SABOTAGE?

Instead of foreword

Before answer on the question, we want to tell funny situation, that happened in 1999 when one of new insurance companies begun to order developments of equipment for cars protection.  For lowering insurance risks company wanted to install for its customers on board complex of GPS - protection, which during stealing "would hold on" not less than 15 minutes and would be protected from breaking as much as possible.

The biggest wondering of developers was when they realized-that  the main risk of stealing of the insured car proceeds from... its lawful owner! As a result of developments,there was a device which has been protected not only outwardly, but also guaranteed impossibility of breaking/substitution and other focuses in warm, "family" garage.

The experience and the operating time checked up by years now are applied by us in a theme of control and dispatching management of transport.

Sabotage it is a situation, when employees are making attempts to put the GPS-control equipment out of action or to discredit system. To present it as non-working. Lets leave motives and methods of similar actions on conscience of disloyal employees...

Difficult case

Nobody likes control, especially people who used to have unlimited freedom and drivers who as obliges are on huge distances from passages of factories age and offices. Methods of additional "earnings" worked by years  are very difficult to cancel with one order of director and it is even more difficult to transform them into civilized relations of trust and encouragement.

The most unpleasant situation is when the basic part of collective works more or less honesty but separate individuals steal in a large amounts (will call things by their proper names). For biggest part of collective works a psychological syndrome of "defensible expectations" when people who constantly are suspected in labor discipline infringements, in time also begin to break "as everybody". In such situation control systems helps to find the problem quickly and solve it considerably at the moment of occurrence.

So with which methods developers of GPS trackers suggest to solve difficult disputed questions?

Don't do monitoring systems like this!

The majority of manufacturers make equipment which is easy to produce, conveniently to store and quickly (cheaply) to sell, however its design features doesn't allow even to hope for performance of control functions in the conditions of the conflict of interests. Many western and eastern companies don't understand our service conditions and a technological level of people with which their products are going to be used.

We will not specify here manufacturers and concrete methods of use of weak places because of clear reasons... below you can see photo of  automobile GPS/GSM - tracker "company X".

The case of the module of a standard type and size, plastic, has a number of the cracks which have been cut manually. It was gathers with the help of screws. Usually, the printed-circuit board of a product has no protection frames from a moisture and vibration. If to look narrowly, it is possible to notice the SH-shaped socket for connection to the external charge, several gauges, sockets of antennas.

Presence of connectors of antennas and thin cables which under the instruction should be pulled somewhere outside of the car or «under torpedo», unambiguously shows its location at "hide"  installation.

Very often there are copies without a reserve charge and the holder of a SIM-card that is accessible outside. Opening of the case of the module distantly isn't supervised and fixed in the memory.

Without penetration into technical characteristics and logical models of operation we can say: constructive decisions used here lead to that control will work only when nobody is against its work.

We have counted 9 (nine) various points of vulnerability which allow to put the module in full or in part out of action.

There is no sense to compare the prices for similar products. Just as there is no difference with what to prop up the door outside of a house: with a shovel or a gold yoke! Protection with  specially developed locks which has  several degrees of protection is the best consult.

Where the decision?

It is necessary to put itself to the place of the driver and try to understand, what problems the system should solve. If you trust all your employees, GPS-monitoring equipment is needed only for optimization of routes of movement and construction of dispatching system. However, if takes place a conflict of interests, any weak part of the equipment of GPS-control will be used for sabotage.

In the equipment «Drozd» all kinds of sabotage attempts for last 11 years are considered, work on revealing and the decision of new problems doesn't stop. Here is the short description of our technical decisions for comparison with above presented example:

The construction of «Drozd» is created taking into account requirements of the maximum protection against mechanical influences. The plastic case of execution of "Drozd-M1" is tight, maintains static pressure in 400kg that allows to protect device electronics even in case of road accident with a turning on a roof. The case of  "Drozd-К1" maintains falling and blows, exceeding in durability the cases of house hold appliances of type a handheld computer and mobile phones.

The electric circuit is constructed to protect electronics from exterior influences. It gives an opportunity to obtain the data from occurred events after damage more than 50 % of components of feed system. The microcomputer of Japanese manufacture built in «Drozd» has a number of unique singularities considerably raising its survivability in difference from cheap microcontrollers of general purpose of other vendors. The firm-vendor positions the given microcomputer as solving component as safety pillows or systems of electronic control by transmission that speaks about its exceptional reliability.

«Drozd» has through system of documenting of occurring events and the special gauges, giving an opportunity to analyze history of external influences. Nothing remains not noticed, neither charge loss, nor hindrance of acceptance of signals, attempt to "knock over" a cover. As a result of the subsequent analysis with probability of 99 % actual reasons of violation of standard regime of operation are established.

The internal system of event fixing «Drozd» protects the under control employee  from any suspicions if the equipment was really unworkable as there is nothing worse than to punish the innocent. Regularly functioning device is able to help to report about stimulated idle time with corks or on unloading for the slow customer. And also don't forget about safety communication and protection functions...

technical director, Ltd. "Istrim"