Tracking A Stolen Laptop Triggers A Drug Bust

September 1, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 52 Comments

When then folks from the MakerShed had a laptop and iPad stolen from their vehicle in Detroit, they found out several important things.

The Detroit police have more important things to pursue.
Tracking services are awesome.
You never know how your adventure will end.

Luckily they were using an online backup system that offered location services as well. While many may disable these prying eyes as a matter of principle when they join, this is one scenario where you’d be happy you had it.

As it turns out, the Detroit police were fairly busy with other things and left the laptop owners to their own devices tracking the stolen goods via the internet. Some fun and interesting detective work involving Google maps, craigslist, and backed up images ended up leading them to the stolen goods.

Once they had a physical address, the police were available to check things out… well, a few days later. When they went to the address with a search warrant… and a battering ram, they found the house lacking tenants, but containing several forms of ID, a stolen laptop, and some Marijuana meant for distribution.

The entire story is interesting, especially the fact that the amateur detective work was capable of providing enough information for a search warrant. This actually makes me wonder how easily one could fabricate all of this information falsely to cause trouble to an innocent person. It looks like it would only take about 15 minutes and some photoshop. Maybe that’s a conversation best left for another time.

Toy Car Fitted With Lights And Sirens Is A Children’s Delight

October 23, 2011 by Mike Nathan 17 Comments

police_car_lights_and_sirens

[Nathan], a member of the DangerousPrototypes forums, was looking for a project he could use to enter the 7400 logic competition they are holding. His kids had a small ride on police car, but the light bar on top contained no lights, and the car made no sounds when his children were in pursuit of baddies around the house. [Nathan] had all the inspiration he needed, and took to his workshop in order to fix this glaring oversight by the toys’ creators.

He designed a circuit based loosely around a Cylon-style light that he saw a while back at the Evil Mad Scientist Labs, which employed an oscillator and a 4107 decade counter to control the lights. His design uses a 74HC04 hex inverter as the oscillator, while the decade counter is used to modulate the siren’s frequency and control the rotating LED beacons.

The final result is great if you ask us. An “unnamed adult female” in the house was not nearly as impressed by the additions based upon how much time [Nathan] spent on the project, but his children were absolutely thrilled.

Continue reading to see a quick video of the revamped police car in action.

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Radar Detector Tester

November 15, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 38 Comments

[Blacklight99] made this cool tool. It is a tester for those radar detectors that people keep in their cars. Though this seems like it would rarely be a tool we would need, it’s an interesting project. Some speed guns that the police use have a “stealth” mode that makes them invisible to some detectors. This tool can tell you if your detector is vulnerable to this. While this really is just a complicated flashing LED, he notes that it could be taken further to be made into a detector that is programmable and not vulnerable to any of the stealth modes.

UK Raid Seizes 1,800 Flash Cartridges

December 19, 2008 by Eliot 46 Comments

dscart

South Wales Police raided a store in Cardiff seizing 1,800 Nintendo DS flash carts. The devices can be used for playing pirated games or running homebrew software. In the UK, the carts are illegal under the Trademarks and Copyright Acts. The 21-year-old suspect had imported the devices and was selling them both online and in-store. He had over 1,000 devices in his home. Many of them packed and ready to ship. Official statements by the Entertainment and Leisure Publishers Association claim that the hardware irreparably damages the DS handhelds.

[via Joystiq]

Don’t Talk To The Police

June 16, 2008 by Eliot 17 Comments

As builders of improvised electronic devices, we’re worried that we may find ourselves running afoul of the law. Lucky for us, we’ve got the advice of Regent University Law Professor James Duane on using the 5th amendment. He runs through many examples where saying anything at all, truth or otherwise, can get you into trouble. Embedded below is the other side: Officer George Bruch discussing some of the interview techniques he uses.

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