service station and you only want to take out your GPS, but not the mount and cables, leave a note that you took your GPS with you. This will not guarantee that your car will not be broken into, but once that the thieves understand that the note means "No GPS in the car" they will first try cars without the note.

As some of you already noticed, this will only work if not too many of us will bluff and leave a note AND a GPS in the car.

For my own use I made the following note. Grab it if you can use it.

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January 8, 2006 20:02 - New systems against key targeted car crime

Improvements in vehicle security means cars are now more difficult to steal but there is an increasing trend towards owner's keys being used to steal cars.

Thatcham in the UK is the motor insurance industry research centre which aims to develop research and standards which contain or reduce the cost of motor insurance claims. Category 5 requires that for improved security users need something else in addition to the keys to prove that they are the car's legal owner.

BT recently launched Trackit. The new service consists of a wireless fob and a series of black boxes that a professional installs in your car.

How does BT Trackit work?

• Whenever the ignition is switched on, your BT Trackit system searches for the unique identification tag. No other special action is required by the driver.
• Once the tag is detected and you are authenticated as the driver, the system is disarmed.
• When any unauthorized movement occurs and the identification tag is not detected, (for instance if someone has stolen your keys and attempted to start the ignition) BT Trackit instantly sends an alarm to the Secure Operation Centre.
• You are contacted immediately, allowing you to action the recovery process.
• Secure Operation Centre then uses geographical positioning data from an in-built GPS receiver to locate and track your vehicle's exact position.
• If required, your vehicle can be remotely immobilized in close collaboration with police.

BT Trackit is fully certified to Thatcham Category 5, the highest standard in vehicle security and therefore qualifies for Level 1 Police Response (immediate/urgent).

Richmond Design & Marketing (RDM) Group has developed Auto-txt. It utilizes everyday Bluetooth enabled customer interfaces (such as mobile phones, PDAs or Bluetooth tags) to authenticate the vehicle driver, providing an enhanced level of security against the rising trend in key related car theft.

How does Auto-txt work?

• By combining Satellite tracking, Bluetooth, GSM and on board vehicle technologies, Auto-txt continuously monitors the vehicle's status.
• When turning on the ignition, the driver is authenticated via their Bluetooth device. Once authorized, the system is "disarmed" and the driver can drive the car as normal. If the authenticated Bluetooth device is not detected, an alarm will be raised, and the registered vehicle owner contacted.
• On leaving the car, the system is automatically "armed". If any unauthorized movement or event is detected e.g. vehicle keys stolen and vehicle started, the BT redcare Secure Operating Centre (SOC) will be alerted.
• Following close communication with the vehicle owner and police, the BT redcare SOC can track the vehicle in the UK and across 31 countries in the EU as required.
• Where deemed necessary, a vehicle can be remotely immobilized by the BT redcare SOC under police supervision (RO feature).

Auto-txt is also fully accredited to the Thatcham Category 5 standard and has Pan-European Coverage.

Jaguar Cars and Land Rover have selected Auto-txt to supply car tracking and security systems for all their vehicles from 2006. The Auto-txt product provides the technology behind the new Jaguar Watch and Land Rover Watch systems, which will be available both in the UK and throughout the rest of Europe. It is the first time the prestige car manufacturers will be offering a stolen vehicle tracking system under their own branding.

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January 12, 2006 16:08 - Measuring Traffic Congestion with Cell Phones

On April 19, 2004 we reported in GPS/GSM News: "Using WaveMarket's WaveAlert technology, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA) launches a traffic determination service using real-time GPS location data from GPS-enabled taxicabs and other standard sensory devices in Metropolitan Seoul to provide road speed conditions on every street and road in Seoul, Korea. It is the first service of its kind, offering the most complete and up-to-date traffic coverage of any city in the world".

But to determine road congestion we do not need GPS anymore. On every busy road nowadays there is a cell phone in almost every car, listening to and handshaking with the cell phone towers along the road. The cell phone operators have to know where every phone is at any given moment in order to correctly route incoming or outgoing calls.

If the cell phone operators would provide this information, without the personal identification and serial numbers, at any moment the position of thousands of anonymous phones would be known on every stretch of road. From the successive positions over time can be calculated the speed and direction of every phone, thus car.

One can hardly imagine a cheaper, better and more up-to-date traffic information system.

Missouri transportation officials understood this also and early December 2005 they approved a contract that will allow a private corporation to track signals from motorists' cell phones to map traffic and highway congestion on major roads throughout the state.

That company, National Engineering Technology Corp. (NET) already started monitoring thousands of cell phones in Kansas City and St. Louis, using their movements to test how to relay traffic conditions to the public in real time.

We expect to hear more about the use of this technology in the near future.

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January 16, 2006 17:31 - Cellular Broadcasting could warn people before it is too late

Cell broadcasting is a standard part of every GSM and CDMA digital phone network that can transmit uniform text warnings either to all users or to defined regions. It is different from SMS in that the broadcast relays the message indiscriminately to every phone in a cell tower's receiving area, typically a 2-mile radius, without having to know individual phone numbers. A cell broadcast usually causes phones to ring before a 162-character text message is displayed. Callers must have their phones switched on and have activated the function to receive the messages.

This way, people in small regions, most threatened by weather, industrial accidents or terrorism can be reached all at once. Even on a beach or golf court, where you do not have TV or radio, a lot or most of the persons present probably carry a cell phone.

The technology is there and could be used worldwide, but so far, most countries have resisted cellular broadcasts, even after disasters. Why? Because cell phone operators don't see any gain for themselves. That's all.

Today, only two countries in the whole world have a full working cellular broadcasting system: South Korea and the Netherlands. In both countries cell broadcasts are limited to government emergencies by law.

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January 21, 2006 18:40 - Two remaining UWB camps unlikely to come together

Shared members of WiMedia Alliance and Ecma submitted the WiMedia UWB platform specifications to Ecma in early 2005. Those specifications were drafted by Alliance members from the world's most prominent consumer electronics, mobile device, personal computer and semiconductor companies. Working in Ecma, experts aided in the final completion of the ECMA-368 and ECMA-369 Standards.

On December 9, 2005 Ecma International approved two standards for UWB technology based on the WiMedia Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Common Radio Platform. * ECMA-368 - High Rate Ultra Wideband PHY and MAC Standard * ECMA-369 - MAC-PHY Interface for ECMA-368

Formed in 1961, Ecma International (Ecma) is a non-profit industry association of technology developers, vendors and users that develops standards for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Consumer Electronics (CE). Ecma submits its work for approval as ISO, IEC, ISO/IEC JTC 1 and ETSI standards and is the inventor and main practitioner of "fast tracking" of specifications through the standardization process in International Standards Organizations (ISOs) such as the ISO and the IEC.

After the approval of this industry standard by Ecma, it became clear that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEE) would not continue trying to formulate an Ultra Wide Band (UWB) standard.

During the course of its existence the 802.15.3a Task Group (TG3a) reduced the number of competing standards from 23 to 2: MultiBand Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing UWB, supported by the WiMedia Alliance, and Direct Sequence UWB, supported by the UWB Forum. The two technologies differ significantly and cannot inter operate.

On January 19, 2006 the TG3a abandoned its search for one standard and dissolved itself. Intel and Microsoft are part of the WiMedia Alliance, while the UWB Forum has Motorola and Samsung among its members.

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January 24, 2006 14:07 - Why Detect And Avoid (DAA) is important for UWB

UWB (Ultra Wide Band) will be used for Wireless USB with transfer rates of 480 Mbits/s, equal to USB 2.0, and for streaming video signals directly into a HDTV set, eliminating the need for video cables, especially the ugly SCART cables.

On February 14, 2002, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US approved limited uses of UWB. UWB communications devices will be restricted to intentional operation only between 3.1 and 10.6 GHz, at a limited transmit power of -41 dBm/MHz. Additionally the transmissions must occupy a bandwidth of at least 500 MHz, as well as having a bandwidth of at least 20% of the center frequency. The very high bandwidth used allows the power spectral density to be very low.

In August 2005 the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in Japan gave preliminary approval to a new Ultra-Wideband Emissions Policy. Unlicensed use is permitted at the 3.4-4.8 GHz and 7.25-10.25 GHz wireless spectrums, the latter of which is reserved for indoor products only. Products using the lower 3.4-4.8 GHz spectrum will be required to implement Detection And Avoidance (DAA) technologies to avoid interference with other services operating at the same frequencies.

In October 2004 the Electronic Communication Committee (ECC) in Europe published a draft of a new ECC Report 64 on the protection requirements of radio communication systems below 10.6 GHz from generic UWB applications. Nothing has been decided yet.

According to the UK Office of Communications (Ofcom), the US UWB specification does not provide adequate protection against interference with other wireless devices in Europe, because the radio spectrum is used in different ways. To prevent interference with other devices it recommends: power limits on UWB transmitters; UWB devices operating in the 3.1-4.2 GHz bands should be fitted with Detect And Avoid (DAA) systems; transmit power control technology should be used; and a minimum pulse repetition frequency should be set.

How does DAA work?

DAA all began with a technology for interference avoidance proposed by Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2003. When UWB radio waves that are used by WiMAX, wireless LAN and other narrowband systems are detected in a channel being used by UWB, the output for that channel is reduced or cut entirely, and communication is switched to another channel. Narrowband system reception sensitivity can be set at -90dBm. After detection, UWB signal strength is dropped to -65dBm/MHz or less.

With DAA, UWB will be applicable worldwide, as it can easily be adapted to all regulations and restrictions. This is the reason why the WiMedia Alliance plans to add DAA as a standard function for wireless interfaces in the near future.

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