FBI Tracking Device Teardown

Education
FBI Tracking Device Teardown

Our pals at iFixit have scored a pretty sweet scoop with this photo-exposé of the guts of an official FBI bumper-beeper.

We partnered with Wired to bring you a peek inside an FBI car-tracking device. The device is similar to the one Yasir Afifi found underneath his car. If you’re curious where this one came from, Wired has posted a writeup about Karen Thomas, the woman who found this tracker under her car. They’ve also posted a video of Kyle doing the teardown.

The device comprises of a GPS unit for receiving the car’s position, an RF transmitter for relaying your location to the interested authority (aka the FBI), and a set of sweet D-cell batteries that power the whole enchilada. But we didn’t stop there, of course. Read on to find out exactly what components make this secretive device tick.

[Thanks, Kyle!]

10 thoughts on “FBI Tracking Device Teardown

  1. George Spark-Stahl says:

    I wonder how feasible it would be to listen to the signal this puts out and make a “your car is being tracked” sign?

    1. Anonymous says:

      what someone could do is make something that counts signals in a small radius and buy subtracking cell phones and other known signal divces you will be able to know if you are being tracked or buged

  2. Anonymous says:

    I hope it wasn’t produced by Sony. He could get in trouble. :-p

  3. Anonymous says:

    Won’t this void the warranty?!

  4. Chort says:

    Old skool tracking device. Now everybody carries their own, voluntarily, after anxiously waiting for it at the Apple store. It is usually located in the left hand, and is constantly caressed, providing location and activity data throughout the day.

  5. John Wayne says:

    I would love to “read on”, but where is the rest of the article? No links and just a brief excerpt of what looks like the article, but no complete article.

    Never mind, I found it at the top of the article under the iFixit link. Not to be pedantic, but you should make that link a little more visible.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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