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.

[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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 :)

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...

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.

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.

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?

Re:a thought

[lewp]

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