Land Air Sea GPS Tracking Key
Jason Lancaster | Mar 18, 2009 | Comments 7
This is just like Spy v. Spy – a $175 GPS tracking unit that you can hide somewhere in your vehicle or on your person. It will:
- Tell you exactly where you or your vehicle was (within a couple of meters, anyways) for every second the unit is active (or at least until the 2 batterys run out).
- Track your vehicle’s top speed and average speed, as well as the vehicle’s speed at any given location.
- Interface all of this data with Google Earth, so you can get some visual idea of where the tracking unit was at any point during the tracking period.
- Record everything that people nearby are thinking using the revolutionary “mind-read” circuit. (OK – maybe not, but still…)
GPS tracking key from Land Air Sea. It includes a magnet for easy attachment.
While this is technically for tracking your own movements – say figuring out where and how often you drive your truck to make deliveries, for instance – the real market is undoubtedly spying.
Want to know where your spouse is driving when you’re not around? Stick this thing behind the glove box next time you borrow their car.
Curious to know if your neighbor is a closet civil war re-enactment buff? This unit comes with a strong magnet that you can use to attach the tracker to the bottom of your neighbor’s car.
Have a pesky teen with a lead foot? Hide this unit in your teen’s car and you can find out how many times they broke the law.
Of course, we don’t condone any of these uses, and we really shouldn’t make light of this technology (it’s just an easy way to break the ice). There are laws against illegal surveillance, and the truth is we’re all entitled to a little privacy…however:
A man in NY was successfully prosecuted because of one of these Land Air Sea GPS tracking keys. Evidently, his wife suspected him of infidelity. Unbeknown to him, she added this GPS tracking device to his car. During this time, this man evidently attacked and killed his teenage baby sitter (awful story, and for the record we hope he’s going to jail for a long, long time). Using the data from the GPS tracking device, the prosecution was able to prove this man’s guilt.
The legal precedent here is intriguing – can the government use GPS tracking data from your cell phone, your car’s navigation system, or from the secret tracking device that your spouse hid under your spare tire to prosecute you? One court seems to think so.
We’re going to spend more time talking about GPS tracking in the next few weeks, simply because these devices are getting cheap enough to gain some real presence in our everday lives. Next up, we’ll talk about how these GPS devices work.
Filed Under: Toyota Tundra Accessories
No more Big Brother! I don’t like this at all. We’re already tracked by our cell phone signals LOL.
Time to whip up a jammer for this device. I’m sure it won’t take long and be on the black market.
Mickey – So true. That’s one of the next posts!
If it were not for the tracking key this man who murdered a 12 year old girl would be free. Say what you want about technology, but clearly it resulted in a positive outcome in this situation. All types of technology can be used maliciously such as video cameras, tape recorders, or even cell phones. its not technology its people who cause problems in society. i visited the manufacturer of the tracking key at http://www.landairsea.com and they clearly are not marketing to cheating husbands and wives, but rather concenred parents of teenagers and employers trying to improve employee effectivness.
Ryan – I definitely agree that this technology has both sinister and benign uses, but the fact of the matter is the device is designed to be concealed. I’m pretty certain that the market for this product is more sinister than benign. After all, why is it black and nondescript, and why does it have a magnetic attachment mechanism. Land Air Sea might not be intentionally marketing the product for spying, but it certainly seems like an ideal design for that purpose…
Law Enforcement didn’t need GPS tracking to catch the bad guy but, you’re sure as hell going to see political pimps and witches trying to dictate these should be placed on everything you can think of. Tell’em to pound sand.
Winghunter – I’ve read about a scenario where insurance companies ultimately force these devices onto the public. The idea is that GPS tracking would allow an insurer to determine exactly how many miles a person drove, the type of driving they did, how good a person’s driving habits are, etc., and then use this info to determine a rate.
I can see a benefit – someone who drives very little would likely pay less in insurance premiums, as would someone who drives at or below the speed limit, doesn’t race around or turn or stop rapidly, etc. The GPS devices could likely figure out which people drive aggressively, cause accidents, etc., and charge them a higher premium.
Of course, this is all conjecture – for all I know the GPS data wouldn’t be useful in determining loss ratios. However, I think that more data almost always yields a better assessment.
The scenario I envision is being offered an insurance discount in exchange for installing a GPS device…and I think a lot of consumers would take advantage of that deal.
In other words, it might not be politicians that make this happen – it might be good old American capitalism! 🙂