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Irrigation Controller Stolen, Wirelessly Rescues Itself
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Jul 04, 2008 08:46 AM
from the visionary-solutions-to-water-management-through-technology dept.
from the visionary-solutions-to-water-management-through-technology dept.
wooferhound sends along an amusing piece about thieves who got run over by technology and never knew what hit them. "A Rain Master Eagle-i Irrigation Controller recently stolen out of a housing development just outside of Tucson traveled nearly 80 miles before rescuing itself. The smart controller is now back in place on the wall where it was originally pinched... In this day and age, something that may look passive like an irrigation controller may not be so passive. The thieves didn't realize they were removing equipment that features 2-way wireless communications via the Internet. Three weeks later, the unexpected happened. The Maintenance Supervisor noticed a signal coming in from the stolen controller. He thought it was kind of odd that it was up and running... Whoever had stolen it had plugged it back in."
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Electronic Timer (Score:4, Funny)
Phoned home.
Belthize
Product Info (Score:5, Informative)
For those who are wondering WTF this thing is, here's the product page. [rainmaster.com]
"The RME Eagle combines evapotranspiration (ET) technology with its already intelligent design providing a variety of ET-based scheduling features that will reduce water usage, save time and money, and optimize the efficiency of water resource allocation for any irrigation application. Additionally, an optional communication card provides central control capabilities via The Internet!
"The "RME Eagle" can measure flow and take corrective action for station breaks, main line failures, or unscheduled flow. It supports either normally open or normally closed master valve operation, pump operations independent of the master valve, cycle and soak or conventional programming, and a flow totalizer to monitor total water used. The "Eagle" watches your prestigious landscapes 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, providing insurance and protection from catastrophic field related failures."
All it doesn't do is yell at the kids to get off your lawn.
Will be expected soon (Score:5, Funny)
Any electronic device that cost several thousand dollars will be expected to be wireless and have GPS. You'll be able to login and check to see that your air conditioner, refrigerator and water heater are still at your house.
Instead of being caught with incriminating lock picks and bolt cutters, crooks will have their anti-GPS and anti-wireless equipment trip them up.
Re:Will be expected soon (Score:5, Funny)
And for devices under several thousand dollars, i'll make a fortune selling fake antennas and stickers that say "this device is protected by gps and will alert the authorities if it is moved", and "smile for the camera" :)
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Re:Will be expected soon (Score:4, Interesting)
And for devices under several thousand dollars, i'll make a fortune selling fake antennas and stickers that say "this device is protected by gps and will alert the authorities if it is moved", and "smile for the camera" :)
Actually, that's not a great idea. At least down here (and if this flies in Texas I'm sure it flies everywhere in the US), you can be held seriously liable for claiming that you have surveillance video when you don't, if a crime occurs on your property. It may sound odd, but it actually makes sense, since businesses were basically creating a false sense of security for their customers.
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Re:Will be expected soon (Score:5, Funny)
Ah. You need one of my other stickers then... try one of the following:
"These labels were not placed here by the owner of this equipment"
"By reading this label, you agree not to bring any action against the owner of this equipment for any claims, false or otherwise, made by this or any other label on this equipment."
"This label and any others attached to this equipment is void in Texas and any other state with stupid laws."
"this device is not protected by gps and will not alert the authorities if it is moved"
"smile for the fake camera"
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Re:Will be expected soon (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the idea is sort of like the laws against false advertising. If I'm in trouble and run to where I've 'seen' a camera, so actions against me can be witnessed, I'd be pissed if it turned out to be fake and there's no video evidence of my being assaulted.
But, approach it from a different angle - the very appearance of security cameras deters crime, maybe. On the other hand, odds are fake cameras will eventually be found out, then the public will be operating on a false sense of security. Not good.
Oh, and going by crime statistics, the cameras in London don't do much good - you're worse off than NYC! I've read that cameras, at most, shifted crimes. Many times the perp would commit the crime right in front of the camera counting on the fact that a random cop or victim looking at the camera isn't going to be able to identify him - there's just too many faces. Thus the push for face recognition software. Then that gives you hurdle 2- you now know who perp Y is, but now you need to find out where he's living this week and actually send an officer around to arrest him. Police departments everywhere seem to fall down a lot on the second one. As studies have shown, actually following through(even if you 'don't have enough resources') tends to disproportionately reduce crime - after all, that purse snatcher, burgler, or mugger is very likely have committed crimes in the past, and commit more in the future if he's not caught and subjected to an effective correction*.
*Chosen over punishment. I don't care as much about the retribution portion as the 'make sure they aren't going to do it again'.
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Re:Will be expected soon (Score:4, Informative)
Well the difference if the fake camera was not there is that the tenant would not have relied on it in that case. Anyway to show negligence you have to show a duty existed, the defendant breached that duty, the breach was a proximate (which doesn't mean only) cause of the injury, and the injury caused damage to the plaintiff. The law mandates that landlords take a reasonable effort to ensure the safety of their residents. In a high crime area, a fake camera might not be considered "reasonable," especially if a similar crime happened before and the fake camera didn't do anything to prevent it.
You can't just open up a building, advertise for tenants, and then assume your sole job is to collect the rent.
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Medical devices will be wireless soon too... (Score:5, Funny)
Say for instance your grandfather has a pacemaker with wireless.
$>ping grandpa
No Host Found.
Oh no, GRANDPA!!!!
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New twist on old theme (Score:4, Funny)
Brings a new twist on the old "Is your refrigerator running?" prank call:
"Running? Let me check... why yes, about 30MPH it seems on 6th avenue. Thanks for the heads up!"
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I like the thought of this (Score:3, Insightful)
Thieves will now have to block the antennae of their purloined plunder. But how's this for an idea: geo-locking hardware like this? "Here's your GPS coordinates. Stray outside of this area, you stop working." Thieves will soon learn that taking something like this will brick it.
I also like the idea of equipping cars with wireless stuff like this. The owner reports it missing, the car starts reporting its location to the cops and they can nab the perps.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Satnavs already do this. Turn the device on, enter the PIN. If you don't know the PIN, you can't use the device. If you forget the PIN, you can reset it, but only at the device's home location.
Re:I like the thought of this (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing to worry aboot.
Bubbles will just get Julian and Ricky to shoot the wheels out of that dirty cocksucker.
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I would have gotten even first (Score:5, Funny)
never ceases to amaze me (Score:5, Insightful)
how they will visually identify the stolen property, call it in, and then leave and expect it to just stay there until they get back with more badges.
I've read about this scenario repeatedly, though this is the first time I've heard of it being voluntarily returned later. Being that stupid about it they didn't deserve to get it back.
Putting on the "wild speculation" hat, I'd say that since they were obviously tipped off, that it was likely whoever was sent out to identify the item was told to leave by his commanding officer, who then tipped them off "we're coming back in 30 minutes and it better not be there when we return". Gotta love how things like that work in rural towns. Any competent law enforcement would have left the stolen property under observation until the badges showed up.
Where's Scooby Doo? (Score:4, Funny)
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PR fluff piece by an evil company (Score:5, Interesting)
Stolen equipment gets recovered via cell phone signals all them time. The whole thing sounds like a PR fluff piece.
The real tidbit of interest here is this:
Smart controller 'internet' technology, first patented in 2003 by Rain Master, automatically adjusts water usage via a 2-way wireless communication system.
The company has a patent on controlling the sprinkler system remotely. This kind of patent is stupid and evil.
Re:PR fluff piece by an evil company (Score:4, Insightful)
The company has a patent on controlling the sprinkler system remotely. This kind of patent is stupid and evil.
You're only jealous because you didn't have the idea of taking out a patent on remotely controlling a sprinkler system by means of a manually operated rotary or other valve within the fluid delivery system at a position other than the sprinkler apparatus itself (=a tap at the other end of the hosepipe).
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ad (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone else read the article and thought it smells a lot like it was written by the PR department of the company that manufactures those things? Lots and lots of talks about the great and unique features of the device, very little details on the alleged crime.
If this were ZiiTrend, I'd vote 70:30 that the story is fake and PR.
Re:huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Can someone tell me why this is interent enabled?
From TFA: We're able to do the programming and communicate to the controllers through our laptops or Blackberries ...
Sounds pretty useful in a production environment..
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Re:huh? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:huh? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Implanting the growing green stuff where it was not before could be beneficial for everyone indeed. The only problem is that the type of green that maybe beneficial in such places is not good on the golf field for instance.
While I am here - anybody else think TFA looks like commercial? I wonder also what internet has to do with the mobile network positioning systems that actually detected the 'stolen' item. Only I wonder how 'stolen' it really was as it moved back miraculously after a while.
TFA offers also insights into how police should not work I suppose - OTOH they achieved the goal of getting the stuff back without involving expensive judiciary etc so maybe it made sense to do it that way?
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Re:huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
"The controller receives weather information on a daily basis and then sends commands to watering mechanisms to reflect the weather change. "
This is an interesting resource for arid areas that have shrinking water resources.
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Re:huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not just for those areas. For anywhere. It's a shame that water shortages were needed to force people to design systems that are smart. Here they still have to put up signs to warn people not to water during winter storms! All that ice on the road is apparently dangerous.
There are lots of things that would benefit from some kind of additional smart control. Personally, I'd like a few more items in my house to be remotely operable, and thus also be able to alert me remotely of changing circumstances. I use Alarm.com and get an x-10 interface there, but I think there is much more that we can do. I'd like to know if the socket in the bathroom is still drawing electricity after I've left for work. That means my wife has left her hair appliance machinery plugged in etc.
Smart electrical outlets could tell us things like increased current use over time for appliances like your fridge or pc etc. It's amazing what a billion points of tiny data per month can tell you about life. I'd like to see that.
This topic needs as much thought and discussion as data center power conservation does.
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