Stoping the theiving gits

[Lilo]

Hello All,
Is there any way those who work in the industry (& those that run this forum!) can put pressure on the manufacturers of SatNav equipment to install some irremovable software at the front end, so on boot up, you have to enter a pass code?
Surely for the techies in the know, this would be relatively simple.
Granted, it would have to be 'embedded', to stop people downgrading the unit and then upgrading again without the keycode.
If you think back to when car stereos were removable, it didn't take long for thieves to figure out, unless your car was outside your house, chances are the stereo was in the glove compartment, or under the seats etc.
The manufacturers soon cottoned on, and key codes became the norm virtually over-night. Why are we going through the same thing with SatNav?! I thought they would have learnt by now.
I know there will always be a way of cracking the codes, but at least it will deter most of the thieves, who lets face it, are opportunists looking to make a quick monetary gain through someone else’s misery.

[joeninety]

its probably because in all honesty key codes are just as easy to break as your car window these days. car stereo's, cars, mobile phones, laptops etc all have those types of security features but they are all circumvented very easily by those in the know.

if only we lived in an ideal world and didnt need to secure our property

[Darren]

[lupos0_1]

If you run tomtom on a PDA, you have already got this feature built in with the PDA password section.

I couldn't agree more though, IMO, tomtom should have put an alphanumeric password on all their products from the word GO!!!!
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Nokia N95
McGuider V7
Latest Maps
(Internal GPS)

[Skippy]

[Tim Buxton]

[jammydevil]

[Darren]

To be honest, no protection is 100% effective. PIN codes can be crackes or wiped, removable faceplates don't stop drug addicts from nicking 'em etc.

The whole point is that once work gets around they will target less protected devices instead. Hopefully the PIN can't be removed by something as simple as a Firmware update.
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Darren Griffin

[Mullet]

[Darren]

[adventurer]

I live in staffordshire and it was reported in one of the local papers of a number of thefts of GPS devices from vehicles.

They were targeting cars that had their actual GPS device removed but the owners were leaving the window suction holder inplace. So obviously the thief took a chance to break into the car to see if the GPS was under the seat or in the glove compartment.

So what do you do? The obious thing is to remove the suction holder also so as not to give a clue to having a gps.

However, I have a leadtek all in one gps device for my PDA. See here

http://www.leadtek.com/gps/gps_9539c_1.html

I have this device attached to a pro clip attached to the dash. I can remove the leadtek GPS from the pro clip but I cannot remove the pro clip. So this shouts out I have a GPS in the car. Even though I allways do remove it an take it with me. I will still get some thief smashing my windows to take what they think maybe in my car.

Now I don't know if this is a good idea or if it will work (or even if the thief can read) but I was going to place one or two small stickers somewhere in the car, maybe above the pro-clip GPS mount or on the side windows saying "I HAVE TAKEN MY GPS WITH ME" or "NO GPS LEFT IN CAR".

This might not work but then do you think it might just help??
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Tom Tom One Series 30 with TMC
Brodit Mount permanent mount

GlobalSat Bluetooth GPS - BT 338

Now IPhone 4 with Tom Tom

[Mullet]

[pip510]

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