Stolen Bike

yeah, I know... it's not my 'how to'. It comes from a car site. I would have a Tracker if I needed more security than I have at the mo.
Jon.

Just seen your post Mark, and really sorry - I used to live in Muswell Hill, it's a great place, but thieving s**ts can strike anywhere

The advice about ebay sounds good, but long term there is perhaps a need for a website for stolen vehicles that offers a reward when leading to recovery of someone's pride and joy

Could possibly be funded by advertising banners? - just a thought

Just read this, sorry to hear of it.... Hope it is recovered safe.

[Viney]

Blimey!!! And after all that time to spent fixing it last year!!!

You know they wont catch them sadly, i just hope the insurance pays out, and the bike thieves die a horrible minicing machine type death!

[anna]

any update yet mark??

In response to ujoni08's post about a mobile phone tracker:

My bike actually has one fitted. I've also been priviledged enough to test a professional tracker system on my bike.

The mobile phone (GSM) tracker works OK, but even if you live in London, accuracy would only really be about 200m at best. Where I live, you'd be lucky to narrow it down to 2 miles. If the bike is being ridden, all well and good. If it's not (and lets face it, the majority are stripped down), then you can know where it is to 200m, but in an urban situation like Central London, that doesn't help an awful lot.

The professional tracker I used is actually used by folks at the MoD as well. To even get technical specs on this unit, I had to sign paperwork to say that if I discussed it, they could sue me and/or lock me up in jail.

That said, the professional tracker was about the size of your credit card, with an accuracy of a couple of mm! I was asked to test it out, but I had the technical specs of the unit I was trying to defeat. The job was simple. They fit the tracker to my bike & give me a 30 min head start. They called me after 2hours asking where I was, because they'd completely lost the signal (note: this took some seriously advanced hardware).

You can do what you like to a bike, but if someone really wants it, and they know what they're doing, it's gone for good. You could quite easily find out if a bike is actively transmitting any radio signal (including GSM) & take steps to counter it. Luckily your average criminal (bike or car) doesn't have the hardware required.

If my alarm is armed, and it's picked up off the sidestand, I get a text message about it (as well as the alarm siren going off). I can track my bike, but accuracy is limited and it's not an insurance approved tracker. There's little benefit other than me sleeping easier.

wow are you some kind of james bond killer Baph?

Sounds good. I love things like that but it is always difficult to speak to people about it. I have a couple of relatives that work on government or secure company stuff and to get more than "yeah good" to "how's work?" is getting somewhere.

BTW. Did the police find your bike "empty"?

Nah, not a "james bond killer" at all. In fact, I don't work for the government at all.

I have worked on some government projects in the past, but all boring computer related stuff, honest.

It was partly that, and partly the fact that me & a mate of mine (owns a security consultancy businesss - as in physical security) pretty much BS'd our way into testing the professional unit.

I'm good with electronics as well as computers (as in, design & build alarms for my mate), so that helped when playing with the tracker. GSM/GPRS & GPS are the easy ones to get rid of, it's when they throw things like VHF at you that you have to get creative

The police didn't find my bike, it was a private test done by the company that made the unit. They gave up trying to find me when they realised they had no signal & couldn't possibly narrow it down (storage unit, which one of a couple of hundred metal shipping crates is my bike in?)

hehe always nice to know.. I am in IT too and work on some government support stuff.

The did the police find... was for the thred starter "empty" as he didnt say if he got his bike back.

Well, this isn't really an update, as there has been no sign of the bike anywhere, and I haven't heard anything from the insurance company yet. SV is still work in progress, haven't exactly had a lot of time off in recent weeks, but have sunday off this week so aim is to get the back end of the bike mostly sorted (replacement subframe de-rusted and hammerited, got to swap all the bits over from the old one and re-install the alarm, plus might also get the brakes done). After that we've a bit of work to do to the frame (lockstop), and then sort out headlamp/indicators/clocks which might get a bit fiddly, but then hopefully have a working bike if it gets through the MOT.

MT