GPS Satellite

In a counterpoint to the auto-heist movie “Gone in Sixty Seconds,” Slidell police recovered a stolen pickup truck less than a minute after it was reported missing thanks to an assist from the OnStar satellite tracking service.

The clock began ticking early Sunday when a man who had been gambling for seven hours at a casino in Biloxi, Miss., called Biloxi police and OnStar to report that his 2006 Chevrolet Silverado pickup had been stolen from the parking lot.

An OnStar operator tracked the vehicle to Pontchartrain Drive in Slidell and notified Slidell police at precisely 12:05:39 a.m., Capt. Kevin Foltz said.

As luck would have it, an officer was in the area and found the pickup parked outside a convenience store at 12:06:35 a.m., just 56 seconds after police learned it had been stolen, Foltz said.

    From the Times-Picayune.

    Sometimes ‘Big Brother’ can come in handy.



  1. tallwookie says:

    The suspect – Daniel Arnold – lives in the “Pink Panther Trailer Park”

    rofl, go figure

  2. MikeN says:

    Big Brother comes in handy all the time. It wouldn’t be surprising if the NHTSA makes this type of functionality mandatory for all cars.

  3. edwinrogers says:

    Do people actually steal, pickups?

  4. BubbaRay says:

    Too bad Europe can’t get their Galileo GPS off the ground, purported to have 10 cm (4″) resolution.

    http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/05/08/galileo.troubles.ap/index.html

    [off topic]
    #1, tallwookie, left you something on that older post about the SR-71:
    http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=11422#comments

  5. morbo says:

    So many questions&thoughts…

    1) A 2006(!) truck can be boosted so easily
    2) Theres a mic in the truck that Onstar can enable. Is that evidence misable? (there is a crime underway here).
    3) (if 2) is true I wonder about last weekends Sopranos)
    4) How secure is the protocol to get a trace. Could a disgruntled spose social engineer their way into Onstar?
    5) Big brother might be closer than you think. Our current govt might make you a “person of interest”. I am sure they can get all the data they need with that moniker.
    6) Onstars fees I felt were exorbitant so I waved them on my 2002 GM after the year was up. I told them for 9$ a month I would be a customer but not the 20+ they wanted.

  6. Mac Guy says:

    #3 – Dude, this is MS that we’re talking about! Of COURSE they do!

  7. Arrius says:

    The cost of being into car theft is about to go up. They will need to learn how to disable this GPS module or carry a jammer in a backpack or something.

    There is no way in hell this should be a government mandated item in the future.

  8. tallwookie says:

    #4 – very nice 🙂

  9. Mr. Fusion says:

    #3,

    Yes, but only if there is more then a half tank of gas.

  10. TJGeezer says:

    #9 – hahahahahaha

  11. Gary says:

    OnStar is better than Lojack for recovering a stolen vehicle. They get caught quite often.

  12. Ed says:

    From the Article:

    “The suspect … who lives in the Pink Panther Trailer Park off Louisiana 433 south of Slidell, was booked with possession of a stolen vehicle, criminal trespassing and resisting an officer.”

    One would have to assume that Inspector Clouseau made the arrest!

  13. Matthew says:

    for the rest of us there’s mologogo.

  14. DaveTheWave says:

    SWEET… The home town made DU


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