any place to hide/bury a usb thumbdrive, for *secure* sentry mode?

[linux-works]

I was at a supermarket late last nite (10pm) and as I drove up, there was a huge amount of broken glass on the EV charging spots that were installed just 2 months ago. a model 3 guy was there, very upset since it was his car that had 2 windows smashed ;( the usual rear triangle that is not alarmed (tesla, you farked up that one, for sure!) and I guess the thief couldn't just do the usual thing of flipping down the seats to 'inspect' what's in the trunk so he broke the large rear door window, as well! ;(

I asked him if he had sentry mode turned on; he didn't know much about it so I told him to get a thumbdrive, etc.

the thing is, if you are broken into and the thief knows about our cars, its pretty quick and easy to yank out any storage devices plugged into the usb ports and take them, so that there won't be any recording of him breaking in.

what good is sentry if the media is stolen during the break-in event?

so, I'm wondering what we can do about that. has anyone tried to run an extension wire and hide its location, or remotely store some usb storage device elsewhere in the car?

I'm now thinking about something along these lines. I don't have nearby wifi access, else that might be the better way (to keep streaming data from a local rasp pi in the car; but I can't count on that and that won't help if I'm parked at work or somewhere out shopping).

I really want something that is going to be too time consuming for the bad guy to remove. or, just burying it inside something that he would never think to look in (again, time constraint).


has anyone done any work in this area or had thoughts about this?

 

[Kennymb5384]

The Jeda USB hub is a nice way to hide it. You not only need to know the car, but what the hub is as well

 

[qbit]

Once the car is broken into,all bets are off.

 

[qbit]

unless the last 10 minutes or so footage is immediately stored to internal storage or to the cloud.

 

[linux-works]

The Jeda USB hub is a nice way to hide it. You not only need to know the car, but what the hub is as well

just checked what this device is about. looks useful, but does not seem much (if at all) to be about anti-theft. if there is a spare usb jack behind that new panel of theirs, that would help, but the whole panel will be found if the thief opens the console (looking for the drives) and so he'll just take THIS whole thing. right?

I'm thinking of something much more custom and stealth.

want to hear what crafty ideas DIYers have come up with. maybe we can make it hard enough to get the 'hidden' drive out that it won't be worth it to the bad guy. that's my main goal.

anything that is right up front is too easy, so I don't consider that a good solution, really.

 

[linux-works]

Once the car is broken into,all bets are off.

if the bad guy has infinite time, yes, you are right. that's not the goal I have in mind. my goal is to make it hard enough to locate (if he even tries) where the hidden storage is that he'll give up and move on.

first thing is to make to clear to the vandal guy that there is no 'simple plug-in usb drive' in sight. let him think there is no local storage, so that he does not go on a hunt looking for it. that means that some stealth wiring has to be done DIY style and 'remote' some hub or usb jack. I'm still thinking about this and how it can be made easy for the owner and hard for the bad guy, to get to the precious media.

 

[linux-works]

unless the last 10 minutes or so footage is immediately stored to internal storage or to the cloud.

I hate clouds. "so many things I could have done, but clouds got in my way" (lol). relying on 'someone elses computer' is not a security solution I want for myself, thanks perhaps as a secondary backup, if a network is available. and to do networking well, you'd need diversity (wifi, lte, maybe others). I don't want to go down this path unless I really have to.

 

[qbit]

if the bad guy has infinite time, yes, you are right. that's not the goal I have in mind. my goal is to make it hard enough to locate (if he even tries) where the hidden storage is that he'll give up and move on.


first thing is to make to clear to the vandal guy that there is no 'simple plug-in usb drive' in sight. let him think there is no local storage, so that he does not go on a hunt looking for it. that means that some stealth wiring has to be done DIY style and 'remote' some hub or usb jack. I'm still thinking about this and how it can be made easy for the owner and hard for the bad guy, to get to the precious media.

Right, like I said best things that tesla could do is to hold last last 10 minutes of the footage in internal memory and let user download it to USB drive when he/she connects it.
Other option could be to run the usb cable to glove box or front trunk if that is possible, this surely will make it harder to access in a short time

 

[linux-works]

one idea that may work, but involves using the rasp pi board. if we don't want to go thru lots of work to bury *cables* and connect a hidden hub or y-cable behind the factory usb storage bay, then we can run a regular non-hidden usb cable out from the storage area to some other area (within usb cable length specs) and the rasp pi can live there. worst the bad guy can do, in that case, is to cut the cable or try to pull on it. I'd make it so that pulling on it simply lets that one cable unplug from its remote socket and that leaves the pi 'isolated'. unless the bad guy wants to go digging, the storage is safe.

that's one idea. I'm still not sure this is the best, as it involves more power drain, another linux system and lots of complications.

 

[linux-works]

qbit and I are on the same wavelength, I think.

better: tap into the usb wire behind the model 3 panel, up front. is there an easy way to do that? I have not removed (or tried) that panel yet. if we can get it off, then I can see if there's some crafty way to work this idea and make the car look 100% untouched to the casual thief.

 

[house9]

I hate clouds.

From Page 135 of the owners manual.

> Note: When the Alarm state is triggered, the most recent six seconds prior to the security event may be sent to Tesla for temporary backup for approximately 72 hours. You can enable or disable the collection of this video at any time by touching "DATA SHARING" in Controls > Safety & Security.

So if sentry mode is on and someone breaks the window it should enable 'Alarm' mode and upload the previous 6 seconds of footage to Tesla servers. If Data Sharing is on.

 

[linux-works]

btw, is sentry mode REALLY that power-hungry? I had about 200 'miles' of charge on the battery when I parked last nite and this AM, it says its down to 190. 10 'miles' is quite a lot for a nite's worth of sentry. I don't have home charging (shared parking at apartment building) so the drain is significant to me, but I think I'll just have to plan for that kind of power loss, if I want to use sentry mode.

are others losing that much 'range' each nite for sentry mode? seems excessive to me, but I'm new to tesla (3 months into my m3).

 

[linux-works]

From Page 135 of the owners manual.

So if sentry mode is on and someone breaks the window it should enable 'Alarm' mode and upload the previous 6 seconds of footage to Tesla servers. If Data Sharing is on.

has anyone ever had success getting that data from tesla? does it need a police report? I wish I knew this so I could have told the guy last nite (then again, he did NOT have sentry mode on at all).

I wonder how many sessions of sentry 'trigger' tesla can store locally in the car (buffer) if/when the network is not reachable? you have to plan for that, as a design engineer. maybe they only buffer one incident and any others would over-write it. again, you must always design your solution assuming the worst, such as 'network is not reachable'.

 

[house9]

I've only had the car for a week, so not an expert by any means.

10 'miles' is quite a lot for a nite's worth of sentry.

I believe sentry mode drains about 1 mile of range per hour while it is enabled.

then again, he did NOT have sentry mode on at all

Yeah, I don't think the upload will occur unless sentry mode is on and you can't turn it on without properly configured drive attached.

It is my understanding that sentry mode was more of an after thought. Hey we have all these cameras, all we need to do now is write some software to enable those. I wonder if they had planned it from the beginning it could have written to built-in storage that was not easily accessible and maybe they could have optimized for less battery drain?

 

[Kennymb5384]

just checked what this device is about. looks useful, but does not seem much (if at all) to be about anti-theft. if there is a spare usb jack behind that new panel of theirs, that would help, but the whole panel will be found if the thief opens the console (looking for the drives) and so he'll just take THIS whole thing. right?

I'm thinking of something much more custom and stealth.

want to hear what crafty ideas DIYers have come up with. maybe we can make it hard enough to get the 'hidden' drive out that it won't be worth it to the bad guy. that's my main goal.

anything that is right up front is too easy, so I don't consider that a good solution, really.

There is a spare usb jack that you cannot see. The unit plugs into the existing USB jacks in the car and there are exposed usb jacks, but the panel that opens has another usb jack that you cannot see unless you know exactly what you are looking at. It is not very easy to pull the whole thing out either

 

[Kennymb5384]

just checked what this device is about. looks useful, but does not seem much (if at all) to be about anti-theft. if there is a spare usb jack behind that new panel of theirs, that would help, but the whole panel will be found if the thief opens the console (looking for the drives) and so he'll just take THIS whole thing. right?

I'm thinking of something much more custom and stealth.

want to hear what crafty ideas DIYers have come up with. maybe we can make it hard enough to get the 'hidden' drive out that it won't be worth it to the bad guy. that's my main goal.

anything that is right up front is too easy, so I don't consider that a good solution, really.

you can see the hidden one behind the panel. I also keep a tray in that opening that also blocks the sentry mode/usb area

 

[house9]

There is a spare usb jack that you cannot see.

I have a JedaHub on order, I was thinking about having a second flash drive plugged into one of the outer usb plugs with music on it, maybe put a Sentry sticker on it as a decoy - LOL; security through obscurity always works right

 

[qbit]

Another option I can think of is to put USB drive in USB slot of back seat. Yes it's is exposed in plain sight but most people are blinded by assumption that USB drive would be in front slot only. For additional safety you can add a dummy drive in the front.

 

[linux-works]

I want the drive, itself, remotely mounted so its really hard to get to. and I'm really thinking that a hidden (maybe soldered) cable that just won't be seen during a short-duration break-in would keep the storage and its hidden wiring safe.

I'd like 2 paths to the storage, though. one would be via the hidden wire from car to storage; but the other would be a convenient tap-point for the owner to connect and copy the files out (and maybe reformat the drive when done, leaving it 'fresh' for the next time).

a smart A/B switch of sorts, since usb can't be connected to more than 1 host at a time.

 

[linux-works]

Another option I can think of is to put USB drive in USB slot of back seat. Yes it's is exposed in plain sight but most people are blinded by assumption that USB drive would be in front slot only. For additional safety you can add a dummy drive in the front.

usb in the back is power only; no data (right?)

if there was at least data WIRING, I could bury something out of sight.