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?"

Comments

keep it anonymous and private.

[garcia]

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.

Re:keep it anonymous and private.

[Throtex]

From the sound of it, there system would have no way of correlating data to a particular person. It would just be a bunch of motion sensors which would log a timestamp whenever something crossed the path. The data would be fairly useless unless you're specifically looking for someone, then you could use it to narrow down the candidate locations in a search/rescue situation.

I like this idea!

Re:keep it anonymous and private.

[Anonymous Coward]

such voluntary system alreayd exist, it is called
a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB); as they say, it
removes the 'search' part of S&R. There is a
very good FAQ about PLB on this web site:
http://www.equipped.com/plb_legal.htm

--Sylvain

Re:keep it anonymous and private.

[dnoyeb]

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.

Re:keep it anonymous and private.

[rowanxmas]

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.

Re:keep it anonymous and private.

[DunbarTheInept]

Whenever someone who understands personal rights talks about carefully refraining from using a potientially invasive technology in a damaging way, it's promising - but they often forget to design a system that will work well when the NEXT guy takes over the job. They tend to design systems for which the only safeguard against them being misused is that those in charge (the ones inventing the system) agree not to use them that way. Then when the system expands to be used by others, or when the original guardians of privacy leave the job and new people take over, the technology is there, the system is in place to make abuses happen, and the people who are then in charge of them are not the ones who thought long and hard about avoiding their misuse. So the system gets abused.

So when designing this sort of thing, it's important to think of the damage that can be done when someone less scrupulous than yourself is in charge of it, and try to design the system around that scenario. (This is also a good safeguard to keep yourself from falling into the temptation of misusing it later on.)

So to be fair, hikers MUST be told that they are being watched. (I think there's actually a law about that, but IANAL.) And they must be told where the watchpoints are (not by law, but in the interest of fairness). And the information gathered should not be private, far from it. It should be completely transparent. Surveillence data is an unbalancing of power only when it's data that only one group has. When it's data that everybody has, then it's not so unbalancing. 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.

And if you think that would amount to too much information given out, and too much invasion of privacy to have that data in the public, then that's a clue that you're being too invasive.

Basically, if the data you want to collect is data that would be considered an invasion of privacy if it was published to the public, then it's also an invasion of privacy to collect it and keep it to yourself.

Re:keep it anonymous and private.

[Undefined Parameter]

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

Should be ok

[Oculus Habent]

As long as your sensor isn't a video camera of some sort, the anonymity of the technology should be fine for most.

Identity

[kinzillah]

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.

How about making the sensors voluntary?

[foidulus]

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!

It's a good idea

[Rylfaeth]

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

Some like the risk.

[theophilus00]

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.

Re:Some like the risk.

[twnth]

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 don't care what appeals to you. If you expect S&R to bail you out of a mess, a little RFID tag is not too much to ask.

Believing that "Darwin doesn't apply to me" is often the first step in proving that it does.

Re:Just...

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

If you happen to be less than a few cm away from a RFID reader.
Just give everybody an active radio beacon. Divide the landscape in large "cells" and put a few receivers in each of them. Perhaps we could build a phone in those devices.

Simpler, quicker, and exists already

[Grax]

Make sure the area has good cell phone coverage. Require all missing hikers to carry a cell phone.

Only me

[Dawang]

I'll be fine with it as long as it only counts me, and not the body I'm carrying through the woods.

attn echelon and other busybodies: that was a joke.

No Worries About Privacy

[The_Rippa]

You'll be tracking more deer than humans I imagine

To paraphrase an old saying:

[Anonymous Coward]

With adequate surveillence, we will finally have a definitive answer to the question of what a bear does in the woods.

Smash 'em

[NineNine]

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.

Re:Smash 'em

[the_mad_poster]

Funny, I was about to demolish your house since it was a blight on the land. Y'know. Just in my personal opinion, which, of course, makes it okay to destroy property.

If you're ripping down private garbage that was put on public land, fine. But if you're ripping down shit that my tax dollars paid to put up on public land, and will pay to repair after you decide that your word is suddenly law, I'd really appreciate it if you could stick your head in the toilet and flush it a few times.

Please don't.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Depends what you're detecting...

[jdreed1024]

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.

Different angle on the idea...

[iiioxx]

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.

Re:Different angle on the idea...

[Rorschach1]

Because not everyone who sets off on these trails has a clue. A surprising number of people are mentally compromised in one way or another before they even get lost. Even among the general population, I'd guess that half the people setting off for a day hike on these trails have nothing more than a cellphone on them, if that. They take off with a liter of water and a t-shirt, never expecting to be out past sunset. They get injured, the weather turns bad, they make a wrong turn, or whatever, and then it's up to us to go find them.

Anonymity.

[DAQ42]

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.

And so in a puff of smoke

[Eudial]

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.

Make it low-tech

[DeanFox]

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]-

Trail Head Log Book

[MtbRocket]

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.

Re:Trail Head Log Book

[Rorschach1]

Trail head logs are awesome, when they're there and when they're used. They at least give you an accurate last-known-point.

Some people even leave a trail map on their dash board with the time of departure noted and their intended course highlighted.

These aren't the people this system is conceived to help.

Is It Necessary?

[4of12]

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.

Re:Is It Necessary?

[Bifurcati]

That's fine to say, but often there isn't cell reception in the woods. Starting a fire (as another poster pointed out) may not be the smartest thing; it may not even be practical (no matches on a day walk?) And searching with a chopper is fine, but the point of this question was to SAVE time (and money!)

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...

It is optional

[MrIrwin]

Hikers can opt to book out "tags" for thier own safty, they are not obliged to carry them.

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.

wildlife cameras

[zboypiccoro]

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.

I worked for a company that made these

[dexterpexter]

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.

Not for you to decide, sport.

[jcr]

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

What about animals?

[Omega]

While I appreciate the efforts of the S&R teams, I'm not sure turning the woods into some sort of giant, laser-protected bank vault will help in tracking a missing hiker.

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...

[Inda]

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.

My input? It's a waste of time.

[Awptimus Prime]

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."

how might your concerns be addressed?

[kfg]

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

Low-tech solution

[introverted]

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

The opposite problem

[NoData]

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.

Re:The opposite problem

[jefu]

I've done the SAR thing and cell phones are interesting.

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.

Re:Tron Woods

[Throtex]

But if no one happens to need it, does that invalidate its usefulness? People don't like making long-term investments... the same apparently goes with forward thinking.

"What are you doing?"
"I'm scaring away the elephants."
"But there are no elephants here!"
"See? It's working!"

You will track more deer than hikers

[osjedi]

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.

Don't hike alone.....

[vwjeff]

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.

Falling Hikers

[rherbert]

Would it be able to detect a hiker falling off a 54-foot waterfall, like I just did?

no ...

[SvendTofte]

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 :)

Re:no ...

[XaXXon]

Errr, if it's anonymous, doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? The idea isn't to track usage, the idea is to find people when they're lost.

If Joe goes missing, what tag do I look for if I don't know what tag Joe has? Do I wait for everyone else to turn theirs in maybe? I'm not sure if people would be expected to do that..

Doesn't really seem to make sense.

In my mind, as long as it's optional -- TRULY optional -- then there's no problem tracking people. The other thing to be done is to not keep records of the data for extended periods of time. Not sure exactly what that definition would be, but presumably some duration longer than when people get reported missing.

Re:no ...

[hazem]

That's much more than a tech problem. It's a societal problem.

So some guy grabs one of these beacons and proceeds to get lost in the woods in a storm. He dies of hypothermia before the rescue crews can find him. Now, somehow, it's their fault? And the guy's family rides the legal system to their pot of gold.

That's what's so f*cked up with the US. The guy posting wants to use tech to help find lost people, and in doing so opens him self up to lawsuits. It's a wonder anyone invents anything.

Re:no ...

[Undefined Parameter]

Maybe it's because I grew up near Yellowstone, but I think some people are confusing National Park trails with City Park trails. In the latter, people are the big problem; in the former, everything else is the big problem. Places like Teton National Park, Yellowstone, and others... 99.99% of the time, what ends up getting someone hurt or killed is something other than another human being. It's that person going on a hike without the proper preparation, or without the proper information on, for example, what to do when he or she comes upon a bear or rattlesnake.

A lot of people who live around those parts chalk it up as stupid cityslicker tourists hauling off and Darwin-ing themselves (though not always in those exact words). The thing is, that's not always the case, and most of them know it. The big rescues and lots of people going missing are what make the nightly news, around there, not a couple people dying in a freak snowstorm.

Give people the option of being able to pick up an RFID-like device... that can be detected at range with the proper equipment, with unique identifiers not tagged to personal information--and not capable of being tied to such information. Tell them what they are, what the dangers are, and let them decide for themselves... and you sure as all hell better not let someone go up that hiking path alone! That's just asking for trouble, and when you're ten miles from the nearest hospital, or more, trouble has a tendency to answer.

Don't worry about the understaffed, over-busy park rangers raping or killing someone. Anyone with the proper amount of patience, time, and knowledge can do that. No, worry about the unlucky people caught in a flash-flood, or a freak snowstorm, or by their own dull wits.

~UP

No. No no. No.

[Rev.LoveJoy]

Please rethink your ideas.

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

The thing is

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:The thing is

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

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.

Then train the bears to report hiker sights over the radio. The hikers will be none the wiser...

what about the children?

[MrChuck]

The "what about the children" argument.

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.

Lighten up!

[yoshi_mon]

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...

Re:Just...

[cavebear42]

i know this was a humorous post but i still feel the need to remind people of the differnce between passive and active rfid. it is true that passive (really small, the size of a large grain of rice) only work within a few cms. they contain a capacitor charged by rf and then discharged to give off its id. these are what we tag pets with. active rfid have a small battery and are about the size of.... well.... a watch battery + a grain of rice. these work for about 2-3 meters and would be a great application for this task. this is how we see how often the cattle come in to eat.

so long as people are not forced to use them, and so long as in using them you are not required to give out your identity, it would be a great idea. if a person could check one out for a $20 deposit and get the cash back when they return it to the rental place, this could save many lives and even many man-hours of searching.

Much better idea

[gerardrj]

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

Re:Much better idea

[Ixitar]

A better rate structure is to give a reduced rate for carrying an ELT and charge a refundable deposit for the unit.

Re:Much better idea

[Rorschach1]

The people I'm concerned with tracking don't bother to carry a compass or jacket. Carrying an EPIRB or PLB is out of the question.

Yes, there will be false hits, and high traffic will make it hard to spot what you're looking for. But then, if there's heavy traffic on that trail segment, chances are someone's going to find your victim before you even get the call.

Traditionally, we track people by footprints and sign - broken twigs, discarded trash, that sort of thing. It's tedious and hard to do in a heavily travelled area, but it's done all the time. An electronic timestamp serves basically the same purpose as this sort of clue, only more reliably.

Also, you often wind up commiting a lot of people to containment - posting people at trail heads to make sure the victim doesn't walk out unnoticed on their own, for example. This might help reduce the number of people required.

Re:as long as no logs are kept

[tftp]

Forest is the place where all the logs are kept, in case you didn't know :-)

Re:Tron Woods

[Martin Blank]

"Save one life" arguments are specious at best, because they rarely examine the reverse. What if someone were to somehow find out, using this kind of tool, which trails were used the least, and then decide that a lone hiker in the region might be far away from help? Would the avoidance of deploying such a system be validated in that case, because then one life would be saved?

It's a matter of examining both sides, instead of just saying something that feels good. This is one of the reasons we get so many overburdening, overlapping laws, because it feels good to pass them rather than to really take some time to examine what the real cause of something is. Perhaps, on examination, such a system would prove to be better because on balance it would save lives. But to simply decide that it would, and that the saving of a single life would justify deployment of an entire system, is ducking the question.

I do not support this idea.

[pclminion]

I don't support it, not because I fear invasion of my privacy, but because I think that spending time in the outdoors should encompass some degree of risk.

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:

1. It encourages people who are not physically and mentally ready for wilderness travel to enter the wilderness
2. 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
3. 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."
4. 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.

dream on

[twitter]

I wouldn't have a single objection if it was a voluntary system.

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.

Re:Tron Woods

[canajin56]

Exactly. Where I lived they passed a new law for new drivers. For a while we've had graduated licencing. For a year and a half you are a "new driver" and have a zero alcohol tolerance level, but other than that all was good. Now they have upped it to longer (2 or 3 years) with the additional restriction that you can only have ONE passenger in the vehicle. The reasoning: There was an accident one year that involved a bunch of teens being loud in a car. Therefore, a law preventing passengers "will save approximatly 4 lives a year. If it saves even one life, it is worth it."

If you want laws that save lots of lives, everybody should wear a GPS belt 24/7, and there should be cameras on every street corner, and in every room of every store, office, and home, and all of their recordings will be tied together with this GPS database. If a camera sees somebody that isn't on the GPS system, the police can be dispatched immediatly. If even one serial killer is caught because of the video cameras and the GPS tracking, it will be worth it, right? No more kidnappings, right?

I can see it coming

[jjoyce]

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.

Re:Cellophane reality (was Re:Tron Woods)

[JWSmythe]

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.)

But what about the idiots?

[bencvt]

Excellent idea! Such a voluntary solution is the most ethically responsible option. However, it may be relying a bit too much on the public to not act stupid.

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.

Re:But what about the idiots?

[driptray]

I know this is completely off-topic, but I have to disagree that this sort of behaviour is human nature.

I know for sure that such a system would work fine in Japan (where I currently live). People wouldn't fuck with it, and there would be no vandalism. Therefore it's not human nature, but cultural values that cause this sort of behaviour.

Japan has many examples of public systems that would be impossible in, say, Australia (my home country):

• Most trains here have advertisements hanging from the roof in the form of large paper sheets. In Australia they wouldn't last 5 minutes before being torn down or set alight.

• Public phones have a phone jack to allow you to plug in a modem - in Australia these would all be filled with chewing gum.

• Restaurants deliver food in nice bowls with nice trays, which are meant to be left outside your front door for the restaurant to pick up the next day. In Australia they'd be stolen or vandalised more often than not.

When I was a teenager I indulged in a lot of vandalism and semi-delinquent behaviour, so I'm no stranger to those impulses. But I they're not "human nature".

a thought

[morgajel]

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.

Re:a thought

[lewp]

Unfortunately, this only works until grizzly bears learn to hit the "I'm OK" button.

Just print numbers on cards

[KalvinB]

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

Re:Tron Woods

[bezuwork's friend]

If even one serial killer is caught because of the video cameras and the GPS tracking, it will be worth it, right? No more kidnappings, right?

I guess some people, many people, apparently think yes.

In evaluating such systems, you also have to figure in the bad consequences of the system. Like what about cops abusing the system such as by rigging the system to frame somebody?

It's happening already, in a way, with the red light cameras. Alot of people who don't do the violations are likely paying when they don't have to. I did, figuring if you spent the time in court you'd have to divulge who did drive and they'd go after that person, which in my case would've meant that I paid anyway. Fortunately, that's not the case, but you do have to go to court and contest it - maybe not worth it for some people even with the points if there are any.

With your teenager driving law, what about if a teenager has to walk because he can't ride with a friend due to the passenger law and he ends up getting hit? Something like that's bound to happen sooner or later. (I'm from D.C. and it still sticks in my mind about that guy who visited for some reason and was hit on the street - he lost an arm because of it.)

So, on the one side, you have 4 deaths due to loud music. Assuming these are the only deaths due to more than one passenger being in the car (might not be the case), you'd have to amortise the 4 deaths over the total time cars have been driven by teens in your city - likely a very low rate of death per year (let's say 60 years of driving, 4 deaths = 0.067 deaths per year due to overcrowding).

On the other side goes any injuries resulting from kids having to walk (hopefully very low, but as the recent accident in D.C. shows, it happens), plus all the lost time, missed appointments (kids will be late, especially if they have to walk), and simple loss of the ability for kids to do things if they don't have rides.

Not saying your teenager laws are wrong, but the city's characterization that it saves 4 lives per year with no mentioned downside doesn't tell the whole truth.

Not the same thing, but reminds me of what happened locally due to 911. Lots of metro riders walk into the Pentagon City mall through the parking garage entrance. After 911, they had security there to prevent this for a week or so (why I don't know - driving in was ok, walking not. What, they thought walkers could conceal bombs?). The thing was, with the construction at the time, the only way to walk around was to walk a few hundered feet facing ongoing rush hour traffic with no shoulder space. I almost wished an accident happened so that the mall would get sued - would've served them right.

Re:Cellophane reality (was Re:Tron Woods)

[nick0909]

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