On Sun, 21 Apr 2013 19:51:55 -0400, "Eisboch" wrote:



"Wayne B" wrote in message
.. .

On Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:19:05 -0400, T. Keating
wrote:

On Sat, 20 Apr 2013 18:58:34 -0400, Wayne B
wrote:

We're getting along into late April and it's time to splash,
especially in the Chesapeake and farther south, but even the
northeast
should be warming up by now. When I was racing sailboats on Long
Island Sound we would have already been out for practice at least
once
by this time.

Let's hear some on the water reports from you guys.

Using a specialised crimping tool, I just installed a shielded RJ-45
plug for a friends
Radar unit.

Unfortuantely the old plug was connected to his expensive Garmin
Chart plotter which was
stolen from his boat (up on boat lift, mounted in console.) :-(

The theives cut that cable, but took the effort to un-plugged others.

They've recently hit seven other boats in nearby canals.

===

That's to bad, sorry to hear it.

Whereabouts are you located?

----------------------------------------

Theft of boat electronics seems to be a continuing problem. I
remember there was a series of break-ins in Scituate, MA years ago
where chart plotters, radios, etc., were stolen. They would simply
unplug or cut and leave the cables because they were too difficult to
remove quickly so they just took the electronic units.

Seems to me that will all of the advanced electronics available today
that a digital "key" could be programmed into the cable itself thus
making the electronic unit inoperable without the proper cable
connected. Something similar is done with a popular recording
software package called "Pro-Tools" in the music industry. It's
purpose is to prevent pirating of the software for use on other
computers, but the device has to be installed in the interconnecting
cable in order for the computer containing the software package to
communicate with anything else. You can run the software without the
key but it's useless because there's no data input available.

====

I beleve that kind of protective device is sometimes called a
"dongle".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongle

It could probably be made in such a way to discourage marine hardware
theft but it would increase costs and introduce a reliability point of
failure which could become a liability issue. More importantly, the
manufacturers have no incentive. Every theft for them usually
represents in an additional sale.