GSM / GPS Security Products

[mikelsc]

I was at another forum just now before I joined this one. There were probably just as many people frustrated with lost cars and wanting better security systems there. As such, I would just like to produce what I wrote there. I am a newbie to these forums and it was abit unnerving to see so many people loosing their cars. Here is what I wrote there. :shocked:

I have been just catching up on the reading about vehicle security in this forum since I just joined it. I know how trummatic it can be to find your car gone after you nipped into the shop for a while. Mine, to be precise my mother's car which I drove, was gone in 5 minutes after I left it in section 14 PJ. This happened some years ago but the trumma never leaves you. You feel stressed and paniky whenever you are not able to locate your vehicle in a car park from then on. As such, I am terrified with huge underground carparks like KLCC and Mid Valley. At least one guy found his steering wheel and steering lock in the carpark at subang parade after the theif left with the car. I found nothing and Mr. Bean should be terrified with this kind of thief. Wonder what he would do .. maybe remove his 4 wheels when he parks i guess.

I have been reading up on GSM/GPS products in the market. All GPS products have a major problem, and that is, you cannot locate the car when it is indoors, like an underground car park. This is because GPS signals are very weak. Therefore most security products that uses GPS needs to deal with this problem if it is to be effective. The problem is most of them dont and as a result, you will not be able to locate your vehicle if you are not quick enough to notice that it is gone.

Most GSM/GPS products are ran by call centers that will monitor and some even recover your vehicles for you but dont count on a 100% success.

Also, most GSM/GPS products work on SMS. This means if you want to know where your vehicle is right now, you will have to ask by sending an SMS message to the device. If the vehicle is in a carpark .. well it will reply "i dont know". If the car is already cut up, it wont even reply at all. .. oops .. there goes your car and the expensive product you just installed.

Is there no hope then apart from taking the bus and never buy a car?

Well, a new development has taken place and it would be good to know if the system really works. It is developed by a Malaysian company and works on GPRS rather than SMS. This means it sends location information periodically. This is exciting because if the vehicle does end up in the underground car park of some building, you will know which building but you will still not know where the car is in the car park. This is damn better than not knowing where at all.

Likewise, if it got cut up, you will know which workshop it has ended up being cut up. visit Welcome to My-Starfish.com for more information. They will be launching on June 13th 2007 and you should keep an eye on this product.

It promises to be good. Besides, it does not work on call centers. You get to monitor the car on the web with maps and google map satellite pictures also (visit their demo). Click on the view history link. This is where it gets interesting. It shows where the car had been and the route it travelled. This is such a great defining difference it is like going from a single cyliner 2 stroke engine to a 4 cylinder 4 stroke ones.

I would love to see these thiefs pee in their pants to find out that their workshop has been exposed and they can do nothing about it but run.

 

[insomniac]

Dude... sounds more like an Ad.
There are other companies out there offering similar products as well.
Captor & Cobra are just to name a few.

What makes this product stand out?
Anyway this should be posted in the Marketplace.

 

[b00n]

haha.....that's what I'm about to comment??

btw, Why GPS cannot locate when the car is in the basement?....what frequency are they riding on...
If the companies upgraded GPS to use the radio frequency transmitted by the so called your new GPRS...than GPS would work right??

Just curious about the facts here........

 

[mikelsc]

Firstly, I am sorry if it sounded like an ad. I just wanted to share this with you guys. I am an engineer by profession and have been taking a close look at GSM/GPS products for two years now because this is the hot thing in the market these days. Also, there does not seem to be a way to curb the raising car thefs.

To answer insomniac ....

Captor has two types of systems which they can install into your car. One operates on RF triangulation, not on GPS. This means they need infrastructure to work .. that means putting up antennas all over the place. There is still quite alot of places in Malaysia that has yet to be covered. The way this works is that they use these infrastructure to get an approximate location of your vehicle .. down to 1-2KM radius. Then they send in their recovery cars that would have similar RF direction finding equipment to finally pinpoint the location of your car. Sounds good, but needs infrastructure and trained personnel.

They do have a GPS product as well. But I believe they have this problem of not knowing where the vehicle is sometimes and they will always install the RF device even if you wanted just the GPS installed.

Cobra is famous for their car alarm systems, i believe it is an italian product (i could be wrong here) and have very close associations with Toyota. Most toyotas have Cobra. Good product. But to be frank, I dont really know if they have a GPS/GSM product. If they do, i dont know about it although I have a cobra system in my car.

To answer b00n ....

GPS operates on two channels. One is a millitary channel that is encoded and is only available to DoD USA. This is a high accuracy channel suitable for millitary targetting purposes. The other, meant for commercial use operates at 1.575GHz. The satellites are about 70,000Km above the earth and there are 24 of them .. 20 operational at anyone time, and the other 4 on standby. There is also a third channel where empheris and diary information is broadcasted.

The higher the frequency one goes, the more the RF behave like light. That is one reason why you will lose ASTRO during a thunderstorm .. when you really want to watch ASTRO .... because it just cant penetrate the clouds. ASTRO operates at a higher frequency than GPS.

So at that 1.575GHz frequency, GPS signals are unable to penerate concrete .. in fact it bounces off the walls and this reflection contributes to the inaccuracy of GPS in concrete jungle. (Also that is the reason why you will never see a ASTRO dish indoors).

The defining thing about this product to keep an eye on is that it keeps history for you. This means that even if it is no longer tracking, you will know where it was last. Not many product I have seen have this. Neither is there any i know that allow you to monitor your vehicle yourself.

To be fair, and not to sound like a commercial, there are products that work in a similar manner .. however, it is targetted more at fleet management, commercial use rather than for small people like me who just want to see these car jackers behind bars since there is nothing very much you can do if they want to take your car.

In all fairness, you should still have car alarms systems, stearing and gear locks and whatever deterrant you think necessary. A bit of good judgement as to where to park your car is called for. However, even with all this, they still want your car, at least you will get to know where it is going (or went) and stand a better chance of recovering it.

Take a look at all the other entries in this forum. What are the chances of spotting a stolen car on the road? I think striking lottery is easier.

 

[b00n]

Again, how does GPRS works...
meaning to say this technology is constantly sending data packets to the so called server?
does it work the same way like how I'll be accessing the internet from my phone? or my phone as a modem gateway?

I was first thinking that only upon activation than it would send signal to the card and the device would "reply" back with the location map as a GPS tracker. But upon looking at the page from Welcome to My-Starfish.com; saw that it can even track where the car had been too.
That I'm truly skeptical. Unlike GPS where u pay a nominal subscription fees; telco charge you per GRPS packets sent. How do we control the interval of the data packet sent?

I guessed you're working in telco line since you're so familiar with all this airwaves and frequencies....
Cheers.....!

 

[mikelsc]

b00n ...

GPRS and GPS are two different things .. apple and oranges. GPS, I have explained. GPRS has something to do with GSM, the mobile phone services. GPRS is a way in which data is sent. When it was introduced, it was set to revolutionize the way data was to be transmitted. Among other things, it now provide a way in which mobile phones can be connected to the internet and be able to surf the net. The first application for GPRS was MMS, which allows you to send pictures from your mobile phones to another mobile phone, or even share music .. any multimedia stuff.

Traditionally, car as well as home security systems use SMS and many still do. Apart from being fundamentally different, SMS also cost alot. For 170 characters, you would have to pay anything from 1 cent to 5 cents for local messages. Overseas messages can cost RM1 per message. Whereas for GPRS, the standard charge is 10 cents for 10,240 characters .. regardless of where the data being transfered originates. Do some maths and you will realise that GPRS is a whole lot cheaper. Why then do people say that using GPRS is expensive? Well, it is because of the amount of data that they have consumed. Over the net, a web page may be as large as 100K characters. If they are downloading pictures and music, it can go into the Megabytes. So it adds up. There are not many systems around that use GPRS properly for security purposes. THere are some that claim to work on GPRS but when as to demonstrate it, they will give you lots of excuses including the needed options are not in stock. So as a result, I have never seen one that works. This particular malaysian made equipment must be using GPRS in order to achieve the kind of tracking that it can demo.

To digress from all this, you must have noticed that security systems for cars come under two very broad categories. One being active security. This would be the immobilizers, car alarm systems even steering locks .. any thing that actively makes it difficult for the car to be stolen.

THen there is the passive security like captor and the GSM systems. Systems that track will quietly give you an idea of where the car has gone. The thief will not know about this .. in fact .. he may not even suspect that something like this exists.

A simple cheap tracking system can be improvised. Consider this ... Get a second hand mobile phone that has autoanswer and silent mode facilities. You will need a prepaid sim card like Maxis Hotlink. What you can do then is to charge the phone, turn it on and hide it somewhere in the car. When you find your car gone, you can call in. The phone is on silent so it will not alert the thief. It will auto answer the call and you can listen in to the conversation and might get something useful for the police. Also, you can subscribe to "find a friend" service that someone like maxis provide. Send a SMS, pay 50 cents and it can give you the general location of the phone .. and therefore your car. However, be prepared to be told that your car is in Tun Dr Ismail area. You will not know where in Tun Dr Ismail it is in.

Captor is a South African design. When South Africa was under apartied rule and world wide sanctions was imposed on that country for so long that its technology took an evolution path of its own from the rest of the world ... very much like the animals in australia. Car thefts in that country was as common as jelly beans and there were very innovative ways of detering thefts. Captor is one of those. However, the one that I saw that took the cake was one where flame throwers will just get ignited from underneath the car throwing flames out to the side so that the thief will "feel the heat?" ... by the way .. if you want the guy to who broke into the evo to feel the heat this way you can be arrested in Malaysia .. so dont bother trying it.

Here is another interesting one that I thought I might share with members of the forum. This came from sky news in the UK where the police baited a car with a camera and this is what they got when someone broke into it. I first came across this link from another forum and I think it was good.

Sky News Pictures - Caught In The Act

The thief did not take the car but was after things like radios, smart tags, loose change, lap tops .. etc.

It would have been better if these images could be transmitted back to a central location. However, doing it via GSM/GPRS would be costly ... because pictures can be very big files. Hopely, when WiMax is deployed in Malaysia it would be cheaper to do something like this. What do you guys think? Should there be a car security system that can send pictures back?

 

[b00n]

I know GPS and GPRS is different.

I think you mistook my question.
Like I say, GPS u paid one off fee and it would constantly send signals to the satellite allowing it to be tracked. (am I right?)
But than with GPRS, you need something to initiate the "call". For instance, SMS, only when alarm is activated or you call the device than It would return u a message.
Friend finder for instance, you need to send sms to the call center and the call center initiate the contact than send you the location.
If the device with the sim card is always or constantly sending data packets to the call center, wouldn't that cost a bomb? However, if the device is not sending data packets every now and than; how is the system going to track the "route" the car has taken (as advertise in the website).

btw, who have the license to use satellite imaging system/service in M'sia? Or how many satellite M'sia owns or paid to use their services. Weather satellites, surveillance etc...

 

[mikelsc]

b00n,
The commercial channel of GPS is free for everyone to use. There is no payment levied in anyway for receiving GPS transmission. This is very much like radio. You can receive radios all over the world without having to pay anyone. Just buy a receiver.

You can buy a GPS receiver with bluetooth capabilities at Low Yat or even Imbi Plaza. Taiwan makes lots of it. Some of them are very small indeed. If you have a handhone or PDA or PC with bluetooth, you can hook it up and start receiving messages from the GPS device. Next you need something like MAPKING and wham .. you have a navigation system. Some models of Nokia like the N95 comes builtin with a GPS receiver and a Navigation Software which can use all over the world. Again .. no charges for GPS .. you need to pay for the phone though.

Another thing, you dont send anything to a GPS receiver. The GPS receiver is the one that sends things to you. The contents of the message it such that the receiver can determine its *own* location if it can receive messages from at least 4 statellites. So the receiver knows where it is. So for a tracking system, it needs some way of sending this location information back to someone who is interested in it. That is where GSM comes in.

About activation and sending of messages ... this depends on how a device is programmed to work. In most cases, GPS /GSM devices requires to be interrogated in order to know where it is ... for example when an alarm is received. This means, as you say, send a message to it and it returns the information to you. This is fine but there is a fundamental problem with GPS. What if it is in a basement when it is interrogated? Well, it will just tell you that it does not know where it is.

Devices can also be programmed to transmist periodically .. automatically .. However, with SMS, this is going to be very very expensive .. as you said .. a bomb. However, if the messages are very short, then GPRS would be a whole lot cheaper. Periodic transmission would also mean that you will know the last location of the vehicle before transmission stops or when GPS positioning is lost ... as in a basement. Besides digi is offering RM33 for a sub data line unlimited usage.

Hope this will finally answer your question ... and did not sound like an ad for digi.

As for Satellite imaging, you will need to get incontact with MACRES (Malaysian Center for Remote Sensing). They have a list of about 10 satellites that can take picures for you. Use Google .. you will find them. (not a google ad either :regular_smile: )

cheers ...

 

[b00n]

quite informative.....

a lot of basement still has bad reception, I know Digi is one because I'm currently using Digi....kekekeke

that's why it's rumoured that a stolen car with Captor device is still transportable by putting it inside a container.

Anyone roughly knows how much it would cost?....in that website; it only provides an additional module and not the whole alarm system. It's meant to be a tracker.

I guessed it would be advisable for those vehicles which are more prone to thieves.

Anyway thanks for the clarifications.

 

[mikelsc]

How much does it cost? That is not an easy question to answer because there are so many types of GSM/GPS systems around. Sometimes, it can get real confusing because there are systems that is just GSM alone. An example would be the DCOM SECURITY ALARMS SYSTEM advert on the fourm page. They sell a GSM only system for RM799 (just answering a question about cost ok?:regular_smile: ) That is straight forward but realise that there is no GPS involved. The method of locating the vehicle uses the "find a friend" service .. "somewhere in Tun Dr Ismail" ... I mentioned earlier. You should visit this dcomtrading site and read what they write. Quite impressive but if you want your car you will have to react immediately .. within 5 mins .. so they recommend.

Then comes the GSM/GPS type systems. Frankly, all (without exception) GSM/GPS systems I know have a call center that monitors and some will actually have ground crew that will recover the car for you, if they can find it lah. Some one like Captor have a GSM/GPS system but they sell it together with their regular RF tracking device. I understand it to be about RM1800+ installed and about RM150 yearly recuring fees. Many may ask why captor have a two system combo? I guess it is because when one works the other dont and if both dont work your file is passed on to the insurance agent. :angel_smile:

If you go for the iMOB that is popularized by cycle and carriage .. to be installed in mercedeses, then you are talking abour RM4,000+ installed and I am not sure how much recuring fees is involved. I dont own a mers so i didnt bother asking. (Actually, i dare not ask).

As for this new product, who knows? I guess they are keeping it quiet untill the launch. Nonetheless, this is the only GSM/GPS product that allows you to track yourself, with maps, satellite pictures and history.

Do you think it is a good idea to have a GSM/GPS product integrated with the central locking system and alarm system also?

As i mentioned earlier, there is this active security thing and then there is this passive security. The active security is what the thief will attack because he/she (there can be lady thiefs also) can see it. If the GSM/GPS system is combined with the car alarm system, it will also be attacked.

I personally feel that the two should be kept seperate .. like a trojan horse .. the thief will bring the active GSM/GPS device with him and we want him to do it. If the GSM/GPS is disabled also then we have lost not just the car but also the thief that took it.

 

[b00n]

agreed with your idea...
It should be kept separate; but I guessed all these whom came out with the device should be smart enough to separate the "active" and "passive" security device.
I guessed a lot of consumer are put off by the "recurring" fees that you've mentioned. UNless of course they're driving luxurious cars.

It would be a smart move for insurance company to promote this security devices and charge a slightly lower recurring fee than other providers. Or they could charge a higher insurance premium. Guess this would educate and serve as an extra service by a specific insurer.

So after your surveys and all, which one captures your interest?

Another thing that ticks me is the advertising or so called precaution method/warning by some alarm or security firms.
"The car is install with Captor device"
"VIPER Alarm"

All this is basically giving away what system you're running on. Maybe it would deter amateurs but obviously to the professionals, it would only tell them what they should prepare before the attack.
kekekekekke

 

[MeraBoy]

tks mikelsc for the very informative updates !
we shld encourage more ppl to share info like this & we shld be responsible for our own decision based on info from the forum/net.

 

[Tohsan]

Bravo! Thanks Mikelsc for sharing.

 

[Morkel25]

I think there are more chance that your security system hacked when you are using the GPS system.Because most of that system are connected to internet.While by using gsm technology you can easily track your car that may stole.
An effective Security Officer is far more than somebody who stands outside your front door