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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?"
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Would it be able to detect a hiker falling off a 54-foot waterfall, like I just did?
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
This is exactly the idea. There's quite a bit of statistical data out there already on how lost people behave (except for mountain bikers - God knows what they're going to do when they get lost) and based on factors like point-last-seen and terrain conditions you can divide your search area and assign probabilities. This is simply a tool to provide one more data point in generating this model.
I understand what you mean about preserving the woods, and I agree in principle. But we still put in signs, we still mark trails and make sure that they're clear. If there are unobtrusive sensors on path intersections, particularly if they're tastefully done (embedded in wood, e.g.), then are you really going to care? If it makes the difference between life and death (which this could in winter, say), I think it's worthwhile.
I for one, wouldn't have any problem with anonymous counting, although I imagine you would need a good program to interpret the counts and work out when you have a net flow into an area (meaning someone didn't leave!) I would also support an actual identifying tag, that would identify me specifically to the sensors. However, this information would have to be kept very secure, only able to be accessed if someone goes missing (how you would do this, I'm not sure. A number of supervisors needing to enter passwords?) I don't like the thought of a mugger/rapist/etc tracking me through the forest...
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
Just put a footpad in the area and let hikers know what its for. Thats much simpler than requiring them to wear something. When hiking past all they need to do is step on it in passing...or not.
So it turns that they already have a system like this... you are supposed to fill out a tag that you wire to your pack, and a carbon copy goes into the box that is sitting out.
Seems to work well enough, I question the need for a high-tech solution. If people want to be dumb, let 'em. Otherwise there is non-intrusive, low-tech, easy to use system already working.
The problem with the proposal is there is no user ibput so you don't know when to start worrying.
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
I've looked at USFS evaluations of sensors, and for a sensor monitoring a fairly narrow trail, false hits aren't too big a deal. Bear aren't a major concern, and deer could probably be distinguished from at least adult humans.
Chances are you're only going to be looking over the past 24 hours or so of events, and I don't think wildlife is going to be a significant factor.
As for the amount of woods, I'm really only concerned with a few trail segments. For example, there's a trail that forks at one point and has a somewhat ambiguous sign (the forest service refuses to change it), and fairly often people take the wrong trail and find themselves several miles out when they were expecting to complete the loop in a mile or two.
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.
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.
I don't think privacy is the primary concern when considering such a system.
/.)
Oh, IANAL (but I play one on
Placing sensors to aid in S&R is a noble idea, however, legal concerns may arise if someone does go missing. By placing the sensors, an implicit promise of protection may be conveyed, legally speaking. If the hiker is not found, there could be grounds for a wrongful death suit.
This is kinda like ISPs filtering content; they become potentially responsible for ALL of it if they try to filter some of it.
Now, hopefully I'm wrong about this, but the legal system is a little...odd at times. Ask a lawyer. =)
I've been on searches where the lost person has a cell phone. More than once the person has reported being lost to someone else and then stayed on the line for a while draining the battery completely - but not giving us any information that would really help us to find him.
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...
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.
Once word gets out that the trails are "bugged", people will no longer stay on established trails and will try to circumvent the system by creating their own. This will lead to environmental damage, including soil erosion, mudslides, etc.
One way to induce people to use the system would be to hold them financially responsible for the expense of their own rescue.
Excessive drinking is fine...in moderation.
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.
Joe average should be able to find someone's sensor trail on a website just as easily as the ranger sitting in the search-and-rescue booth.
Hmm.
As long as Joe Average can't connect that data to a individual identity, I'm ok with that. (JA: "Hey, look, my neighbor Charlie is out hiking in Yellowstone. He really pissed me off last week; he's hiking all alone, and I know where he was an hour ago or so"....)
The system could still work well for it's intended purpose - "74 hikers in, 73 out. Uh oh. We know *approximately* where the missing one could be, call SAR" - of course this would require unique tag IDs, but they don't have to be tied to identities to be useful.
As to designing the system to be abuse-resistant; this is practically impossible. Anyone who really wanted to misuse the system would simply change it; say, start requiring ID to enter the park, and planting RFID tags on the hikers... there is no way to design a system that can't be abused in the future by someone who can simply change the way it works. Not in this case, anyway.
Cheers
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Actually, every time I go out in the woods, I go out far enough where cell phones don't work. I can't imagine getting lost in the woods where your phone still works. That means you're within a few miles of the nearest tower, which must be near a road. They only put up cell towers where they'll be used, and people sure as hell don't go far from their cars. Humans are very lazy animals.
Don't believe me? When's the last time you were more than a few hundred feet away from your car? When's the last time you walked 10 miles?
People get lost too easily. Hell, they'd get lost on a straight road between point A and point B.. Survival of the fittest, I say. If you don't come back alive, then maybe you shouldn't. It's not a tragic loss, it's population control.
(ya, ya, cold and heartless.)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
A citizen's arrest? You've got to be kidding.
How about "citizen's arresting" the person who vandalised the _tree_ in the first place?
I don't think they're talking about the signs put up by rangers and the like...they're talking about the rednecks who go nail "JESUS SAVES" signs to every frickin tree in the woods they can see. I tear them down as well. Watch as I laugh my ass off and walk away while you're putting me under "citizen's arrest". What a joke.
If a _real_ wrong were being done (like some kid spray painting gang signs on my fence), _real_ people just beat the shit out of the person. Try putting that kid under "citizen's arrest" and see how far that gets you. If you're not willing to administer the punishment yourself, then don't bother crying foul.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
I was 4 years old living in a rural area in Oklahoma when my father took my sister and I outside with the shotgun. He propped up a shingle and shot it, and we watched the shingle vaporize. The result? I never ever even considered touching the gun or the bag used to hold it, even after I accidentally discovered its location (in fact, I avoided the location itself). It was something to be respected, something to be avoided, and definitely not a toy. Children can know.
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.
Here's one scenario that would preserve privacy, let people know where they're at, let them scream for help, and never let them be tracked in the park by name, address, and other personal identifying information.
Rig a GPS locator in a small belt/shirt/pocket worn box with a walkie talkie and/or cell phone built in. In big LCD numbers, your GPS location coordinates are listed on the exterior of this little box. This is great if you're a GPS guru, and great if you're a clueless schmuck. When people show up at the park, you hand them out. They are set to only work within the boundaries of the park (rig the GPS to not display coordinates outside of the range of the park, thus discouraging theft).
Also configure the GPS devices so no one can ever retroactively track them i.e. don't put a device in them that could be monitored by a future entity who wants to invade people's park exploration privacy.
Finally, they've got a phone built in to the device. If they're smart enough to breathe, they can call on the phone. When you ask, "Where are you?" They can read/push a button to transmit their coordinates on the LCD display to you, and voila, you can locate those people who are obviously lost, and you leave others in peace and free to roam the park.
I'm not an engineer, but this should be workable, and you don't have any problems rigging up electronics in the forest (aside from a possible few cell phone towers if you want to give them a GPS-cell phone combination device).
The technology exists already to do this. It could probably be assembled from off-the-shelf parts, and you basically have a model for which the user MUST ASK for help, and therefore you don't intrude on their privacy.
Now, if you wanted to get aggregate statistical data on which people went to which areas of the park, you could do that, too, and you wouldn't violate anyone's privacy. What I've just outlined is merely a box that lists GPS coordinates and lets you call a ranger station. No names and/or identities are associated with anything.
Your phone may have had "serivce" but did you try to make a call? Often on top of ridges the towers reach the phone but the phone can't reach back to the towers, and calls don't go through. People feel safe because their little signal bar is up all the way, and then they get in trouble and don't uderstand when the call to 911 just doesn't work.
Nick - Butte County, CA Search & Rescue
So, what happens when a herd of deer pass a certain motion sensor, and a group of hikers... don't, because they ran into the grizzly bear that the deer were running from?
~UP
Eat the Path.
actually, I think it would be more important to keep it optional. It's not your life to decide what happens to it. If someone wants to get lost in the woods and have no way to be tracked, they won't take the (optional) tracking bracelet or whatever with them. If they want that "failsafe" for their safety, they'll take it.
People argue "right to choose" and such, so why not choose for something like this too?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers