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Ot: Calif. Man Accused Of Stalking Via Gps


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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...us/gps_stalking

GLENDALE, Calif. - Police arrested a man they said tracked his ex-girlfriend's whereabouts by attaching a global positioning system to her car.

 

Ara Gabrielyan, 32, was arrested Aug. 29 on one count of stalking and three counts of making criminal threats. He was being held on $500,000 bail and was to be arraigned Wednesday.

 

"This is what I would consider stalking of the 21st century," police Lt. Jon Perkins said.

 

Police said Gabrielyan tracked the 35-year-old woman, who was not identified, after she ended their relationship, showing up unexpectedly at a book store, an airport and dozens of other places where she was.

 

Police said Gabrielyan attached a cellular phone to the woman's car on Aug. 16 with a motion switch that turned on when the car moved, transmitting a signal each minute to a satellite. Information was then sent to a Web site that allowed Gabrielyan to monitor the woman's location.

 

The woman learned how Gabrielyan was following her when she discovered him under her car attempting to change the cell phone's battery, police said.

 

Police allege Gabrielyan threatened over a six-month period to kill himself and the woman. An attorney for Gabrielyan could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday.

 

He faces up to six years in prison if convicted.

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Wow, you admitted to being off topic in your title. But I don't think is really off-topic...

 

Anyway, that's an interesting story I guess. Strange, very strange... Almost as strange as all this talk of their being a hidden Off topic area in these forums.

Edited by TeamK-9
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Man Arrested Over

GPS 'Stalking'

By David Teather in New York

The Guardian - UK

9-6-4

 

A Californian man has been arrested for allegedly using global positioning system technology to stalk a former girlfriend.

 

Ara Gabrielyan is said to have attached a mobile phone with the tracking system to the woman's car, allowing him to follow her movements.

 

The unidentified woman said he had turned up unexpectedly while she was having coffee at a bookshop, picking up a friend from the airport, visiting her brother's grave and at dozens of other places.

 

"This is what I would call stalking of the 21st century," said a police spokesman .

 

Mr Gabrielyan, 32, from Glendale, is said to have phoned the woman 30 to 100 times a day after she ended their two-year relationship six months ago.

 

She called the police and had him arrested after seeing him underneath her car, changing the phone's battery.

 

The phone, which had a motion switch that turned on when the car moved, sent a signal to a satellite, allowing Mr Gabrielyan to track her movements on the internet.

 

He is being held on $500,000 (£280,000) bail and faces up to six years in prison.

 

The police spokesman said: "It was an obsession, an obsession to the point where 24-hours a day he had to know where she was, what she did, who she met and how she carried out her daily routine."

 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 http://WWW.GUARDIAN.CO.UK/usa/story/0,12271,1297892,00.html

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The phone, which had a motion switch that turned on when the car moved, sent a signal to a satellite, allowing Mr Gabrielyan to track her movements on the internet

 

Hmmm.... a cellphone, underneath a car sending a signal to a satellite? Doubtful.

hey, i've seen things like that on tv... you know, those "secret spy technology" shows.

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hey, i've seen things like that on tv...

 

Yep, it's on TV, it must be true :blink:

 

I have no doubt that the suspect was somehow tracking the individual but it wasn't from just duct taping a cell phone to the bottom of the car.

 

I have personal experience in transmitting to satellites via my amateur radio license. I have spoken to many astronauts/cosmonauts and many other amateurs via satellites and know the inherent technical difficulties of doing so. You can't just strap a cell phone to the bottom of a car and track someone.

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The phone, which had a motion switch that turned on when the car moved, sent a signal to a satellite, allowing Mr Gabrielyan to track her movements on the internet

 

Hmmm.... a cellphone, underneath a car sending a signal to a satellite? Doubtful.

No, actually, it can be easily done. Nextel phones hook up to GPS devices for tracking trucks. Drivers can remove the phone from the cradle to use it, but while it is in the cradle it can broadcast the location of the vehicle. It would be easy to mount this onto a car. I won't go into more detail than that, but it is something that is for sale today.

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My point exactly. It requires more hardware than just the phone. I am familiar with the set-up of which you are speaking Greg. I also subcontract myself to work-on a extremely large corporation's assets in my off-time. They use the TracerNet system which has recently been acquired by Trimble. The system uses the Nextel network to transmit the location and status of the assets and requires about $1K of hardware per asset to accomplish this. FWIW, it is a very cool technology.

 

But back to the original post. The author stated a phone was transmitting to a satellite. That's not happening. Even if using the Nextel network and other hardware the phone would only be sending data to a terrestrial network (Nextel).

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