Mike Wendland is off the air

[mlts22]

From Mike's FB page: yesterday, someone broke into Mike Wendland (owner of the roadtreking.com site) and cleaned his rig out, taking all his cameras, podcasting equipment, and computers.

Looks like he will be off the air for a while.

[booster]

I thought the Sprinters had a pretty sophisticated security setup on them. Maybe not.

[bobojay]

Originally Posted by booster

I thought the Sprinters had a pretty sophisticated security setup on them. Maybe not.

Negative booster. Nothing more than say a Chevy or Ford, unless the owner installs something different

[gerrym51]

you all are incorrect. you are mixing theft deterrence of the vehicle-which there are several built in-where the car(vehicle) gets stolen to another location with House alarms that help prevent things inside a house from being taken.

ways to pop open car doors still exist-however electronics prevent all but the most sophisticated criminal from driving the vehicle away.

Mikes van was not taken-stuff inside the van was taken,

you pop the door-spend 30 seconds removing stuff and your gone. most of us if we hear a car alarm in a parking lot assume it's an error-until it never stops.

2 different things

[Davydd]

I have a lot of sophisticated protection but realize what happened to Wendland could still happen to me if all it would take is a smashed window and 30 seconds. I was thinking about that yesterday when it took about 5 minutes to walk to a restaurant with the van still in view but way across a public road and intervening drainage ditch.

The Facebook Roadtreking:the Group is public as is his website and Wendland showcased his toys in videos right down to where he stored them. Targeted?

It does give pause. My next trip might be with just my iPhone which is always with me and what I use 90% of the time anyway Internet wise including this message.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by Davydd

The Facebook Roadtreking:the Group is public as is his website and Wendland showcased his toys in videos right down to where he stored them. Targeted?

This is an excellent point, as is the issue of posting travel plans. I don't follow those guys, so I don't know if they give information about their whereabouts and/or itinerary. I personally would NEVER post anything close to real-time information on my travel plans or whereabouts. Worth thinking about.

[wincrasher]

I seriously doubt this was anything more than a crime of opportunity. Most are.

It's probably a good idea to have an alarm system and updated insurance coverage if you are going to carry a bunch of stealables. Also watch where you park and if it's in plain view. I seriously doubt someone stalked or targeted him to get a couple cameras, laptop, etc. If there was such a person doing that, they'd have probably kidnapped him for ransom.

Now that I think about it, maybe it was a hired hit by Pleasureway to shut him up about all this Roadtrek advanced technology! Please, discuss...

[Davydd]

He could have been observed doing one of his video cast shoots. He does have more sophisticated equipment than the average tourer. Is that targeted or opportunity at that point? We don't know the details yet but if at a campground someone could put 2 and 2 together if an information online follower junkie.

[eurovanman]

I find its easy to hide those valuable things in places where the average thief would not know or have the time to discover them, in fact I have proved this with 3 break-ins on my van, and none of the thousands of dollars of valuables stolen. Of course a safe is the best bet.

I hope their dog is ok.

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by eurovanman

I find its easy to hide those valuable things in places where the average thief would not know or have the time to discover them, in fact I have proved this with 3 break-ins on my van, and none of the thousands of dollars of valuables stolen. Of course a safe is the best bet.

I hope their dog is ok.

I didn't want to post this on Mike's sites but- Tai the dog even though he is a sweetheart-looks like a big mean dog-if you were a robber who knew NOTHING about the people or the dog-could you break in ,search and steal equipment, and not worry about the dog attacking you.

it seems to me it had to be targeted by some one who know's Tai is a pussycat

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by Davydd

He could have been observed doing one of his video cast shoots. He does have more sophisticated equipment than the average tourer. Is that targeted or opportunity at that point? We don't know the details yet but if at a campground someone could put 2 and 2 together if an information online follower junkie.

It was in a restaurant parking lot. i don't know how big a parking lot though

[gerrym51]

Originally Posted by avanti

This is an excellent point, as is the issue of posting travel plans. I don't follow those guys, so I don't know if they give information about their whereabouts and/or itinerary. I personally would NEVER post anything close to real-time information on my travel plans or whereabouts. Worth thinking about.

i think Mike was running one of those apps that let you follow his trips

[booster]

Police officer I ran into at one of the sheriff's office open houses was pretty interesting in his take on RV security when I asked him. He said, at home you always just remove anything you can't afford to lose if it sits outside. On the road he suggested a decent safe for the really important stuff like passports and maybe a CD or flash drive with financial information, passwords, and any other stuff you wouldn't want in the wrong hands. Keep the laptop and tablet low in value and leave them out but but not visible. He claimed 90% of the time they will find the laptop and head out, even if they see the safe. Interesting take on things, but he should know better than we do.

All this made me take a look at the whole idea of safes. We have one, which is digital, and it appears many of the digital safes can be opened very easily by thumping them or picking the emergency key lock. Time to get a better one, I think, probably fully key only.

[mlts22]

There are ways to make a van secure:

These are interesting.
http://www.heosolution.de/GB/index.p...ubc=0&prod=524
http://www.sussexinstallations.co.uk...deadlocks.html
http://www.van-locked.co.uk/Shop/Pro.../DeadLock.html
http://www.milenco.com/products/secu...cab-door-lock/

The biggest reason why I wouldn't use these is life/fire safety. However, they might be useful to have when locking the unoccupied van up for a good while (although one really needs to lock and unlock all four locks for safety reasons.) Since most of these are locking from both sides, someone smashing a window isn't going to get a door open without some heavy wrenching or Jaws of Life.

Another way is a better alarm. My old pickup from the 1990s has something called a "Dragon" alarm on it (which isn't sold anymore in the US). If the sensors detect a break-in, the whole cab fills up with pink fog (harmless... same stuff as what is used in night clubs) that billows out. A vehicle with fog coming out and an alarm going off will get a -lot- more attention than just the usual alarm. To boot, if a thief can't see the goodies, they can't get them. The vehicle alarms in the UK have strobes as well, so it not just attracts attention, it might just start a rave, which will definitely bring the police.

As for strongboxes, I did research on them, and found that some of the best are made by Fort Knox Safe. They use a Simplex push button mechanism (which can be beaten... but takes time, and not many tweakers are going to sit there trying to guess the combo), and are completely mechanical. I like the safe that Davydd has, but it would require a floorplan that is designed around it, since it would take up a good chunk of normal wardrobe space. A strongbox is a must, especially if carrying around a laptop, since it can be well secured that way.

[wincrasher]

My trailer has two intentional hidden compartments. My van has 1 that could be used. I think a hidden space is alot more effective than a safe and alot less weight and sacrificed storage.

In my trailer, I usually put my laptop, camera and important papers in the hidden compartment.

[gerrym51]

Mike probbably carries too much gear to easily hide

[avanti]

Originally Posted by wincrasher

My trailer has two intentional hidden compartments. My van has 1 that could be used. I think a hidden space is alot more effective than a safe and alot less weight and sacrificed storage.

Our van came with a key-and-lock safe in a hidden compartment. Seems smarter than an obvious safe. There are places in a Sprinter that would be obvious to Sprinter owners but pretty obscure to anyone else. I will not mention them here, and hope nobody else does, either.

[jrobe]

Maybe we should buy a cheap broken laptop to leave on the top of the countertop when we leave hoping they will just take that and run .

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by jrobe

Maybe we should buy a cheap broken laptop to leave on the top of the countertop when we leave hoping they will just take that and run .

I wouldn't have to buy one. I have a couple of obsolete MacBook Pros including one plugged in at home and sitting on my desk. It had long ago been stripped of vital data.

[mlts22]

One simple thing I do is make sure the devices have serial numbers saved in a database, photos taken, and are insured. That way, if a break-in does happen, I can give the insurance company a spreadsheet of what was stolen.

As for computers, I tend to go more secure than most. I use a lot of virtualization to separate my projects and clients, as well as hard drive encryption. If I have my USB keyfob, I know my data is secure, since it requires a keyfile from the fob for access. This turns a laptop theft into "just" a hardware theft, without worry about the data falling into the wrong hands.