LandyTheft Database....

Alreeet Chumps, tis me again, Landy Crime Fighter of the North.

I've been thinking, again, about the wandering rovers, and I think some kind of database may be the answer. Know, I've seen twoc.co.uk and the LandyList (or whatever it's called) and think both are lacking something.

The Po-lice are able to check for stolen cars by querying the DVLA and PNC databases by the VRN, they also have ANPR to read registration plates - I'm sure you all know this.

Given Twoc.co.uk and other websites you can search their internal databases and find out if a user has registered a vehicle registration as stolen. However, you would need a computer or web enabled phone to do this.

Do you think there would be any benifit in having a SMS enabled database that would allow you text a land rover registration to a certain number and it would return some basic details of the car?

A couple of things first:

1. Landy owners would register their car reg, model of LR, colour, any obvious additions, a contact name and tel, the area the landy is from, and whether or not the landy is marked as stolen.

2. If you find your landy stolen and have already registered you would then text the special number to mark your landy as stolen in the database.

2a. Marking your landy as stolen would also text out an alert to anyone who has registered their own landys, and have listed themselves as accepting to receive "Stolen Landy Alerts", within a certain radius of the area you have said your land rover is from... (For example - Will text your landy details to everyone within 20 miles of blackpool.)

3. If you see a suspicious landy or scrote in a 4x4 text the registration to the number and it will return the basic details of the car, whether it's been marked stolen, name of owner etc. Obviously if something doesnt check out then further investigation is required....



I thought i'd see what you all think before putting any real leg work into this as there is a lot of work and potentially some costs to sort out the texting type of thing.

Thoughts welcome.
TM

How does your scheme work if the thief swaps the plates for a registered, but not marked stolen, Land Rover?

Hi Paul,

As i see it there are two uses for this:

1. To text the database the reg number of a suspicious landy.
2. To alert other registered users in the local area to that fact your landy has been nicked.

As there are no links to other databases then there will only be information held on a relatively small number of landies i'd have thought, unless it really took off.
So, to answer your question if i have a 1965 Series 3 Truck Cab, in silver, with a snorkel and spots reg YCW28V and it's stolen, the theif then swaps the plates.

You see my car and text the number to the database - one of two things would happen:
1. No match in the database
2. Match comes back to a different landy with different description.

In all likelyhood, false plates would most likely defeat this system. Although the functionality of texting all registered users in the vicinity is useful - i think?

I suppose the other thing you could do is text an area or partial postcode and return a list of all stolen landies in the area...


Basically, once the info is there, and the SMS bit is up it's how you manipulate that information to receive the info you want. The advantage of this system over others would be that you could access the info via SMS from anywhere instead of having to use a website.

I've not convinced myself this is a good idea yet, so if you have any variations or other uses please let me know!

TheMiddle said:

In all likelyhood, false plates would most likely defeat this system.

Click to expand...

You've said it yourself. That's the (massive) flaw. Its good enough to fool ANPR too, etc etc

there are also a couple of other flaws...
what is there to stop a genuine landy owner that steals landies registering. they will then be informed when the owner has found it stolen..
also - what is to stop you seeing a landy that yu wud like to nick, sms the details and yu get told the owners name and possible address - all yu need to do then, is a small amount of checking and yu can go and pinch it.

False plates will fool the plod no probs, so that's not really something I'm going to address all on my lonesome!

Plod make use of various databases to compare the VRN to, as this is going to be a relatively small database, in all likelyhood a SMS to the database with the details of a false VRN will simply return no match.

Could go off chassis number instead?? Or you could look at it the other way round and text some other unique info and the database return the VRN?

Hmm..i can see that you are trying to help but..

I would never put my name, address, etc etc AND my landy reg no, description, mods etc ANYWHERE!!!!

It is so open to abuse!!!

Before you know it you're getting **** from plod cos they stopped you 12 times in a week cos you were driving like a cnut and havent produced your documents...''sorry officer it wasnt me, it was someone who knows all my info and therefore has cloned a landy and is pretending to be me every time you stop the landy!!''


No thanks...

@MadHatMan,

Correct on both counts,
however, what advantage does the thief have from knowing that the owner has discovered the theft, and secondly, for any location information i'd probably be looking at first part of postcode or similar? It doesn't make sense to store a highly accurate location, as you say, this will probably get your landy nicked, and also, the amount of users in the same area as you would be next to nothing so no one would be text to say keep your eyes open!
Wouldn't make names available in the response unless the landy was marked stolen either

@Storm,

Again, vauge locations is the way forward - See where you're going with that one though...

Thinking about the structure the database would prob need the following info to be effective:

VRN
Landy Type
Model
Colour
Distinguishable Mods
Whether or not its listed as stolen
first part of post code / town / county even
a name and contact number to make available in responses only if the landy is marked stolen.

This is all good feedback though, I really need to know if it's going to be well used to see if it's worth the effort!

Cheers

So you're going to set up a database with reg numbers, addresses and chassis numbers?
Anything you can set up, someone else can hack into. Very useful database for the criminal-minded!!!

Sorry, but in the nicest possible way - the idea is a non-starter.

Thanks for the feedback - similar databases already exist all over the net - Like i say, you have to be behind a computer to use them though!

prehaps we should license all landy owners with free tazers and gsd to sleep in their wagons at night.....after all if the government can put hookers through their accounts as entertaining the surely the coffers could give us tazers for free.....

Or one of these if someone that's not you / wife / kids goes near your landy:

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDrzMGdYWZc"]YouTube- South African Car Flamethrower[/nomedia]

TheMiddle said:

Or one of these if someone that's not you / wife / kids goes near your landy:

YouTube- South African Car Flamethrower

Click to expand...

yes.saves havein to get in trouble when chainsawing them up

one out the back for tail gaters too....perfect

No need for contact info if it came back as stolen - 999 would be the appropriate number. Also, I think we should start expecting to get stopped by plod more often. The Landy theft rate is rising, as is the theft of numberplates. Thestops will be simply to ascertain the identity of the vehicle.

As an aside, stolen numberplates get put on ANPR too, so will result in a police response.