Your Stolen Car Can Track Itself | Maria Santos + Eugene Giordani, Autoscope

Welcome to the Security Cocktail Hour. I'm Joe Paddy.

I'm Adam Roth.

Adam, we have not one but two guests today. So we're going to have double the fun. have... Yeah, double the editing. It's all on me. I know. We have Maria Santos. Hi Maria.

strength.

Thanks.

And double the editing.

Okay.

Hi, how are you Joe?

Hi, it's good to have you. And we have Eugene Giordano. Eugene? Okay, great. And we are very excited to have you here because regular listeners will know I'm a car guy. I love cars, ⁓ which means I hate car thieves and hate to see them using all this wonderful whiz bang technology we've got to steal cars, frankly, whether it's high tech or low tech. And

Hey, how are you?

You have both. Gee, I forgot the name of the company you're with, Eugene. But yeah, for those listening, he's wearing a company shirt. Your company is Autoscope and you've got a pretty innovative ⁓ approach to getting back at the bad guys and you have a lot of experience in the field. So why don't you tell us a little bit about ⁓ what you do and how you're involved.

I am.

Of course, of course.

Hello everyone. So Maria and I co-founded a company called Autoscope, which is a vehicle intelligence platform. And what we do is we enable law enforcement to track and recover stolen vehicles through what's called the telematic system. ⁓ Every vehicle nowadays is pretty much like a ⁓ phone in your pocket, but every vehicle is a computer which allows

anything and everything to be GPS tracked. So we enable law enforcement to GPS track every vehicle through the factory installed telematics.

That's amazing ⁓ because I've read all this stuff about how the car is a phone with wheels now, like you said, and that it's got all these fancy electronics and that the car companies are using it to track you and to get your data and they're going to use the train their A models and everything. But you can also tap into that for something more useful as far as I'm concerned.

Absolutely. ⁓ Specifically the GPS. ⁓ It's through consent. Once the vehicle is stolen, an officer responds on scene and just say, do you have a connected service application, which is our consent model. ⁓ Once consented by the owner, ⁓ it enables tracking of the vehicle and officers are able to go on scene, track the vehicle and attempt in recovering the vehicle.

Yes.

Hey Joe, would that work on your Porsche?

Actually, it won't. I hate to say. I drive older cars that don't have all the electronics and everything. Actually, my newest car is a 2014 and it does have Bluetooth and it does have GPS, but...

I know.

It doesn't have carplay, it doesn't have a really sophisticated system, and it's got like the old school Bluetooth where it just connects and that's it. It doesn't do very much. I mean, does it work on a car like that or is that like too old and too dumb for it?

It's not that it's too dumb. It's a little bit older. Connected service really came into play 2017 and up models or OEM brands 2017 and up. Usually vehicles manufactured after 2017 have a telematics unit. And telematics unit could be anything. It's pretty much the brain of the car. It tells how many miles you've driven. It also displays odometer.

Yes.

it displays ⁓ tire air pressure, things like that. ⁓ One of the... Yes, yes, yes it does. Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly. Exactly, exactly.

Does it keep track of how fast I'm going? Because I don't want that. that's not good. I thought I was too old.

That it does, yes. Watch out,

That's for the insurance companies. The insurance companies.

I was too old to have to worry about it. ⁓ shoot. Gosh. Okay.

Exactly, exactly,

Hahaha ⁓

exactly.

⁓

So, Joe, question is, Maria and Eugene, what got you, what made you think of this? What was the prop? What was the catalyst? Why?

Well, we're both in law enforcement, so we saw a need and we sought to fill it. The need was that a lot of investigations that involved ⁓ auto theft.

⁓ They just died out right after the vehicle left the scene. mean, imagine an officer going on scene, somebody got their vehicle stolen and ⁓ the officer's like, okay, know, when did someone steal your car about half an hour ago? That car is probably 10 miles from the scene. The officer is not going to leave his or her jurisdiction to go get that car. So by the time one of us recovers it, it's because someone found it because of

the plate hitting stolen and it's usually about a month or so from the date that it was stolen. And because of that, we said, hey, there's gotta be a better way. There's gotta be a way to track the vehicle without having a third party device installed in the vehicle or without, ⁓ you know, using another type of device. And we saw that the vehicles were being built in with GPS already. Why not access that very thing? And it's been helping out.

Yeah, don't the bad guys

know where those things are usually installed? And I've heard they like rip them out right away that they know what to do about them.

It changes. Yeah, I'm sorry I'm gonna let you do it. It changes every year.

Yeah.

Changes, yeah.

Yeah, it's usually a season

perps. I myself, I'm in forensic investigations, so we process a lot of those type of vehicles. What I've realized personally is that a lot of those telematics or GPS units are not ripped out. It's usually the season perps, the organized staff personnel or the persons who are ⁓ really ⁓ experienced in that that are ripping it out. Most of the times when

perps are stealing vehicles, they want to keep everything intact because the moment that they start messing in those areas, the value of the vehicle goes down. But what I find from personal experience is that a lot of these telematics units are still installed. But I think the true purpose for us is really trying to access that vehicle and the GPS and the telematics as soon as possible. Even if at some point the perpetrator is going to remove the telematics or GPS device from a vehicle,

⁓ We want to track it as soon as possible. Hopefully that could get us a GPS ping before they remove that telematics or GPS system out of the vehicle. ⁓ So time is of essence.

So I live in Staten Island and I've seen some of the most expensive, I don't have an expensive car. I my car is I think worth about maybe five dollars less than Joe's and I'm kidding. ⁓ But I know that they're using sophisticated technology, they're using parabolic mics and they're turning on the signal, looking in the house with the parabolic stuff, re-radioing it. And I think it's safe to say most of these

People are stealing the car are usually younger kids that want to get it from A to B They get the cash in hand and they take off. They're like screw that I'll get away no matter what and that's what they're doing So I don't I don't think they're spending time to dismantle it there, but don't get me wrong the more sophisticated the more expensive Quarter million, maybe half a million exotic cars. Maybe they're doing that but the the BMWs and the Mercedes and maybe the Porsches that are you know

not so expensive but not cheap. They're probably just getting in there. They want to get away from the house and they want to take off.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's funny you mentioned,

you mentioned Staten Island. That is the home of relay attacks and key cloning because you figured someone's going to have their, their car parked in the driveway and someone's going to be passing by. want to do, you want to get a device to do a relay attack on the vehicle, which is essentially someone stands by the house, maybe hopefully close to the key fob. And then the other guy standing by the car and then, you know, it kind of makes the car think that the key fob is near the car and that's how they kind of take off.

Yes!

Really?

that makes sense

because in Staten Island the houses are like, you know, the size of a postage stamp. yeah, well, like your car parked in your driveway, is it like physically like three feet from your kitchen table through the wall or what?

Yes.

Hahahaha

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Joe, Joe, Joe!

you

Joe stop Joe

I don't live near your expensive mall but you know the so I'm a little bit crazy I admit it like I have cameras on my house I have sensors I have everything I even I thought about putting in the spectrum analyzer looking for those things next just for the hell of it I I yeah stop I even have drones I'm ready to strap a spectrum analyzer on the drone do some patrols looking for that I'm crazy but you know

I'm

Yeah.

I love

that science, Joe knows that.

Yeah. Okay. So let me ask you that, because we've done some shows on Flipper Zero and hacking devices and you mentioned the replay attacks where someone, I guess when they use the key fob or whatever, they steal the signals, do a man in the middle or clone it and then use it later. ⁓ Now, I had heard that, or at least maybe when we were buying the Flipper Zero, this may be out of date, that a lot of those attacks don't work anymore.

Everything helps.

That it does.

No!

but it sounds like they do. So do the bad guys keep innovating and cracking all these?

It really depends with the flipper. I know they've made some upgrade into their technology where it doesn't allow you to, it also depends on the type and the brand of vehicle. ⁓ What we've seen most prominent is the relay attacks. They're buying these devices online. You could buy one for maybe $6,000 now. could buy them. know, perpetrators have access to it. They purchase them and that's how really they're stealing cars. And it's usually your

Yeah, yeah.

most luxury vehicles, your BMWs, your Mercedes-Benz, your Lexuses. And it's usually done and they could have your car out of your driveway in 60 seconds or less. That's how quick it works. It's all about emitting that signal from your key fob that's placed on the kitchen table and really emitting that signal to the vehicle. And it's pretty quick.

So Joe this way with Joe this goes back to the whole thing we were speaking about with your Mac machine SDR software defined radio when we were talking about drones you can literally use a Pringles type can Point it at the car get the signal replay it. It's we were talking about that with Luke Canfield If you have SDR you can buy the app replay it and it's it's almost plug-and-play if it's a lot of money man Some of these things are $20,000 of software

Yeah. ⁓ huh.

Yeah.

But that's infuriating to me because you you're talking about a man in the middle attack, you know where for everyone I'm sure everyone watching knows but you know where you Put yourself between the two and one side thinks they're talking to the other side, but they're really both sides talking to you ⁓ they aren't I mean in cyber there are defenses against that. That's not a new thing. I mean, these cars they just not have any kind of ⁓

you know, decent, useful cryptography in them. This is a totally solvable and solved problem. know? But you talk about expensive cars, you know what the insurance is on those cars? I mean, my God. Sorry, I'm trying to put you out of business here. I don't mean to, but you know, I'm sorry.

More expensive, Joe. More expensive, Joe.

They know.

Yeah. Yes. ⁓

It's fine. It's fine. This is perfect. Perfect.

No, Joe, you're... The only way

your car is getting towed is with a tow truck. Your car doesn't even have a radio in it.

Yeah

I'm actually glad you touched on that Joe, because when you think about it, what our software does, what our app does rather, is that it doesn't matter how the OEM, the vehicle manufacturer makes the vehicle. At the end of the day, we're accessing that technology, whether or not they're improving it or changing it for, you know, to deter auto theft somehow.

We're still accessing that very GPS 2025, 2026, even the 2027 models that are going to come out soon. We're accessing that very thing that's already built in there.

So think of it this way Joe, right? You have a telephone, your telephone has GPS, you don't want it be tracked, what do you do? You put it into a Faraday bag. Everything can be defeated, but the good news is, the good news is that this app, this product, it's gonna keep the honest people kind of honest, right? You know, if it, yeah.

No, I know. Well, I get it.

Look, I know very well it's all a cat and mouse game that, you know, they fix one thing, they find another way to get in and all, but I don't know. It just disturbs me that there's, when there's something that, you know, to me is glaringly obvious. mean, someone, if I'm totally wrong on this, put in the comments, you know, send us hate mail. I like hate mail. You can tell us we're wrong, but there's, you know, stopping replay attacks is not...

I'll give you hate mail myself.

And cyber is not that huge of a deal.

think what it is is that like our phones, our cell phone devices, you constantly got to update it so it could keep up with time. ⁓ Usually it's some type of reasoning why they're updating applications on our phone or we're updating our Apple device. ⁓ I think in the OEM sense also, it's a lot of money to keep up with these safety features. And OEMs are in the business of selling vehicles.

They're not necessarily in the business of, you know, updating or creating new software, cyber, you know, preventing cyber attacks, et cetera. And I think that's what's keeping them. And that's why they don't want to really get into the game of creating some type of software that keeps perpetrators from, you know, doing these really attacks. It's very costly. You got to update these systems constantly on a yearly basis, maybe every six months, because technology is only evolving. As technology evolves, it's costing them money to keep up also.

And it's millions, sometimes billions of dollars to do that. So. ⁓

So I have a question for you Maria and Eugene.

How many times, so you guys are active in law enforcement. I'm sure you've gotten into some pursuits or you've cut somebody off. You go to arrest them. You check their pockets. Anything really incredible? You've done the pit maneuver, Joe. Joe, I've done it EMS. No, I'm kidding. Long story short, I did, but that's another story. ⁓ But Maria,

Okay.

Have you ever done the pit maneuver? You guys must have done the pit maneuver. I mean, come on. Was it fun? You must have done it, right? Yeah, okay.

Yes, probably.

Did

God, I don't want to get

in your ambulance, Christ.

Hahaha!

So, Marie and Eugene, like you turn around,

⁓

you stop somebody, you cut them off, whatever, you go to arrest them, you open their pockets, they're car thieves. What's the most craziest technology that you have found in their pockets or in their possession? Anything?

So ⁓ we have, ⁓ I've definitely responded to ⁓ recovered stolen vehicles and I've actually recovered the really attacked devices that they use and we'll process those for any fingerprints if whatever the case may be. So I have recovered quite a few of those. I've actually recovered where some of the perpetrators, they go into these Honda Accords and they're removing the telematics.

⁓ I think in the past, I've recovered a Honda Civic, a Honda Accord, and there was a telematics device that was recovered inside the vehicle. And it actually wasn't from the vehicle that we were processing at the time. It was from a whole nother vehicle. So we're definitely seeing a lot of those evidence that are left behind. ⁓ And it's just on a case by case base.

wow.

heat.

really surprised by that because I know that car guys complain all the time, especially with the newer cars, that the electronics and those computers are so fidgety. I didn't think you could move them from one to another without some serious programming if you could do it at all.

to specify, it's just the telematics unit in whole that was removed from another vehicle and it was recovered at the recovered vehicle that we were processing. They're removing that whole telematics unit from wherever it is in the vehicle. those are some of the things that we're recovering from vehicles.

Right. I was going to mention there was a point when we were looking for USB wires in subject pockets, right? Because for a while what they were doing is that they were using the USB wires to kind of start certain Kias

yeah,

yeah.

and it just kind of acted like a key. So if you want to talk about a device to get creative, that was something that if you found it in someone's pocket, you're like, wait, what are you doing with this? Let me just take a look at you. Yes.

Perfect. It's perfect.

People were also programming

Yeah

through the headlights. I know that too. They were using the headlights. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've done a lot of studying of that. I really enjoy the whole hacking stuff and I've been really into that, which is why Joe makes fun of me. I have hacking toys and USB cables that if I gave it to you, I'd get all your technology off your phone. I mean, we do that. We do sometimes little episodes about some of these hacking devices.

Yes, Mercedes.

Yeah.

Because people are not aware, they don't know that you can walk into a place and get all your information stolen. I'm just surprised, Eugene and Maria, that you have not found yet somebody with a beautiful laptop, with really expensive technology, being able to get that $250,000, $300,000 car. Because I know they're out there, but those are more specialized. Those are really sophisticated crews.

Yeah, yeah, exactly that.

Those are found more

with search warrants. We'll get you those. Search warrants, we'll get you those. Not really on the field. Yeah.

Alright, let me go hide them then.

No, really.

figure it this go on the field of my regular job and I'm carrying my bags, I could probably be mistaken for somebody who's looking to steal cars, because I have a lot of technology on me. So I should be very careful, you know.

Uh-huh.

boy.

So someone might just stop you Adam and just go what are you doing with all these things in your pocket? Let's figure you out really quick It's not a bad thing you're very very aware that some people are very but some some are not aware of the technology that's out there and Keeping up with it is really the key to either preventing it or solving it and that's what we're trying to do with with Autoscope

Yeah.

Yeah.

that's a good question for Maria and Eugene. How do you guys keep up? Because obviously Every like every month is something new you guys have to be like on top of it You gotta be researching you got to be looking at OEMs You gotta looking at manufacturers because your product has to keep up with it that's a daunting task

Yeah,

absolutely. I definitely got to give a huge shout outs to our team. Our team is pretty good. ⁓ We're a team of four right now. ⁓ We have somebody who's always handling the admin aspect of Autoscope. We have somebody who's always handling the technology aspect. And then you have Maria, who's a great co-founder, and she's tackling every issue. So it's definitely ⁓ the team, I got to say.

I don't know, Maria scares me a little bit when I reached out to her for the podcast. I felt like I was being investigated. If I knew Eugene, you existed first, I probably would have reached out to you first.

⁓

boy. Well, you know, it's good to get to know people.

I got hits in my profiles, hits in my background, I'm like,

That's why she's our co-founder. Yep, that's it.

Well, ⁓ to point out the technology and what we're noticing, there was something interesting that we've noticed recently in one of our recoveries. was, I believe in Georgia, there was a vehicle that caught fire ⁓ that they were tracking. They obviously connected with Autoscope. I'm not going to mention the department. ⁓ They connected with Autoscope and...

Cool.

While it was in the middle of a forest caught on fire, it pinged to that location. So that tells me that the OEMs are getting better with their technology, but I mean, to have a vehicle catch fire and for us to still ping it, to me that's incredible. Yes.

That's great and

and here's and here's the parallel Joe chicken think of this joke the parallel is we just lost a pilot in in another country they they jettisoned out of their airplane and Their beacon was able to locate them kind of same with the cars, right? You know, they're in a different place and they recovered You like that parallel, right?

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Well,

Very good parallel at them.

yeah, I like you slipping in the current events, but the military stuff is a little bit ruggedized. I don't think a 2020 Civic is designed to be ejected out of an F-16 and still work.

It's pretty good.

What is he not looking at? Court fire!

Thank you.

It caught fire and it still

Yeah.

pinged! I was trying to help you guys, I'm just trying to help man. I was proud to hear about your car catching fire and still pinging.

you

Well, the thing is that there's something that we came up with. was just like, you you could burn down the vehicle, but you can't burn down, you can't burn the data. The data is always available, even if it's just on the cloud. So you can't burn that data. That data is always made available. And I think that's one our strongest points is that we can still track a vehicle, even if the vehicle has been burned down, melted down, we can still get that last ping and we can still track that vehicle.

or in the cloud,

Yes.

the manufacturer, the car companies, they're storing everything, everything that goes up they have access to. They are.

Essentially, they're storing it and the way that

the application or the telematics, you can still get a last GPS ping. We can still get that.

Okay,

let me ask you this then, because this also has to do with current events. Even if you don't have the subscription, because I remember that case of the lady in Arizona who went missing. she had a ring or a Nest camera, whichever, and they said, she didn't have a subscription, so they didn't have it. And it ended up Google had it.

The Ring Camera. Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

you

Of course, you can still track it. mean, Google is a way bigger company. We're still working for the OEMs ⁓ and that's why we do it through the connected service. So we need consent in order to track a vehicle. And that's Autoscope specific. Yes, that's pretty much the, yes, that's the authorization aspect where it's just like OEMs pretty much said.

Well.

⁓ you get in through... ⁓ you get in through the... ⁓ okay, I got it. All right.

Yes.

In order for you to access this data, they have to have connected service and we need some type of proof that these owners are the owner of the cars and the only person who's going to have that is the owner of the car. So that's our consent based design. So it's a centralized system. go, you pretty much onboard your vehicle through the connected service aspect of the OEM apps. And that's how we track.

that's cool, that's an API.

Yeah.

And who

better to verify someone's identity or whether or not they own a vehicle than law enforcement, right? Right on the field. So just to give you a quick scenario, Eugene just pretty much gave a great scenario, just to give you a more in-depth scenario. So if you have an officer that answers a 911 call, stolen vehicle, stolen out of a driveway, he gets to the owner's house, vehicle stolen. All right, ma'am. Do you have a connected service application? Do you have Mercedes? Let's give an example for that. ⁓

They'll ask, would you let us get access to your vehicle data? Do you have a username and password? That data then gets transferred into Autoscope. The officer has the Autoscope application. And when the owner of the vehicle gives permission to the officer, then the officer logs it into our database. And the other officers that have access to Autoscope also have that data. So officer B and C and D that are in other jurisdictions or other sectors.

can also see that there's a stolen vehicle nearby if it's close enough to them. So the consent's very important, especially today, data is a very touchy subject, know, people's privacy and whether or not, you know, we're being watched, right? That's like a very hot topic right now. So we take that very seriously.

wow, it's a great business model. what you are doing is ingesting the data centrally and if they're joining law enforcement agencies within that perimeter, that area, as you move into one law enforcement agency to another, they can still pick up that information. if it's out of the jurisdiction, the next... So if you're going from A law enforcement to B law enforcement and A doesn't want to go pursue into B or they're not allowed to, B can then pursue it then. wow.

Mm.

Right.

Yes, and that's the whole point. And that's why we saw that problem. It was a problem that if an officer takes a report for a stolen vehicle and the vehicle's 10 miles from the officer and it's in the next precinct or the next, for example, if it's in Manhattan and it goes to Jersey, that's a different state. The officer is not going to go to Jersey. So if the officers have Autoscope they can see that there's a vehicle stolen nearby them and they can take action.

boy.

Now, wait a minute here. I mean, I get that and that works, but how did we get into this situation? I mean, it's not like cars are new and it's not like Jersey and New York have been different states for a week and a half. You mean, it has always been this hard to track down a car that's been stolen and to get the law enforcement to come after it?

Well, from what we've gathered, looking at the National Insurance Crime Bureau data, the clearance rate for auto theft is less than 8%. 3 % in 2024. Yes. Yep. Yes, I did. Yes, it's very, very, very long.

Mm-hmm.

What? Are you kidding me?

She came to arm the facts, Joe.

Wow. my god. I hear these things. I

just hear my insurance going up and up with all these things.

So we have

two problems Joe, we have a technology problem that's trying to be solved now, it just has to be a proliferation to cause more people to ingest it. And then you also have kind of a jurisdictional issue. Like we know that the bridges between New York and New Jersey are actually monitored by a multi-state agency, similar to what our friend does with MTA. But if you're not a multi-jurisdictional stuff, yes for certain things you can chase into another jurisdiction, but rarely.

This is why.

So technology has to solve this for now, not the other way around.

So my question would be with what you're saying, for instance, if a perpetrator took off their license plates of the vehicle, how would you track it then?

Their phone. I'm sorry. I'm kidding.

Their phones.

If

they're nearby, right? So the reason he's asking, the reason Eugene's asking that question is because that's how law enforcement is tracking vehicles today. It's through license plate readers, yes. But what happens when they take it off? That's the first thing they do is take off the plate. You can't really track it. And what better than what's already built into the car?

Yes, LPR.

Yeah, and built into the car to the point where with the newer ones, especially those fancy Mercedes and BMWs, the thing won't start at all unless all that stuff is turned on. That's clever. Okay, that's cool.

And you can't

take out the they take out the license plate they take out the EZ-Pass because that could be tracked too They know they're carrying probably little plastic bags that you put the EZ-Pass in and you can't even find it and they throw it out the window Chris the Faraday bags are important Joe

You're so obsessed with the Faraday bags.

Hahaha

Meanwhile, this is a guy

when I used to work for him sent me to Las Vegas and told me to bring a burner phone

wow. A burner phone. ⁓

B O

He was going to Black Hat

that is the biggest hacker convention in the world where they have a ⁓ board up that shows you all the hacked phones of everyone in the room. So I'm like, yeah, don't bring your phone. But in any case, well, that is really interesting how you're using technology to solve some non-technology problems, which is very cool.

you

Hahaha

You know, the other thing I can't stop thinking about is how in the world did you get all the car companies on board with this and have them give you the access? I would think they are very, very protective of that data and who has access to it.

Part of

our trade secret, That's part of our trade secret.

you see, that's the secret. The rest is all like,

yeah, you can do it. That's the secret. Okay. All right.

this probably sdk program probably sdk but but

but so

We just gave Adam some homework right now. He's going to be like, I want to figure this out.

i have a question now i'm not doing it at all i i i got other homework to do yeah i have other homework to do i'm not gonna work i'm not gonna do that but so the mischievous maria and eugene you've recovered cars i already asked you about technology that you've recovered you ever recover a kid in the car because of this or you know car was excited all this happens

Adam, Adam get on this. Adam's very charming.

Hahaha

Yes.

Even in Staten Island, like there's a kid in the backseat, parent left the car running, they thought the door was locked, kids gone, they're flipping out. Have you ever, any human beings recovered yet?

So there has been, ⁓ it's actually been on the news. There was actually a mother, she was driving around with her kid in the back seat and they used the connected service application to actually track the vehicle. And that vehicle with the kid in the back was tracked another eight hour. Officers went on scene, they asked a bunch of questions and pretty much she had connected service. I believe she was driving an Acura at the time. It was a newer model too.

Thank God.

Usually the newer models already come with ⁓ connected service applications already activated. In this particular scenario, the officers were able to connect to the vehicle, do the connected service app, track the vehicle, ⁓ recover the vehicle with the child in the back. I think once the perpetrator realized there was a child in the back, that's when they just, ⁓ know, they pretty much just left.

We have actually had a few agencies inquire about what's called silver alerts and amber alerts. We're currently working on ⁓ getting our application to also

Mm-hmm.

it miscue that into the notifications. It just depends on the jurisdiction. We really have to make sure that the jurisdiction allows for us to do that. Every jurisdiction is different. Jersey is different. Connecticut is different. Georgia is different. Florida is different. So we are currently working on that because that is something that's very important.

So one of my closest friends, they have a kid ⁓ that has, I'll leave it at medical issues. And obviously they get these belts and they get these body worn devices that tracks them. And I remember maybe about 10 years ago, the kid walked out of the school in Long Island city and then he ended up drowning in the water, not too far away. So that makes sense, right? You can do civil alerts if they have devices that track them.

You can do ambulance for kids that might be tracked, but like, and for the kids that have disabilities, you might be able to ingest all this information and expand your auto, your auto scope to also help recover ⁓ people that are, are, are, what's the, I don't know if the words are compromised, but don't have the ability to take care of themselves. That's a better word for it. That sounds good.

Absolutely.

And that's exactly what we're looking to evolve into pretty much be, you know, the connected service aspect of all devices that has a network where we can pretty much deploy data to law enforcement. ⁓ Animals too? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Animals too right because in my neighborhood literally yeah a neighborhood dot-com

animals too.

Yeah.

neighborhood and next door I lost a white pool. I lost a black pit bull I lost and that's one of the biggest things I see posted to the animals So that makes part of the business sense that you guys are talking about By the way, I want to be a 25 % partner. Let's work. Let's talk about it

Absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Absolutely, absolutely.

That it does.

Well...

Yeah. Well, I knew a guy who had to track his wife because like,

Let's talk Adam, let's talk.

you he was pretty sure she was cheating on him and he, bought one of those GPS things and he said that was expensive. You know, I'm sure you guys can undercut that.

You could have bought a hundred dollar

pre-paid cell phone, stuck it under the... You don't need the service, all you need to do is log into the app. I'm being funny, ⁓ look, for more of an organized thing, so that's from one person, what they're talking about is enterprise. They're talking about crowdsourcing with multiple law enforcement agents. Obviously, you could do it for a hundred dollars, but that's not gonna give you the reach that you need. You wanna be able to track it from...

Hehehehehe

It's not that, it's the service.

New York City to Newark to Paterson to Philadelphia to I didn't say Mexico ⁓

To Mexico, we actually have that in Texas right now.

We actually have that right now. We have a few vehicles from Texas that have been tracked to Mexico. ⁓

What that tells us is that it's more organized theft, meaning they're kind of taking the vehicles and kind of trying to put them into shipping containers. That's a very common thing in both borders, really. We've talked to Ontario. They have a very similar problem. They have a lot of cars that go out of Canada and they get shipped out east. And Mexico, obviously, you can tell they have a similar problem.

⁓ Mexico, that's boring. You ever find any cars like, you know, in Eastern Europe or like Abu Dhabi or something? You gotta get one of those. That's gotta happen eventually like a Koenigsegg or something like that.

We're waiting for that. We're waiting for that.

Okay.

So, Joe, let's check this out. Let's get Auto

Scope. Let's get one license. Let's turn around and take the GPS and spoof it to like, I don't know, to like Iraq and let it come up as stolen.

boy, that's going to be some notification.

Make it show up at your enemy's house. like, swat someone with the thing.

Yeah

What? Yeah, that's

horrible Swyde, don't even say that.

That can't be good. No, no, we wouldn't do that. We'd never advocate that. ⁓ Okay, so I also have to say here that with all of this, ⁓ this is, we're talking about this because it's an interesting technology and we like stuff like that. But, you know, this is not sponsored or anything. ⁓

Hahaha

hahaha

Of course you guys can feel free to sponsor a future episode if you'd like. be happy ⁓ to accommodate you. But say, but so, okay, so you've got the, you know, you got the car companies on board, the connected services, and you talk about some jurisdictions that have it and some don't. ⁓ You know, how do I find out? It's like, it's not gonna work in my car, but my wife's car is actually newer. ⁓ You know, how...

Of course.

Yes.

Thanks.

How do we know how good the town is on auto theft if they're plugged into something like you or if they have arrangements and everything? Because in my town, I live in a nice town and it's got a mall, so cars are getting stolen constantly. But ⁓ I actually don't know what the recovery rate is. If it's 8%, I'll be, God, that's horrible. ⁓

⁓ I hate that more.

Thanks.

Well, that's

a nationwide number. It really depends on municipality. And it depends how they... ⁓

how they give that information to their citizens. California has a way of doing it. New York has a way of doing it. It might be very different in ⁓ middle states. They might have just a local website where you can check. But the National Insurance Crime Bureau, it's typically the website you go on and it gives you national numbers.

I'm not going to get anything out of New Jersey, please. They won't tell you like, you know, what

time the office closes.

He lives near a mall where they, you know, validate the cars. Let's just say that.

Yeah

Now he's throwing shots fired at you Joe.

Yeah, I guess. Well, we actually had

something really bad a couple years ago at that mall, in fact. There was a carjacking where a guy actually got killed, which was not good. Yeah, was really bad. But we're talking about happier things here, hopefully. OK, so I hope my town has this if my wife's car gets stolen. Mine, I'm screwed. It's too old. OK.

yeah, yeah, they got killed, right?

wow.

Not surprised.

Yes.

Joe, just reach out to Maria Eugene, give them the chief of police for your town and they'll reach out to them.

Of

There you

go. There you go, Joe.

I don't

want the chief of police to know my name or anything about me. No good can come of that.

Yeah.

Hahaha

So we try to be a little practical here too. So maybe we're getting a little bit outside the bounds of your particular technology. But someone like me, I worry about my cars getting stolen. I'm very attached to them. How do I keep my car from getting stolen? Or at least...

as we would say, manage the risk or minimize the risk ⁓ for real. What works these days and what doesn't? Because the stuff I know is probably from 20 years ago. I'm probably doing everything wrong.

So with my vehicles, I have the mobilizers. I think a mobilizer is probably the best choice if you're trying to prevent. Mobilizers are costly, ⁓ but they do come in handy. If a perpetrator has the duplicate key fob, tries to go to your vehicle and tries to start it, it won't work. So I do think a mobilizer is probably your best bet.

You do.

So do they cost roughly? I have no clue.

Um, I've paid $1,200 from my mobilizer. Um, and maybe you can get one that's cheaper, but it all depends on, you know, quality. Um, so.

fine mobilizer

for people who don't know, I'm sorry.

So pretty much it keeps the vehicle from turning on. If it's intercepted or hijacked, there's a specific type of computer chip that's installed in the vehicle, you could say within the telematics of the vehicle. And it pretty much keeps it from turning over, turning on, and enabling perps to remove the vehicle from a home or a garage or et cetera.

People are sideloading that stuff too these days. They're modifying the firmware so that people can't do stuff. Does that sound right?

Yeah, absolutely. Technology is just evolving at such a rapid pace. ⁓ I do think a mobilizer can be breached, ⁓ but it all depends on what software, what technology that you have in hand in order to do so.

What I tell people who have really expensive cars because you know I utilize my security background I tell people look If you're if you're not home That's a different story and you have to do you have to use different pieces of equipment if you're home And you have an expensive car and you're worried about it get a pneumatic baller a pneumatic bollard You know dig a hole in your driveway Put the bollard in the ground hit the the garage button comes up

No one's gonna sit there and try to figure that out unless your car is... Yes, they do that!

Are you serious?

Joe, sounds like you should be asking Adam how to keep your car safe.

Well,

You

wait

Adam has a lot of, I can tell you, Adam has a lot of plans for, secure my house. He's like, you you need cameras, you need this. I added up his wish list of everything and I'm like, I'd have to sell one of my cars to like, you know, get it. But believe me, that's what Adam does.

Meanwhile, I have all this except I don't have a baller.

But, you know, UG made a face. Am I wrong about the baller? you think? Or no?

I mean, if you can afford it, absolutely. Go right ahead. I think that...

I'm talking about

the people in my neighborhood that have quarter of a million three hundred thousand dollar cars in my neighborhoods. I don't have it. I don't have that. So, so, so if you let's just put it this way. It's Staten Island, not necessarily my direct neighborhood. It's a neighborhood up closest to New Jersey. People are driving hundred and fifty, hundred and seventy five, two hundred thousand dollar cars.

Wow.

I mean...

They're not leaving them outside,

are they?

Mm-hmm.

They their houses are probably three times the size of my house and they can afford a bollard that goes into the ground pneumatically I mean if you have a car that much I'm sure you can afford to put a bollard in the ground and if

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, I think what it

is is that

Well, well, if I'm not willing to undergo like excavation or get building permits for my house and I don't want to spend 1200 bucks, that's a little too pricey. What's a simpler and cheaper things? What are the best practices these days?

I know you.

Yeah,

Well,

I know.

let's ask what are you doing currently, Jo? What do you do to keep your car safe right now?

in that Porsche.

I have, well, that car fortunately

What are you having at Porsche?

is inside in the garage, which I'm sure someone could open. ⁓ But that's probably the best security, biggest thing there. I keep it locked in there, which people may think I'm paranoid, but yes, set the alarm, so wake me up. it's for cars outside too. mean, cars out in the driveway when they're out there. I don't have a barbed wire fence around my house or anything.

Okay.

Do know

how easy it to replay a garage? You can just buy a regular garage opener and then stand outside in your car and then when somebody opens it, you just hit the record button and then you can play it back. It's that simple Joe.

Thank you.

Adam

You're making me feel so much better. I know. I know.

Saddam's got the gadgets. He's got the gadgets.

It's not even a gadget, it's a real device!

All right.

Alright, let's

go back to the bottle. You don't even need a pneumatic one. Just open the cement, put it in. It's $75 and then you put a bottle in.

What the fuck is that?

Okay.

How about the plain old, I got my car parked outside in the driveway? What's the best thing to do besides, I mean, obviously not leave the keys in it, right? I guess.

Yeah

The

you

cheaper route is probably put an air tag. You can put an air tag. The problem comes is when a perpetrator who has an Apple phone gets in the car, they get a notification that says, there's an Apple air tag in the back. And they go through the car. They take it. They find it. And they just toss it out the window. We see that time and time again. So time and time again.

⁓ really?

really? So that's... Okay, so

that doesn't work. Okay.

Absolutely, exactly.

Joe, yeah,

as I said, Joe, a prepaid T-Mobile phone, $100 a month, put it under the spare tire in the back, they can't see it, and they can always log in and track it.

Well, we're also talking about prevention, Right, Joe. So a few things that, right. A few things that people could do is number one, don't leave your key by your front door. Try to put your key fob, maybe second floor, back of the house, opposite end over your car is outside, especially for Staten Island residents, right? There you go. Exactly.

That could work.

Yeah, this is prevention too, yeah.

In a Faraday bag. In a Faraday bag.

I was going to say that is one thing that would actually be a good use of a Faraday bag,

I guess. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough.

They

Yes.

have a faraday key holder for every car. You just put it in there, zip it in and it's done.

Okay. You know what, Adam? I think I've gotten the business idea. I think we need to get some, ⁓ security cocktail hour, official key Farra car key Faraday bags made up.

Maybe we can, no we don't have to get a trademark, but Joe, we can actually co-sponsor it with them. We can make one Buffalo goes on and go half.

Get it trademarked right away.

There you go.

I'm out. I'm down.

I'm all for it, Adam.

Okay, great.

right, so, all right, so fair to be, or keep the fob, keep it locked and keep the fob far away so you don't get the replay. Okay. All right.

We could use our logo, Autoscope logo, Faraday bag, Autoscope Faraday bag.

Alright, no, there you go.

Perfect.

And also don't leave anything of value, even if it's just a dollar bill on your center console, because people just get the wrong idea. Maybe fake jewelry that you just happen to leave there, some earrings, or something that kind of catches someone's eye. That's, oh, let me see what else is in there.

There's opportunists out there too, not just professional car thieves. There are more opportunists actually than professional car thieves. So that's really who you're trying to prevent it from.

Yeah.

Really? Okay.

Amazon makes

a dash cam that automatically uploads the video constantly from the car from motion.

Yes. If people, if, right, if you do have a dash cam, I recommend whoever gets it. It's not worth it unless you get a cloud service for it because the perpetrators who know to take the dash cam, they know to take the SD card from the base. If they take the dash cam, they're going to take that SD card and whatever footage you hope to get of the perpetrator, you're not going to get it.

Mm-hmm. Yep. Quite a few companies are doing that,

Yes.

Okay.

Well, I'm nervous. Now I've got to tighten things up, but it's fine. Well, thank you. We're about out of time. So thank you so much for coming and giving us your tips. But also, this is a fascinating technology you've got together. I think it is quite clever and quite a good use because like I say,

Yes. ⁓

You

Man, preventing car theft or recovering stolen cars? God bless you both. You're doing God's work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So Maria Nugent, why don't you tell

us the website so that people listening can hear it.

Well, I was ⁓ just about to get into that. if any law enforcement personnel is listening to this, they're free to email us at info at autoscope.io and ⁓ make a request to get our application and see how they like it. And also our website ⁓ info.autoscope.io.

is

You've got a dot IO, so you guys are, you're hip. That's cool. All right.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay, Adam, your parting thought?

My parting thought is that, there's technology out there that can help recover cars. The more it's proliferated into the environment or into society, it's easier to help. But like I said, people have to start getting smart. know it sounds horrible and people are to get mad at me. People are getting complacent. They're not understanding that technology is out there to help them, but it's also out there to hurt them.

You gotta get ahead of it. You gotta get technology to help you. You gotta secure your equipment and make sure that you put things in place before it happens. ⁓ Don't react, be proactive.

There you go.

Yes,

well said. Well said.

Okay. Well, thank you both for joining. We've had a great time. I learned a lot, scary as it is, but you know, always helps us improve the state of things. Adam, as always, it's been fun.

Thank you.

And thanks everyone for listening. All right. All right. Bye everyone.

Thank you. Bye bye.

Thank you.

Have a good one. Bye.

Thank you guys.

Take care. Be safe.