Slashdot Mirror
Privacy in the Woods?
Rorschach1 asks: "I work with a local Search and Rescue team, and for some time I've been thinking about the possibility of installing sensors at a few critical trail junctions in the local back country. The sensors would detect passing hikers and report timestamps to an Internet gateway in near real-time. When a hiker goes missing, this information could be very valuable in determining where search efforts should be directed.
However, I've spent enough time on Slashdot to know that whenever you start monitoring or tracking people and their activities, someone's going to get upset. So I'd like to hear from the tinfoil hat brigade - what are your objections to such a system, and how might your concerns be addressed?"
Implant RFID tags in everyone. That way anyone can know where you are at any time! How convenient!
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
Yeah, I agree. People would complain. Then there's the crazy people who'd say the CIA's after them...
Your ad here.
I wouldn't have a single objection if it was a voluntary system. Make it known that you offer the service and have them wear some sort of tag that would be detected by the system (make sure it's light and not physically intrusive). It could even have a unique ID (which could be disabled at the request of the hiker).
I don't think I would have much of an objection to one being in place as long as there is no requirement for a permit to be camping/hiking in the park. If you are able to place a specific hiker in the area to the timestamps then that's too intrusive for me. I get out into the woods to get away from people. I don't want people being able to track me in real time out there. I really don't see a need for it either.
I would have serious reservations unless someone made sure that the statistics are kept private, very, very, very private. Who knows what person would have access to it (not everyone in law enforcement is all that friendly). Say they notice a hiker *alone*? They could go out there and get a good idea of where the person might be headed (or staying). Knowing where the points are for tracking they themselves might be able to bushwhack around the sensors and do things I don't care to mention.
As long as your sensor isn't a video camera of some sort, the anonymity of the technology should be fine for most.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Those who managed to track pass those few critical trail junctions probably will not need the search and rescue.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
if i see shit like that out hunting, I will happily serve it a hot one.
just don't tell the people what they do. Say their weather guages.
It isn't as though it would be idintifying the people, it would just know someone/thing passed there. I don't see any privacy issues with something like an IR beam that logs traffic on the trail.
Douglas P. Price
If possible, create a system with highly visible sensors. If the hiker wants the info to be taken(knowing what it will be used for), they can hit a button and the sensor will register(what are you using for power btw?) If the hiker doesn't want anyone to know where they are, they just don't trigger the sensor.
Plus, make sure to have a good privacy policy, dictating what the info will be used for!
2 days ago this redneck I know flipped his quad over in a creek and tore his ear off. He called a friend's mom and cussed her out when she didn't believe he was hurt. It took a little while to find out where he was. If only he had had sensors in the trees to track his flowing mullet...
-Rylfaeth
As long as it doesn't record my bank details and party affiliation, I don't see what harm it would do. It would do more good than harm IMHO.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
If I'm missing it's cuz I don't want you to find me!
i would think Call boxes at those junctions might address most of those issues without interfering with privacy. If someone needs help they could follow a trail to a call box and get the help they need. The only problem would be if someone was hurt and couldn't get to the call box.
no big sig
A lot of folks who go into the woods do so because they relish the element of risk involved. Idiot-proofing the wilderness experience will not appeal to most of them.
I think there are several published standards for privacy. You should look them up. My own thoughts are that since you are only reporting a location and a time, and that those numbers are in no way associated with any personal information, that this is perfectly fine.
Make sure the area has good cell phone coverage. Require all missing hikers to carry a cell phone.
Coding Blog
attn echelon and other busybodies: that was a joke.
-- If you actually say LOL instead of laughing, maybe it's time to go outside! --
You'll be tracking more deer than humans I imagine
Why not just install cell towers and let hikers call when they get lost?
With adequate surveillence, we will finally have a definitive answer to the question of what a bear does in the woods.
I have a personal policy that if I see anything manmade in the woods other than a basic signpost, it comes down. Trash, sensors (never seen those), signs ("bike race this direction!"), etc. If I ran across anything like this in the woods that was public property, I'd rip them out in a heartbeat and throw them away, no questions asked. The woods are becoming a precious, quiet, away-from-the-things-of-man commodity. This shit doesn't need to be in the woods. If a hiker gets lost, that's their problem.
Simple; don't mount rescue attempts for people who don't get tracked. Don't attach names, and give out RFID tags (for a small deposit) to hikers. What's to complain about then? If the data is kept private and anonymous, you're just making rescue attempts less costly and more reliable. They're still free to go it alone and stay off the radar, but there won't be anyone looking for them if they break a leg.
G
I'd rather see that the forest remains the sole place where one can escape all that resembles modern technology, society etc. It's really one of the few places left where one can go to be completely alone and unreachable. Don't touch my forest.
I've always thought that an infrared camera on a plane could find you easily in the woods, especially at night...
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Are you detecting that a hiker passed a specific location, or that a specific hiker passed a specific location? If the former, it's no different from loop detectors in roads that count the number of cars. If the latter, well, it needs to be voluntary. Just like you can decide to take emergency flares and a radio with you hiking, you can decide to sign up for the tracking system or not.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
Let's install sensors to find out.
Instead of tracking hikers on trails with sensors (and how do you know it's a hiker anyway, and not a bear/deer/extraterrestrial?), offer hikers the ability to check-out an emergency transponder that they can turn on if they need assistance. Hell, you could even offer it as a service that people might be willing to pay for, and that would offset your equipment costs.
I guess you could, but there are a lot of woods out there, I can understand if you're talking about the woods in your area, but even then I don't see how you'd trigger these sensors. RFID? GPS? Motion sensors are a no-go as deer and bear would both wreak havoc on them, same for heat. And anything you'd be giving these hikers to trigger these sensors would only apply to people smart enough to take them, for the same amount of time and effort of wiring the woods, wouldn't it just be easier to give each hiker a cell phone or a two way radio? For the amount of woods in the US it almost seems like it would be cheaper to give each person a satellite phone. Maybe you could seed the woods with genetically modified trees that can ID the hikers and point wich direction they headed off in...
The main worry of privacy advocates is anonymity, plain and simple. You can set up sensors all you want, they don't have any way of identifying me as me. If I don't want you knowing I'm somewhere, a sensor is just going to tell you that a man sized creature passed by this location at this time. Great, could have been a grizzly for all you know. That's plenty private. Now if you were to put a camera in that sensor pod, and have it snap a photo of the passing object, not only would it help you identify me, it could also be used as evidence of my being at a certain place at a certain time. The law of privacy is kind of like the law of uncertainty. I'd like to be an electron to the government and everyone else out there. Until you bump into me, you'll never know exactly where I am.
Don't Ask Questions. I don't know the answers and even if I did I wouldn't tell you.
And so in a puff of smoke Your Rights Outdoors appeared.
12H>look yro.
You see a small box on the floor.
12H>take yro
The YRO zaps you and you immediately let go of it.
eh... better cut down on my MUD dosage.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I wouldn't have a problem with this. We're already watched by security cameras everywhere, stores, parking lots, atms, HOV lanes on highways. Assuming this system only senses people passing and doesn't have a way to identify them, you would still have alot of privacy, it would be like montioring traffic flow. I wonder if large animals would set it off though...
Would what also be great is if it also worked in reverse. As one passed it updated some device that I'm carrying. If I get lost, instead of hugging a tree, I could use the device to take me to the nearest sensor. Although, if I had the money for something like this, I'd probably have a GPS anyway, which would make the whole idea moot.
Suddenly, a concern for privacy, objection to universal surveillance, means one is a paranoiac. How bizarre. This will be a commom tune sung by those wishing to implement surveillance.
There must be a term from logic that covers this.
Rather than using a sensor, why not use a great big red button. If a hiker chooses to use the system, they hit the button on their way by, logging that checkpoint with a timestamp. If they don't want to use it, that's their risk.
Or maybe I just like big red buttons.
I wouldn't object to such a system if it was tracking people anonymously. Like, if you knew that there was 50 people who went down the trail and only 49 came back, then who cares who that 50th person is, it just means they didn't make it back.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
just place a signbook at each of these central locations, and a cheap watch so they can note time if they don't have a watch. totally voluntary.
Have GNU . . . Will Travel
Implant RFID tags in everyone. That way anyone can know where you are at any time! How convenient!
A human should go down easy with one tranquilizer dart... in fact, forget the dart.
Assuming the owner of the property doesn't object, I have no problems with it.
It's not collecting any data on who's out there, so no big deal. It's just collecting the times that the beam was broken (or whatever the method is). Would also give you a good estimate of how many people use the trail, sort of thing. Many national parks have these, or have pressure plates embedded in the trail to get the same sort of infomation (generally just a counter increments on those though).
Only thing I'd watch for is false data from animals or something. But beyond that, I see no privacy issues involved here. If you had a camera out there, that that would be a concern, but just a timestamp? Big deal.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Of course, this would require the hikers to provide to you a pretty good description of themselves, and the time they walked past the crossing, but there's really no other way to do it.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
Whether it is RFID tags, or just entering a name into a (weather resistant) terminal, make it optional. Some trails in some places have books or cards you can fill out when you pass it; I assume that's in case you go missing, they have somewhere to start. It wouldn't bother me if I'm tracked somewhat (might actually make me feel safer), but others might care, so leave the choice to the individual.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to ask a few research firms to donate (or buy cheap) some of the animal tracking tags. Stick one to everyone's clothes and then if someone gets lost, break out the wand thing I see on the discovery channel?
Although a bunch of webcams wired (or 802.11b) should do the job. I've seen monitoring software on freshmeat for this stuff before.
rejected (19) accepted (0)
Is there a psychological term related to getting your stories rejected on slashdot?
--it's used to time the passage of deer down a trail with a sonic sonar sensor. You can adjust the sensitivity, and it time stamps if any large enough critter goes by. You have to go by and check the recordings, and reset it. runs off a 9 volt, lasts for days. sporting goods stores carry them. I don't know the cost new now though.
I think you'd be better off posting signs asking people to please carry cell phones, and to stay in touch with friends periodically as to their approximate location,or even just leave themselves voice mail that some friend or relative has the access code to (something like that) then if they go missing the friends will be contacting you anyway, with the last known x-y. No privacy concerns, let adults be adults and assume their adult repsonsibilities.
Basically, we don't need any more nanny state or government tracking. Our nation was founded on the principle that we gladly accepted "more risk in our personal lives" in exchange for this "freedom to be YOU" deal, and when it was run that way it was a beautiful thing.
I say forget the sensors. Let the weak ones die. One day they'll be fossils for future earth inhabitants to discover. You know that the majority of the fossils we found to date are the stupid animals of long ago. Just look at lebrea as one example.
The compromise of privacy would further be impacted by best not notifying people you intend to do this, lest it encourage more day-trippers, ill equipped and without plans, to venture too far afield.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So I'd like to hear from the tinfoil hat brigade
Why do you attempt to make fun of people who have serious concerns about their privacy?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Those with tin hats would rather die in a snow storm them anyone know where they are.
Give me a break. Its a life saving tool. It would not know who the hiker was so I say screw it. If they don't like it let them go get lost somewhere else..
Since in this case they do have a choice.. Your not forcing them to walk down your monitored trail, they are choosing to do it on there own then forget it.
I would be midly surprised if you had one person go home because they where afraid you might be able to track them when the next snow storm hits and there to stupid to come back.
Personal Website
Non-invasive, non-intrusive monitoring that basically operates like a turnstile (how many people went out? 25. How many came back? 22) is the perfect use for such tech. I'm not in favour of cameras in the streets or RFIDs in my shoes but this kind of service doesn't invade my privacy one jot. Great idea.
Often the problem we see in NZ with search and rescue efforts is simply not knowing the basic information about how many missing, when were they due out, where were they heading etc... this would help speed up searching and potentially save lives/cut costs (always a winner). A few sensors scattered around the bush should cost less than getting in the choppers/volunteers/support staff etc.
I am a leaf on the wind
As a card carrying member of the local chapter of the Atlanta Georgia Tin Foil Hats of America (AGTFHA), I have absolutely no problem with your proposal. So long as it's voluntary. In fact I have even a low-tech solution. Put up weather protected boxes on poles. Let them (who don't have a GPS) write their name, date and time on a sign in sheet. You don't have to spend a bunch of tax payers money (we need it all for Bushies holy war), they (your backpackers) don't have to have high-tech equipment. Simple solution. Participate if you want. Sign in at strategic points and if you get lost we'll have an idea of where to start looking.
This is assuming your campers do what I've had to do every time I've gone to the back country. Is to sign in, give member counts, get fire permits, etc... Inform them to sign in at each box and explain why. They do or they don't.
Somehow this isn't a tin hat problem for me and I'll even show you my card.
-[d]-
A system to track people on trails already exists. It is called the Trail Head Log Book. You know, you open the box, sign in and then when you get back you sign out. There are also weight sensitive pads that get buried under the trail that counts the number of people who pass it.
Going for a walk in the woods is one of the few escapes from the intrusions of modern society still available.
Leave the control over information disclosure in the hands of the hiker. Let them take a cell phone, leave an itinerary with a friend, start a fire if they're in trouble. Besides, if you really need to find people you can get the police helicopter with IR sensors to comb the woods with your search and rescue team in an emergency.
I know you mean well, but this is where you ought to let people assume special risks and precious responsibilities - Don't take them away so lightly.
Rather, put your efforts into an education program for students. How to enjoy the woods, hike safely, avoid hypothermia, etc. Sponsor some hikes and let them get a feel for how wonderful it is to be in the wilderness away from civilization.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Well, that would be one way to keep RMS out of the woods.
Privacy objections to RFID tags involve subliminal usage (shop tags etc.), or inclusion in items that must be carried such as drivers licencse.
BTW, there are allready tracking solutions in use that use GPS in conjuction with satellite comms. Users only need switch on devices when they want. When they do the device periodically sends an SMS like message giving the current coords read from the GPS. Likewise such devices can be used to send an SOS that includes the exact coords.
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
They've had those rubber wires on streets for counting cars for over fifty years now, this same kind of thing would be nice for a trail, but I think a wireless tag would work best, so someone doesn't have to step on something and flora/fauna don't interfere.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has been setting cameras triggered by infrared motion detectors for years. They are used to photograph animals that use certain water holes and other areas where there is interest in animal movements. They are unmarked and generally well hidden. Many outdoors folks are photographed by them every year, and altough I'm not sure what is done with the data it would be interesting to contact the ODFW and see what legal steps they take to cover themselves.
As a person that worked for a company that designed people tracking and intrusion detection/defense systems for military and govenment agencies, I can tell you that there are devices available (not commercially, though) that do this without saving information about the person who passed, only that there was a human that passed. Our main customers were the DOD, Border Patrol, and Special Ops, as well as several "friendly" countries.
And, for all of the tin-foil hatters out there, you might be suprised to know that the forestry service already uses such devices. So does border patrol. We have also sold units that have been deployed at Area 51. These are passive infrared detectors, vibrational sensors (some contained within air-droppable cones that burrow into the ground), and magnetic sensors among others.
I can't go into specifics about design, but I would be happy to answer any questions (non-design related) that anyone has.
I worked at this company up until last December, when I quit. However, I might be doing consulting work for them in the future.
Privacy aside, these are already in use in some cases, and no one even realizes it because they are highly covert. Privacy concerns, IMO, do not come into play with devices deployed on government land, especially when no identifying information is given. Its like walking through a door beeper in a store, except that this one counts direction of travel and the presense of movement. Stuff that has more information tagged on, however, gets shaky in the privacy area, I will admit.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
"We are Linux. Resistance is measured in Ohms."
I have a personal policy that if I see anything manmade in the woods other than a basic signpost, it comes down.
Whatever your personal policy may be, if you do that on land that's not your own, then you're a vandal.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
...but before long the government is forcing us to register our pine cones.
I don't think you'd have any complaints as long as no logs are kept, the logs should be left alone. You'll only get grief from the environmentalists if you start logging in the woods.
(Sorry, but it was just so obvious! The void needed to be filled with the obvious pun.)
=\/\/= If it's too loud, turn it down.
The tin foil hat brigade is the least of your worries bub, I think you'll find a much greater level of animosity from two other groups:
1. Sierra Club lovin Tree Hugging Hippies looking for a PHD will most likely prove the radio waves your sensors emit interrupt every twelfth breeding season of some endangered moth or other woodland.
2. The small time marijuana growers will object to this as a police tactic to track their comings and goings from the best marijuana patches.
There was something intresting about sensor nets in MIT tech review about six months ago for things like this. (Yes, the hippies and pot growers protested)
What if an animal were to cross a beam? Or if a transmitter fell down, or stopped reporting? You'd still be searching all over the place to try to find the missing person.
I think the better approach would be, as some users have suggested, voluntary RFID tags, or maybe "help" buttons installed in highly visible and easily accessible locations.
Why not use bread?
Give each person a loaf before they set out on their hike. Instruct them to sprinkle the bread behind them as they walk. If they have the misfortune to get lost, the trail of bread will show them the way home.
Hyperlink withdraw is my problem.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
A hiker who comes ill-prepared to deal with an accident or getting lost shouldn't be hiking in the first place. We don't need to waste any money idiot-proofing the woods.
I see this as no different than turnstyles in the subway or those IR sensors that flush for you. Who knows what log data is being generated from those...
The way to lower your cost is by agreeing to take some sort of locator device with you so the "Search" part would not take nearly as long.
There could even be Search and Rescue insurance policies, like those some people get when they rent a car. The price of the policy could be lowered if you agreed to take the locator device with you.
I struggled for days and days and all I got was this lousy sig.
So I'd like to hear from the tinfoil hat brigade - what are your objections to such a system, and how might your concerns be addressed?
This is less of a tin-foil hat issue and more of your idea being redundant and a waste of money. First off, hikers are already tracked. Before you go on any long distance hike, you should typically sign in at a local ranger station. These are usually where the best drop-off points and parking lots are. Plus, it's just good to be face to face with a ranger before hitting the woods. At least then, they will have a face in memory, just in case you turn up missing.
Anyway, tax dollars are already being spent on tracking hikers through a paper log, there is no benefit to doing it digitally, and considering costs of managing the electronic system, it's pointless and doesn't deserve much attention.
No offense, just an honest thought on the issue. I grow weary of people searching for technical solutions to mundane things that can be done better through arcane methods.
In other words -- "Keep it simple, stupid."
Seems obvious to me. 90% of everybody could use it and be safe; the tinfoil hat brigade can safely lose themselves in the woods, if they want.
Some people go out into the wilderness for the very fact that is is the wilderness.
It may not be the most Darwinistically intelligent thing to do, but many people get a certain rush from braving the wild.
Knowing that one's location is known and that they aren't in any "real" danger tends to negate this feeling of being one with nature in all it's beauty and danger.
Having said that, getting my skull gnawed by a bear is not on my list of things to do while hiking, so I'd be happy to beta test one of them there trackers.
EPIRB.
Let me carry one or not, as I choose. If I wish to go out in the woods alone and get lost, that's my business.
If I wished to be tracked I'll carry a beacon, simple as that.
Having someone to come after me if I get in trouble is one thing. Having my mommy watch me all the time to make sure I don't get into trouble is another.
KFG
Just to be a devil's advocate and put a voice of realism into a proposal such as this.
Any system that did not require hikers to wear a tag would be suseptible to a rediculous number of false positives from weather and wildlife (the IR sensor going off in a hail or dust storm, or a squirrel walking by).
As well, even a system that required hikers to wear tags would require huge amounts of maintenance.... cleaning things, aligning them in case the ground moved or the sensors were kicked or misaligned due to the weather or wildlife...
A better solution, IMHO would be to put solar powered, battery assisted radio type call boxes at intersections. A simple button push and hikers could be in touch with a ranger or with help of some sort.
I would be against it, and here's why
when I trek into the back country I do it to be _away_ (tho I have considered dragging a linux laptop wiht solar and a gps deal just to be able to see where I've gone and how far, but I digress) I generally just bring what I need to survive, and I have been trained and hav ehte knowledge of the country, skills, and tools to survive, (don't get me started on the folks who go in unprepared) so I would say that I don't want anyone ot be able to have any idea where I am when I want to be lost for a while, and I know I'm an old redneck sort, but I prefer the old ways when I'm out there... so I say we provide better resources for training and get people educated, just finding them doesn't do any good if they couldn't figure out how to find drinkable water for the 3 days it took to get to them.
moral is, go prepared, search and rescue is great, I have helped on some, (even had an old CS prof who was heavily involved where I went to school) but education is more important than tracking idiots.
or something like that.
"...and I am _not_ intoxicated... YET!" --John Wayne
In my opinion, we need to keep this sort of data locked up (encrypted), to be unlocked only in the event of a crime or emergency as determined by a court (composition of the court TBD). And even when it is unlocked, the data should only be viewed by court appointed personnel and only scanned for events related to the given situation.
Test 1 2 3 4
A few years ago I went hiking in Vermont and came across a campsite where someone had left a notebook in a somewhat weather-resistant box. There was a note attached encouraging people coming through the area to leave their names and the date/time and any comments they felt like leaving. (Mostly folks saying who they were and where they were from, but a few were inspired to write some poetry.)
Putting similar logbooks at your "critical trail junctions" would probably fit your needs while remaining completely voluntary. Plus you wouldn't have to worry about a power supply.
And yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead and make your own joke about how amazing it is to find someone on /. who goes hiking without coercion. :-p
Personally, I love hiking and camping with a couple of friends.
I mostly go hiking/backpacking/camping/... in the mountains of Scotland, Austria, ... Population density is low, but they are not completely unpopulated.
There is little need to track me. I actually don't want to be tracked.
The whole point of such a holiday (to me) is being away from it all: being away from the every-day life, being away from busy cities, being away from computers and technology. Not that I don't like busy cities and computers and technology, on the contrary, but it's nice to live low-tech in a more nature-like environment every once in a while. I'm not available. My cell-phone is off, and the only reason I'm keeping it with me is to be able to call people in case of an emergency (or to assure friends and family that I'm still alive at conveniant times to me).
The whole point is being away from schedules, being away from being constantly available (through IM, cell-phone, ...), being away from being tracked.
There's obvious answers to this "Ask Slashdot" like "keep it voluntary," but perhaps giving people technological security blankets for outdoorsmanship is actually a disservice? I remember reading an article a while back how cell phones have become, paradoxically, both a lifesaver for lost hikers, and a bane for search and rescue teams. The problem is that novice hikers/climbers push themselves farther than their abilities because they feel like they can just fall back on their cell phones if they get stuck--and they do. People overextend themselves either physically or in terms of terrain, and then waste search & rescue resources by calling in for an extraction. One example in this article was a hiking party that just got "too tired" and didn't feel like recouping for the return trip. The first step in not getting stuck in the wilderness is adequate training and knowing your limits, not simply constructing a better (and more abusable) safety net.
"If a hiker gets lost, that's their problem."
Damn straight! We have GPS, cell phones, CB/SW radio, portable emergency beacons, maps and compasses. The last thing we need is another excuse for the terminally stupid to avoid taking responsibility for their own safety. So what if a few morons die? Thats evolution at work.
I agree that the point of wilderness is that its just that: wilderness. If people want to be safe and sound, either take precautions (like never hike alone, which is a basic one) or STAY AT HOME.
Wrap yourself in cotton wool if you want, but leave the world alone. damn it!
Say there are 5 checkpoints. 10 hikers pass checkpoints 1-3. 8 hikers pass checkpoints 4-5. Two hikers are potentially missing. I can start searching between 3-4 and may have a better chance at a rescue if needed since I have information that they were at least at checkpoint 3.
Your mind looks a little cramped. Why don't you stretch it a little?
Somewhat offtopic, but I'd like to ask about search and rescue. Specifically, are S&R teams typically fully staffed, or are they likely to be looking for additional volunteers? (Is S&R purely volunteer, or do S&R guys get paid anything?)
And if they are looking for volunteers, what are the qualifications? Do you need an amateur radio license? First aid certifications? How much time does it take to be a member of an S&R team -- I presume there are training sessions, meetings, and of course the occasional actual S&R assignment.
I've sometimes thought that I should join an S&R team, because my life is set up so that if I had to suddenly take a day off, I could do so. But I have no idea if an S&R team would even want me.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Now, if I could call when I need some help, I might be interested, but probably not.
Happy trails to you!
... I thought you couldn't take a private crap in the woods anymore.
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
Person name, departing time and approx. returning time. And upon you return, you "close" the log.
Now its not mandatory but the log is checked every day by some park personnel. So if there's someone missing, they know _who_, _when_. They know those who departed before and after them, etc. Now if you want to make it computerised, that's great, only give people choice to "log in".
You have no rights! Welcome to the United States of Amerika!. Land of the Sometimes Free. Home of the World's Most Dangerous Leader.
Patriotically,
Kilgore Trout
Deer, elk, moose, etc. will frequent those trails more than humans will. (They get out of the way when they hear us coming). You'll get a bunch of traffic on your sensors at dusk and dawn. I don't think you'll have very good data - too much noise.
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
it would be easier to track them huh??
you're a corpse.
That is the dumbest thing I have heard today.
You don't like sensors and high tech gadgetry in the woods, fair enough, but god forbid people should put direction markers and other helpful things in remote locations. Just because you know your way around, doesn't mean others do.
what else can I say.
I guess if the person you are with also gets seriously injured, the man upstairs is sending you a message.
Would it be able to detect a hiker falling off a 54-foot waterfall, like I just did?
1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.
source
When I go into the backcountry I am looking to get away from technology and people. I know that I would not enjoy hiking past a giant sensor or red button with a poster describing what it does. I hate cairns so I know I would hate a system like this.
I don't know what type of trail you've got on your but the ones I've been on tend to have log books partially for search and rescue but it also seems to be taken as a badge of honor. One of the camps I do alot of work with has a knob hike trail and the log book at the entrance/exit is always filled with notes (hiked in x minutes). Badges of honor I guess.
I see the search and rescue need for these systems and I think most hikers do. In that respect I think the only tin foil hats you have to deal with are on the heads of people who will probably never be on those trails.
If you're really worried about people fearing for their identities I think the best thing is be honest and don't hide the system. A trail box with an explanation of why the system is there as is probably more than enough. You might even make it double as a first step on a geocache or a traditional log book if you really think there are going to be a log of geeks on your trails.
keep it anonymous and public.
:)
hand out some sort of tag to the hikers when they arrive. if the hiker wants it, they can carry it along. when they come within reach of a sensor, the tag gets a session id of sorts.
this way, you can track individual persons about the woods, but have no actual knowlegde of who they are, other then "some person".
when the hikers leave the area, they hand in the tag, which is reset and then given to someone else.
public disclosure in a system, which cannot expose individuals is a good thing
So destroying public property is your thing, huh? Remind me to never invite you to any of the woods in my state. Some of those man-made things can actually be very beneficial to nature, as well as the people who use it (trash cans are man made, but I'm not complaining about them).
Anyway, I'm one that advocates privacy in everything, but how private do you expect to be while hiking in a public forest? A system like this could have the following characteristics/features:
- Able to be small (so people like you wouldn't even see the sensors and therefore wouldn't have the overwhelming urge to destroy them)
- The sensors don't have to pick up uniquely identifiable info in order to be effective. Rangers could determine which trails are the most popular, for instance, and then plan for any kind of maintenance that needs to be done on those trails accordingly.
- If a trail was closed for danger reasons, Rangers would know if someone had passed the "Do not enter" signs and avert a possibly bad situation before it happened.
- We would have much better ideas as to where forest fires might have been started, and where people might be that are in danger because of it.
- Being able to retrace the steps of lost people would also be an obvious benefit. You wouldn't have to know WHO disappeared, just that someone did, and that someone passed by point X at X o'clock. It would give search parties a much better place to start than "well he disappeared somewhere over there..."
The system wouldn't have to uniquely identify anyone, it would just have to identify traffic. The info would still be really valuable to those that are in charge of keeping our forests beautiful and safe.
I was in the park the other day wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger the closer they get - and then it hit me.
The "safer society" club of America is getting in my way of having a good time.
I do not want you to look out for me, watch over me, make sure I don't smoke in a bar. I do not need you to tell me my kids should wear helmets on bikes, nor do I require your input on just how much protective gear I should wear when I use my weed whacker on the lawn. I certainly do not reuquire you and your supporters forcing my car to have things like a GPS (in case I get lost, yes, I know) or insisting that my cell phone can be found in the middle of the Mojave (for that one in 100 million of us who stumbles headlong into the barren desert, sure).
We, the free thinking and self-aware people of north America are really sick and fucking tired of you looking out for us. We are not your children nor your keep. Please kindly fuck off and take your mother-hen make the world a safer place excuse for butting into my lifestyle back into your own living room where it squarly belongs.
A society without risks is a society who cannot place a tangible value on the rewards afforded to some risk takers.
-- RLJ
someone decided to copyright paths through the woods and try to charge people who wanted to follow a path someone shared with them. Keep public tech out of the woods - if people wanted to opt-in to anything they can already buy a GPS.
Unless the hiker is given something (RFID?) to trigger the sensor, it will report on anything of a similar size. Deer, bear, etc.
Give the hiker the trigger, then you'd have the concern of Hiker A = Sensor Y. Tracking a particular person, and when does the log get deleted and purged from all backups.
A thorny problem.
Most people view hiking as a form of adventure. Most avid hikers know how to be safe and don't want to be tracked. I know that as a member of search and rescue you understand this concept and at the same time have to deal with many clueless or unlucky people.
Just the same, there are many ways to reduce risk in the backcountry. You can tell people where you are going to hike. You can take a cell phone or sallelite phone. You can simply know how to effectively travel and survive in the backcountry.
Your tracking project in my opinion attempts to eliminate part of what entering the backcountry is all about - self reliance. Using technology like this will hurt the backcountry experience far more than it will help search and rescue. Most people who need this type of tracking should not be out anyway. Look at the number of rescues that occur today because people prefer to carry a cell phone instead of foul weather gear. Spend your budget on education, not technology.
This is commonly done by hunters/scientists who wish to research animal activity in certain areas such as white tail deer. I would think it would be important to be able to distnguish between large animals and humans so you know you're tracking someone who's really lost as opposed to a ten-point.
May be something to consider anyways.
Abe
[calls brother on phone] Hi, we're going up to Smith and Morris Lakes on Friday. Three nights there then over to Alpine Lake. Two nights there than back out to the truck and home. Call you when I get back.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
I always see signs stating "Leave No Trace" when I go hiking, camping and climbing.
Yet, when I go hiking, on hiking trails I see trace all over the place. I see signs saying "turn this way", or "lookee here", or blazes nailed to trees. All of these are put there by the forest service, the park service or the national/state/local group that manages the area. To me, this is "Trace".
Yet, when I go climbing, all of the groups listed above say "put no bolts in the rock". Their reason is that it detracts from the beautiful scenery which everyone is coming to enjoy. Half the time when I'm out climbing, I have to look hard and long before I can see the bolts on a climb and I can find them only because I'm looking. Most of the places I climb, hikers don't go. The only reason to go there is to climb the rock.
I'd say all of the "services" listed above should practice what they preach and say "hiking/climbing/camping can be inherently dangerous. If you get lost or injured while here, you assume all costs incured in the event that you require rescue." Then, take down all of the blazes, posts, signs, direction arrows, etc.
If they can't practice what they preach, then start treating climbers no different than the brainless hikers.
My final vote is: No counters. Keep technology away from my blessed, natural, nature excursions.
--JLockard - "Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps." - Emo Phillips
How does evolution work if you keep saving people who have no sense of direction or danger?
Humanity would end up unable to read maps and work out where they are trying to go... Come to think of it, I think there is evidence that has already happened to women.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I'm not a fire fighter by trade but part of my job is to be on a fire brigade, and we wear a small box that will sound an alarm if it is motionless for about a minute. If a hiker were incapacitated I bet a device like this could, in addition to setting off an alarm, make a distress signal via radio or cel phone. It wouldn't take too much space or weight, and would take the burden off the folks in charge of the trail as far as installing and maintaining sensors. A ranger could pick up the distress signal and call the hiker to ensure no malfunction. If no reply, then use the transponder or the GPS location it broadcasted to locate the hiker. Of course, the hiker could turn it off when at a camp or asleep. My sense of adventure and extreme miserliness would prevent me from purchasing such a device :)
"The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the pieces." --Aldo Leopold (Paraphrased)
Unless every hiker carries an individual tag, the system won't really help. Trails aren't linear - people double-back and go off of the beaten path regularly. You also don't know if the person you clocked at Checkpoint A is the same one who just crossed Checkpoint B, because they may have been passed by another person or group.
The real onus is on the hiker. They need to inform others of their route, their emergency planning, and take steps to ensure that they are prepared for the situations that hiking puts them in.
For a lot of people, the woods is where you can be Not monitored, where you Are at risk of getting lost or getting mauled by a bear. That's the point. Putting these in makes it the "woods-with extra-monitoring".
Sure I might get killed but then, I knew that when I was going in there...
How about installing sensors to see if the falling trees make a noise...
As a mountaineer and alpinist in California's Sierra, I can tell you we already: 1) have to have overnight permits which are used to limit impact on the back country, 2) are asked to check in with the Rangers with a trip plan including locations and dates including return date so they can moutn a search if we are overly late, and 3) let them know if we see anything worth noting (abandoned campsites indicating someone is lost, etc. It is voluntary and useful. I never felt the rangers were prying or trying to play big brother. Most of the abuse of informatton in my opinion comes from the private sector or power-hungry bureaucrats. Rangers aren't in it for the money or power--they love the backcountry liek I do and they want to help you. I also think it would cut down the cost of rescuing the arrogant morons who think they are Natty Bumpo and get in a bind deep in the backcoutnry and costs thousands of dollars to find and rescue. Keep privacy concerns focused on the material breaches of privacy and quit taking the typical 'black or white, all-or-nothing, love it or leave it' narrow-minded American approach to everything to the poitn of irrationality that gives us a bad name around the world.
This should be fairly simple, especially for those of us not doing it. Offer RFID tags that people on hikes could have. (Ok, charge $1 US). The person could leave the tag id with a trusted friend or even a neutral site. If they go missing the friend could provide the id and tracking could be done.
Any other tracking would then be aggregated. We know that 15 people went past poles 34, 35, and 36. 17 Tags stayed at camp site bravo, etc.
The benefit is that it is completely voluntary, while it can also provide valuable information about the use of facilities and trails. This is how technology can really benefit a situation without being a "big brother".
Speaking as a hiker, most people who get lost do so because they go off the trail.
All you're doing at best is showing how many people use a trail and don't walk around your sensor.
Useless.
I go to the woods to get away from surveillence, "for my own good" or otherwise. I'm not logging, hunting food, or searching for El Dorado. I'm unwinding from civilization, reconnecting with basic nature. I don't want to see a camera, sensor, or other technology more sophisticated than a wooden sign marking a trail. And I certainly don't want to stumble across a hidden sensor, jarring my mental civilization shield back into effect when I'm in the element. If you want your search and rescue effort easier, offer mobile phones or radios to hikers free with a deposit. But don't invade my personal space with your gear, and I won't dump manure in your office.
--
make install -not war
The poster's idea sounds very strange to me. How exactly would this system work? RFID tags? Cameras? Are you expecting people to walk the same straight line? Very odd. I wonder about the poster's intentions with this question. Perhaps it's just a naive question without much planning behind it. I hope so.
First, the system of backcountry permits works pretty well in the US. You've first got to make the argument that the system doesn't work well enough, or your unspecified system is cheap and nonintrusive enough, or something.
Second, there are people in this world (I daresay a higher ratio of computer types) who enjoy hiking precisely for the solitude. Quiet mind and all that. We get annoyed when a plane passes overhead. We get pissed when we come across people's trash. We are certainly going to pissed by the idea that there are electronic eyes in the woods. My bizarro-meter is pegged just by the thought.
It is already inordinately difficult for people, especially those who have jobs tied to urban areas, to get away from the madness of civilization. It takes me 1.5 hours, and I still run across random people where I go, sometimes carrying radios, sometimes guns, sometimes large, unleashed dogs. All of which ruins an otherwise peaceful experience for me.
Explain your idea in more detail, but realize that many people want to be alone and would go somewhat insane if they couldn't get at least a mile away from idiots.
I don't see the problem with just shooting the hikers with a tranquilizer gun and then tagging their ears with a Radio tracer.... You don't even have to look at their ID when you go through their wallet if you feel issues with anomity.
When did people with tin-foil hats start organizing into brigades?
paintball
If it's
1) voluntary
2) works
then fine. I'd wonder how you'd power and maintain electronics in areas I know where it can be 110 in the sun or -50F in winter.
It might be something as simple as giving hikers (for a $10 deposit) an iButton that they touch to a box. It records the number and time and that's all. No invasion. Now, if the bottom camp knows that $THIS 64bit number is associated with that party, then they know that they passed and tagged this box. And it's all voluntary.
My experience is that you'd have better luck(?) or results(?) by simply making sure hikers have a MAP and a COMPASS.
A cellphone and a GPS is nice, but too many search and rescues are for the stupid. "My, um, GPSs batteries ran out" or better:
idiot: "I'm precisely HERE."
forest servce: "And do you know where the trail is from THERE?"
idiot: "Um, I (don't have|can't read) a map."
On the plus side, at least some states are charging idiots. If you don't have basics, and need to get your ass rescued, you're liable for 10s of thousands of dollars of rescue. (ever fly a helicopter at night in the rain/snow to find someone in shorts, without a map who's calling on the cell phone? It happens.)
In short, technology will not solve the problem where the basics are missing. I say: Let them evolve.
.. put up a cellphone basestation, record all phoneids of people that pass. thats not more intrusive than even using a cellphone. they even work with phone turned of in many cases.
when they go out to the woods. That may be one of the reasons they are heading to the woods in the first place!
I think you need to see the forest through the trees, and stop trying to do hikers a favor.
They need to be prepared in the first place before they head into the woods. They need to account for all the risks involved.
Another thought is that it may be statistically impossible to monitor every trail or variation of one, and there is a real question as to whether this would even help anyway. There are many animals (let alone other hikers) that may fool your sensors also.
Also don't forget that the reason many hikers get lost is that they head off the trail, and by time they go missing or realize they are lost they are very far away from a trail.
A much better proposal would be to implement a voluntary scheme where a hiker could carry an emergency locator beacon that could be activated as the need arises, perhaps even remotely.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I've fallen and I can't get up.....a bear is eating me and I still can't get up.
Fight Spammers!
My take is this - walk into a bank, a museum, or a host of other public places and you are being tracked anyway, by security cameras and the like. No one is asking you to consent. If you post some signs to make it clear to the hikers that these monitoring devices are in place and by hiking these trails they consent to such monitoring, you ought to be ok, I would think.
In a lot of communities, run the wrong red light and get a free 8x10 of you and your car for your troubles.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
Opt-in. Otherwise, I'll find a way to subvert it. On second thought, maybe I should do that anyway...
_____ "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -- Orwell
It's really one of the few places left where one can go to be completely alone and unreachable. I find the bathroom to be my personal sanctuary.
Almost all the trails I hike already have a book you sign when you start. It asks for your time, number in your party, your destination, and length of stay. Unless someone gets really off the trail, this is all the info you need. And if they're off the trail this system wouldn't help anyway.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
People are manmade. Woman-made, too. Do you smash people?
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Why don't we just force all hikers to wear eletronic leashes that apply shocks when they stray off trail?
Hiking isn't about "enjoying nature" or any of that new age crap, hiking is about not getting lost. Electronic leashes are the only option.
Why do you attempt to make fun of people who have serious concerns about their privacy?
Come on? It's called sarcasm! If he gave a rats ass about privacy - and therefore people who have serious concerns about their privacy - he wouldn't have submitted this would he? So he's entitled, IMO. :-)
For the record, I'm concerned about my privacy, but I still found the "tinfoil hat brigade" pretty funny.
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
It's not about privacy. It's about preserving nature. The last thing I want to see when I'm alone in the woods is another piece of electronic junk. Natural areas are there for a reason.
As far as risk goes... if you're worried about getting lost or hurt, don't go in the woods. Go on a "hike" in a local park with paved "paths". If I fall down and get hurt, that's my problem. There's *GOT* to be somewhere left where people can be in pure nature. There's gotta be.
"A pedophile and a young boy are walking into the woods at dusk.
'This is spooky,' says the boy.
'Yes, isn't it?' says the man.
Then as night truly begins to fall:
'Now I'm really getting scared,' says the boy.
'How do you thing I feel? I going to have to walk out of here alone.'"
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Someone else mentioned it; I think it's the solution you're looking for. Giving people the choice to be tracked (anonymously) would likely satisfy everyone. Hopefully tricky deer aren't in great numbers, lest they conspire to press the button to confuse you...
then mullet-wearing, jerkoff rednecks will just bleed to death and save me the effort of shooting them myself.
then they can opt whether to report in or not, and each person could use a unique 'pin' of their own choosing, without having a special RFID tag or any of that silliness.
simple is best!
I don't own it, it's not my castle.
It would be nice to have a focus group find optimal signage, a starting point would be,
Stress the safety aspects, and perhaps few of the monitors will be vandalized.
Design for Use, not Construction!
you can't just go around installing computer hardware on trails. While it may be "public" land, it really is no different from someone's back yard: some specific institution (part of the government in this case) ultimately has responsibility for managing it, no different from a home owner or a private land owner. That institution will also have lawyers and administrators whose purpose in life is to figure these things out.
Installing such sensors sounds harmless enough, but even there may be things to watch out for: wildlife impact, liability, pollution, litter laws, fire hazard, etc.
I mean, they are powered devices, right? They can short out? They do contain some heavy metals? They need to be maintained and they need to be removed when they no longer work, etc.
So I'd like to hear from the tinfoil hat brigade
Why do you attempt to make fun of people who have serious concerns about their privacy?
Uhm, if you expect to be taken seriously while wearing a tinfoil hat I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you...
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
My little sister works for the Parks Service at Yellowstone, and she's told me a number of troubling stories about the types of people that SAR has to deal with. Cell phone coverage in the park is limited, but there are still people every year who take their new GPS unit and cell phone and wander off trail and call up with, "I'm at latitude dd mm ss and longitude dd mm ss and and I need you to come and get me. But I'm not lost." In other words, the people that make up the bulk of those in need of SAR are, for the most part, dim. Which means that any solution that requires thought on the part of the participants will not work.
My take? If EULAs can be deemed binding by breaking a plastic seal, it shouldn't be a big stretch to make use of public lands an implicit acceptance of trivial invasions of privacy. I didn't sign any waiver to allow my ATM to take my picture; is this really so different? There are already many public land use policies designed (with varying degrees of success) to keep stupid people safe from themselves. This is one that could actually be useful...
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
Look, the only people that go out into the mountains or hike or do that kind of crap and then get badly screwed up and in need of rescue are the kind of earth-bound Golgafrinchamianites who drive H2s in their dockers and short sleeve shirts, who smoke Macanudos while parked illegally but conspicuously in front of the fondue restaurant yelling loudly into their tiny cell phones.
These feckless morons are always getting themselves lost up Mount Rainier, just because they have a credit card they maxed out at REI and attended the middle managerial woodsman's retreat they think they can climb a mountain without any of the essentials (although the gas-powered latte maker came in handy for morale's sake). King5 always has the footage of these pointy haired twits being dropped off by helicopter somewhere NOT snowbound and likely to avalanche, grinning goofily - while the caption reveals it to be the President and CEO of goldfish.com and his golf partner, the CIO of pimentoloaf.com.
For the love of God and this economy, don't bother with installing any tech - just LET THEM DIE.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
I'm curious as to how the Patriot Act would relate to any information you would track/collect/store. Even if the information you store is anonymous, it is still a record of *someone* passing by a specific place at a specific time. If the Feds thought someone they were looking for was in that area, could they use your data to try to locate that person? Just a thought...
We use credit cards everyday!, so do they NOT know where you've been/are now? Is this the beginning of a socialist system? cameras all over the place watching you?
When I go out hiking, I know I'm on my own. I don't want any damn help from a ranger. If I break a leg, I'll get out on my own. Or die. That's the way I want it. I'll take the risks and accept them. Even if it means I end up dying.
If these sensors were implemented, you can be damned certain they'd be sabatoged. There are people out there with enough technical and outdoor skills to be willing to bet a jail sentence that finding out who did it would be beyond your capability to track them down.
So you can bet you'll be pissing away your precious budget if you don't implement this right. And some folks know extremely well how tight your budget is.
Of course, I'm not recommending that anyone do this.
Using the latest in advanced sensor technology, we can now answer the age old question "does a bear crap in the woods".
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Does a bear have privacy in the woods?
What?
"Some of those man-made things can actually be very beneficial to nature, as well as the people who use it (trash cans are man made, but I'm not complaining about them)."
You should. Trash cans are there for the convenience of people too irresponsible to haul out their own garbage (who shouldn't be allowed into national parks in the first place). But they are no good for the wildlife, which is what wilderness is about.
You wouldn't be one of these people would you:
http://rinkworks.com/said/ranger.shtml ?
I feel pretty qualified since:
A) I did SAR with the Civil Air Patrol
B) I do spend a lot of time on trails
C) I likes my privacy
To me, anonymous tracking of where the warm bodies have been to increase the chance of getting people out safe before they dehydrate or die of exposure is just fine. Add to that, most SAR people are volunteers, which is a good reason to give them a better chance at making a good find. Speed is helpful to the victim and to the volunteer. Heck, it's safer for the volunteers, too.
I'd also agree that video and audio tracking are right out. And, it would be nice to have some areas remain as primitive wilderness (IOW, we ain't coming to get you). But, the anonymous tracking in most areas sounds fine to me.
Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics.
However, one person made a good point that this does run counter to why some of us go to the natural areas. I had two places I went to when I grew up. Both of those places represented "God made" areas barely touched by people. Thus, the escape for me was to be somewhere where God was and civilation had virtually no impact.
One of those places was changed to permit public access, which ruined it, because they had to destroy 90% of why we went there in order to make it "safe."
The other place put cameras in the trees, again in the name of safety. This, again, ruined it. I went there to be away from civilization, but cameras just bring civilization to you, just knowing that someone behind some TV can watch.
I had nothing to hide; wasn't a criminal or a fugitive. Heck, these were place I went to since age 7 to enjoy some time in a God created recreation area with rivers, trees, mountains and wildlife that people didn't ruin yet. I simply didn't want civilation to be at a place where I went to enjoy time away from civilation.
Yours is less intrusive, but clearly you are bringing in the presence of technology in the name of safety to a place where people go to get away from technology and other totems of civilization.
Thus, I'd have to consider other options that might be possible, and even more effective at your goal. One option might be to offer beacon devices that are off unless someone turns them on. The person can choose to:
This way, you have the ability to locate a person to an exact location. Yet, the system is truly voluntary, and people even have the option of only turning the beacon on if they actually need it, meaning that for those people, they have increased safety over no beacon, without having to sacrifice any privacy unless they actually have an emergency.
With radio technology dirty cheap, I imagine that such a beacon device can be quite cheap.
Open Standards Portal
But he'd have a really fun time when a squirrel decides to abscond with his sensor, ants infest the electronics, or some other furry decides that protruding wires/etc look tasty.
Won't somebody think of the children?! (Well someone had to say it.) I think the system has to be totally passive for the hiker because of situations as young children or mentally challenged people who wandered off may not be carrying a tracking badge or signed in at the park ranger station and may not be anywhere near call box.
So I like the approach of logging infared beam-breaking, it's passive and anonymous. I would suggest capturing beam height, perhaps have at least two or three beams at varying heights per location: 3 feet tall, 4 feet tall, 5 feet tall, maybe that would allow you to distinguish children from animals from adults. For direction and speed maybe have a pairs of beams crossing the same path at a distance of about 15 feet then compare time between beam breaks.
Suggestions for preserving privacy while still allowing your scheme to function usefully:
1. As other posters have suggested, make the detection mechanism a big red button. This makes the scheme obviously optional, prevents false detection of animals, and doesn't involve the hassle and expense of having people carry a device of some sort. It's also cheap and low-tech.
2. Make the loggers store data locally, NOT transmit it to a central point. Local storage should be encrypted (at the time of each event) using a public-key cryptosystem. The decrypt key should not be present on the logger device. Each logger should use a different key pair.
3. Keep the private keys to decrypt the logs in tamper-proof storage. Imagine a system where a majority of authorised users must enter their individual password to obtain the key, and any single user entering their "duress" password permanently wipes the keys (with no indication of which password was the duress code).
4. Logs should never be kept longer than is needed for the search & rescue application. (A week?) Keys should be changed regularly.
You should fill out a threat matrix before you consider any project like this. "Paranoid" you say, but unless "local law enforcement" and "federal government" are near the top of it, it's not paranoid enough.
Have you considered a zero-tech solution, like a "someone passed this point at..." clock with moveable hands?
jesus, it's getting so we'll have to wipe fucking idiots butts in case they accidentally get their arm stuck up their ass.
take a fucking map, compass and appropriate gear, or DONT GO OUT IN THE WILDERNESS. Damn idiots get lost in their friggin bathtub.
Please leave the wilderness to those that can appreciate it and RESPECT IT.
Now go back, support your satanic evil fuckin bastard King George, eat your self to obesity, beat up a local arab, and act like a typical ethnocentric,nationalistic, materialistic, imbecilic american!
While sensors are an interesting idea, would it not perhaps be preferable to provide mobile GPS units that can be signed out free of charge?
This would eliminate time involved in maintaining/replacing sensors in remote locations, is purely voluntary, and provides much more useful data than a single point in the wilderness at time x.
Just my two bits CDN.
Become an evil genius by eating gifted children!
The method you used would be unreliable and would probably do nothing to reduce the search time of the S&R mission. Why?
Unless you only allow one hiking team in the park at a time, you will have multiple logs/hits of movement from multiple trail monitors, assuming the monitors manage to effectively send a signal each and every time a human (and only a human) passes the monitor.
Once you have all the data logged, how do you know where a hiker party went? Was that them on trail "A" or were they on trail "F"? Are the hikers going to be required to file a hiking plan from which they may not deviate?
So we have: unreliable sensor data and unknown parties with unknown destinations. I don't see where a system such as you proposed would provide any data that an S&R team could use to locate missing people faster.
And there's still the whole "you don't know they're missing/in trouble until they don't show up for a few hours/days and someone else calls you.
A far better method would be to use emergency locator transmitters (ELTs) carried by each party or person in the park, and do it on a voluntary basis. When someone gets need help they would activate the ELT which would be "heard" at a central station and S&R teams would be dispatched to home in on the signal. With the right type of box the holder could even press one of several buttons to tell authorities what type of help they need: lost, medical emergency, fire.
This method has the following advantages:
1. There is little to no delay between a person needing assistance and that assistance being dispatched.
2. The search portion of the S&R is virtually eliminated, with beacons you can home in very quickly
3. No-one has to submit to tracking, but they still can have the security it can provide
4. Costs can be recouped by charging a small fee for the transmitters, or for the loss of them
5. The system is probably less complex than the anonymous tracking and reporting/loging
6. No chance of false alerts from large animals moving through the forest
7. Higher chance of successful rescue when you don't have to wait for the person to go missing before trying to find them
Disadvantages:
1. not everyone will want to take an ELT, so S&R will still need to do it the "old fashioned" way at times
2. Potentially higher initial cost depending on how the ELT signal is tracked an the number of units deployed
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
So how would this system differentiate between man and animal?
You would have a large number of "false passes" based on skunks, racoons and various other woodland animals.
...then by all means REQUIRE it.
For example: in the North East, something like this should be required in the winter months, so that if there "happens" to be a snow storm (all too likely up here, thank you!), any misplaced hikers could be located in a reasonable amount of time, and it may even save the poor soul's life. There were a couple incidents this past winter that could have been avoided with a system like this in place.
In the "good weather", they could be simply disabled, and there's no problems.
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
Not that the question above suggested Video Cameras, in my experience, Video would be a bad Idea.
Once upon a time, I used to be a volunteer hiking guide in a local State Park/Gameland. I'd take city dwellers out to hike, and get a breath of fresh air; and I'd give them tips and tricks on orienteering, map reading, etc...
Anyways, I took this one group out, and while they were taking a break, I scouted ahead to make sure the way was safe for this particular group. When lo and behold I discover a couple "getting-back-to-nature" if-you-know-what-I-mean, and-I-think-you-do.
I imagine this kind of thing goes on more often then people realize. So no, lets not turn the woods into another source of Live "Steaming" Video.
Of course, I doubt that video survelance would not be an economical solution to this issue.
*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*
"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"
"Got Linux?"
The sort of system you seem to be talking about wouldn't even be ABLE to gather much in the way of personal information.
Unless you're going to be issuing digital id badges and monitoring those, I don't see how the information: "2 people passed point X at time Y" is going to be threatening to anyone.
I think this is definitely one of those times where the benefits far outweight anyones attempts to claim that someone is violating their privacy. In regards to the parents post, if someone wanted to waylay solo hikers, they could scout it themselves, or set up their own monitoring.
Far better to be able to verify that someone is in the mountains during a snowstorm than to bow to hysterical privacy mongering.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
This will more than likely ruin a lot of teenage sex lives :)
... when you take a you-know-what in the wild outdoors.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
There isn't enough money in local government to pay for enough teachers in elementary school.
so....
Who is going to pay to install it?
Who is going to pay to maintain this?
Who is going to pay the monitors to monitor this?
Who is going to pay for the next version?
Why have a system that can't tell you when someone is lost and makes you guess as to where they might have been?
1) As many others have noted, it should be a button that people can push.
2) What does someone who's lost do to get attention? Can they push the button repeatedly? Is there a callbox attached?
I'd be annoyed if I were lost in the woods and there was a button I could push but it just added +1 to a counter somewhere.
How about 2 buttons:
1 = Someone passed by here
2 = Help, I'm lost
Let those who want to be tracked have an ID tag. They can "check one out" and leave whatever identifying info they feel ok with. Ideally have it either only keep the last two checkpoints (so you can get last location and direction.) Regardless, have a return of the ID tag wipe all history. It will help prevent wild animals from tripping your sensors and let those who don't want to be found... not be. If you are worried about theft of the tags, require ID. If a person values their privacy more than the safety net of the tags they don't have to take one. On the surface, it seems like a bit of waste of money. If it prevents a helicopter and search and rescue crew from being dispatched though, I suppose it might pay for itself.
One should hardly expect unbiased information when beginning one's inquiry from such a restricted perspective. :p
robn8r --thinks people should be monitored, not forests.
"If...you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning" - Catherine Aird
This could be a problem not from a privacy standpoint so much as from a dependency standpoint. One problem with rescues lately has been the use of cell phones as a sort of insurance for backcountry travelers. For every person who uses one to legitimately save themselves there seem to be 2 or 3 others who wander out unprepared or naively and then use the cell phone to call for help to bail them out (sometimes risking their life as well as the rescuers). These monitoring stations could have the same effect with travelers thinking "Well, they know where I am, I don't need extra water, clothes, map, etc...". Believe me, I've seen plenty of people out in bad conditions wearing ridiculously poor clothes and gear.
The best technology is the one between your ears. Too bad the quality of that piece of gear seems to vary wildly.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
No, I'm the kind of person that hauls it away in my economy car (NOT my big SUV of course) :)
But seriously, there are lots of things that aren't natural in the woods that provide lots of benefits by being there. Trash cans are beneficial because there's a LOT of people that are too lazy to haul out their own garbage (I'd go so far as to guess that they're probably in the majority). If it wasn't for the trash cans, Rangers wouldn't monitoring the forest, they'd be picking up trash.
People in general aren't usually good for wildlife. And wildlife isn't generally too fond of people either. Balancing these two dilemnas and allowing wildlife to coexist with people peacefully is what national parks are all about.
I was in the park the other day wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger the closer they get - and then it hit me.
"I work with a local Search and Rescue team [...]"
... you actually get out of your basement?! Jeez...
If coverage wasn't blocked by ridges and such, wouldn't GPS tracking be more feasable?..That's how we keep track of almost all the vehicles where I work.
When I go deep into the mountains, a large part of the joy I experience comes from the knowledge that my life is in my own hands, and that my judgment and decisions will get me out of (or into) any life and death situation that may arise. Every time I go out, I relish the small idea in the back of my mind, the idea that this might be the time I never come back.
There is a certain exhiliration associated with being completely disconnected from the real world, from our social and technological support structures, fending for yourself.
I do not support this idea because:
- It encourages people who are not physically and mentally ready for wilderness travel to enter the wilderness
- It provides a false sense of security, because the devices may stop functioning at any time, or the devices may not cover a particular area
- It will cause people to take risks they would not take under standard conditions, for example they may ford a stream they would otherwise avoid because they feel they have "backup."
- It will invite technological development to the wilderness, an area specifically set aside for the exclusion of those technologies.
Simply put, the wilderness is, and should remain, a wild, volatile, and dangerous place. While I am all for advances in personal safety in remote regions, I also believe that the tools for personal safety should remain personal, in your own hands. Carry a radio or other beacon to signal with if you get into trouble. Learn the skills of relying on yourself that have been taught and relied upon for hundreds of years. This is the spirit of the wilderness.No privacy issues if the hiker initiates the device, although it looks like you should stick with the newer 406 MHz devices. The newer devices include a GPS signal, making recovery easier.
Might have these available for use at Ranger stations, although they are on the pricy side. I'd suggest some form of deposit.
A Human Right
am i the only who thought this was about getting caught in the woods while doing the deed?
/.
oh wait, this is
Things usually start like this, but after a while they will use them or functions that they originally weren't meant for when they were installed. Like making sure that hikers aren't on closed paths, or that they have left the park by sundown. I can easily see this crap happening. Whenever you have a good system in use someone always finds another use for it. I for one hike snowed out trails and things all the time, I even hike off trail, something they ask you not to do so jackasses don't get hurt, but I could see this device used for places where people usually hike off trail.
In St. Petersburg Florida there is an underground civil war fort on Shell Island. The land is public land and you are free to camp and explore there. If you find one of the old tunnel entrances, and try to enter the fort a motion detector loudly announces that people are not allowed to enter and that your intrusion has been recorded.
It's kinda lame, but in the darkness it scares the PISS out of you. I think they should reconsider this; as it could give someone a heart attack.
It's a tight line, they dont want people getting hurt hiking/rock climbing on public land because they could be sued, etc.. I think we need to fix the legal system instead of putting disclaimers on everything and monitoring everyone.
If this device can save lives; great, but let's only use it for that intended use.
Last time I was back country by Steamboat, we took off a long the continental divide, or so we thought, we were way off the beaten path, we were on some other path though. Eventually we were out in the middle of nowhere, no path or anytihng, no markers, nothing of the sort and we stumbled on to this un named pond, someone else had camped there a year or two before but it looked completely untouched. Then we sort of reversed our trail and hiked back. If something had happened, nobody would have known and we wouldn't have passed any markers. We had a great time too, absolutely no interruptions of any sort, just peaceful nature. The thing is, we were both fairly experienced back country hikers and we missed the trial (not by too much looking at a map after the fact) but probably enough to not encounter a marker. It could happen to anybody.
I think it's acool idea for the general masses but it won't stop that many of the rescue problems.
I like the Low-tech solution.
Alternatively,
Will your system be open source and can a trusted organization verify that is the code that is running?
Lately I've been volunteering as a search subject to train bloodhounds for search and rescue.
I pick a Kleenex(tm) out of a pack and immediately put it in a Zip-Loc(tm) bag. The dog sniffs inside the bag for a whole second. The dog can then follow my trail on a paved surface used by thousands of other people.
If I were lost for real the dogs could identify and track me based on sniffing the gas cap of my car, just because I touch it briefly every week or so.
What would the sensors add besides maintenance expenses?
Quack, quack.
do you have any hardware that i will be able to tell if my bf is sneaking around? because he met some twink at the bath house and he said it was only a one time thing but i just know hes been fucking around on me and if i catch him hes FINISHED
I'd rather give up the safety of knowing someone might have a vague long-shot idea of what area of a forest i'm in for the freedom of being able to do what I want without knowing someone can easily locate me, know where I've been and where I've gone.
I like the idea of knowing sometimes that no one else knows what I'm up to, that I'm not being spied on, for whatever purpose. If I want help, I'll ask for it ahead of time.
Show me a voluntary system paid for by tax dollars. The more elaborate the system, the greater the cost and the more likely it would be forced. After all, unless the rescue team is a volunteer organization, you are already paying for the service.
Every dinky camera system erected so far has been used in exactly the manner the foil hat people said it would be. Once the tool is paid for it will be abused by the state. The only way to prevent the abuse is to realize that the tool does not satisfy the stated goals and to not build it in the first place.
This kind of thing reeks of statism. Taken to it's extreme, you won't be allowed to walk in the woods without permission and careful monitoring. Your enjoyment of the woods takes a back seat to society's costs of your potential injuries. You don't own the woods because the state owns your hide by providing you with all of these nifty services. I already see signs about not being able so spend the night in areas and other mindless restrictions that assume the park belongs to the park service rather than the park service belongs to me.
It's for your own good, they say. Sure it is. Like cameras that give you speeding tickets, keep people from driving in Central London and can be used to track any political opponent are for my own good - too bad they have been proven useless for their stated purpose of crime prevention.
The devil is in the details. A system that would really be useful would also have to be very invasive. Even then the value will be negligible. The world is a large place and people are small in it.
The park rescue officer will complain that narrowing the search lowers his own risk of injury. The other way to lower that risk of injury is to not search at all. How many young men have died on wild goose chases? Does it all add up when you figure out how many people were actually saved?
Wired woods are not for me.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
How would these sensors know the difference between hikers and wildlife? I think that most of the data collected by these sensors will be false hits, and therefore I question how useful this data could really be.
I have absolutely no objections; this sounds like a great idea.
The people so misguided as to have a problem with such an installation should probably be kept locked away in their [private] houses anyway.
I had this idea while reading it of giving everyone a small chip with an RFID sensor in it, and they return it when they leave. period. No names, no registration, just take a chip and leave it. If someone goes missing, look at the logs to see which chip has not been within 50ft of home base in over X hours. Narrows your search, no name used, and its optional. Place the sensors near trails if you really want, and that gives you an idea of the general area to start looking in.
Kudos to you for thinking of using something to help find people. As much as the tinfoil hat people may be vehemiantly against it, if *you* got lost out there, you wish you could have had something to help people find you.... I know all too well the value of time and searching.
-- Page
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
Having spent a great deal of time doing ground search and rescue about 15 years ago, I'm not sure your idea will be worth the effort to employ. Searches may be different in other parts of the country, but around the Appalachian mountains when I operated, most of the searches I went on were for folks that that either didn't want to be found, or didn't know that they were getting lost, for example young children, entusiastic teens who went bounding off into the woods, distraught and/or suicidal folks, and people with some form of dementia. Furthermore, they were folks that were not likely to stick to trails. Shelters on the Appalachian Trail usually have paper logs that many hikers fill in, no advanced technology needed there. I went on many hikes multi-day hikes by myself, before ubiquitous cell phone use, and always told people where I would be and when I would return, and at what point to call Search and Rescue, and always called when I left the trail and got to the nearest phone. I can see where electronic check in stations, particularly in the Rockies or Alaska could be helpful but many people go to the woods to specifically get away from technology. I also think they would also think they would just get vandalized.
I think its good to investigate these things, but as some areas that imployed face detection cameras have found out, the ineffectiveness of the design proved to be much more problematic than the civil rights issue.
OTOH, I am not above helping people and donating my time to searching for hapless souls who didn't know better. Dead (wo)men don't tell tales; they also don't learn from their mistakes. Everyone should be free to enjoy the great outdoors, but it should also be known that it's not always a picnic, and part of the attraction of such an activity is getting away from it all - "it all" being civilization and all it's trappings, for better or for worse.
Nathan's blog
How about when campers/hikers enter the park, they're offered a lightweight RFID tag to voluntarily carry with them? It should be durable, weatherproof, have some sort of nondestructive clip mechanism, and have simple messages printed on them such as:
Voluntarily carrying this tag may help rescue personnel locate you if you need assistance.
Please return tag to the drop-box when you leave the park.
Have a safe park visit! Carry your safety tag when you hike.
Please pack out your trash, keep our parks beautiful.
Make it bright orange with some sort of cute animals on it (to entice kids to wear it), and suggest that the tag be clipped to the outside of packs, clothing, or to a hiker's belt to enhance visibility.
The important key is that parks should foster a sense of responsible freedom, so the tags really need to be voluntary. If necessary, incentives could be given to encourage their use. For example, offer 25% off vehicle entry fees during your next park visit if a visitor carries the safety tag and returns it to the ranger station when they leave. The savings in search and rescue expenses would likely more than offset the revenue loss from the incentive discount.
The RFID tag companies might even be happy to offer bargain prices on scanners and tags if they can advertise that the park service is using them to enhance safety, because this would be one of the few truly "white hat" uses of such technology.
A possible further incentive - Allow hikers to get a printout or simple computer generated map showing which scanner stations they passed during their hikes. Sell nicer maps showing their progress as memorabilia so hikers can proudly display or remember the route they took as they hiked around the park. If the scanners are linked via wireless, it would be a reasonably straigtforward challenge to have the data uploaded in near real-time so it's available when the visitor leaves the park. As they exit the park, the park service employee or ranger hands them a scan summary in exchange for the safety tag. Neat eh?
Install a voluntary checkpoint - you'll get better information, plus it will be socially redeeming. Make it art and everyone wins three times over.
itomato
The solution to that problem is to present a bill for the extraction to those people.
Here in Australia we bushwalkers dont like seeing signs of man
We call them wilderness areas and prefer them to stay that way
Not only that but most of our best hiking destinations dont even have a 'trail'
One must use his or her own navigational skills and be completly self reliant
Where there are trails, you wouldnt be more than 5km from a road
IMHO if you get lost your over your head and should NOT be out there anyway
One must know his or her own limitations
People like you make me puke.... who says its for YOU to decide that your misguided "personal policy" applies??? I hope you step on a bear trap and no one hears your call for help.... idiot
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
I love the backcountry. I am trained in backcountry first aid. I hike and climb responsibly. Howeve, if these sensors start to show up on trail, I'll hike with a baseball bat.
Letting them die has other beneficial side-effects such as allowing the earth's population to reduce at a normal rate as well as improving the overall gene pool.
Not to be cruel or anything, but we spend so much time trying to keep everyone alive, one day the earth is simply not going to be able to sustain us. I think mother nature has had a wonderful system for a long time, and I don't see why we should sacrifice privacy just for the joy of fooling with mother nature.
Let's not be evil bastards and just let people die left and right without lifting a finger, but draw a line at a sensible place. Installing sensors to track hikers is going too far.
As everyone knows, the woods is a great place to find porn. Just think if we had this technology back in the day...
If you have some kind of info center, or an entry point, you could instruct hikers to tune their radio (walkie talkie) to a certain channel, and track that freq, or RFID (given to people in the area ....)
....
... and I had nasty crashes (downhill can be really tough after spring waters) and sometimes I had problems getting of the mountain with crashed bike/broken rib etc ..... I would volunteer and use bt/rf/rfid/whatever to be protected ...
...
... now I ride enduro bikes in Costa rica (no train to take me up for mtb downhills here) .... and here ... her you can easily get shot for a bike (even for a push-bike not a motorized one)
... too bad i cannot tell my dogs to press the red button or turn on the palm and send a message while they are on patrol :)
.dindi
I would not like people to track me wirelessly, because sooner or later the BAD GUYS are going to figure out your freq/wep/whatever and start tracking people with expensive equipment, or whatever they are after
I rode mountain bikes (many times alone) back in Europe
what about visibe checkpoints, where people can turn on their gadgets and send a few bits of info via BT/IR/WIFI/morse/smokesigns/whatever-you choose
of course that requires some kind of education on what to send and where, and what is the sign where you can leave a trace
on the other hand I am from hungary, where it happens that BAD GUYS wait for kids (not 30 year old 200 pound downhillers like me - though i cannot bounce bullets) to steal expensive bikes.....
and damn
also sometimes alone
other thing: interesting idea, i am really thinking on how to track my dogs around the garden so that tread might help me a lot
(I am looking into getting a bigger piece of property off grid/virgin land)
cheers
And make it active and expensive.
If you would have a problem with a device that counts how many and what number of people pass a certain point in the trail, then I would have a problem with you using the trail at all.
The sensors just sit there and send data back to a central server. What you're asking is that 1) Someone spend money to buy the tags and 2) Someone have to sit around distributing and collecting said tags. Why?
Put up a sign that says that the number of people using the trail is being counted, and let people choose to not use the trail if that bothers them.
How about the system is voluntary, but if you choose not to use the system, you're on your own if you get lost? If you don't want people to be able to find you, well then, nobody will come to find you. Deal?
paintball
What happens when I go out hiking and pass sensors 1 - 4 (of 10, for example), turn around, and head back? Is the system going to be implemented in such a way that it will recognize 'turn arounds' - or will it just assume that there are two hikers lost between points 4 and 5?
He's asking for the extreme view point. The comment actually excludes the average Slashdot reader. He primarily wants to hear from the paranoid extreme because the average person won't be the ones making the the fuss if he does it. Better to know clearly the objections of the extreme minority. He's asking for the downsides. Do you have any idea how many millions of dollars are wasted each year looking for hikers that wandered off? If you're really worried wear a bear costume when you walk in the woods. By the way you look quite dashing in your tinfoil hat. Not the least bit silly.
The simples answer is: don't engineer it as a Big Brother device.
;)
What you describe is a big brother device. It automatically detects all passing hikers so that when the damn fools get themselves lost they can be found again.
So build it a different way. The same technoogy you described could be put together like this:
You install "checkpoints" along the trail.
Hikers optionally rent an RFID wriststrap for a buck or so.
The checkpoint is also a map station, etc.
When they hit the checkpoint, they swipe their wriststrap in front of the checkpoint and it emits a beep to let them know it recorded their passage.
At the end of the day, your system sends an email to the hikers to give them a record of when they reached each checkpoint. He/she can race against himself in order to best his previous time.
And as a happenstance side-benefit, if the damn fools get themselves lost, you know which checkpoint they reached last.
Some folks won't want a record of their passage and won't rent a wrist strap. If they get lost, you'll have more trouble finding them and they may suffer avoidable injury or even death. But you know what? That's OK too.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Being a serious hiker, I'd love a system like this. If I turn up missing, putting this in would up my survival chances enormously. I'd plan to pass through a few points like this, should I know about them, just to add that safe feeling.
But... the risk is someone else getting ahold of that data. "Oh, Bob called in sick today... and was out hiking that mountain? Why wasn't he in the office!?!?". THAT'S the privacy concern.
There's one other concern - the park ranger asking, "did this hiker actually follow his/her itenerary, and not enter any restricted areas"? But that's largely irrelevant - you want the added safety of letting the ranger find you if you become lost, you surrender the privacy to violate some rules. I consider this tradeoff more than fair.
My honest suggestion? I'm assuming a hiker would sign in for some sort of tracking device that would follow where he/she actually went - when the hiker returns the device back to headquarters after getting out safely, DELETE THE RECORDS. You want the information exclusively for S&R, then use it exclusively for S&R... once I'm out of the woods, I don't need S&R anymore so you don't need the data anymore. Once I declare I'm out, you need to destroy any connection between the data you collected and me as a person - and the only safe way to do that is to actually destroy the data.
A witty [sig] proves nothing. --Voltaire
this bothers me on so many levels. privacy issues aside, this is the friggin' woods we're talking about. hiking is associated with certain inherent risks that have been risks since the beginning of man kind. I am not trying to devalue human life, but if someone dies or is injured in the woods, well it happens nature is a tough mother and this event instills respect for the elements in the rest of us. When I go hiking I don't bring my cell phone or my GPS. That's my choice, if you want to bring yours fine, but please leave me the sanctity of the natural/human relationship and keep the machines out of the wilderness.
after all, its currently the only place I can go where I can take off my foil hat and listen to my "pirated" mp3s.
ôó
I'm a private pilot, and I flew for Washington Air Search And Rescue for a few years. I was always amazed at how hard it can be to find a downed aircraft, even though they are all required to carry functional emergency locator transmitters. In all of the missions I flew, not one had a "happy ending". In fact, in my first mission (a missing Cessna 152 with instructor and student) the plane was never found.
Finding an individual must be even more difficult. Someone on this thread suggested good cellular coverage, and they got modded "funny". It's not a bad idea. I've heard numerous stories of hikers lost in the Cascades getting found by using their cell phones.
From a SAR point of view I could see how a system like this could help save people.
...look at what has happened to yosemite.
However the point of going off into nowhere is that there is some risk and you want to disconnect yourself from techonology. As a rock climber who goes in the backcountry, I like going places where you cant have an immedate rescue. Places were there arent other people.
The other extreme is that you start to make everything easily availible to everyone. You could store supplies and water in the backcountry as well. But eventually you'll turn the place into a outdoor disneyland instead of wilderness.
As far as risk goes... if you're worried about getting lost or hurt, don't go in the woods. Go on a "hike" in a local park with paved "paths".
So you advocate turning forests into paved path parks? I think you want to be selfish. I think you want the forest all to yourself and you need to realize that there are a lot of people in the world. There isn't enough forests for everybody to think they can have their own piece.
Others have a right to use nature as much as you. The signs and sensors can go a long way to reduce the human impact on forests. We all make a mark in nature even yourself. For example, if you don't have signs marking bike paths then people will make their own paths. All the individual paths will have a significant effect on the forest floor or disturb animals which would otherwise learn where the established path is and avoid it.
What you are trying to do sounds like a good idea to me, but a little bit impractical. First like most people have already mentioned, how are you going to keep animals out of the system? Second, most national parks are so huge and have so many entry and exit points that you'd only be able to keep track of a very small number of people in the park anyways. Third, people do go out into the woods to get away from everything related to modern society. Probably a far better approach than your system would be to hand out EPIRBs (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) to anyone going hiking in the parks. I'm not sure if these also work in the States (they are GPS based (I think), so they should), but they work fine here in Australia. A friend of mine ended up using one a few weeks ago (a woman from a different party had broken her leg crossing a river). Push the little red button, watch the little red light blink and 1 1/2 hours later a helicopter was circling above them (This was in a very remote area).
When I first saw this, I had the same thought - although, I thought of bears primarily. I personally think that RFID might be more sensible; It's not just for false positive, but it also addresses the privacy issue, because some people want to get lost.
"Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two" -- RFC 1925
People get dehydrated out there as well. I think we need bottled water available for sale every 300 feet. Someone might also ruin his or her shoes -- there ought to be niketowns out in the woods. And sometimes people camp and they forget their silverware. There should be an establishment that sells silverware. And what if those mountains and waterfalls start to seem a little dull? There needs to be a Blockbuster video accessible with all the latest releases.
Gee, the forests seem so inconvenient and intimidating. I think you've stumbled onto something.
Lets just say that I don't want to be tracked like a
robot everywhere I go. Keep your trackers out of my woods.
Sheesh, next thing you know, you will have the 2-way video
cameras in your room and the daily hate...
/b
|f(x)dx = F(b) - F(a)
I think in cases like this, it's important to remember that in the long run, your intentions don't count for diddly. Any protection for people's privacy needs to be built into the system, and not just "understood", or else whoever succeeds you in your position, or whoever takes your system and implements it in the next county over, or whatever government agency decides that your system will be useful for something you never intended, will be acting out their *own* intentions, but with the benefit of your technology. If you can't guarantee privacy in those circumstances, then the responsible thing to do is to keep privacy out of your sales pitch.
Pete Forsyth
How about a system where hikers who choose to can carry a GPS transmitter?
In addition, hikers with a group could rent a tricorder that shows them where the other transmitters in their group are, for finding lost kids.
The park rangers could use the GPS signals to find people before natural disasters or bad weather. They could also find people who don't return as scheduled, or stop moving for a long time.
The transmitters could even have a panic button that calls the ranger station.
And hikers can't really complain about privacy issues, since they get to choose whether to carry one or not.
It would save lives and cut down on S&R costs (a win, win situation). And they could charge the campers/hikers for the devices, so Joe Taxpayer wouldn't have to spend as much on the parks service.
ALthough many sensors such as IR, and motion would not be suitable. As I am sure many ppl have mentioned rf sensors. Passive may not be so good, but active would. Also the other idea about giving them active and a large cell range is also good. As long as the data is only used for purpose of tracking users currently in the system there should not be a problem. Consider talking to phone companies. There may be a way to detect the transmission of mobile phones to the gsm towers - they try even if out of range . You could use this signal to localise where the user is. Caution with this one though.
Although it can be funny, tell them to plug the power in.
The US military tried all sorts of surveillance systems in order to track the VC on the Ho Chi Minh trail and none of them really worked. Not because of technology issues, but simply because of the things you mentioned: animals, sensor failure, and things like lightning strikes, etc. And of course the inevitable vandalism.
Frankly I'm getting more than a little tired of all these people accepting such "security" measures on my behalf. "If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" is becoming the new American mantra. Whatever happened to 'Land of the Free', for chrissakes? Have we all become such a bunch of soft, fat, spoiled pussies that we want to be taken care of at every damn step?
Kinda apt that you mentioned Big Brother - this whole topic reminds me of the part in 1984 where Winston and Julia get intimate, thinking they're safe from the microphones in the woods.
Personally I'm more on your side than the S&R man - I can understand his position of wanting to keep some basic tabs on potential missing persons but it's also exactly the reason why people go into the wilderness - to completely escape from civilisation and know that they've got a very good measure of privacy (getting away from it all).
I think education of hikers is a key point here - hand out leaflets pointing out the basics, such as telling someone your approximate travel plans, estimated travel time, along with the minimum survival skills and info that'll help S&R find you if you do get into trouble (e.g. make a fire, use flares if you have them). Also give advice on the use of technology such as handheld GPS, the relative merits of of CBs/radios over cellphones esp. where coverage is weak for instance (maybe even set up a scheme to rent them at the local outdoor stockist)... stuff like that.
If people are taught the basics of survival then hopefully they'll be able to look after themselves a bit better rather than having to be "watched over".carry a GPS beacon. In australia it is possible to hire or purchase a GPS beacon , get lost,injured ect press a button and search and rescue no Exactly were you are. advantages - cheap - only sends a location is not a nav aid ( get your compass out instead - light weight ( you can carry more wine in your backpack - no one is tracked were they are ( no paranioa ) - small setup costs , no expensive infrustructure to build in potentialy sensitive ecological area's - if you do get lost , they send the people directly to you as apposed to searching around a large area. - your sensors unless placed everywere will only give a rough location. - service and upkeep , the hikers break it ,they mend it
Most people understand the risk that they're taking once they step foot out into the wilderness. Afterall, I do believe that most hikers prep themselves before actually getting out there and away from their concrete jungle. Those who don't, really could give a rip, they just want to be alone for a little while and forget all of their troubles. It is an individual's own God given right to take a risk of being mauled by a gigantic Bear or worse yet, nuzzled to death by a Rainbow Trout while taking a dip in the river. Leave this up to the individual, you have no right to come in and decide their fate as they should have it. Don't treat hikers, campers, or hunters like they don't know what they're doing. Readiness for the wilderness is where you folks should be funnelling the money.
Have someone or have some "thing" to educate the less educated folk before they enter the wild, such as leaving pamphlets near the root entrance of the hiking trail. I'm more than sure people will pick them up and read them. I oppose the idea of having such environmentally intrusive devices out there in the wilderness. Seeing such things will make me wonder if around the next bend I should expect to hit a trip wire and large metal gates will close in about and entrap me, while a loud annoying siren will go off leaving me paranoid and wishing for a quick and sudden death. This is definitely NOT what I have in mind when I go out into the wilderness. I want to be close and one with nature, the hell if I'm gonna lug my laptop out there to find the bottle neck in my system code. The closest thing to technology that I'd like to see out in the wilderness is my "zip-and-lock seal which guarantees sealed in freshness" on my zip-loc bag of trail mix.
now stand up and smell your chair...
..the sensor shouldn't be so sensitive that alarm bells begin to ring every time Joe gives it to Molly!
http://efil.blogspot.com/
Most of the time when I hear of someone going missing in the woods, it's a small child or a couple of teens. This crowd is not expected to go off trail, hence is least likely to slap on a tracker. Perhaps a good compromise is a low res cam. Can't tell who it is, but you can tell it's a human.
To err is human. To arr is pirate.
There always seems to be someone who wants to save people from the consequenses of their own stupidity. For their own good, of course. Even though it takes the interest out of being in the backcountry. People who need that degree of protection should stay home with their mommies.
It is difficult to find a truly remote wilderness these days. Infesting the backcountry with sensors is a step in the wrong direction.
I have spent a considerable part of my life in the backcountry. The responsability for my safety and well being is mine alone.
Those who stick to established trails are very seldom in need of search and rescue people. To use the "for the children's sake" arguement, it has been long known that young children who go missing tend to wander in upward, circular directions. They don't usually stick to trails but wander in the direction of anything that interests them. As for the "25 went in and only 24 came out" arguement, only a few trails have no alternate means of egress. In fact, every long distance hiker I have gotten to know over the years has a built in resistance to backtracking. Their motto is "Ever forward".
A better service for the unprepared weekender and overnighter would be providing inexpensive maps at the trailhead. When I worked for the AMC, the maps were sold for 50 cents paper and $1 waterproof. It is astonishing how many people will want save a few bucks by not buying accurate maps.
There is a basic difference in the outlook of people who wander the backcountry and those who belong to SAR orginizations. The former is a solitary individual who wishes to enjoy his own thoughts, proceed at his own pace, see and experience things not available to the modern motorized, connected, and regimented society we have today. SAR types are usually a social grouping of macho can do individuals who desire to bring control and order to the chaotic regions sought out by lovers of the backcountry.
When I first started backpacking, I was momentairily uncertain of my location. I sat down and thought about it. The goal of the trip was to spend a few weeks hiking in the mountains and forests. I had two weeks of food, shelter, and the misclellaneous junk need to do this. My exact location was not a necessary thing to know, since I was very actively fulfilling my goal. And in the lower 48 states, there are damn few places where you can actually walk for two weeks and not find a road or other sign of civilization. It takes careful planing to avoid roads, etc. for a two week stretch.
I agree with the other posts about using paper logs or nothing at all. However, if you insist on using a battering ram to open an unlocked door, I would suggest solar power/battery backed up units that detect certain RFID tags coming within a certain distance. This way, people have the option of being tracked, and it eliminates noise (like bears).
Here's what currently works - at the trail head have a notice board that can be used by hikers to noify potential searchers where they are going, when they set of and the latest they will be back.
Walkers, hikers, climbers can opt into this system if they want.
This system has been running for many (many) years in the UK.
If you want to apply some technology to the system install a web cam so you can view the notice boards remotely.
Who in the world would want to be monitored when they are hiking out in the woods? If that is of concern, then bring a fancy cell or gps, much cheaper I'd imagine. I for one would probably toss your contraption in the creek if I ran into it on the John Muir.
Make sure the area has good cell phone coverage. Require all missing hikers to carry a cell phone. ... And then you find out that your carrier started sucking real bad, and you are screwed. Let me elaborate. A few years back I chose AT&T as my carrier because they were offering the best outdoors coverage, largely due to the fact that their phones worked in both analog and digital modes.
Then one day they decided to just turn off the analog part. Apparently, this is a part of some big transition where they'll be re-using that analog chunk of the spectrum for some new digital stuff. Who needs that old antique analog mode anyway, right? (Sorry, I don't have more info - don't have a link handy, but you could google for that)
The problem is, I've gone out to the wilderness in that particular part of the Mount Rainier National Park many times before, and each time had decent analog coverage. So, I started relying on it. Now, all of a sudden, I look at my phone and see that I am alone in the middle of nowhere with no coverage whatsoever. Obviously, nobody at AT&T bothered to tell me that they are discontinuing the analog service; I had to find it out on the trail! Not that it was a life-threatening situation, or anything - I just made sure not to do anything stupid for the rest of the trip, but if I were to, say, fall & break my leg, could my family sue AT&T for failing to provide the service they promised when I needed it the most?
Jobs? Which jobs?
please, install audio sensors i need to know if the tree makes a sound when im not there to hear it!!!
I would prefer a GPS device they could carry. Many of the people who get lost or hurt were not on the specified path or area.
this winter alone in western Washington there were three people who went out of bounds in the ski areas without proper equipment and had to be rescued. Ad add to that what a previous poster stated many climb MT Rainer and other advanced areas because they want to and do not consider what they need to have or know.
You need a pass to park in most of the lakes and parks why not require a simple GPS device with a pannic button. Disclaimer - If you are not in need of immediate care and you use the service you will be charged the rescue costs!
"Help Iv'e fallen and I can't get up!"
I can't use my sig - my computer can't read my handwriting.
Does a bear shit in the woods?
Pithy comments for sure, but not worth much. Anyone who is so citified that they "go missing" shouldn't be out in the real world anyway. Why not put in some escolators on the more prominent peaks in the Sierras? Why don't you come up with a system for those who want such things and let them lug it around instead of cluttering up the woods with more toxic techno-trash. I can't imaging wanting a cell phone or such out on a backpacking trip.
I just want to say thanks for considering privacy and such. So few just dismiss it as unimportant.
I feel, that in your case, a simple sensor to detect passer-bys is not going to infringe on anyone.
What you should ask is:
Well, this just seems to me to be another thing in life where we move the personal responsibility onto someone else. If you are going to go in the woods, be prepared, no one is going to look after you and don't think that anyone should. If this isn't your cup of tea and you still want to do it, hire a guide. Or go on those really public trails where there are 10+ people an hour.
Choose to spend the money more wisely on an education program, or more rangers, or a volunteer S&R service, or organize educational outings to give people an introduction to backcountry hiking.
It's not so much a privacy issue but more a why would you want to do it in the first place. Backcountry is where you go to get away from many safety nets (there's still lots I know). It's not an adrenaline rush; in the danger. It's a matter of pride in personal competetence.
It's like suing the fast food companies because you got fat and have health problems. Or the tobacco companies. I mean, a little bit of personal responsibility here!!! Is the general population responsible for making sure you can't go off and do something stupid? And chasing you around when you do?
Just because Captain Kirk decided to go mountain climbing without ropes doesn't mean that Spock is obligated to monitor and rescue him with space-jet boots
Hikers typically get lost because they strayed away from the established path. How can you track their location if they have been walking for two days in the wilderness out of the beaten path?
If youre not taking snapshots/video, its no different than the sensors in the street that log speed and time for passing cars. Anonymous data that says 'someone went by here at 02:30a' should be fine IMHO. It would still be useful because you would know that some hiker left home around 16:40, would have arrived at checkpoint one around 17:00, theres a matching entry about 17:05 and another around 16:58 with no other matches for an hour. Two someones reached checkpoint two half about hour later, and only one someone reached checkpoint three. Thus you know that your missing hiker disappeared somewhre between checkpoint two and three. Thats a simplistic case, but it could be helpful even in more complicated ones.
Also, if you posted signs that the checkpoints were under surveilance, it meets the law on that count if you wanted to take spanpshots of the passing hiker, even if from behind just to get a clothing description match.
Just force all hikers to buy their gear from WalMart. When someone goes missing, just give Sam a call at "the control center", and ask for the location of the particular item (with UPC, purchase date, and store code, natch).
I'm sorry, sir, we are all out of tin foil hats.
Anybody want a peanut?
You'll be tracking more deer than humans I imagine
You know, your post made me first think that the whole people-tracking idea was isiotic, but then I realized that it may just be the one decent use for RFIDs.
If you are concerned about your privacy, by no means do you have to do anything at all - just go and hike as you always do. However, if you value your safety higher than your privacy (or hiking alone, or you are unfamiliar with the route - whatever), it would be really cool if you could pick up something like a little badge at the trailhead that has a RFID chip embedded. You could also sign the time you left, and the badge # on some sort of a signup sheet.
This way you'd be tracked, it'd be 100% voluntarily, the work of search&rescues people would be easier, and no deer would trigger the system. RFIDs are not evil as long as their use can be 100% voluntary. What do you think?
Jobs? Which jobs?
You don't usually need a radio license but you'll almost certainly be required to do some training with the team you join and that will typically include first aid, map reading and other useful skills.
Depending on the team your time committment can be pretty light except for searches. For example I was associated with a team that met once a month for a couple hours and did a training day or weekend maybe once every two months (sometimes more, sometimes less).
It is a good thing to do, can be a lot of fun (when people are safe) and you'll learn more about the wilderness than you might think. It can also be emotionally draining (when they are not).
I also work on a local SAR team (Marin County, Northern CA) and in our county the data would be so overwhelming to be as to be useless. Trailside interviews would provide lots more info.
Real SUV's don't have cupholders
It's 5:42 A.M., do you know where your stack pointer is?
I think keeping it simple applies to all parties involved.
Rescue rats should be content with being called out when there is evidence of a problem, not trying to rescue people before they want or need it.
The Forest Service/BLM/NPS/etc agencies don't need more tech than they can't handle anyway - paper logs work fine. Many more animals use trails than people (I've seen footage of a female griz with 3 cubs walk down a trail 5 minutes after 2 hikers), and I doubt any sensor will be accurate. There are millions of 4 legged weeds (white tail deer), moose, elk, you name it, using the trails, because human trails follow old animal trails, and human trails are wider and better maintained (in the eyes of a critter) anyway.
I keep it simple when I go out in the mountains, and that's why I go: to get away (or try to) from all the complexity. I don't want to be recorded/counted/surveyed when I'm out in the woods.
I hike and climb alone in grizzly country, and I'm aware that if I fall and/or get chewed (getting chewed is an incredibly rare possibility, anyway), I bought the farm, and it's my problem.
(I've been out with wilderness education groups, and that's the only time I/we carry radios (of course, for insurance reasons), and we don't tell the students we have them.)
Keep it simple - every place on earth doesn't need to be wired.
People can handle uncertainty - it's good for you, really.
It's the people who are most likely to get lost that will also disregard the sugestion to carry a card, push a button, or wear a tracker.
If you have the money: give everyone that comes into the park a "panic button". Starts beeping after 6 hours. Alerts you after one more. Press a button to reset for another six hours.
Offset the cost in your entrance fee (if you have one).
Silence Bossy Meat Creatures!
Some forests are more wilderness-y than others. The trackless forest isn't going to be sprouting sensors any time soon... and there's already a huge gradient of trails, from guided trails with informational plaques every fifty feet to a canyon that maybe used to have a trail a decade ago. I don't see the harm in making a couple trails paranoid-friendly...though they'd probably be so heavily populated that it would render the tracking system either irrelevant or unusable (can't tell the missing hiker from the crowd). Actually, population is an important issue. If the trail is sparsely used enough to need sensors, it's probably sparsely used enough to not be worth the cost.
I believe people go into the woods for adventure. They come to the woods to be on their own. The whole adventure experience revolves around being able to 'be on your own in the woods and cope fine'. If you take that away, then you'd better convert your wood into picknick area's.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Then the nice SAR people (usually volunteers) leave their jobs, fill their cars with gas, get food and drive out somewhere, often at night and in the rain or snow, and spend as long as it takes to try to find the person. A big search can involve hundreds of people, hundreds of miles of driving, air support, law enforcement and who knows what else.
I don't want to watch over you. I dont want to make decisions about your life. I don't want you to watch over me or make decisions about my life. But when I'm out on a search, I can imagine wanting that kind of information.
On the original subject hough, I'd have to say that on the whole I'm agin it. Many people go out into the wilderness and don't stay on trails (hunters are a prime example) and I don't think this would kind of information would be worth the devices needed to support it or the potential problems it would raise.
How many aditional people will die because of air polution caused by extra cars on the road? For the most part those graduated rules are idiotic, and each once can be traced to a specific high profile news story in the area within the past few years. I broke my restrictions the first day i got my liscense. How you may ask? Giving friends a ride home from school... Isn't one car on the road, even if it is filled with *gasp* teenagers, better than 3 cars on the road, for any reason?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
So, because of the phrasing of the question does everybody who replies identify themselves as "tin foil hat crowd"? So be it ; )
Sorry, but hangin' batteries and infrared windows on trees is litter from my perspective. And lots of people clean up when they're on the trail.
More importantly I think hiker/climbers agree that SAR folk are fantastic, they do an incredibly important job, often for no pay and more often for ingrates. But... some people do go to some places for serenity and privacy, everyone capable of that is certainly capable of understanding the risks involved and a certain number of those people -will- die every year. As a frequent hiker/climber I am (and my heirs and assigns are) okay with my decisions revolving around that risk. I think that may conflict with the understandable desire of SAR personal to perfect their, jobs but in that circumstance the rule to remember is that I'm in charge of me.
If I fail to manage my risks correctly my opportunity to assume risk will end and that's exactly how it should be IMHO.
Our only hope is that reasonable people will turn out at the polls. I want to incite those people, motivate them. Bush supporters are in denial, they cannot be convinced, they must be made to feel shame for their support of a lunatic. You cannot have a reasoned argument with the kind of people that still support Bush. You can not make them see what Bush is doing wrong.
There is none so blind as he who will not see.
What made you think that flaming me was a good idea? I am so filled with rage on this subject that if you said that to my face I don't know what I might have done but it would not have been pretty. I am shaking as I write this. I am serious, watch what you say in real life. It's nothing personal it's just a touchy subject.
That you use RFID on an SCO-sponsored Windows machine using a proprietary encryption and DRM scheme. Make sure you send an email to each U.S. citizen to make sure they know about the system. Oh, better make it everyone on earth in case some people are here visiting.
Meet those criteria and I can't imagine Slashdot readers having a problem with it.
Oh, yeah, make sure you patent it.
Using terms like "tinfoil hat" is a surrrre sign of quality discussion to come. Yipsiree. Besides, "tinfoil hat" is so 1990s. So is aluminum; we've all seen that web page as well. I protect my brain from mind control rays with genuine Line-X (TM) spray-on skull lining. It's good looking, rugged, and helps maintain my resale value. And if some impure unpatriotic thought gets through, I just get it repaired by a certified professional tech and I'm good to go for another week of Hannitization.
-- It Came from C. L. Smith's Unclaimed Mysteries.
If you keep it too anonymous, wouldn't it become pointless? Lets say you have a lot of people running around a very large campground. If someone ends up missing, the only data you would have to look for them is that there were x amount of people at this place at this time, and it wouldn't really help. You would have to have some sort of unique ID with each tag, so you would know WHO was where. Now for all you tin-foil-bearers, this sounds invasive, and it is, but it would be optional, and if it WASN'T invasive, it wouldn't help anybody at all. EX: Rescue team: "We're looking for person X." Sensor: "Somebody came year yesterday at 3." Rescue team: "Was it the person we are looking for?" Sensor: "Somebody else (maybe even the same person) came by hear yesterday at 4...."
compare that to walking, protected by the famed usa consitution allowing free (not beer) travel.
I keep wanting to trash those huge tents that the outfitter/guide outfits put up in the spring and that stay there till fall. Illegal as all hell in wilderness areas, but often guarded by dogs or guys with guns.
While I can see why people are suggesting that it should be voluntary, but ultimately the people that will need it the most are people who won't think to use it.
The people who need rescuing typically are people who were ill prepared and didn't heed the signs that the weather was bad or conditions unstable. It's the people who go out without the right gear or clothes, without checking in at the ranger's hut, without a clue.
I don't have a solution, as a society we aren't prepared to say that's evolution in action - if they were meant to survive they'd have taken a compass, so the people who least deserve the assistence are the ones who will require it the most.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Don't they highly recommend a tracking system for snow skiers in the form of a medallion on a lanyard that rescue teams could home in on if a skier is believed to be caught in an avalanche? It doesn't track people on their trek across the mountain. It's only used when something bad happens. They highly recommend skiers (in avalanche environments) carry them. Maybe hikers should do something similar.
Someone said something about RFID's but didn't expand on it, so:
I have an idea: have several wearable RFID tags and a logbook at the entrance of the trail. If someone wants to use the tags, they can take one for each person, and put their names in the logbook (and any other information they feel like giving out).
Then the sensors along the trail can uniquely identify the passing RFID tags, allowing a person who becomes lost to have their location identified.
The best part is, you don't have to take the tags if you don't want to, and the sensors won't know where you are unless you have them. How about it?
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
Then GO for it!!!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
All it's reporting is activity of a hiker passing a certain area. It does not know who you are or anything of that matter just that a human passed by down a trail. (Not sure how he'll get it to not give false reports on deer or bears.)
- How will you power these devices? - People who are still on the trail are not lost, will you cover the entire forest in sensors? - How will you see the people for all the trees? - Who is going to monitor all those stations? - Who is going to pay for this? - How will you tell the animals from the people? (I mean sure, we killed and/or ate most of them but there are a still a few around) - How will you protect them from animals, rain, snow, wind, rocks, etc? - How would you tell which way a person was moving when they passed the sensor? The logistics of this are staggeringly large and the benefits so minor as to be imaginary. You would never be able to find anyone with this sort of device considering the drawbacks. Please keep your technology out of what is left of our wildness or be prepared to come get the pieces. Take nothing but pictures (of nature) and leave nothing but footprints (preferably not the Constitution).
Use RFID or something similar. Put a basket of tags at the common entrances to the woods, with a sign "if you carry one of these it might help us find you if you get lost". People who take one can deposit it at the exit. Nobody will complain and it will be very hard to abuse the system.
Or start tracking everyone without their permission and face complaints, lawsuits and abuse of your system for purposes other than the one intended. Bank robber flees in the woods, sheriff confiscates your tracking data either you like it or not, wrong man gets arrested and blames you for it, that kind of thing. Looks like a wasps' nest to me.
You work for the government. You want to install some neato stuff. That will make your budget larger. That is what all government agencies do.
If you are trying to make the woods ultra-safe, why don't you just chop all the trees down? That would make them very safe.
If you are that worried about safety, why not just stay inside your AC'd building all day long?
The poster of the article is incredibly insecure. He is a control freak who for the sake of his own mental well-being and self-importance must intrude into the lives of others. The job of search and rescue is very important, but it appears this guy has mental problems that tend to undermine his proud claim (no doubt) of saving lives.
If you're so concerned about saving lives, fight drunk driving. Fight smoking.
If people are going into the woods, they WANT adventure. That's what they want.
Besides, if this technology worked, you wouldn't be "search and rescue." You'd be "rescue." That's a job that can be done by anyone. No rugged outdoorsmen need apply for that. Wouldn't that undermine the glamor of your job?
Do you really want a world where everybody is safe all the time? Are you the kind of ex-hippy parent who makes his boy wear a bicycle helmet 24 hours a day?
As a former Boy Scout/casual pyromaniac, I can attest to the fact that many passersby will do everything they can to mess with the system. Dancing on it to register a couple thousand people passing through. Sending the database operators messages in morse code. And, in some cases, blatant vandalism. I know that a part of me would certainly want to take it apart to see how it worked.
This kind of makes me sad, but it's a fact of human nature. We like to fuck with stuff, especially when no authority figures are in view. Hiking through the forest, miles from civilization, is fertile ground for mischief.
You end up getting caught taking down a tresspassers will be shot sign someday...
Tinfoil Hat Brigade... ASSEMBLE!!!!!!!!!!
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Cut down all the marketable trees in the forest, burn the scrub. Put in parking lots and a great big mall. You'll actually make money in the process, and no worries about getting lost because you can always find one of those "you are here" maps every couple of stores.
which are often MUCH tastier than the real fish
that live there.
Of course, that would require many generations of
people to produce sugar products to achieve the mass
of Swedish Fish that will be required.
Wait....We're not talking DOABLE projects here, are we.
These have been used for years by people hiking/climbing on Mt. Hood, near Portland, Oregon, where they are known as "mountain locator units".
2003 rescue assisted by an MLU
I believe that particular implementation is subsidized by Portland's "Mountain Signal Memorial Fund".
VERY clear and concise thinking well
phrased in an understanding manner.
Thank you and I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly.
If their cheap enough double up the sensors, but it should be pretty simple looking at the logs with a timestamp who went where, if someone passes sensor 1 at 1:00, sensor 2 @ 1:30 etc, sensor 4 @ 2:00, then someone passes sensor 3 at 2:30, sensor 2 at 3:00, sensor 1 at 3:30. I dont know if i explained it well enough, but its pretty simple... Although i'm the type of person who backs up one axel over those traffic counters if the oportunity presents itself, so it could get screwed up with people messing with them intentionally.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
This reminds me of George Orwell's 1984, where not even the woods were free from the microphones and cameras of the thought police.
It also reminds me of recent interest in privatizing the National Park system, and the ubiquitous railings and warning signs that would result in an effort to make the parks "safe".
People go to the wilderness precisely to get away from everything and be truly free for a while.
Take whatever devices you need to feel safe in the woods, but don't leave them there and ruin things for the rest of us.
Post signs saying that hikers must register at the trail head (provide pencils and forms). Hikers that are too lazy to register don't deserve to be found.
Also, how about wiring up some decoy trees, so vandals that absolutely have to leave behind their initials get a nice memorable shock through their knife blade.
You could also dust litter for fingerprints and send the owners fines through the mail.
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
look for the one you can't account for?
if you have 30 blips on the map, then that's only 30 places to check.
it's a little bit more work, but much less than a full-on search and rescue.
if you really wanted to get advanced, have the tracker contain 2 buttons- "help!" and "I'm ok"
if someone is lost, beep the tracker- if someone responds back with I'm ok, don't investigate it. if they don't respond back or send "help" investigate it.
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
Don't adventurers already have such a device?
emergency locator transmitter - ELT...
Let's see, I'm not a card-carrying member of the tinfoil hat brigade, but I do think privacy is underrated. Let's see just how your system can do wrong, and maybe you can get it right(ok so I'm an IDEALIST member of the tinfoil hat brigade)
Annoying safety features that conflict with privacy:
1) thinking your privacy is being respected, when it's not:
Make sure you label clearly EVERYWHERE anyone's position is being monitored, that includes the most remote areas that can be monitored, put your guardhouses/first responders barracks close to the points that AREN'T monitored, as the teenagers who are looking for a thrill will look for the out of the way spots first
2) Having someone trusted with my privacy that abuses it:
Make sure all your employees know that using the data on your hikers for any reason but those that fit on the signs your applied to conform to 1) will result in rightful termination of their employment, and expose them to criminal prosecution
Your hikers will 1) be warned they are being watched
2) not fear stalkers/other criminals hiding among your staff/otherwise abusing the privacy data that belongs to your hikers...
If you can get a 100% rate of respect for those rules, you should be ok.
You have to be the worse sort of dreamer to think you can get even 90% on the second one, but I stress, 100% is the only thing that will not harm your park in the worse way. Any breach of two will mean: "They don't watch to prevent people from dying at park XYZ, they watch to supply children to child prostitution ring ABC, avoid it like the plague."
Yes, it sounds hysterical, in this case, hysteria is your friend. If hystericals can't find fault with you, you're safe, otherwise, plan better.
The tinfoil hats are there because "someone in power" has the power to abuse, and too little reason not to... If you can give him a big enough reason, maybe I'll remove my own tinfoil hat.
Track their movements and find out once and for all if a bear *ahem* poops in the woods (or uses a port-a-potty).
with "speed pass" or even just a bar code they can swipe in front of readers and give them to hikers who want them. The hiker can then choose who to give the identifying number to.
When the card gets read the system just gets a number and location. If the hiker gets lost, the people who have the lost hiker's number can identify which one they're looking for.
If people steal the cards, who cares. It's just a bar code with a long sequence of numbers and letters. The manufacturing costs should be negligable and just lumped in with cost of operations.
You could also charge hikers for the card which they can keep indefinitly. They never have to give personal information to get the card because it doesn't matter. They just need to make sure an emergency contact knows the number. And that the emergency contact isn't someone who's going to be lost with them.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Not to be contrary or anything, but do we really need to save any more lives? There are six billion of us now, and we are multiplying at an exponential rate. Clearly, we're pretty dang safe. TOO safe, really. Almost every major problem on this planet can be traced back to overpopulation: war, famine, pollution, stress...cripes, if you want to make the world a better place, let a little Darwinism back into the picture.
The only people interested in "saving lives" are the insurance companies, because death is bad for business.
But it's good for the planet.
Choose death.
Otherwise we're going to find ourselves on a planet of twenty billion people, every one of which insists on having a car, an opinion, and the unalienable right to a low paying job watching trees on some misguided park ranger's safety cam.
Why go and re-invent the wheel?
we already have existing tools that will save lives; here
A wilderness area- what many of the areas used by hikers are disallow what's normally defined as "non-conforming structures". There's a lot of compromise, politics, tradition and argument in what non-conforming is. I don't think this would really ever take off. In a large dangerous ski area with a lost client problem? Maybe. Anyway sensors on a trail breakdown when someone leaves trail. You'd need a lot of sensors everywhere to be of real use. And a lot of people get lost off trail. They get lost, panic, behave irrationally and get into Real Trouble.
A few points:
There are personal emergency beacons, the same used in the marine environment that are now permissible for land use. Pricey. One guy used his twice this past winter in the Adirondacks. The local authorities were looking at the second incident as a false alarm. These things have problems- reliable but you can only deliver a come get me signal. Cells are just unreliable.
If/when a GPS grows a cell phone and has IP connectivity, a device that leaves a trail of bread crumbs is possible and useful. Unless the wilderness areas start getting real cell coverage, use of a cell phone will always be iffy. But a mapping/compass tool like a modern GPS that phoned home coordinates periodically as service is available would be more useful to an SAR operation.
There's controversy over cell phones in hiker-nerd world. We wouldn't really like some solar powered setup at every trail junctions and waterfall. We've learned a bit of activism from our enviro-nerd friends as well.
GPS's are showing up in all sort of hikers hands in the NE. Build on the GPS form factor and expand it. Most hikers carry them, at the most basic level, out of fear of being lost. Building in more safety features would be nice. Most of the technology could be implemented now/soon "on chip", I would guess. Barometer/Altimeter, temp, emergency alarm, weather radio, in what ever form as part of a map display/GPS tool would be killer if it went to market under $200 and had the bulk and weight of a modern GPS.
I don't see this as a privacy problem. You aren't tracking individuals, just events.
It's very much like the traffic counters on highways. I haven't heard of anyone getting all upset about those although I'm sure there are a few wild-eyed zealots who seem them as a vast government conspiracy.
As long as you simply track a passing event: body moving past a particlation location, and don't provide a technology which can be used to identify the passer-by then I don't think you have an issue.
However, if you used something like video then you might have more of a probem, even if the camera was only used for motion sensing.
What gives you the right to place such devices? If I saw a device like what you describe I'd remove it, and have just as much right to do that as for you to place it there.
Cell Phone, GPS, Compass, Knife. If you can't take care of yourself, go back home.
you know the rest.
|plastic....or gasoline?|
"And wildlife isn't generally too fond of people either."
As far as bears and cougars are concerned, people are as good as anything else on legs.
Just put up a tamper-proof box on the trail with a small sign allowing people to slip pieces of paper in it with some sort of identifying note. Tech-free, totally voluntary and doesn't truly give themselves away.
Now if they get lost, relatives/friends will know about it and can assist the rescue team when they retrieve the notes left in the boxes. The person only would've had to left a nickname or identifiable handwriting to let them know it was his note and he passed that way.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
To me, that is who should really have the say about whether or not such a system could be implemented.
You don't want the search and rescue folks to know that someone is walking through the woods? Fine, if you are hurt and end up missing in a couple of days, don't expect the search and rescue folks.
It's somewhat of a having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too issue.
-Mikey P
Who needs a big elaborate system when I can carry a beach towl in my bag :)
It must have been really bad to be taken off.
And it rendered on, until the end of its days.
Come on!
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Put a log book at the trailhead, people will sign in or they won't, and if they don't, they don't care about their safety and neither should you.
I am an avid backpacker and spend most of my free time in the wilderness of Montana in the snow-free months. If I knew there was an electronic checkpoint on a trail I would either make a point of hiking around it, or avoiding the area all together.
If you want to do something to really help people that go into the backcountry be safer, then figure out a way to make personal locater beacons (PLBs) afforadable. I backpack alone, way off of the beaten trail, and I take a lot of safety gear (signal mirror, whistle, pencil flares, etc) and I would love to carry a PLB, but at $600 ($700 if you want one that plugs into a GPS unit) there is no way I can affort it, being an engineering student the money just does not exist....
I feel that tracking people without their consent or court order is wrong, no different than someone initiating an illegal wiretap. If we don't put our feet down eventually this is going to turn into a world where children are implanted with tracking units at birth "for their safety" and everything will be under camera surveillance "for our safety."
1. When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
2. Do not eat iPod shuffle.
Put a sign-in book out there.
People can write who they are, where they're going, and when they expect to get there.
The great aspects of this are:
Life is too short to proofread.
I think the real question here is...
If a hiker falls in the woods and there is no sensor there to detect him. Does he make a sound?
The fee demo program in many parks was recently ended, but the greedy fucks pushing for it are far from done. There are some seriously messed up perceptions of who owns the public lands and how they should be managed. In a very short time, only the rich will be able to play outside, and technology will probably be enforcing it (just like nearly every other facet of life).
Here's a scary rendition of how things could be, actually lobbied in front of the feds recently:
http://wildwilderness.org/docs/jourdain.htm
They sound like hostage demands.
These issues need to be addressed as thoroughly as any other political issue that we currently write our reps about (privacy, patents, etc).
J
Like you won't step on one by mistake? Make sure you don't leave footprints by covering your tracks, but don't disturb the sand while you are at it! I'm so glad enlightened people like you are looking out for the "public resource" by keeping the public out.
Your elitism is offensive and self defeating. You would deny others the chance you have been granted to learn about and appreciate nature. The people you so deny will remain so ignorant that they won't mind pulling crude oil, another "public resource", out of the ground where you like to camp.
Does anyone seriously think that the government, or anyone else, has an interest in what hiker X is doing on a trail that is traversed once a week at most?
Yes I do. Some government agencies would love to wire up the woods around some installations. This would be a great excuse.
At least we agree that a sensor network in the wood is impractical.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
make the tracking optional--those who wish to be tracked wear an RFID !!!
shazaaaam!
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
That same tag you give to your pets, and that Wal Mart wanted embedded in all its merchandise ?
Sooner or later, someome will decide that you have no choice in the matter. You will have yours I will have mine and huge servers will just accumulate files of who, what, when, where. Makes record keeping too easy, tracking routine.
And guess what ? You will rarely have clue how often you are tracked. It will just happen. And only when someone really really wants to reach out and touch you, will you discover how unpleasant the whole concept is.
Even if you figure out how to keep them all running, what with temperature extremes, solar panels, wireless connections to home, vandalism, etc., all you'll wind up with is useless data. The mere fact that something passed a trail junction does you no good, especially if you don't even know if was a human or a deer.
Since resources are limited, you would initially place them in areas that have a history of search & rescue incidents. Those also tend to be the areas with the most traffic. (Nobody's going to install & maintain something like this in an area that gets one search & rescue case every 4 years.) Once the number of hikers gets to be in the same ballpark as the number of sensors, you'll be buried in noise with no way to tell which blip belongs to your search target.
Of course if you are talking about attaching RFID tags to every hiker (maybe a big numbered tag stapled to our ear, just like the park bears), it also won't work, because sure as sh*t I'll be out there the very next day with my pipe cutter mowing them down just like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I honor good ideas and good intention but as an attorney I have to say that such a project would be clearly against current law. Besides, we are all suffering from invasion of our privacy already so I would highly recommed to think about it twice. In everyone's best interest.
...like the ones they use to track bears etc. 'THWAP!', "Hiker Tagged!...next"
What happened to areas 1 through 50?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
To me it's separate from issues of tracking/privacy in public urban spaces. To me, a part of the reason I go out there (e.g. on multiday AT throughhikes) is to GET THE F*** AWAY from people, technology, complications, etc. I consciously risk certain things by exposing myself to the elements (and no, the AT is not extreme like rowing solo across the atlantic, I'm just stating the mildly obvious fact that being out of cellphone range and miles from a road inheres some degree of risk) and I dislike the idea of bringing into these areas more and more technology, surveillance, and general connection to the connected, overpeopled, oversanitized and overmanaged life of humans and cities.
/$0.05
PLEASE. LEAVE. WHAT'S. LEFT. ALONE.
Granted the major trails themselves require maintenance (ie, human intervention) to remain passable, and focusing human traffic in certain areas helps preserve other areas (natural resource management is a trickier subject than I aim to tackle here) -- and I'm highly grateful to the many volunteers who help provide this valuable service. However without presuming to speak for them, I get the sense they'd share my concern. Keep it clean, keep it simple, and keep it the way it was, as much as possible, for as long as possible.
La via sola al paradiso incommincia nel inferno
Whenever I'm out hiking pretty near every sign is riddled with pellets and bullet holes. If you put any sort of foreign object out in the woods, expect it to get smashed quickly.
Implement RFID sensors. At the trailhead,
hikers can pick up the "I Am An Idiot" RFID
tag, if they desire to be tracked.
People who don't, don't.
If they go lost, you do nothing.
If its just a sensor that indicates someone passed here at this time, then no problem.
If you want to give someone an rfid badge, be sure all collected data is destroyed when the hiker returns.
Perhaps you could issue some sort of communication device to be activated in case of an emergency?
Don't become reliant on your technological marvel, it is nothing compared to the force of human stupidity.
I am not a member of any 'tin foil hat grigade', and quite frankly it angers me that taking privacy seriously puts me in some looney catagory with people who don't believe man landed on the moon.
Privacy abuse is happening all the time.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In all these cases, you have somebody who passed the waypoints on the way in but has not "checked out". Without a unique identifier tied to the genuinely lost party, you don't know which of the "open accounts" is the one you're looking for. Your scheme has merit for little-used areas, but likely would be overwhelmed in the more popular areas.
A better solution, imo, is the traditional sign-in/sign-out sheet at the trail head. You can say where you're going, when you expect to return, and what route you'll be taking (especially if you're going back a different way).
I'll bet you, oh anonymous coward with the big mouth, have never set foot in the woods in your life. Probably can't get your ass off that chair in front of your computer.
Sad that FIGHTING FOR MY FREEDOM only means no-one gets to observe you SITTING ON MY ASS ALL DAY.
pure AI will always Sublime
Relying on cell phones in the wilderness isn't funny at all. Cell phone coverage in mountainous areas becomes spotty as soon as you lose sight of the main highway. Fall into a ravine, and your chances for getting a call through are poor. That's assuming the phone didn't fall in the river or get smashed on a rock, and that the battery has some charge left. Cell phones in the wilderness provide a false sense of security. As with GPS it's nice to have one, but you must not rely on it. Nature is a tough mother, and when you go into her domain you must be prepared to play by her rules.
Here's a response.
Go Fuck Yourself!!!
And leave the rest of us alone.
I am a very avid backpacker, I enjoy my time and privacy in the backcountry. If I were to find out that such measures were being taken I would protest wildly, and probably destroy any such setup in the backcountry. It does not need to be. If a backpacker wants to be found in an emergency then he/she should take proper precautions. The backcountry is supposed to be untouched, and untainted. Man has already infected enough of this land.
Hand out unique rescue beacons to those who choose to take them. Require a deposit of course so people don't steal them (some people will take anything that's not nailed down), and make sure they know the device will do NOTHING unless they specifically activate it. Then, if they get lost, they turn the thing on. By transmitting in short bursts, it could transmit a fairly good distance without draining the batteries in minutes. Ideally, it would self-adjust the time between bursts by its internal battery level.
:) I'm sure a fair number will get dropped, lost, stepped on, fallen on, or otherwise chewed up. This isn't so bad if you're not alone, your buddy will still have a beacon. Those that fail due to normal wear and tear should be covered by breakage fees collected from other units, provided you know about how long these devices can be expected to live.
There's nothing wrong with a device that lets people say "I'm lost, come get me" if it does nothing the rest of the time. Also, if the deposit actually exceeds the value of the item, the natural attrition due to breakage will make the system self-supporting.
If hikers want to provide their own, let them. Frequent users probably would, just to avoid waiting in line to borrow one.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Keep the data until a week or so after the sensor is returned. You might track individual sensors by ID, but not correlate it to identity unless some emergency crops up.
Also, track and audit *access to* that data, so freaks don't lightly make adverse use of it.
For every project like this there are individuals who start explaining that "we're doing it for you". Everywhere people are tagged and registered just for "their sake". Lots of expenses, unneeded people employed all to do something that isn't neccesary in the first place. In this particular case it is called natural selection. At least in the woods it should function. You aren't smart enough to keep on track than stay in the city with the guided tours. Besides, rescue missions used to be heroic. Now it's about to become a videogame.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
I didn't read other posts as i am in a hurry, but i hope this is not a duplicate of anyone's idea.
Offer every hiker of the are somekind of tracking device that will be used to track your location if you are lost AND to track the time it took you to hike from tracking point to tracking point so they can use it as somekind of performance analysis.
So they would voluntarily opt to your tracking which benefits those who get's lost on the way, and those who don't get lost.
You should be looking for more ways to lose people.
---
SCO is weenies
Gator is Spyware
Microsoft is thugs
Let me see if I can illustrate. .
When I lived in the heart of an exciting, big metropolis, there were times when I had an over-whelming need to get off the grid. Get away from the pollution, the traffic, the endless electric hum of humanity. To be able to go for a walk at two in the morning without worrying if I look suspicious to the cruising cop cars.
All the artificiality and order and constraing was some days utterly maddening. The fact that I couldn't ever turn it off or get away made me feel something approaching claustrophobia.
I suspect most people experience a similar constant sense of underlying anxiety based on this, but perhaps do not understand or recognize the cause. Well I do recognize it, and that just makes it worse.
I remember one time my skin was just crawling; there was a television blaring in the apartment below, the constant car alarms wouldn't shut up, the traffic, the stench, the foul tap water on my toothbrush. .
I thought I was going to lose it, so I borrowed a friend's car and drove, trying to find somewhere off the grid which was not controlled. A patch of natural, raw forest. A ditch. Anything.
No such luck. I drove ten clicks over the speed limit for nearly four hours straight in one direction; AWAY from the city core. No luck. Grid everywhere. Fences, buildings, No-Tresspassing signs. The land had all been cut into huge rectangles, cleared of natural vegetation and 'owned' like so many PC boxes with Blaster Worms.
I gave up, and went home and just dealt with it. It goes away if you turn off pieces of yourself.
Anyway, the problem was, I just didn't drive far enough. The Matrix does have an edge, (thank goodness!), and once you get on the other side, the hum dies and people start acting normal for the first time ever. Normal! I could write forever about the differences between people who live plugged in and those who don't.
Eventually moved.
Anyway, my point here is essentially this. .
I'd rather get lost and die in some patch of back woods through my own stupidity than live forever connected and monitored and 'safe'.
-FL
I'm assuming you're from Vancouver because that's exaclty what has happened here.
I find it wonderful how the government never considered the boost in under age drinking (no DDs) and 2 door sports cars this law will prompt. But hey, forsight was never a strong point in BC
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
If combination cell-phone+GPS units are available commercially in a cola prize can form factor, why not make it an safety device (like an avalance beacon plus)? Those who want to be found in case they're lost or incapacitated can carry one and activate it when necessary (or make it dial home if some switch isn't activated once every n hours), while those who want to be invisible can stay that way. Or have it dial home periodically, since presumably anyone carrying such a thing wants to be findable.
No tracking is necessary since the route to a lost individual is somewhat less important than the location of that individual.
As long as such a device isn't mandatory, everyone should be no worse off than present.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
Yes, why not *optionally* install RFID tags on the hikers. It's their choice if they want to be found quick or not if they run into any problems. And put some readers in the woods?
Or they could just make a radio beacon device like the ones used to track animals. You would activate that when something bad happens to you. Or it should have an accelerometer sensor and activate itself in the event that the hiker falls over a cliff or similar.
What on earth are you thinking?
Where I go tramping the Department of Conservation keeps and maintains and intentions book at every hut, most campgrounds, and at major trail starts.
the book is chained to the wall of the shelter or whatever, and a pen is chained to the book.
you put your name, where you are going, how many people etc in the book, there is a nice big space for comments etc.
If someone goes missing searchers just check all the books along the proposed route untill the enrties stop. neighboring huts are checkes, and the other people listed in the books before and after the missing person are consulted. A single warden can check 3-4 huts a day in a sparse area.
A remarkably good idea of where the missing person is can be had quite quickly.
Tahya al-moqawama al-Iraqiyah!
In the Adirondaks they have trail registers; just a covered eazel type thing with a log book. They tend to be at trailheads and major forks. Sign in if you want: name, # of people in the party, # of days you plan to be in the backcountry, intended route, address. Sign out when you leave.
No need for cameras/sensors/whatever. One nice thing about the backcountry is being away from it all. Among serious hikers, there is even controversy about taking a mobile phone into the woods. "If I break my leg, I can call for help". "Only unprepared morons ever need to be rescued and this lowers the threshold of asking of a heliocopter evac", etc.
Personally I do not want civilization to intrude when I am seeking solitude.
To get rescued, put a foreign object on a tree. Someone will show up shortly.
Just add a requirement that the devices not report someone who is wearing a tinfoil hat. And define "tinfoil".
There really is no substitution for clues when it comes to the woods, or mountaineering for that matter.
My experience is that for everything you introduce that make people rely on help from the outside, you're making people ignore that fact. That's why the death tolls in places like Mt. Blanc and Aconcagua (and Sylene in Sweden for that matter) are incredibly high. People think that they can just go up there and they'll be rescued if something goes wrong, but they can't. Instead, they die like flies.
I'm the author of Learn Orienteering, and I take the opposite the approach to everything: They key is to enable people to become more and more self-contained.
Things can still go wrong, and still search and rescue operations might be necessary. I have been involved in one too, and also received some training in it. Indeed, one could be fatally wounded, and need the help, but those risks become much more managable for the individual when they know what they are up against. It is a part of life.
In conclusion, I don't think sensors everywhere is going to make people a lot safer. Providing free training to everyone is.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
In South Africa it is mandatory for hikers to sign a register at the beginning and end of their hike. On it you include information such as number of hikers, expected return date and time, experience level of everyone, colours of packs, type of equipment (waterproof, cold-proof, tents, first aid) and even mobile telephone numbers in case they can get a signal to you. A low tech solution, and no need to spoil the environment with electronic equipment (no matter how much you try to hide it).
Rather than spending money on permanent intrastructure which will then need field maintenance, if anything I would suggest spending it on personal distress transmitters which could be loaned to hikers for a refundable deposit.
Sounds like the sensors/microphones stashed in the woods in Orwell's "1984".
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
This is an exceptionally bad idea.
Interfering busybodies do not have a right to go and 'rescue' people who are minding their own business in a wilderness. People have many reasons for going into wilderness areas but surely one of the most important is to get away from precisely this sort of intrusive nannying. If I want to take risks with my life that's my absolute and inalianable life - it's my life, not yours.
Of course, some people may want to be rescued. People who want to be rescued can take responsibility for their own lives by carrying an EPIRB. If you want to do something useful you could hire out EPIRBs. Then people who choose to can call for help wherever they happen to need it, and you don't waste time searching. People who want to be pulled out of the wilderness if they exceed some particular time limit can leave you a route plan and a time limit. People who don't leave a route plan and don't call for help probably don't want to be helped. They have a right not to be helped. Leave them alone and don't busybody.
When I go into the wilderness to get away from the stresses and idiocy of over-protective over-sanitized modern life the last thing I want is some officious self appointed idiot dropping out of a helicopter every ten minutes saying 'Hi guy! You havin' a good time? Just checkin' you're OK'.
People go into the wilderness to be alone. They have a right to. Leave them alone!
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
The problem with a system like this, funded by taxpayers, where the rescue chopper is also funded by taxpayers, is that sooner or later some over-zealous legislator will get the idea that since this system reduces the cost and risk of rescues, it should be compulsory. Then they realize that it's actually quite expensive, and wilderness users should pay for it. Bang goes the wilderness experience. You might as well go to Disneyworld.
There is a growing trend towards cluelessness amongst outdoor users. Self reliance is a thing of the past. Hurt your ankle? Call a rescue! The fact that your hurt ankle is costing others money (unless you have rescue insurance), and putting others at risk, and impinging on other wilderness users doesn't seem to matter. Self rescue is an option. I was involved in a self-rescue, where the girl who was with us hopped for 10 miles over very rough terrain after smashing her heel. It was hell, but it is possible (and it's a good story).
You can buy so much cool gear for hiking/camping/climbing, people seem to think that you can buy safety, when the only thing that really helps there is knowledge.
"One person to break their leg. One person to stay with them. One person to go for help."
You forgot:
"one person to build the fire, one person to go and collect water for the 'person who broke their leg soup & stew'"
yeah... i want some FREEDOM FRIES!!!
Moderator How-to:
1) Mod this post up
2) Mod parent post down
3) ???
4) Profit!!!
Hi all,
as far as I can tell, most of the ppl that want this to be voluntary are suggesting that the hiker carry a tag that they collect from a centralised point (e.g. gate lodges?)
I have a problem with that - that means these collection points have to exist. Hiking areas seem to be very large, and I doubt they all have completely controlled points of entry. the hiker may wish to start at a point off the beaten track, and many are not going to go out of their way to pick up another thing to carry.
So I'm with the ppl who are suggesting having a well-marked radio point e.g. footpad or push-button that the hiker can activate optionally.
Another thing to ponder though: vandalism....
- Lnr
sounds like it will be completly anonoymouse
and if it saves lifes i dont mind being tracked anonoymosly
hell i dont mind being tracked anonomasly any way realy
I volunteer as a backcountry search and rescue EMT in the Pacific Northwest. 99% of the clowns who get into trouble have done at least three or four astoundingly stupid things in a chain of causality- if they can't be troubled to go with a buddy, carry the ten essentials, or sign a register, what on earth makes you think they'd carry an rfid tag?
Risk management, in general, has been beaten to death in the last 20 years of posts in rec.backcountry. (See Eugene Miya's FAQ's: Distilled Wisdom Panel 16) The upshot is that the most dangerous thing you can do in the backcountry is drive to a trailhead, where the drive itself is 50 to 100 times more likely to injure, maim, or kill you. That said, if someone is into risk management, they're probably already using a beacon. (a decent all weather beacon setup runs US$400-600 for a pair)
As an alternative to intrusive and dangerous over-reliance on technology solutions for what are essentially human behavioral problems, I'd like to see more places that use Parc du Canada's approach- force people to get permits, educate people before they leave, and let them know they're on their own if they get in trouble. They back up their policy by properly funding their staff and maintenance budgets, but that's a completely different topic. From a practical standpoint, people go out in all kinds of weather. RFID systems are not designed to take salt air, driving rain, or -20 F temps. Plenty of people go out in those conditions, and most non-military electronic devices get eaten alive by anything but the most benign weather. What would the rfid system do in snow? How would it hold up to the sun beating down on it 300 days a year? (Answer: not well) I also work on maintaining trails in the area, and it's amazing how things get beaten down in a short period of time in places you wouldn't think are all that extreme.
Onto technological over-reliance, from an economic perspective: How many of these trailheads do you suppose have power? In the Pacific Northwest the number is maybe 1 in 100 when you toss in State and National Parks. Most of these places don't even have a long distance transmission line within 20 miles, much less a substation and local wires. Once you spent the money on the environmental studies and the spotted whistling fruit gnat friendly power line or solar powered lead acid system, what do you think it would cost to maintain the transceiver? More than state, local, and federal taxpayers and fee customers are willing to pay. What little work does get done on public lands is usually donated by lunatics like myself who spend their summer weekends with chainsaws and Pulaskis instead of enjoying themselves- most of these places already have a 10-20 year routine maintenance backlog as it is.
So, to sum things up, it's a bad idea because:
It may be possible to use an accelerometer to detect the hikers footsteps. It may be configured to disregarde amplitudes that resemble smaller animals. There also might be a frequency band that could distinguish between humanoid and other but I'm thinking amplitude is the simplest approach if you didn't want to get too crazy. I'm working with an accelerometer right now on an electrical engineering project and I'm impressed as to the sensitivity of these things. Just blowing on it makes the voltage spike...
Perhaps, if someone goes out in the woods without any survival equipment, without a map and compass, or without having a clue how to use it, then, perhaps, Darwin should get them. Or perhaps we should save them and have a world populated by the offspring of STUPID PEOPLE
http://davesboat.blogspot.com/
Seems to me, that in order for this to be of any use, you either have to make those sensors distinguish between hikers... And I do not think anyone likes to be tagged like sheep or something.
Why not go the other way. There was a suggestion you could check out a rfid transmitter for a few bucks, and get your money back when you return it. Why not use that sceme to check out a usual emergency beacon? Like the ones used in life rafts everywhere.
You need help, pull the plugg, and your friendly rescue team know where you are within a couple of feet.
Untill you pull the plug, the beacon is silent. And you can enjoy the freedom of the wilderness without being tracked.
Many places an _optional_ tracking system already exists. At the start of bushwalks there is often a track register / logbook. On top of major peaks there are occasionally lunchboxes with a pad and pen. Simple - paper and pen. Nothing cheaper, maintainable by volunteers.
Besides, what do I care that others know where I have walked? Indeed, it's nice to see the names and comments of friends that have walked there before.
EPIRBs
Emergency Position Indicating Response Beacons. I know our national parks offices hire them. So do most camping stores, scout groups, etc If in doubt, carry one. Their use will save the enormous costs of S&R.
Mobile phones
Sorry, most places I go they wont work.
GPS
Fun toys but barely useful. A GPS and a handheld computer (ipaq) or something can be a nice gimmick showing where you have walked, but is no way to navigate. I've seen problems with broken wires, flat batteries, poor coverage in heavy bush. There is no substitute for knowing how to use a map - or going with someone experienced and learnign from them.
wee... ;)
digital deer!
I would shoot your sensors on sight.
There are places where no computers should be.
"log theis"
(no offence ment)
If I'm lost in the woods and am eaten by bears, then so be it. If I'm serious about not getting lost, then I'll take navigational equipment (like, for example, a compass) with me.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
So you're saying that Americans are untaught, and living their lives in a state of nature?
That's bullshit. There is no state of nature. Americans learn a whole bunch of cultural values, just as Japanese people do. The values are different, that's all.
Yeah, you're right, there's no similarity here. Never mind.
Give me a fish, I shall eat well for a day. Teach me to fish, and I will eat well until some idiot patents it.
Just out of curiousity where was this that 4 hours couldn't find some sort of wilderness, I've never lived more than an hour from wilderness, and I can't think of anywhere that there isn't wilderness within an hour if you know who to ask or what to do.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Just For my info, what are the "ten essentials"?
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
If this camera is out in the middle of nowhere I pee on a tree in front of it. Am I doing public indecntcy?
I'd agree with you _if_ I didn't have to read about amazing (and expensive) resuces in the deep wilderness (e.g., helicopters, multi-person multi-day rescue efforts, etc.) Enjoy the danger but accept the respnosibility. If you're endangering yourself somewhere that my tax dollars may have to be spent resucing you, I say add some technology like these proposed sensors to the fray.
Your monitor is staring at you.
No system works 100% of the time. Unfortunately huge lawsuits have been paid out for system failures.
I don't want to seem overly harsh here, but I don't care if it *does* save a few would-be darwin-award winners each year, I don't want to see sensors in trees when I'm in the backcountry. I take a GPS sometimes, but other than that, electronics in the woods is just wrong.
I understand that accidents completely beyond folks' control *do* happen, but most search-and-rescue missions are the direct result of inneptitude, inexperience, incompetence, ignorance, failure to properly plan and prepare, or other reasons related entirely to deficiencies of the missing. Don't distract from my outdoor experience to help out those that won't help themselves.
CAP is a para-military (USAF Auxiliary) organization that focuses on small aircraft SAR, as well as other emergency response, a youth leadership program, and general aerospace education - join this if you like airplanes. I've worked with CAP for 15 years now, and have found it very rewarding, although I've never personally had a "rescue" - mostly recovery, and occasionally false alarms. CAP searches primarily for Emergency beacons (they already own all the electronic search equipment). We've been called out for aircraft, watercraft (EPIRB), individuals (PLB), missing persons (mentally disabled person wanders off), disaster relief, and military grunt work at air shows - "ma'am, please don't let Johnny play with the aircraft". Some cost is reimbursed by the government, some by donations, and some personal expense. Much of the equipment is provided by US military surplus. Radios are government frequencies, although HAMs are certainly appreciated.
NASAR is a generic training organization all sorts of SAR groups. Most groups (notable exception is CAP) require NASAR SAR Tech training. In our area, the groups do not respond to electronic beacons unless specifically requested. They do have dogs, aircraft, boats, 4x4s, atvs and just about any other sort of equipment their members can manage to obtain. I've worked with NASAR-type groups, but not for them. They also work off donations, grants, and member expense. Many teams require at least one HAM license, but cell phones and FRS (family radio service) are now taking over.
--
--mickey98
The previous post mentioned Japan (where the poster currently lives) and Australia (where the poster is from). I don't think he insulted, or even mentioned, or even implied that he was mentioning, America there, champ.
Please re-read my example. It points out how such a system might be able to identify where someone went off the trail, giving you some idea of where to start a search. It obviously wouldn't give you error free data to work with, but since in many rescues time is a key factor anything that can help you figure out where to start is a good thing.
Your mind looks a little cramped. Why don't you stretch it a little?
Have you ever noticed that ever number you ever wrote was devloped by "sand niggers." They are called arabic or a reason.
It is being done now in Newfoundlands Gros Morne Park for hikers tackling the ~40km Long Range Traverse.
From - http://grosmorne.org/day1.html
"The permit was issued with a small VHF telemetry unit that would help rescuers find us if we failed to return on time."
Not much outcry AFAIK, probably because it is fairly remote, it is a difficult trail that can easily get confused with all the criscrossing Caribou paths, and the weather rarely stays nice for long.
Interesting.....
Someone STILL believes we live in a democracy. Dispite that fact that in recent years it has made apparent that votes in this country are used in the same way TV ratings polls are, little more.
You have no say, and neither do I. All you and I are allowed to do it pick which of two people we want to have that say in a public forum. As for what they say, we have no input. So stop kidding yourself.
In terms of your not wanting to be monitored, well it comes down to this. How are you going to stop it? Really? Will you draw your handgun/hunting rifle and single handedly take on countless armed people with support vehicles like helicopters who know exactly where you are, when you run, and what direction you are headed?
Get a clue the battle for personal freedom is over, has been for a few decades now, and personal freedom lost.
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
Toronto, Canada. Sprawling mega-city of 4 million, covering an area as large as some small countries. Golden Arches, pavement and Doughnut shops as far as the eye can see.
Though, to be fair, I was exaggerating. I think the round trip was maybe only six hours in total and that included a stop in a small town for something to eat. If I had done some careful planning, I could probably have found a few provincial parks within less than a 2 hour drive from of the city core. But at the time, going 'bugshit' prevented careful planning, (and if one does not plan carefully, provincial parks will not be open, since they have standard operating hours one must confrom to. Grr.) Also, at that point, ANY level of civilization was going to be intolerable to me.
Ontario has some nice wilderness areas, and with some good planning and maybe only 2 or three hours of one-way driving, you can certainly reach them.
My main point, however, was more to illustrate that wild spaces both necessary, and that wiring them with human monitoring technology is probably Not a Good Idea.
-FL
First of all, let me tell you where I'm coming from. I am an avid outdoors person who spends a lot of time in the wild. I know how to survive out there, and have made the wilderness my home on hikes lasting as long as five months that travel across the united states (mexico to canada). I love it out there and hate to see anything that takes the wild out of the wilderness (as I believe this does) be installed. As several have said before me, it takes away from what is so unique about the wild. It makes the wilderness, instead of an escape from our cities and office lives, a part of them.
But let me go into more specifics. Perhaps as much as this system saves lives, it also endangers them. Since the use of "emergency" cell phones out in the wild, people have ventured out into places they are not ready for, either physically or from a survival knowledge point of view, knowing they have an out and can just call for help if necessary. The more technology invades the wild, the more lazy people are going to get with preparing properly for a "wilderness experience" and the more in danger they are going to be. Yes, injuries happen out in the woods, just as they do anywhere else, and unfortunately, due to the remoteness of help at times, or the lack of knowledge of the victim at others, these have been deadly. But that doesnt give us the right to strip the wilderness of what it is: wilderness.
...many Australians (and USA-ians, and others) learn something else.
For the non-speakers of Japanese, 'wa' translates to 'harmony' (approximately). It's about considering the consequences of one's actions vis-a-vis other folks, before choosing to act.
10. Finally, there's always your good judgement. Don't leave home without it.
A more detailed explanation can be found at their website: http://www.mountaineerhikes.org/hikers/gear.html
Note: Some people count map and compass as individual items, I stick them together and put judgement in at 10 for emphasis.
Like what, a compass? a water bottle?
Do you believe that, once this happens, there will not be any available non-RFID compasses or water bottles?
Let the idiots starve out there.
serves 'em right for not bringing their wifi-empowered-laptops with them so they can email for help.