Slashdot Mirror
Putting a Panic Button In Smartphone Users' Hands
theodp writes "If you own an Android phone, you may have inadvertently butt-dialed 911 from time-to-time. So, wonders Kix Panganiban, why don't our phones come with a universal 'Panic Button', that would make it just as easy to intentionally dial the police when it's truly needed? Panganiban envisions "a smartphone app that when triggered, would discreetly send out a distress message to contacts of your choice, and perhaps do some other functions that can get you out of bad (and maybe even life-threatening) situations." While a quick search reveals that some have taken a crack at apps that put a Panic Button in smartphone users' hands, are there good reasons why such a feature isn't just standard on mobile devices? And, with GPS and always-watching and always-listening tech only becoming cheaper and more ubiquitous, how far out in the future is it before your person can be continuously remotely monitored like your residence, even while mobile, and what might that look like?"
are there good reasons why such a feature isn't just standard on mobile devices?
Florida Woman Calls 911 After McDonald's Runs Out of McNuggets
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There are too many stupid people on this planet, and our emergency response people are already overworked without having to respond to McNugget shortages.
Pressing 4 times volume down, it would allow you to trigger an emergency sms. Such combination could work for a typical smartphone as well, including position information.
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
To be useful, any panic button should be so easily accessible that it is open to the same accidental triggering as butt-dials. I can't think of a good way to resolve this issue, but it is something any proper app maker will have to deal with.
Who wants to be the first developer to get sued when your program doesn't dial 911 (perhaps because there is no signal)? Who wants to be the first developer sued because it got the location wrong?
Way too much liability potential. IT is too important a thing to mess up, and you can bet that something will mess up eventually, and the developer will be blamed, regardless of whether or not they are actually responsible.
Is the answer not obvious? IT'S JUST PLAIN A BAD IDEA THAT DOES NOT WORK IN THE REAL WORLD! That's why it's not common.
So let's say that you're about to get thieved by a bunch of ghetto youth. They're talking in ebonics, and by the time you decipher what they're trying to say, they've shoved a gun in your back and have relieved you of your wallet, your keys, and the phone with the panic button. Oh fuck, it's useless now.
In other situations, you're either dead or so badly injured that you can't manage to activate the button. In other cases, if you're well enough to use the panic button, you're well enough to make an emergency phone call.
Why is this story even on Slashdot? It's asininely stupid, with an answer that is blatantly obvious.
Apparently people have already forgotten this has been done before. Before there were smart phones, there were just plain cell phones... tiny little indestructible bricks with flip-open LCDs. And it was thought that having a fast way to call 911, a panic button if you will, would be a useful feature. So pressing and holding '9' on these phones would connect you to emergency services.
This feature was redacted from all phones, everywhere, within a couple years, because it innundated emergency services with so-called "butt dials" and wrong numbers. You do not want '911' to be a one-button push on a mobile device. It ends badly.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
"Ok Google Now. Call 911."
In today's world, few people seem to recognize an emergency situation. When I was growing up, the word "emergency" meant that someone's life was in jeopardy. One or more lives were in danger from an avalanche, a runaway train, a mad dog, a bank robber - something serious. And, people understood that they should avoid such emergency situations, or deal with the situation themselves.
Today? As you point out, very stupid people think that it's an emergency when they can't get their Chicken McNuggets.
Preposterous.
I say we go back to dealing with our own little emergencies, and just call the cops to come clean up after the fact. After all, when seconds count, the cops are only minutes away! Let's just grow up, learn to avoid and/or deal with emergencies, and stop fretting over phone apps.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
"And, with GPS and always-watching and always-listening tech only becoming cheaper and more ubiquitous, how far out in the future is it before your person can be continuously remotely monitored like your residence,"
Why would you want it?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Previous Samsung phones had an SOS function, that I now miss. You can configure up to 4 phone numbers to receive the SOS message, and you trigger it by pressing the volume button 4 times in succession while the phone is locked.
When the SOS function is triggered, the phone sends an SMS to the programmed numbers, then enters SOS mode and auto answers calls from these numbers.
It was a reassuring function to have, although I never had to use it. As it was activated via a hardware button, it wasn't difficult to do so discreetly with the phone in your pocket or bag. It would also vibrate once so you had feedback that the activation was successful.
I'd be better if phones came with car crash detection instead. It's quite easy to do (subject moving a more than 20mph, sudden halt, huge haptic feedback on the sensor) and could save lives more than a panic button. Hell with Bluetooth enabled car, even air bag deployment could send a signal to a phone to enable GPS and call 911 automaticaly.
It may not necessarily be as urgent as other types of emergencies, but theft is often considered important enough for responsive police action.
If you walk into a shop and steal a small item, say a bag of potato chips worth only a dollar or two, nobody would think twice about the shopkeeper calling the police, reporting the theft, and then expecting them and the judicial system to act upon the theft, even seeing it through to prosecution and punishment. Sure, it was only a bag of potato chips worth a dollar, but it's still a theft that's worthy of due process.
It's really no different when a restaurant advertises the availability of a food product, yet fails to keep sufficient quantity in stock. If you were led to believe that you could purchase an advertised item, yet you show up only to find out at the point of sale that it is unavailable, it is very much a form of theft. The business has stolen your time, and they have likely also subjected you to other costs (gasoline, wear on a vehicle, transit fare, and so on) without some form of reimbursement. This is especially true if they made no effort to mitigate your loss by widely and clearly publicizing the shortage, so as to prevent you from incurring the expense in the first place. The taking of your time, and forcing you to expend money you otherwise would not have, should be considered forms of theft.
Theft against an individual by a business should be treated just as importantly as theft against a business by an individual. Contacting the authorities regarding a theft is a very reasonable course of action, and should be followed up (even if not immediately) regardless of the circumstances.
Glance on my Pebble Smartwatch does this. I think a smartwatch is a much better place for a true "panic button". I mean, in a truly difficult situation you're going to have problems entering a passcode or pattern if you have your device locked... which you should, by the way.
In Glance there's a function that allows me to set a button long press to send an emergency text to the contact of my choice including my longitude and latitude (obviously only as precise as the smartphone itself can manage). Quite a nice feature in my opinion. And it's a lot easier to do a long press on a button on your wrist than fish your phone out of your pocket or purse, enter a passcode, find and launch an app and hit a button on the screen.
A physical panic button is the best solution. If you're in dire need (heart attack, accident etc) then you may not be in a position to use the app on the phone. The old "really dumb phones" like the Firefly had it right.
http://www.just5.com/phones_new.php?model=509&color=Grey
It's a great phone for oldsters, just for that reason.
Phones should have a button on the home screen for lost and found, that lets the finder send a message. More useful than 911.
LifeCall: "I've fallen and I can't get up!"
What about Circle of 6:
http://www.circleof6app.com/
http://appsagainstabuse.challengepost.com/submissions/4900-circle-of-6
http://unfix.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmp5dgzeZuk
HTF does someone butt dial with a smartphone? There's a lock screen, ffs. This strikes me as a case of someone not understanding how to use a smartphone.
And have round corners.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
The panic button was the first "app" I wrote for my N900, and I use that term very loosely. Actually, just a one-liner using an existing python script:
python ssms.py NPANXXxxxx 'I''ve been kidnapped by aliens!'
A crude drawing of an alien saved as an icon file and an entry in the desktop icons directory and I had a text message panic button.
Naturally, I never tried adding the dialing of 911 in the script, for no other reason than testing it would call 911 and they don't like that.
I am not a crackpot.
I'm getting beaten. *Press panic button* *Wait 10 -15 minutes for the police to arrive.*
The police are there to write reports and do light investigation. They are not, and never were, a rapid response force, ready at a moment's notice to alleviate your panic.
The suggestion of panic buttons on phones is not only not helpful, it sends the problem further in the wrong direction. Some people will reason that since their phone has a panic button, they can take risks they might otherwise not.
Admittedly, it could be pretty intrusive, but I can envision certain situations where one might want to have someone "keeping an eye on you" for at least a short period of time: driving in bad weather, bad areas (ever have your GPS direct you to "take a shortcut" through a drug-dealing neighborhood or industrial area?), etc.
A bluetooth panic watch would be better. A watch with two buttons on either side that would have to be press with a little force. First press would be a "I might need assistance". And the second press would be "Help, I need Help now". The dispatching of the police would have to be different. The police would disperse into the community in such a way that each patrol would only be seconds away from anyone that needed help. Dispatching would be mostly automate.
Me: HELLO 911?
Op: What is your emergency sir?
Me: I AM HIDING IN MY CLOSET FROM THE GUY WHO KILLED MY WIFE AND IS RANSACKING MY HOUSE!
Op: Please quiet down, if you yell he'll hear you and find you.
Me: HOW ELSE CAN THE ASSHOLE POSTING ABOVE ME HEAR ME IF I DON'T SHOUT?
Seriously, though, I've always wondered why the hell it's taken 20+ years to be able to send texts to 911. At least when they finally get around to it, they'll be set up for MMS and you can send them the pic of the getaway car or whatever.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The older BlackBerry phones have programmable keys (not a simulated key on a touch screen). Apps like CommandClick (http://highglacier.com/page.aspx?q=cc) could use that feature to send an email or Text with your location to anyone you want, by say, triple or quadruple clicking a button.
You could do this while the phone was hidden in your pocket. The phone would vibrate to indicate it took the command. So you could set up a 911 text if you want, or a use it to send a text to a friend to maybe come over and make sure you are all right - say if you were showing an open house and somebody sketchy comes in.
Can't do anything like that with touchscreen phones- no buttons that an app can monitor!
So let's say that you're about to get thieved by a bunch of ghetto youth. They're talking in ebonics, and by the time you decipher what they're trying to say, they've shoved a gun in your back and have relieved you of your wallet, your keys, and the phone with the panic button.
While you have your hands up, point to your regular eyeglasses and say that they are Google Glasses, and have already transmitted pictures of them to the police. So they'd better just run away, before they get themselves into more trouble.
If you are not wearing regular eyeglasses, claim that you are wearing Google Contact Lenses.
That aside, you are correct, even if you did had time to call 911, by the time the cops got there, the crime would be history. Criminals are not afraid of 911. They plan to be gone, before the police get there. They are afraid of getting caught later. And they have seen enough CSI/Law & Whatevers to be afraid of cameras.
However, if your local police are tolerant of armed robbery, then the thieves won't be afraid of being caught anyway, and will go ahead and commit the crime. Crime prevention is really as simple as that. So instead of spending money on panic button technology, the money would be better spent on better policing. If a thief thinks he will get caught, he won't commit the crime.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
There are already several apps that do this. The way they work is you have to "arm" the app. Next, you trigger the emergency function in a preset way, for example by discreetly unplugging the headset from the headphone jack.
Having an always on emergency button would probably not work because it would lead to too many false alarms.
Isn't 112 the default emercency number for *all* android mobiles in US and EU at least?
Remember kids: What's right isn't as important as what's profitable.
Skype doesn't support 911 calls because they can't be reliably traced ...and because they don't want to be held to collecting fees to pay for 911. There's nothing to be gained by playing this game, only losses. If your service connects 99% of the time, the media will descend like a pack of starving hyenas when (not if) a vulnerable person is let down by an imperfect system.
This is why we have inherently governmental functions, to do the unpopular/unprofitable things that the private sector won't take on.
After all, they know where you are; they are monitoring your calls; I'm sure they can turn on your phone if hackers can. So why not have them do it as a "Public Service" ?
Is the answer not obvious? IT'S JUST PLAIN A BAD IDEA THAT DOES NOT WORK IN THE REAL WORLD! That's why
This.
In a situation which gives you enough time to find the special app, you could also dial 911.
In other situations it won't make any difference.
Plus there's FAR too many stupid people out there who'll treat it like a free consultation line every time *anything* happens to them.
No sig today...
The problem is that the US penalties for a crime are so severe:
Armed robbery can get 20-life in the US, especially if someone is a repeat offender. Add to this the firearm charges which can tack 10-20 years onto a sentence (and judges will make those served consecutively because the private prison lobbyists will not renew their campaign funding if that isn't the case.)
Murder can get 20-life.
If someone will be mainlining it for the rest of their days, you have far fewer people in general population trying to turn you into their punk if you go for murder than an armed robbery.
So, the thief who gets told about the glasses is going to just fire their .40 at the glasses and call it done, perhaps have someone else film the shooting so they get street cred in their gang.
This is why home invasions, and "knock and shoots" are becoming the standard compared to just burglaries. Scaring a family will likely guarentee that the bad guys won't be caught, as opposed to a burglary. If the family has cameras, a click on a hammer will get them to hand over the DVR media posthaste.
Combine this with the fact that police are way underfunded unless it is terrorism related, and either the crime gets stopped by the homeowner, or it will remain unsolved. Not many police departments will go after a burglary case unless someone was killed. There just isn't the funding there.
Only thing one can do is move to a smaller town that gives a shit about its emergency services, or move to a red state where a burglar will face more than just a guy dialing 911.
What would be nice is a BT interface (read-only of course) that can tell if car doors are opened. That way, if someone is going through a bad neighborhood, if a window is broken or one of the doors is opened before the person gets to the destination or deactivates the app, it is assumed that a carjacking happened, and the vehicle would either run for a bit and stall, or some other behavior.
My Nexus 4 lock screen has a huge area at the base of the touch screen marked "Emergency Call". I've never pushed it, but I imagine it either calls 911 directly or (more likely since 911 may actually be 999 or 112 depending on jurisdiction) opens the dial pad and lets me dial 911/999/112 etv.
I found this solution on the indiegogo website, which seems exactly what Kix is asking for - http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/safetylink-safety-for-everybody-everywhere
Is this what Kix is looking for ? http://www.safetylink.org/
Appears to be crowdfunded as of now - http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/safetylink-safety-for-everybody-everywhere
Your focus on a single edge case has lead you to an erroneous conclusion.
You seem to forget, there are other services that are reached via 9-1-1... like the fire department and EMS, which *are* rapid response forces. You also seem to forget that there *are* times when the polices and sheriffs are a rapid response force, such as a major traffic accident, to support fire and EMS in the event of a large incident, responding to major robberies, etc... etc...
My car's keyless entry FOB has a well designed recessed panic button for keeping me from getting raped or something. It honks the horns and flashes the lights. Sometimes I use the button just to annoy people, but that's another subject entirely.
The point is, I have not once EVER "butt dialed" 911.
I HAVE accidentally hit the panic button on my keyless entry fob dozens of times. I say dozens, because there is a large percentage of my life where I am not close enough to my car to notice I hit that button. I have noticed myself hitting that button accidentally several times despite it's recessed nature.
Look, when I do something stupid, I do this shit too. IE: Try to blame the implementation of technology or a missing feature for not saving me from my own stupid. I try to invent new gadgets which would have prevented "shit happens" from happening because I over-estimate the frequency that other people have the same problem.
Panic buttons require a single buttom press ignoring all other inputs. On a cell phone, 911 requires four button presses in the correct order with all other combinations of input rejected.
Just dedicate your left front pocket to cell phone and cell phone ONLY and wear jeans that fit like a normal person and you should be fine. If all else fails, fix your screen lock with a numeric pin or facial recognition or something. This is a behavioral problem, not a tech problem.
SafetyLINK - this is what Kix is looking for ? http://safetylink.org/ This solution is being crowdfunded on Indiegogo - http://igg.me/at/safetylink
The previous phone that I had bought for my parents had this very feature. It had a prominent "911" button right on the phone. During setup, you program the phone to take a certain action when that button is pressed. In this case, I set it up to send a generic "Help - I'm in need of assistance" message to me and both of my sisters. A year later, we naturally forgot about this. One morning, around 2AM I got this strange message from my parents with that message. My sister called me soon after but no one could reach my parents - we feared the worst and called the police. Long story short - my mother had received a "wrong number" phone call late that night. In fumbling around in the dark, she had inadvertently sent the 911 distress. It took us a few days to piece together what actually happened, as we (at that point) had completely forgotten about the feature and it's function. So - morale of the story is I guess it can be a good thing, but the ease of use of sending a distress can also make it easy to send a false alarm and get a lot of people very worried and upset.
I would like to see the overengineered framework that Google comes up with for a 1-button app. They managed to take the simplest possible SQL database, SQLite, and create one of the most obscenely engineered frameworks on top of it I've ever seen.
In the past forty years I have had many dealings with police. With only one exception where I encountered a moronic traffic cop that could not differentiate between "nearly ran a red light" and did not run a red light, I have always been treated with the utmost respect. Officers took my complaints willingly and were outwardly supportive. That's not to say that the matter didn't immediately die when we parted, but I've never been treated like a criminal. Of course, I should have started by stating that I have never been a criminal, so maybe that factors into it.
... threee
We have been looking at different solutions available - as a safety is a concern in India where I am from. When you look at everything including practicality, costs, robustness, worldwide applicability our research showed the safetylink solution scored the most. We looked at over 40 different apps and one bluetooth device biisafe from finland. We also looked at mPers devices from lifecomm and ever there. Too expensive and clunky for the mass market.
No one here have/had a baby? That button would be getting pressed a lot.
If a human isn't about to be harmed then it isn't an emergency.
House fire - emergency
Bank robbery 5 min ago - non-emergency.
Bank robbery NOW - emergency.
Domestic fight - emergency
No McNuggets - non-emergency
Come home to a house that has an open door - non-emergency
See the diff?
The police are here to do all the work. Don't complain if they didn't get there fast enough, they are human after-all.
Just because you payed taxes or not doesn't give you the right to be rude. The police are hard-working people waiting to Protect and Serve. You gave someone the opportunity to commit a crime against you or your property and you are holding police responsible to elevate you to a higher priority than someone else?
You are absurd, and all of you Sovereign Citizen type of people should be jailed and locked up forever with the criminals that you created through your unenforceable moral guidelines and business ethics.
http://redpanicbutton.com/
Note: I have not used this. I remember hearing about several of these types of apps existing, and this was first to come up on the YAHOO search.
How do you "butt-dial" on a capacitative touch screen? Doesn't there have to be some actual (almost) skin contact?
With physical buttons, I can see how it can happen, but with resistive touch screens it is already less likely...but with capacitative is seems extremely unlikely. Am I missing something?
Max.
...and there are already phones with panic buttons. See: https://www.snapfon.com/
First, a "panic" button already exists. It's called speed dial. Set it to dial 911 if you press and hold 1 for whatever amount of seconds is required. Second, at least around here, the PD gets the cell location info on a 911 automatically, and the address on a land-line. So from this standpoint this whole post is unworthy of being posted. My voice dial takes it a step further and assumes anything it doesn't understand is a 911 call. This makes it sooo much fun when I say call it it responds with "Calling 911". As for the calling 911 because you didn't get your nuggets. Really??? Does this really deserve discussion. How about we just act like adults. The whole world is going to hell and you're trying to justify stupid behavior. Try being a little less PC. Besides, it's not a criminal act to forget the nuggets, their omission would need to be deliberate. I doubt the people at McDonald's care enough about you to want to piss you off by doing this deliberately. Besides I've yet to see a McDonald's manager who, when dealt with reasonably, didn't just say "sorry here are your nuggets, and here's a coupon for some free one next time", or "sorry here's you money back". These stupid calls come from people who need to be noticed and think they are better than average and can't accept that like most people, myself included, the world will continue, you will live and die, without being noticed by all but a few, and being important to even less. Get over yourelve, just because one stupid person got a reality show doesn't mean you deserve one too.
bluetooth headphone dongle paired to phone. mapped mine so long push on stop button triggered wifi to signal local wifi network local site security where i was and that i had problem. long push play button and phone then did local wifi and phone to offices on and off site that i had serious problem and please send cavalry/coastguard/ghostbusters etc etc. mine was easy to do because i was a lone worker on a bt site and being bt they had a very good local wifi network of course and there was private security guards permanently on site but would be fairly simple to set up for routine visit sites and is still better than nothing if no local cover/aid available. with newer more powerful phone you can do a lot more now, such as use as a proximity dongle, better gps fixes, better voice command, more button mapping (one for coffee delivery)