Old FAQ – Peace of Mind

It is a theft deterrent for bicycles, comprising electronics, a hefty siren, and a hell of a lot of embedded firmware to analyze what is happening to the bike!

Do you guarantee that, with your products, my bike won’t be stolen? No.

Do you guarantee that, with your products, stealing my bike will be harder?
No.

What do you guarantee?
Nothing.

How can I guarantee that my bike will not be stolen?
You cannot.
If the NSA, the Mafia or an organized bicycle-theft gang decide to steal your bike, they will!
Any security policy starts by defining the threat. In the case of bicycles, common threats include vandalism, casual thefts, prepared thefts, organized gangs. This product defines its threat as casual thefts and prepared thefts; it only hopes to provide more of an obstacle to such threats, when the bike has been parked safely. That is, if you do not park your bike safely, you will be defeating this product!

How can I reduce the likelihood of my bike being stolen?
It depends on where, when, how, for how long, and what you park!

It matters where you are in the world. In one city, a truck might come to crane up the whole bike-rack to steal all its bikes! In another, pedestrians do not intervene, or question, or even inform the police! In another, street posts (such as those of ‘No parking’ signs) might be unscrewed at the bottom, so that any bike naively locked to them can be easily stolen. In another, there are bike-jackings! In another, you could lock your bike onto itself, i.e. without an anchor/post, without a worry. In some places, you could walk into a shop for a few minutes, leaving your bike outside, unlocked; in others, you’d be a fool to! In some cities/neighbourhoods, bicycle theft has become a normalized way of living for too many people. In some countries/cities/towns, it is safe to lock an averagely-priced bike in your yard; in others, it’d be foolish. Some cities provide three-prong anchors; others rely on street-signs’ posts, Ring-and-Post or some such minimalistic variants.

Enforcement is another factor. Too often, bicycle theft is low-priority in the broad scheme of threats which law enforcement has to deal with.

Unsafe parking is a contributor as well. The following are only some examples. They are generalizations, because, as hinted-at above, context matters; as of December 2018, they are heavily influenced by Canadian experiences!

Where

Generally, parking in an area with no pedestrians is extremely unsafe.
Generally, parking in an underground parking lot is unsafe–especially your apartment building’s!
In some areas, fiddling with a bike stands out more than in others. For example, at the bottom of the Grouse Grind (a sports location), you’re expected to be wearing cycling shorts if you fiddle with a road bike. At a commuter location (e.g. outside the main store of MEC.ca), thieves can blend in more.
If your parked bike is, effectively, hidden amongst a clutter/cluster of
other bikes, it’d be easier for the thief to appear as if s/he is fiddling
with another bike. Or s/he might bring his/her bike to park next to
yours, then unlock yours to ride away with.

When

Parking outside, overnight, amounts to begging for your bike to be stolen!
Parking in daytime is better than at night–but do note the other factors!
Parking on a miserable, rainy day might be better than on a nice, sunny day!
Parking on a freezing cold day might be better than on a warm day.
If the ground is covered by compacted snow, or freezing rain, parking might be safer than on a T-shirt-and-shorts day.

If there is no anchor, your bike may well disappear!
If the anchor reliability is poor, your bike may well disappear!
The lock has to be adequate for the situation. A cable lock is inadequate. Sturdy locks, such as U-locks, perform better–though they have previously had shortcomings with their keys! Bolt cutters might cut through U-locks–depending upon the lock, the length of the bolt cutter, and the persistence of the thief. Angle-grinders cut through even tougher U-locks.
4-Points Check: Before walking away from my locked bike, I check to ensure that, within the loop of the U-lock/D-lock, I see each wheel, the frame, and the anchor.

Duration

The longer you park, the less safe it will be.
Parking outside, overnight, amounts to begging for your bike to be stolen!
Parking outside work–where it may be seen at the same location, for eight hours a day, five days a week–is asking for trouble, even if there is significant, pedestrian traffic. Especially so if it is an appealing bike.

What

The price of the bike.
The age of the bike.
Appeal/value of the bike (independent of its ticket price) e.g. vintage
road/Marinoni.
‘105’: Some components attract misinformed attention.
Components can still be stolen : derailleurs, brakes.
Ebikes get their batteries stolen!

I ride regularly, and have carried out such assessments on the places I regularly park at; other places get assessed as encountered. I’ve become habituated to the routine, with it taking place subconsciously.

How does it work?
Magic!
More accurately, engineering.

Unlike cheap ($10-$50) bike-alarms, and even the $100 bike-alarms I see out there, it is not merely an electronic circuit with a hard-wired, or user-configured, sensitivity. If over-sensitive, the alarm becomes too jumpy, going off by an accidental knock. Because customers don’t like this, the manufacturer, or the customer, can reduce the sensitivity; but then the alarm will miss sneaky attacks (e.g. on the alarm itself).

If the alarm has no intelligence, it will either under-respond, or over-respond. It’ll be too dumb! …Add to that the puny sounds they make!

The M!nder has a CPU and a hell of a lot of software running on it. It analyzes the data of its motion-sensor, looking for anomalies, and responding (or remaining silent) correspondingly. And the siren is louder, by far, than anything else out there for bicycles–as of this writing (May 2022). If you’ve parked your cargo bike in your back yard, you’ll easily hear it if the siren goes off. (Disclaimer: If you’re not hard of hearing, wearing earphones, drunk as a skunk, living in Buckingham Palace, etc etc etc!)

How do I use it?

While you ride, carry the device in your pack; when parking, attach it to your U-lock/D-lock with a pad lock (not included), and type-in your password.
When you return, type-in your password to de-activate it. Unlock and carry the M!nder in your pack.

It’s made of plastic; can’t they just smash that?
Most D-/U-locks can be cut-through with an angle grinder–some with even a bolt cutter. So, clearly, more-metal is not the way to go!

Firstly, the goal is to discourage the theft of the bike! To make it not worthwhile. This overrides everything.
Secondly, we know that even a heavy, cumbersome, all-metal M!nder can be destroyed with an angle grinder.

So, a M!nder assumes that it will be attacked, and that it won’t survive. In fact, it prefers to draw attention to itself, away from the bike it hopes to protect. This will trigger its response, which will last for as long as the system remains functional. In common bike-theft scenarios, this will be too many seconds of shrieking. (How many seconds is too many? Well, short of a thief so strung out that a siren going off on a crowded street won’t deter him, I expect that the average thief will rethink.) I can imagine at least one very specific form of attack in which the system will not last for more than a few seconds; but, for common bike-theft scenarios, a M!nder should substantially add to the deterrence of even a basic lock.

Isn’t this just like a car alarm? People ignore those!
You hear a car alarm, you look and see no-one. They seem to go off by themselves! I don’t know how much intelligence they have, but I do know that they cannot have the same sensitivity that the M!nder has: Simply, bicycles weigh far less than cars, thus move easily!

When a M!nder sounds, you’re nearly-always going to see someone tampering with the bike. The passing of a ten-tonne truck on a quiet street might set it off, but it’ll be brief: Just a pulse, not going off for minutes likes a car alarm would. Its intelligence recognizes it as a passed event. The system will remain hyper, but it will observe quietly.

How often do I need to recharge the batteries?
The more disturbances to your bike, the more power the system uses.
Thus, the less safe your parking, the more frequent the recharging.
If there’ve been no disturbances, nightly recharging should suffice. How would you know if there’ve been disturbances? The system will let you know: When you de-activate the system, it will play a long beep if disturbances took place. The more serious the disturbance(s), the longer the beep.

How come nothing happens when I knock into my bike? It doesn’t say anything!
The system has determined that you’re not a threat, or not a threat that it should respond to at this time.

If you want to test the system, steal your bike!

Why does it not say anything when I shake my bike?
Maybe because it knows that you’re not stealing it! Maybe it’s waiting for your next move! Maybe it’s just messing with your head!
The system is inscrutable by design! If you can guess what it’s doing, so will the thief!

I want the product to react more, so that I know that it’s active.
Would you want to have to recharge its batteries all the time?
The system acts when it perceives a threat! It responds audibly when
helpful.

Why not just use a cheap $10 alarm?
You should! They’re certainly better than not having one. Sincerely!
The down side, however, is that they have too many false positives i.e. they shriek even when someone accidentally bumps into your parked bike. If you lock to a parking rack, another rider, unlocking the bike next to yours, will be seriously angered/annoyed/frightened.

And, if the alarm’s sensitivity can be set to be lower, then it will under-respond when it ought to do more! Too often, they seem like their batteries can be taken out, or they could be carefully unmounted, or an unlocked bike could be slowly rolled/carried away to a farther spot where the alarm could then be smashed.

Those alarms simply do not have the intelligence to attempt to distinguish between a bump and an attack.
And all that yelling will deplete its batteries quicker.
And some of them can too easily be knocked off the bike!

And this video reveals that their remote-controls are not secure! If true, it would appear that, to keep costs low, the same remotes could be used for different units, allowing one owner to disarm another owner’s alarm!

Why is there no GPS?
‘GPS’ requires a SIM card, and monthly payments!
N.B. smartphones do not have GPS hardware! They merely present a calculation based on secondary data, not on real data received from a satellite.

Similarly, bike trackers use SIMs! Even if the bike is in a dense, urban area with heavy cell-tower coverage, you might not know which exact building it’s in, or on which floor!

When your bike is stolen, you instinctively want to know where it is. But will putting a tracker on the bike actually help you retrieve it? Even if it’s on a sidewalk, half-way down a street, the bike might have been disassembled, leaving the part containing the tracker (the frame, the handlebar, the saddle pouch, etc) behind.

And if the thief is still there, and is high or drunk, will you confront him? Will the police come in-time, for something that is not life-or-limbs but mere bicycle theft?

The focus of the M!nder is on discouraging the thief at the moment of theft, or while the s/he is riding away.

And if the product is no longer manufactured, your minder will continue to function.

Why is there no app?
For increased security.
This is a tightly self-enclosed system; network connections to the outside world compromise security. (They also consume more battery-power.)

Convenience is only one factor in design; it is not overriding! It’d be convenient to leave your front door open, thus never having to use a key, but that is not your only consideration!

Keyless car-entry is convenient, but then your car gets stolen!

Unlike appy/phoney solutions, if this product is no longer manufactured, or your phone gets outdated, your minder will continue to function.

My experience in computing is long enough to know not to apply technology just because it’s “cool”! It is a tool, thus sometimes skipped in favour of better ones.

Why not use a remote control?
Because it consumes too much battery power, and requires connectivity to the outside world. And if it’s low-price, other remotes might be able to operate on yours!

If my bike gets stolen, will you refund the product?

No!

As has been explained, throughout this page, a lot of different factors are involved, many of them having to do with your choices. Even if you could prove that your bike was indeed stolen, the what-where-when-how of the parking have far more to do with it than this system. As I said, this product only tries to add some deterrence.

Why do you show successful attacks on the system?
So you’ll know!
My product is not a magic solution; is is just another tool among the many that you should have. Knowing the limitations of each should
encourage you to exercise more caution.

Won’t it help thieves when you show successful attacks?
They’ll discover them, if not already known!
It may be of benefit to a thief who has graduated from casual theft to a bit more of an organized venture! The trade-off, however, is based on the fact that owners don’t know the vulnerabilities: By pointing them out to the owners, the gain will be more than the loss represented by leaking a bit of info that the thieves either already know or which they’ll soon discover.

I figured out a way of getting the product to think the bike’s stolen, when in fact it wasn’t!
Maybe the system feels that you’re needy.
But, if your interest is in improving the system, rather than a prank video or getting a few Likes from people who seek the same from you, I’d be interested in a video of the full scenario–from activation to the response. Thanks!

I did this-n-that, but it responded by that-n-this! Why?
The more complex the intelligence, the more independent it becomes, and so the less guessable.
Without access to internal logs, the behaviours of embedded systems can rarely be deciphered in anything more than broad terms.

Can I use this without locking the bike?
No!
For instance, the bike might be gently lifted onto the back of a waiting truck, and the system might not say much!

I want the product to shriek sooner and more often.
It is imperative that the message be played only when justified. When was the last time you rushed out of your home when you heard a car alarm!
I cannot enforce proper parking; many riders use long cable-locks, or wide U-locks/D-locks, or anchors which allow a lot of bike movement.

Can I use this product on a motorcycle/motorbike/ATV?
The system assumes that it is on a bicycle, so it looks for both gentle and violent movements. The movements of, and threats to, a motorcycle or ATV are different. If properly hung, the system will detect attempts at moving the motorcycle/ATV; but, unlike with a bicycle, subtler attacks (e.g. unscrewing a part to steal it) can be missed! It has been tested on only a bicycle, not on motorcycles, ATVs, or the like.

There are lots of ATV thefts on farms. Hanging a M!nder from the ATV will sound its siren when the ATV is moved. But, ensure that you padlock the minder to where it will allow the minder to hang freely, and its sound waves to propagate out.

Can I use the M!nder on a car?
The device was not designed for a car, and has been tested on only regular bicycles.
The M!nder has to hang freely and remain fully audible. This limits it to a hitch, because it must hang outside. Conceivably, if the car is low-clearance, hanging a M!nder on its hitch could warn you of an attempt at stealing the catalytic converter, when they try to jack the car up. However, this has not been tested at all.

Another scenario would be in relation to overnight thefts of construction/farm equipment. One could hide a M!nder or two on a bulldozer, or other machinery, at construction sites or farms. It’ll have to hang freely, remain fully audible, and preferably be hard to find.