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Privacy United States

Man Stalks Ex-girlfriend With GPS 415

Posted by michael from the oh-look-it's-you-again dept.
grouchomarxist writes "According to this article at CNN: Police arrested a man they said tracked his ex-girlfriend's whereabouts by attaching a global positioning system to her car. Police said Gabrielyan attached a cellular phone to the woman's car on August 16 with a motion switch that turned on when the car moved, transmitting a signal each minute to a satellite. Information was then sent to a Web site that allowed Gabrielyan to monitor the woman's location." A ruling last year stated that police need a warrant to track individuals in a similar fashion.
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Man Stalks Ex-girlfriend With GPS More

Man Stalks Ex-girlfriend With GPS

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  • Awww, that's so romantic (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05, 2004 @03:59PM (#10163901)
    I need to get one for my girlfriend's car. Alright, she's not my girlfriend, yet, but she will be once I'm able to track her 24/7.

  • This is exactly why... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:00PM (#10163908)
    See, this is exactly why we need fuel cells in our phones...I mean...eh...this is just wrong and illegal...

    • Re:This is exactly why... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:21PM (#10164028)
      Actually this proves beyond a shadow of doubt that he's an idiot. He would have attached the phone into the car headlights/parking lights for recharging if he were a real geek!

      Instead he get's caught trying to change a battery... Stupid.

  • Trying to figure out where his ex-girlfriend kept her car...

  • Where can I buy a mobile phone detector? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by h4rm0ny ( 722443 ) * on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:01PM (#10163915) Journal


    Well, this is hardly news to us on /., but I'm guessing for a lot of people, this is still something from a spy movie. I believe that the only thing that's really stopping this sort of thing being widespread is a lack of imagination on the part of the general public. It certainly isn't cost or difficulty.

    No doubt that'll change over the next year.

  • Nice device ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheGavster ( 774657 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:02PM (#10163918) Homepage
    It actually sounds like a neat project, just a sketchy application. I wonder if its legal to attach one to, say, your child's car. Perhaps make the sensor a bit less sensitive, so it only broadcasts a signal after an impact-type shock.

    • Re:Nice device ... (Score:4, Informative)

      by lommer ( 566164 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:17PM (#10164002)
      This kind of stuff has been done for years by hams. Google for APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System). It's a very cool protocol whereby a GPS unit can interface with a ham radio which reports its position to internet-linked repeaters via packet every few minutes. Many hams have installed these on their cars or boats and provided a website so you can see where they are. It's a very cool technology - my friend had a unit for a long time. He finally took it out of his car and put it in his boat after his wife started calling him and telling him to slow down when she saw he was speeding on the website. :-)
    • The guy was arrested for stalking, not the GPS part. Stalking is basically a pattern of putting someone in the apprehension of a battery. Convicting for stalking in Cali really is a pretty high hurdle [safetyed.org].

      I doubt the GPS part would have led to a conviction in Cali standing by itself. Of course, the GPS will haelp make the case for the stalking, but wouldn't likely be illegal if that were all he had done.

      Pretty scary, huh?

      p.s. - Can you techies tell me how to hook one of these up?

      • The guy was arrested for stalking, not the GPS part. Stalking is basically a pattern of putting someone in the apprehension of a battery. Convicting for stalking in Cali really is a pretty high hurdle.

        I doubt the GPS part would have led to a conviction in Cali standing by itself. Of course, the GPS will haelp make the case for the stalking, but wouldn't likely be illegal if that were all he had done.

        True. But I think this would more than classify for reasonable suspicion, justifying a search warran

      • Stalking is basically a pattern of putting someone in the apprehension of a battery.

        Ah, thanks for clearing that one up! Now it makes sense...

    • Re:Nice device ... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Allen Zadr ( 767458 ) *
      Why not just pay for Lo-Jack [lojack.com] installation? Or what about On Star [onstar.com]?

    • It actually sounds like a neat project, just a sketchy application. I wonder if its legal to attach one to, say, your child's car. Perhaps make the sensor a bit less sensitive, so it only broadcasts a signal after an impact-type shock.

      I'd hate to hear the angst-ridden teenage complaints once it was found out.

  • Changing the battery? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Qender ( 318699 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:03PM (#10163922) Homepage Journal
    All this and he couldn't figure out how to hook the thing up to the car battery?
    • Exactly. I mean, if I was going to do that I would have figured that out.

      But I'd really never do that........really........seriously.......
    • It's not rocket science to set it up. Some of the nicer motorolas can run a little java applet and have GPS units built into them. All they do is install the applet and point it at the right servers to update the maps. I'd find that way easier to do (and then attach it to the outside of the car) than to get into the car's electrical system and tap the power. Faster, too.

      • Really easy.... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Cryptnotic ( 154382 )
        (For informational purposes only)

        1. Buy car power adapter (12V) for that cell phone.
        2. Take apart cigarette lighter box thing. Save the circuit board with the voltage regulator on it.
        3. Attach wire to the positive (+) input (the part that was attached to the tip of the cigarette lighter plug). This wire will go to the battery. Maybe attach either a alligator clip or some kind of pin that can stick through any existing power wire (follow one from the battery, they commonly use red insulation for +12V)

  • Better Articles (Score:5, Informative)

    by the pickle ( 261584 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:03PM (#10163924) Homepage
    This has also been covered briefly on Engadget [engadget.com] and more thoroughly on BoingBoing [boingboing.net], where links to the original article [dailynews.com] and the District Attorney's report [la.ca.us] are provided.

    p

  • WOW - this guy had a SATELLITE too? (Score:5, Informative)

    by RagingChipmunk ( 646664 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:03PM (#10163927) Homepage
    "transmitting a signal each minute to a satellite." WOW - this guy had a SATELLITE too? ...Why does the News continually report GPS technology as sending data TO a satellite - GPS receivers are completely passive. Either our media/news is completely ignorant, or they assume that all their readers are completely ignorant.

  • Perfect metaphor (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:03PM (#10163929) Homepage
    >The woman learned how Gabrielyan was following her when she discovered him under her car attempting to change the cell phone's battery, police said.

    This is a perfect metaphor for the 21 century... Hyped futuristic capabilities with obvious and forgotten shortcomings. 12v line from the power system, anyone?

    If you are going to be compulsively obsessed to the exclusion of all else, at least sweat the details.

    • Re:Perfect metaphor (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Myrrh ( 53301 )
      Yeah - and also don't try to change the battery during a time of day when you think your girlfriend / stalkee might drive somewhere or walk outside.

      I mean, come on -- if you've gotta use a battery and not a hardwired power source, change the battery at 3 am. Preferably after she's gotten back from a party and is pretty sloshed, or something.

    • Re:Perfect metaphor (Score:3, Interesting)

      by dcam ( 615646 )
      I think the whole story says a lot about geeks.

      There is a tendancy to assume that because someone is a geek, they are a great person. I'm certainly guilty of it. The reality is that technology is neutral and skills in technology don't tell you much about a person. It may suggest a certain kind of temprament.

      Under other circumstances (eg a stolen car that is found by our intrepid geek after fitting this thing to it) /. would be talking about what a cool hack it is.

  • My insurance company (Score:4, Funny)

    by glazed ( 122100 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:05PM (#10163947)
    After a bad breakup with my car insurance company recently, they're doing the same

  • Cool... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cryptochrome ( 303529 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:06PM (#10163951) Journal
    Any instructions on how to set one of these up? Sounds like the only improvement necessary was a hookup to the car battery. Duh! Also, don't phones these days have GPS or something like it built in, that locates the phone based on triangulation with cell towers? If you used that you could do away with the GPS unit altogether, and just need a motion switch to trigger a program on the phone that texts the location - or just make it transmit at intervals.

    • Re:Cool... (Score:3, Funny)

      by arose ( 644256 )
      Also, don't phones these days have GPS or something like it built in, that locates the phone based on triangulation with cell towers?
      You mean a transmiter? I think mobiles always had those...

    • Re:Cool... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Nexzus ( 673421 )
      Offtopic.

      I got a bit of a chuckle out of your sig in the context of this article.

      I mean hooking up a GPS receiver to a cellular phone activated by a motion sensor and tying everything into a web pag is not the most trivial thing to do, and is probably only something a geek or nerd would think of and could accomplish.

      It's unfortunate that he used his ingenuity to do something like stalking, though.

    • Re:Cool... (Score:3, Informative)

      by dougmc ( 70836 )

      Any instructions on how to set one of these up?

      Sure. This link [navy.mil] will get you started.

      Hams do this sort of thing all the time (well, broadcasting their location, rather than stalking their girlfriends.)

      Here [findu.com] is a list of stations currently broadcasting their coordinates near my house ...

    • My Sprint phone (Samsung I300) has had one for two years. Sprint does nothing with it. 911 uses it if necessary. But there are apparently no applications that use it. I don't know who owns the ability to track them. But just like every US cell company, we all get a list of features that can't compare to say, Japan's list of cell features. Call me tin-foil-hat-man, but I smell collusion between the service providers...

    • Re:Cool... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Catbeller ( 118204 )
      Yes, yes, and yes, on and after the year 2005. In all phones sold in the U.S. next year and ever after, all units will be mandated by federal law to have a GPS component.

      Yep, they will be used by law enforcement. Yes, they will be hacked by psychos, hackers, and cults to track people they don't like.

      Nope, you don't get a choice to opt out. Welcome to the Brave New World. No doubt it'll make us safer from terrorists.

      We're okay with cameras tracking our every move, with tracking devices on our kids, on man

  • You again (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MikeMacK ( 788889 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:08PM (#10163965)
    Police said Gabrielyan tracked the 35-year-old woman, who was not identified, after she ended their relationship, showing up unexpectedly at a book store, an airport and dozens of other places where she was.

    Dozens? After about the first six she should have gotten a restraining order.

    • Restraining order is just a piece of paper. When the chips are down, a piece of paper won't stop a determined and obsessive stalker. Glock 26 [glock.com] works better as a deterrent.

    • Re:You again (Score:3, Interesting)

      by aristotle-dude ( 626586 )
      Well obviously, this guy was a stalker but I had a funny thing happen to me several years ago when I got the job I have now.

      I was excited about the starting work at the company and went for a walk around town because I did not know what to do with myself. I ended up running into this one girl that worked at a local starbucks seven times in within a couple hours. It was really freaky and each time we would be coming from opposite directions or at cross paths at intersections. After the third or fourth time

  • Insurance? (Score:5, Funny)

    by keiferb ( 267153 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:09PM (#10163969) Homepage
    Hey, combine this with the little black boxes Progressive Insurance has been pushing, and you too can have your insurance revoked in real-time while driving!

    • I just remember the license system in "The Fifth Element" where you had credits which were revoked upon impact (and probably sent to law enforcement in real-time).

      Kooky stuff.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Just a bit of history repeating (Score:5, Informative)

    by da3dAlus ( 20553 ) <dustin.grau@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:10PM (#10163974) Homepage Journal
    See this archive on The Smoking Gun [thesmokinggun.com] from a man arrested for doing the same thing in 2002. I guess someone else just took the hint and tried it again 2 years later.

    "Meet Paul Seidler. The 42-year-old Wisconsin man was just busted on charges that he conducted a high-tech stalking campaign directed at a former girlfriend. Kenosha police allege that Seidler placed a Global Positioning System tracking device under the hood of the woman's car and began monitoring her movements."

    Hey, it's a slow weekend, so I think a near-dupe of not-so-cutting-edge news is forgivable ;)

  • New tech doesn't always mean old laws are junk (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:14PM (#10163990) Homepage Journal
    Stalking is still stalking here. A new way to stalk doesn't always mean that the stalking is unprosecutable. I do have to ask exactly how the cellphone can be affordably rigged to call every minute. That must be expensive. Either that, or it is another detail the media has gotten wrong.
    • Suncom has an unlimited plan for $50/mo in the south and Sprint allows unlimited internet usage for $15/mo..

      -dk
    • Cellphones are programmable these days. If I can write a game for your cellphone, I can write a 'game' that reads the GPS info and punts it to your website once a minute.
      I think that there are actually commerciall services that do something like this that allow you to track your kids.

      Combine either one with a motion sensor and a timer, and you're off and running (as soon as your target is).

      As for 'affordable', we have no idea how much money this kook has in his bank. His version of 'affordable' might

  • Hopefully ppl will understand now why privacy... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jbash ( 784046 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:20PM (#10164020)
    ...is so important. There are LEGITIMATE REASONS to not want to have a tracking device in your car, not just tinfoil hat paranoia. Sure there may be "privacy protections" but keep in mind that a company's privacy is only as strong as the minimum wage employee who's bribed $100 to let a stalker have some info.

  • It's Funny.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by darkmeridian ( 119044 ) <william.chuang@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:21PM (#10164024) Homepage
    Every time I read one of these stories of a guy wigging out because his girlfriend dumped him, I always think, "Hey, Chief, do ya think she was on to something?" I mean, girl dumps boy. Boy stalks her using GPS. Maybe she was onto something in dumping him?

  • One thing we should all learn from this: (Score:4, Funny)

    by AnwerB ( 255422 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:22PM (#10164032)
    Geeks are 100% dedicated to a relationship and will go that extra mile.

    Oh, and also: Phear the g33k!

  • How is this different that widespread surveillance (Score:5, Interesting)

    by smiff ( 578693 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:23PM (#10164035)
    For all of you people who say it's okay to put surveillance cameras on public streets, RFID tags on store merchandise, RFID readers on store doorways, and RFID toll-pass systems on highways. The general argument is that no one has a reasonable expectation of privacy in public.

    Yet it is illegal for a private citizen to follow someone in public. What is with the double standard?

    • The counter argument to that example is usually this discussion only comes up when someone is caught with evidence like a bloody knife and the cop arrests him. His lawyer will try and argue this guy had a reasonable expectation of privacy and the evidence should be thrown out.

      I've yet to see where someone lost their privacy and complained, but had no damages to sue. What are all the tin foil hat wearers (not to say you're one of them) afraid of?

      • Re:How is this different that widespread surveilla (Score:4, Insightful)

        by PsiPsiStar ( 95676 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @08:23PM (#10165174)
        If you don't have damages, why would you complain? Why would it make the news?

        The FBI was tracking MLK and even harrassing him. What about that?

        What am I afraid of? At the worst, political blackmail on a large scale.

        Everyone has somthing to hide. Imagine a scenario where those who go against the powers that be will be outed and exposed, just like in the Soviet Union. Everyone had a skeleton in their closet. In the USSR, it was only outed if you did the politically wrong thing. Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" has a nice description of this on a personal level near the end. It only has to happen if a person is likely to come into a position of power. Everyone else's files are just "insurance."
    • Yea, now I have an RFID chip from the Swarthmore College CS department. I don't need to wear it, but it allows me to unlock the lab doors. One of my friends complained about it, so I told him he should stick it to his right hand or forehead :-)

      Yea, RFID is handy, but I know it will be abused some day. I know I will be scared when RFID replaces credit/debit cards.

  • He's not very good (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Eric(b0mb)Dennis ( 629047 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:31PM (#10164086)
    He's not a very good stalker if he was under her car changing the battery to the cell-phone!

    I mean, he could of spent a little time and hooked it up to the car battery (it's possible) and on TOP of that, he could have used a phone that auto-accepts incoming calls when a hands-free headset is used, and just short the HF plug-in spot to make the phone think one is plugged in.. and

    whalla, you have a tracker/voice-listener thingy-ma-jigger!

  • there are companies out there that will put a gps device in your car as part of an after-theft car location service...
  • If so, you're under arrest.

  • Wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by dysprosia ( 661648 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:38PM (#10164129)
    attaching a global positioning system to her car.
    He created and attached an entire global positioning system of satellites to her car? Now that's impressive! I wonder how she didn't notice...
  • 1) Find a stalker
    2) Remove tracking system; sell motion sensor and cell phone
    3) Profit!

  • What if it was your wife, though? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Myrrh ( 53301 ) <redin575@gmailMONET.com minus painter> on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:43PM (#10164154)
    This got me wondering, though. What if, for example, I was to do something like this to my wife's car? I own the car, right? So I should be able to modify it (within safety concerns of course) how I see fit.

    Not that I'm saying I'd stalk my own wife, or anything. I'm just wondering what makes stalking one's girlfriend fundamentally different than stalking, say, one's wife.

    • Re:What if it was your wife, though? (Score:4, Informative)

      by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:55PM (#10164215) Journal
      She was his ex-girlfriend so that does make it pretty different. you could say you have a right to modify your own property and track your wife and if she has nothing to hide then why should she have a problem with it? but why should she have to be put in a situation like that? its no different from government cameras in your home - if you have nothing to hide, why should you care? but why should you be put in that position? there are all sorts of conflicting rights going on here and the whole thing needs some looking at.

  • Isn't this story missing something? (Score:3, Funny)

    by jals ( 667347 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @04:46PM (#10164169)
    "Information was then sent to a Web site that allowed Gabrielyan to monitor the woman's location."

    Link?
  • Based on some of the news reports the device used was likely some Nextel GPS enabled phone, like the i58sr with the AtlasTrack 2.0 software and service provided by Networks in Motion.

    Phone [nextel.com]
    Software [networksinmotion.com]
    Service [networksinmotion.com]

    Not connecting the phone to the car battery becomes less suprising when you realize the solution in available at the mall.
  • Everyone is so paranoid (arguably with justification) about 'big brother' government using advances in technology to bring on negative consequences...what about your everday neurotic ex? I think this could be broaching an interesting topic never really discussed before (that I've seen.)
  • All GPS receivers need to see the birds and most of the external antennas I have seen are fairly obvious. You can't just take a $99 etrek and not give it full sight of the birds. It no workie.

  • There's always a dark side... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nietzsche_freak ( 804786 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:08PM (#10164283) Homepage
    Think of television, radio, and the printing press--all fantastic technologies which have transformed our world and improved our lives, right?

    Now think of the capabilities these technologies gave the Nazi propagandists of the 1930s and 1940s.

    There's a dark side to every new technology. For a small class of people, technological advances will always represent only fantastic new ways to wage war, or to harrass and murder their fellow man.

  • Limited ruling (Score:5, Informative)

    by imnoteddy ( 568836 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:12PM (#10164305)
    A ruling last year stated that police need a warrant to track individuals in a similar fashion.

    That was a ruling by the Washington State Supreme Court (the state I live in) and I remember reading about it. This ruling has no effect in the other 49 states or on the Feds. While the ruling may influence other judges, the Washington State Constitution generally has more citizen friendly rules on privacy and related matters than the U. S. Constitution or most state constitutions, which may narrow the applicability of the reasoning in this case to other judicial venues.

  • Generation gap (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:42PM (#10164451) Homepage
    There's a big generation gap on this. Younger people have grown up surrounded by surveillance cameras and cell phones. They assume they're being tracked.

    And it doesn't bother them.

    I've talked with teenagers about what it means when their cell phone has GPS. They're not bothered by having their location reported. They like the idea of knowing where all their friends are. Then they'd know who's nearby, and could hook up. It's a feature.

  • That'd be useful for my ex-wife... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rthille ( 8526 ) <web-slashdot@ran g a t .org> on Sunday September 05, 2004 @05:51PM (#10164508) Homepage Journal

    But so I could _NOT_ run into her.

    I kept running into her with my new girlfriend (obtained after the breakup with the wife). It was awkward, to say the least...

  • New Police song (Score:5, Funny)

    by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @06:42PM (#10164750) Journal
    Every drive you make...
    And every trip you take...
    Restraining orders I'll break...
    Don't you try and fake...
    I AM WATCHING YOU

  • Similar Story (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dropshot ( 646089 ) on Sunday September 05, 2004 @07:43PM (#10164984)
    One night while doing some shift work (6PM-6AM), one of my co-workers went home for "lunch" at 2AM. He found that his wife wasn't home and, worse, had left their 4 year old son unattended. This was the second time that had happened, so he decided to investigate. The next time we were working night shifts, he put a GPS under a blanket that happened to be in the back of their hatchback. Twelve hours later (again after his wife hadn't been home at "lunchtime") he retrieved the GPS. He followed the recorded track around, and then along with a few friends, staked out the route the next time we were on mids. One of them spotted her in a parking lot and videotaped her from a distance for the next few hours. He contacted the cops (this being an military base and overseas) and turned over the tape. The police investigated, determined she was running a prostitution ring, and had her deported back to her country of origin. My co-worker was able to both successfuly divorce her and get custody of the child.

  • bad breakups (Score:3, Funny)

    by sewagemaster ( 466124 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (retsamegawes)> on Sunday September 05, 2004 @09:27PM (#10165445) Homepage
    since we're on the subject of what people would do in bad breakup situtations with technology...

    this is another example you would all enjoy. i just couldn't laugh my head off watching it.
    psycho girl [theurbanpimp.com]

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