NYPD Can Now Shoot GPS Trackers at Your Car

[roarcher]

Prediction: the NYPD is never going to actually use this thing. Maybe some vastly improved future iteration, but not this one.

> the NYPD has invested $19,500 on the Guardian-HX venture.

That's pocket change to the NYPD. It's not clear from the article what "invested" means, but they probably bought and handed out a small number of launchers to a few officers to see if they prove useful. I'm skeptical that they will.

> That projectile travels at a claimed 37 miles per hour, and has a straight-forward range of 35 feet — though the company claims that, with an arc, it can theoretically reach 60 feet.

Good luck hitting a moving vehicle with that.

[potmat]

It might work if you can get one officer ahead of the vehicle, waiting for when it goes by, and shoot as it's coming toward you or passing close by. This should be pretty easy if the suspect is driving down, say, an interstate. Call ahead and have someone waiting for him to pass by.

Edit: By "easy" I mean easy to call ahead, not necessarily to hit with the tracker.

[slowhand09]

Look for a coyote and a roadrunner nearby.

[redeux]

I think you’re probably right about them not actually using this but the implications of the capability are more interesting. There are potential privacy issues that could be troubling if not managed well, but it also has the potential to reduce the number of dangerous pursuits.

[Vecr]

Sounds like the PIAT in A Bridge Too Far. It clearly needs to go faster.

[mschuster91]

> Good luck hitting a moving vehicle with that.

It's not like police already doesn't care about accuracy when shooting at vehicles.

[lagniappe]

     No. It can't be. Someone is shadowing him. Right off his left flank. A person on a skateboard rolling down the highway right behind him. The Deliverator, in his distracted state, has allowed himself to get pooned. As in harpooned. There's a big round padded electromagnet, on the end of an arachnofiber cable. It has just thunked on the back of the Deliverator's car and stuck. Ten feet behind him, the owner of this cursed device is surfing, taking him for a ride. Skateboarding along like a water-skier behind a boat.

[jamesgreenleaf]

    The Mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the fire house. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber padded paws.

[arealaccount]

Interesting this is built on an AR-15 lower receiver, with the detachable magazine being a battery.

I'd think it would be a lot easier and cheaper to build one of these from the ground up instead of using a real not-electric firearm

[everforward]

AR-15 lowers are pretty cheap. Seems like ~$60 on the cheap end at consumer (non-wholesale) prices. That's without a buffer spring and stuff, but I don't think this thing even uses/needs those.

There are some advantages to it, though. The article calls out accessories being interchangeable. The company doesn't have to make/sell different stocks and what not, people can just buy their existing favorites for the AR-15.

The ergonomics are probably more familiar (e.g. adjusting the length of the stock, where the safety is, etc).

You could also theoretically use the same lower for both this and an actual AR-15, although I doubt the utility of that. Most police departments probably have enough cash to just buy both.

[thatguy0900]

If the government is investing in you they might have a lot of surplus gear you can use for a reduced cost. And it's attractive to tell police forces that they don't have to train marksmanship on a entirely new platform for your device.

[hyperhopper]

I mean, you can get 6packs of lower receivers as a civilian for like what amounts to 30 bucks each.

They are not expensive.

[sleepybrett]

Someone who doesn't understand economies of scale. You know how many ar-15 lowers are made every damn day in this country? They are cheaper than a dozen eggs at this point.

[tyingq]

I imagine it's deliberate appeal to the demographic.

[AlgorithmicTime]

Why? AR lowers are ludicrously cheap and common. You're going to need a generally "rifle-like" form factor for ease of use, so why not go with the most common design, and save money on things like pistol grips, buttstocks, etc?

And the manual of arms is known to everyone who'll be using it.

[whoomp12342]

what if the tracker scratches/dents/damages your car? How does the GPS unit adhere? does that leave a residue? Are they going to pay for that??

[kube-system]

This is an alternative to the PIT maneuver or spike strips, which are all much more destructive. Generally speaking, police are legally permitted to use force to compel compliance.

[klyrs]

> Are they going to pay for that??

No, when the cops damage your property, you're free to pay a lawyer to tell you that you'll lose in court.

[kotaKat]

I'm assuming if you're not actively trying to get pursued by a law enforcement official this isn't a problem.

[Imnimo]

I don't even understand what the proposed use case for this is. Is it supposed to be that you're in a car chase and rather than continue a dangerous pursuit you shoot this thing at the suspect and then just go find them later? Won't they notice and just stop and dispose of the tracker unless you're hot on their tail?

[V__]

You could follow from a safe distance (or go parallel to the suspect) and track until air support is in place, or set up a few road blocks and box the suspect in. By the time you stop and remove the tracker, the police could just catch up and shot another pair of trackers.

[HDThoreaun]

Car chases have been banned in large cities because they often lead to injuries to bystanders and cops and then gigantic lawsuits. So yea the plan now is to find them later and I guess gpsing the car could help.

[AYBABTME]

Exactly for making car chases less necessary. Just get in range to shoot, shoot and then track the fleeing car more safely from a distance.

[oh_sigh]

For $20k they probably only got a few devices - possibly 1. What are the odds that the police officer with one of these few devices is the officer nearby when a pursuit happens? And they have a partner in their car ready to use the device? Effectively zero.

I think this would be better implemented as a drone which could smash into the car and have the same tracking abilities. Then it could be launched by any officer even if they're not within 35 feet of a car, perhaps steered autonomously or by an officer back at the precinct, or even dropped from a police helicopter.

[supernova87a]

Rather than worry about this little tracking peculiarity, my mind wanders to a future where the govt is smart/capable/evil enough to be connecting all the cameras in buildings, cars, etc. into one place that constantly monitors for license plates and is able to tell:

-- anyone who has been driving around with a car registered in another state but hasn't relocated it to that state within a month (avoiding taxes -- CA I'm looking at you)

-- backtracking where someone who committed a crime came from, and has gone

-- etc.

Maybe somewhere this is already being done.

[avidiax]

This is a thing already. Planes flying in circles above major US cities with dozens of cameras recording time lapses.

The geolocation warrants being served against Google are also pretty similar. Come up with all the phones in the area when the fire was set, etc.

https://radiolab.org/episodes/eye-sky

[ChuckNorris89]

I think this is already the norm in Israel. Your every move is monitored on CCTV.

[readthenotes1]

Charles Strauss wrote about that in the atrocity archives.

[matthewaveryusa]

You mean Palantir?

[sallygretel]

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[local_crmdgeon]

Everything else aside, this is pretty sci-fi

[MollyRealized]

Future subreddit: /r/starchase_hacks

[PeterCorless]

I am less concerned about the NYPD and other de jure police and sheriff departments having this, and more concerned when they get into the hands of civilians that are creepy men stalking ex-wives and underage women.

[ransackdev]

Sorry to be the one who brings you up to speed, but this is just adding one more option for both the gov and civilians to track people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_Reveal

As for randos tracking women, or anyone, this is already happening

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/18/1080944193/apple-airtags-thef...

https://www.komando.com/security-privacy/modified-airtags-us...

and trackers are a dime a dozen it seems, complete with cellular data plans

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=gps+tracker+for+vehicles

[yamtaddle]

People aren't gonna buy weird, single-purpose, short-range tracker-launchers when they can just stick the tracker on the car when nobody's looking.

[celim307]

Considering the history of effective oversight and regulation of local police, there’s no difference between the two groups you described

[roarcher]

> > That projectile travels at a claimed 37 miles per hour, and has a straight-forward range of 35 feet — though the company claims that, with an arc, it can theoretically reach 60 feet.

This launcher doesn't seem very capable of hitting a moving vehicle, in spite of what their marketing might imply. It would be much easier and more covert to just use an Airtag, which stalkers already do.

[delfinom]

You can actually just buy GPS+Cellular trackers off Amazon already. And they are far far more discrete than this literal soup can sized tracker that the NYPD would be using.