Making a Child Locating System

celtic_hackr writes "Well, I never thought I'd be an advocate for placing GPS devices on people. However, since it took less than three days for my local school district to misplace my daughter, I have decided that something needs to be done. By the school district's own admission it has a recurring problem of placing children on the wrong buses. Fortunately, my daughter was located, with no thanks to the local school district. Therefore, I would like input on a way to be able to keep track of my child. I know there are personal tracking devices out there. I have nothing against these systems. But I want more than this. My specification are: 1) a small unobtrusive device I can place on my daughter, 2) an application to pull up on any computer, a map with a dot indicating the real-time position of my child, 3) a handheld device with the equivalent information, 4) [optional] a secure web application/plug-in I can install on my own domain allowing me to track her from anyplace in the world, 5) a means of turning it all off, 6) a Linux based solution of the above. I believe all the pieces for making such a system are out there. Has anyone built anything like this? Is there an open source solution? How would I go about building my own? Has anyone hacked any of these personal trackers before, to serve their own purposes? How does a tinfoil hat wearer engineer such a device to make sure Big-Brother isn't watching too? Can these devices be locked down so only certain devices can pick up the GPS location of an individual locator? What other recommendations do you have?"

Comments

Holy Crap! Calm down

[FredFredrickson]

Holy crap- you are, what we in the biz call, an over-reacting parent. Calm down and take it easy before you destroy your daughter's life.

That being said- verizon has an application for cell phones that lets you track your children- it's on get it now. I'm sure other carriers have something similar.

Re:Holy Crap! Calm down

[tekiegreg]

Duh-boy, cue debates on how much surveillance for your child is really necessary.

I'd say just let him be a parent and decide what's necessary. He knows his daughter better than we all do.

Re:Holy Crap! Calm down

[Anonymous Coward]

you're assuming the guy in the article is honestly trying to track his daughter. one of the clients i work for is a bettered womens advocacy group and shelter. they have horror stories all the time of guys who do the same thing to their wives, ex wives girlfriends etc. its easy enough to rig a cellphone thats GPS enabled to create a tracking device and discreet survailence tool. if you ask me, the whole thing is shady. perhaps its my paranoia light flashing because of my client, i can understand your concern, but 10s of thousands, nay 10s of millions of kids make it thought the school system every year without their parents needing to freak out like that.

Re:Holy Crap! Calm down

[blueZ3]

This isn't mean to be a flame, because as a fellow parent (of toddlers, no less) I understand that it can be an extremely stressful and fear-inducing thing to lose track of your child. But I agree with the parent: get some perspective on things by waiting for a bit before subjecting your daughter to Big-Brother-like monitoring.

Not only do I think you are overreacting, you are sending the wrong message to your school-age daughter. She doesn't need 24-7 tracking, she needs lessons in dealing with unexpected situations. Instead of jumping directly to an electronic device, teach her what to do if she gets lost... the same strategy that's been used successfully by parents for many, many years: find a "safe" adult (police officer, female adult with kids) and tell them that she's lost. If she's old enough to attend school, she's old enough to learn her phone number and address.

Besides, if she's anything like most kids, anything you "attach" to her (short of a steel shackle) she is going to remove and leave behind or lose. :-)

Again, I understand your reaction (on one level) but I think you're overreacting.

Re:Holy Crap! Calm down

[raju1kabir]

Yes, because if one bad thing happens to one of seven billion people anywhere in the world, then it makes perfect sense to focus all your energies on making sure it doesn't happen to you.

More and more proof that the human brain just wasn't meant to comprehend societies as large as ours. The in-built statistical heuristics break down completely and start recommending the most irrational things.

Re:Holy Crap! Calm down

[LWATCDR]

I think that you and many other people are missing the real problem. Elementary school children can be as young as four at the start of kindergarten. Elementary schools are just too big these days!.
One elementary school in my town has several thousand students. That is just insane.
Schools should start small and grow in size. The elementary school should be in your neighborhood. The idea of shipping kindergarten kids like UPS packages to child warehouses is the problem.
Of course to build more but smaller schools costs money.....

Re:Holy Crap! Calm down

[JWSmythe]

    When I was in kindergarden, they went with the low-tech system. Every kid had a name tag that they had to wear all day. It had their name, grade, teacher, and bus number. Teachers aids were by the buses and would verify the bus number on the tag matched the bus. If they kid got on the wrong bus, they were turned away and walked to the right one.

    How much does it cost for a 3x5 index card and a safety pin? A whole lot less than an electronic tracking system, and recurring cell bills for your kid.

Re:Holy Crap! Calm down

[vlm]

When I was a kid, we had an even simpler and even lower technology plan, which was, never go anywhere without "Matt" and "Dawn".

If your bus stop has only one kid whom uses it, then move out of the retirement village.

Another ultra low tech strategy that worked well at various times in my youth, and currently works well for me as a parent, is "buy a house two blocks from school". It is of course uphill both ways in the snow, but, at least its a short walk.

Re:Holy Crap! Calm down

[raju1kabir]

As a parent with a mentally disabled child, I do not agree.

As a parent with a mentally disabled child, you are talking about a situation that is more challenging and complex than the situation the rest of us are discussing. Apples and oranges.

Re:Holy Crap! Calm down

[_Swank]

Only one of the two solves the original problem; the technology-based tracking system is useless in ensuring the kid gets on the right bus, while the index card system should generally work.

Re:Holy Crap! Calm down

[psychodelicacy]

It's morally different, perhaps, but not in effect. The school accidentally places the child on the wrong bus; the child ends up who-knows-where without a parent at the other end to collect him/her. The child ends up unattended even though that was never the intention.

Re:Holy Crap! Calm down

[shmlco]

A child is about a 1,000 times more likely to be killed by drowning in a neighbor's pool than abducted by a total stranger. 10,000 times more likely to be seriously injured or even killed playing school sports. And 100 times more likely to be struck by lightning.

Parents need to stop watching CSI and Criminal Minds and Law & Order.

Placing children on the wrong bus?

[rob1980]

When I was in middle school they gave all the kids a laminated bus pass with the bus number in big block type, and had the bus numbers spray painted on the sidewalk so everyone who had to ride the bus knew exactly where to line up. Nobody ever got on the wrong bus because nobody ever got in the wrong line. So why is this a recurring problem for your daughter's school district?

I say make them fix the problem instead of forcing you to shell out money to cover it up for them.

Simple Solution

[Dr. Evil]

Teach them their phone number and give them a bracelet or something with their address on it.

You should also probably stop watching television. Give up on the news especially. It's just scare mongering crap.

Oh and watch Finding Nemo. It's got some lesson in there about being an overprotective parent.

You're solving the wrong problem

[dkleinsc]

However, since it took less than three days for my local school district to misplace my daughter, I have decided that something needs to be done. By the school district's own admission it is a recurring problem of placing children on the wrong buses. Fortunately, my daughter was located, with no thanks to the local school district.

The problem isn't that you don't have a tracking device for your daughter. The problem is that your local school district isn't doing its job correctly and regularly putting kids on the wrong bus. Instead of posting on Slashdot for a technical solution, a far better solution would be a call to your local news organizations about how the school district is getting kids lost on their bus system and admits to doing that regularly. Raise a stink at school board meetings, PTA meetings, and so forth. Get other parents involved. You're talking about a school district's incompetence endangering not only your own child but all the children in the district.

Pretend, for instance, that you get a perfect tracking device for your daughter. That sorta solves your problem, in that you can go and pick up your daughter from wherever she was left, but doesn't solve your neighbor's problem, and doesn't solve the problem of what happens to your daughter when she's standing around in a strange neighborhood.

Re:Drive her

[starglider29a]

True. Why use a public, already-funded, low MPG-per-rider system when EACH parent can drive their SUVs to drop the kids off? In fact, why don't you just home-school your child and save lots of resources. And if you all buy hybrids, you can save the auto industry.

I hope I broke the needle on your sarcasm meter.

Re:Drive her

[that IT girl]

You do realize this is impossible for an increasing percentage of the population, right? Hence the existence of buses to begin with.

How about teaching

[BlowHole666]

How about you just teach your child what bus to get on. Or pick your child up from school. In 20 years are you going to want your child to think it is ok to track a person? Will your child be one of the ones that says "Well my parents tracked me as a child and I was fine, so lets let the government track us". The buses have numbers written on them just teach your child what number theirs. Once you advocate tracking people as a valid solution to a problem everyone is doing it.

Please don't think of the children.

[Dutchmaan]

Remember folks, it's been said over and over and over again... First it will be tracking criminals, then it will be tracking children for their safety, then it will be tracking the general populous because they grew up with it.

With technology come vigilance on how it's used and how it could *potentially* be used.

Humanity, sliding down that slippery slope since 1984.