Making a Child Locating System 1092
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?"
Zoomback... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.zoombak.com/ [zoombak.com]
Re:Holy Crap! Calm down (Score:2, Informative)
Errr, what? (Score:5, Informative)
Was this supposed to be some sort of abstract attempt at humor? Your GPS device does not send data back to the satellites. It's just a passive receiver. It doesn't matter one bit how many other people have GPSes. Might as well claim you're getting poor FM radio reception due to too many people listening to their stereos.
You would have had a point if you talked about your MOBILE not getting a signal or something due to devices that use that network had you said that.
Re:Holy Crap! Calm down (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Placing children on the wrong bus? (Score:3, Informative)
From the time I was in grade school until I started driving, I and all my bus-riding classmates had to remember our bus number. No "bus passes", no boarding stations, etc. We would get out of class, go out to where the buses were, find the bus, and get on it.
Re:Holy Crap! Calm down (Score:2, Informative)
I'm sure that a child abductor would quite happily and quickly relocate the transponder from the child onto some innocent third party's vehicle to create an hour or two of confusion and chasing the wrong target instead of using intelligence.
In the case of the submitter, I would suggest that the child will quickly learn which bus is the correct one to use - give it a week or so. Hell when I was a child I had to walk to and from school myself (not that there were any major roads, or major distances involved) and I bet many others here did too.
The McCanns left their children home alone whilst on holiday in an unfamiliar country. Their story is a lesson to all those who would do the same. The loss of their daughter is punishment enough, for they surely must feel guilty every day that their child is gone because of their lax parenting, but if she had been found I would hope that they would have been punished. Of course the chances of abduction happening are so small in the first place, however the media would have us believing that "child predators" exist on every corner. The risks from home-alone are usually down to child-inflicted injuries like playing with matches, etc.
Re:Holy Crap! Calm down (Score:5, Informative)
Get her a Firefly or similar device. You can add it to your phone plan or get it prepaid.
Even very young children can use these. Several of the first graders I used to work with had them, and were perfectly comfortable using them.
http://www.fireflymobile.com/ [fireflymobile.com]
You're overthinking this (Score:4, Informative)
First off, write a letter explaining what has happened and send it to your school board, city council, and local newspaper-who-might-give-a-crap-about-this-kind-of-thing. Talk with your daughter's teachers, the school principal, and whoever else you need to to get some assurances that they're not going to do this again.
Then, if you're still worried about your children being sent to the off-world colonies while you're not looking, talk with your daughter about what happened and how she can make sure she gets home on the right bus. If you really want a technological solution then buy her a mobile phone, maybe something like one of these beasties [fireflymobile.com] which can be locked down to only calling a handful of numbers (not a product endorsement, just giving an example), and make sure she knows how to call you at home if she has trouble again. Keep it charged and have her stash it in her jacket or backpack where she's unlikely to lose it. There's no need to weld it onto a metal cuff around her ankle, just let her use it to call you when she needs to.
Hopefully you can both feel better about her security that way. You need to know that she is safe, and she needs to know that you trust her and that you are able to help her out if she has troubles. Strapping a prisoner restraint collar around her neck and monitoring her every move isn't going to do that.
Re:Holy Crap! Calm down (Score:3, Informative)
Well, for perspective, the local district has had this occur for at least every year for the past five years or more. Further we're talking about a class size of about 200 kindergertners. That's all they have to deal with in the summer at the elementary, except for a few older kids. They lost track of roughly a dozen kids on Friday or about 5% of the class. I'm only discovering this incompetence due to the fact this is the first child I've had at this school.
While I have and continue to instruct my on daughter how to deal with such situations, she is after all only five. You cannot expect a five year old to deal with much on an independent basis.
As far as removing, stuff , I put on her, that's unlikely if I tell her she needs to wear it all day. She may break or lose such a thing, but she is mostly obedient to her parents. Besides. if it's jewelry, she'll wear it.
I may be overreacting, but in the matter of a child's life it's far better to overreact than under react.
Besides, this has geek factor written all over it.
Re:Holy Crap! Calm down (Score:4, Informative)
Recently in Austin, Texas, a man in a white van stopped abruptly on the side of a busy street 500 ft from where a school was letting out. He attempted to grab a 10 year old boy and throw him in the van. Luckily, the boy escaped and was able to run another 200 feet to a group of other children accompanied by an adult who called the cops. This was in broad daylight with other adults present (and no one managed to get a license plate number). If this man had gotten a better grip on the boy's back pack, he would have successfully kidnapped that boy. What police officer or safe adult can the child contact now? This is the worst case scenario and it happens more than people without children realize.
The bus mix up was a simple miscommunication and an opportunity to learn, but that doesn't mean that worse can't happen. On the flip side, as a parent, you really don't want to completely shatter your child's innocence and put them in a constant state of fear. In my mind, an unobtrusive tracking device for young children who live in a large, impersonal urban environment isn't overreacting, it's responsible parenting. "Extremely stressful and fear-inducing" is an understatement when it comes to losing your child.
http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/child-locator.html
http://www.zoombak.com/products/universal/
http://www.amberalertgps.com/
Re:Wrong Solution (Score:3, Informative)
Well, I have and will continue to voice my concerns about the school and it's lack of good planning. I will be bringing it before the town council, and doing what I can to prevent it from happening. However, I don't have a great deal of confidence in the district anymore. I feel for the other parents too, but my prime concern is to keep my daughter safe. I have the ability to do this and thus don't mind the expense.
I have to go pick up my daughter now.
Options if tracking is what you want to do (Score:5, Informative)
I am not sure whether tracking your child is a good idea or not.
I don't tell other people how to raise their children.
If you wish to buy a tracker in a phone, here is some information.
Good Housekeeping expressed opinions
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/product-testing/reviews-tests/appliances-electronics/kid-cell-phones-0306 [goodhousekeeping.com]
loc8u ofers a GPS Watch
http://www.switched.com/2009/01/07/lok8u-launches-gps-child-locator-watch-at-ces/ [switched.com]
Wherify has one
http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/wherify-wherifone-cell-phone-with-gps-locator-lets-you-gps-track-your-kids/ [theinternetpatrol.com]
AT&T has one
http://www.gpsbusinessnews.com/AT-T-launches-child-locator-service_a1470.html [gpsbusinessnews.com]
Here is a discussion of short and long range child locators
http://www.gpsfortoday.com/child-locators/ [gpsfortoday.com]
Amber Alert has one
http://www.gpschildtracker.net/child-gps-devices-systems-tracking-phone-chip-child-location [gpschildtracker.net]
However, if you don't want to use a phone
and build more of it yourself,
here are some websites that may be useful:
http://www.tradekey.com/selloffer_view/id/2924121.htm [tradekey.com]
http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/gps-tracking-server.html [brickhousesecurity.com]
http://forums.coolest-gadgets.com/showthread.php?t=4079 [coolest-gadgets.com]
http://www.ecplaza.net/search/0s1nf20sell/gps_tracker_%20gps_tracking_gps.html [ecplaza.net]
http://5thirtyone.com/archives/876/comment-page-1 [5thirtyone.com]
Re:Zoomback... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Holy Crap! Calm down (Score:3, Informative)
24 hour rule does not apply to first graders.
You watch too much TV.
Re:escape (Score:2, Informative)
Wow. Perhaps she was trying to get away from you.
Why not ask the parents of Tori Stafford whether an unobtrusive system could have been useful to them.Google if you want to know the backstory.
I'm not saying that he may not be excessively paranoid, but I also do not think that young children deserve any expectation of privacy which trumps the knowledge of their whereabouts and safety in any number of situations.
Yes, I realize you were trying to be funny.
Re:Holy Crap! Calm down (Score:3, Informative)
Where I grew up, the only Elementary school that had buses were the two "country" schools that covered the less densely populated areas on the outskirts of town. I walked to school every day, it was only a few blocks away, and I imagine if your kid went to one of the "city" schools, they all could have walked too. Of course this was in a town of 15,000, but I totally agree with you, city size should not matter. Elementary schools should be the ultimate local school.
Re:Holy Crap! Calm down (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Errr, what? (Score:4, Informative)
The way GPS works is that the satellites constantly transmit info about where they are, and a time code and the receiver you have picks that up and uses the time delay between the different sats as well as the location of the satellite to triangulate where you are. It's rather interesting.
Re:Holy Crap! Calm down (Score:2, Informative)
Except when it comes to missing children.
With missing children, you have to find them in the first 4 hours or so, or the chances of finding them alive plummets.
This is why the invented brown alerts.
When it comes to missing children, APB now, wonder why later.
AmberAlertGPS (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Holy Crap! Calm down (Score:3, Informative)
As another parent, I agree with the above. In fact, I've been in a similar situation. When one of my boys was in kindergarten or first grade, he got on the right bus but didn't get off at his stop. He ended up riding the whole route and back to the bus depot. After a few semi-panicky calls around the school district we tracked him down and retrieved him.
But this isn't a new problem. It's been around as long a school buses have been. The good news is that kids, even kindergartners, learn within a week or so which is the right bus, and where the right stop is. It's a transient issue.
Teach your child what to do when lost. Stick a note with your phone number in her jacket or backpack or whatever she carries daily. Teach her to ask for help when she needs it. This will help her in practically every "lost child" situation, short of deliberate abduction.
If you're really worried then yeah, you can get trackers. Cell phone providers usually offer this service, and there are some companies providing non-phone tracking devices. Even if you're a "tin-foil-hat wearing engineer" I'd say one of the services is the way to go. Get it, use it for a couple years until your daughter is old enough to trust on her own, and get rid of it.
Re:'Insightful' my ass (Score:3, Informative)
Well to add some more clarity. I'll throw in this one last detail. As I was on my way to the daycare center, to pick up my daughter for her dance class, I get a phone call from the daycare center. The voice on the other end of the line asks, "Did you pick up your daughter from school today?"
At which point I nearly freaked out.
Re:Drive her (Score:3, Informative)
I haven't ruled out home-schooling yet.
Re:Holy Crap! Calm down (Score:3, Informative)
The school staff actually do an admirable job of putting kids on the right bus, all things considered. Most of the problems are caused by drivers that simply don't give a shit, like the driver that left a kid sleeping in the back of the bus when he locked it up in the bus yard at night (regulations dictate they should sweep the bus first). Of course, if you were getting paid $10 and hour for a 20 hour week, you probably wouldn't give a shit either.
Re:congratulations. you're a fear-addled fool (Score:1, Informative)
The actual argument of gun nuts (like myself) is that those trying to ban all guns in the USA are going after "assault weapons"* now because they're perceived to be politically vulnerable. The stated goal of Brady and many other anti-gun groups is to completely disarm any law-abiding individual who isn't specifically authorized to carry. I.e. only police, military, and criminals will have guns.
* whatever this politically-defined term means in your jurisdiction.
Some simple facts:
From which I infer that the purpose of banning assault weapons has nothing to do with crime prevention or safety but is entirely a first, easiest step in an effort to change legal/cultural norms with the ultimate goal of banning all guns.
The biggest issue (Score:2, Informative)
Like everything else it's up to the end user to make sure the system is working property. I like to toss a SPOT Messenger with tracking mode ON in my son's (who is 7) bag before he heads off to play with his friends.
I am more then happy to answer questions on the subject, just contact me for more.
Re:Holy Crap! Calm down (Score:2, Informative)
if you check the statistics, child abductions* have actually DROPPPED since 1950.
The difference is the instant-on, worldwide news networks. It used to be some kid got abducted once every month (WAG=Wild Ass Guess, only an example) and nobody outside the city knew about it; Therefore according to the rest of the country, nothing ever happened. Now a kid gets abducted every 3 months (another WAG), and suddenly since it hits the WWW and international headline news media, OMG!!!!! we are worse off than we were in 1950!!!! OMFG!!! BEWAAAAAREEE OF THE FREAKS!!!!!STRANGER DANGER!!! STRANGER DANGER!!!
So are we really worse off than 1950, or are we just more acutely aware of what is going on around the world? Based on the statistics, I think its the latter.
I look forward to cautiously allowing my kids (toddlers now) to have the same freedoms I did as a kid. Letting them run wild in the 'hood for hours, and only check in once in a while, etc.
Granted, I am not in the same rural environment as my childhood, but I am not about to chain my kids to the house simply because we arent surrounded by cornfields.
Get a life helicopter parents!
*assuming strangers abducting kids, excluding relatives, etc that run off with them due to custody disputes, ec.