GPS Tracking ROI

Had a very rewarding post a day or so ago that drew plenty visits and responses.  As I noted reactions and comments and read through the writing again it occurred to be that probably a lot of folks had no idea of what the Western test Range really encompassed.  In some ways my writing sounds a bit like a tit for tat with one techy complaining about another techy not using the “know best” solution.  If we were talking about a piece of real estate that was easily covered by radar then, indeed, the argument about GPS tracking versus radar would indeed be small potatoes.

So, how about this:

They say a picture is worth 10,000 words or so, so, thanks to the magic of Google Earth, here’s a thumb nail view of what we are talking about.  The green lines came out a little too faint to suit me, but near the top right corner you cab see a tiny yellow dot that is centered on Vandenberg Air Force base, where the launches come from, and way down in the lower left is another tiny dot where Roi-Namur Island marks the “bullseye” at the end of the range.  Quite an undertaking to cover all that area, isn’t it?

Notice how everything fired down that range goes right over Hawaii?  Nice to think of for those folks, it’s a good thing Hawaii was brought into the union, if it were a foreign country I doubt we could get a treaty in place to fire all that junk overhead.

Hawaii is also one of the prime locations for the WTR C-band radars mentioned in the article.  that’s one of the reasons the range is laid out as it is … Hawaii makes a good platform for the mid-range observation of vehicles as they go by.

I feel a little sad, posting this, as I have along history with Roi-Namur.  My dad and thousands of other young (and not so young, my dad was 43 when he enlisted) men went to Roi-Namur and made it really US territory, at the cost of many lives and many gallons of blood back in WW-II.  Now we shoot ‘things’ at it, but hey, at least we held on to the ground we took at the cost of young men’s lives … a lesson we seem to have forgotten in the more enlightened? age.

Frank Taylor over at the Google Earth Blog recently posted and excellent example of folks using Google earth to track human rights violations. And for ethos of you mired in the “heartland of America” who think of someone cutting you off in traffic or cutting in front of the line at 7-11, we’re talking here about the “human rights” issues like “ethnic cleansing” … how’s that for a euphuism for murder … ever notice how the more years of education people have the less they have the courage to speak actual English about issues? (can ya hear me, Condi, as you fly over?)

Anyway, if you’re not one of Frank’s readers already, become one.

And if you don’t already have Google Earth on your computer, install it.

What’s my tie-in to GPS? Well, glad you asked. When most of us think of GPS we think of those somewhat mysterious latitude/longitude things … coordinate systems. You can track where you are with GPS, you can “GPS tag” your pictures as you take them, y6ou can use your GPS-enabled phone to track your teenager or play hide and seek games with friends … you can even hang a GPS collar on your dog. But you can’t do a darn thing with GPS coordinates unless you have a map to plot them on.

Maps have been the keys to the kingdom for a long time now, but (as I have written about several times in the past), the “gifted and talented”, the rich and the security clearance folks are no longer the holders of the keys.

You see evidence of government or corporate wrong-doing on Google earth? well you can mark it up, make a simple text-based file and share it with everyone in the world who can access Google earth (essentially everyone who can beg borrow or steal a moderate-speed Internet connection). GPS, Coordinate systems and Google earth are great tools to enable folks. It’s a great time to be alive, that’s for sure.

Here’s a news item that truly deserves the headline: “It’s About Time”. Or, personally, I could find it in my heart to slug it, “HS Dropout Finally Beats The PhD’s”, but I’ll refrain from bringing too much invective and “Told ya so’s” into the mix because many of the Luddites who stood ever so firmly in the way of progress on this issue are already dead.

GPS tracking worked well in ICBM launch

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., Feb. 9 (UPI) — This week’s test launch of a U.S. Minuteman III missile clears the way for the planned switch to GPS tracking of the nuclear weapons while in flight.

The successful tracking of the missile by the GPS Metric Tracking System during its flight from California to the South Pacific means the Air Force will go forward with the deactivation of the C-band transponders that have been used in the past to follow the ICBMs downrange.

“This new system will greatly improve capabilities for range users through more precise tracking, fewer range delays caused by radar downtime and significantly reduced launch support costs,” said John Clay, head of the Northrop Grumman ICBM Prime Contract.

The Air Force said Wednesday’s launch was successful with the Minuteman III unarmed re-entry vehicle flying some 4,200 miles to a target at the Reagan test site at Kwajalein. Data from the test was still being analyzed.

The GPS component is designed to operate at high altitudes and transmit a stream of location data to the ground control station where the position and velocity of the missile are monitored. Full UPI Story Here:

What’s the big deal you might ask? (more…)

I got into this item a little late. it was base don a Washington Post article but I can’t find the original credits. The story involved following a normal American business woman (a real estate agent) as she goes about a single day and documenting just how much information is being gathered about her, by GPS or any other means. Pretty interesting stuff.

6:15 a.m.

Bernard, who is married and has a grandson, pads into the lobby of her Reston condo complex on the way to the building’s gym, and almost no one else is about. But a security camera records her. If the government or a divorce lawyer wants the tapes, they can subpoena them.

I don’t think the average person has any inkling of how many times they are staring on video in today’s day and age. It’s been a harsh winter back in Colorado Springs where my wife and I recently fled from the cold, and spouse takes great delight in sitting and watching the various weather and traffic cams that are online. There’s no telling just how much information with techniques such as ALPR various agencies or private individuals may, or may not be gathering from these ubiquitous, all-seeing “eyes”.

7:17 a.m.

Bernard returns to her condo after her workout, nestles into a bedroom love seat and fires up her laptop to check e-mail.

She opens a few, deletes 38 more - junk mail from Weight Watchers, a personal trainer, a firm that sells art posters. The U.S. government claims that even before she’s opened them, it should have the right to read them if it needs to. The technology exists to do that.

Bernard is not only trackable, but she is a tracker. She says it helps her be a better real estate agent. Through a Web-based notification service, she can see what homes her clients are interested in and copies of e-mails sent to new clients who register on her Web site, KittyBernard.com.

“I can e-mail them and say, ‘I see you’ve been on my Web site’.”

(more…)

One of the places you seldom find me hanging about and certainly almost never find me commenting are on the “ultra cool” gadget sites like Wired. These guys are very good at what they do, covering the newest and most timely news on new web developments, software (they’ll have months and months of trivia to peddle with Microsoft’s at long last launch of Vista) and tend to write with a certain edginess or “snarkiness” that appeals to the introverted 20 something who still live in daddy’s basement, on daddy’s credit card and bitch about the “establishment”.

I have nothing against the snarky part, writing with a little edge tends to keep people awake. Goodness knows my writing probably bores a lot of people, so I really am not singling them out from any feelings of “sour grapes”.

But this is the second time in as many days that I’ve seen a big, well funded and theoretically “authoritative” site posting articles on GPS tracking as if they understood. I don’t try to tell people what’s “hot” with the XBox or other trendy items because I respect my readers enough to stick to my areas of knowledge. Would that the “Wired”’s of the world have the same respect.

Now the article that got my6 attention is here. It’s a not badly written piece that describes yet another in the long string of legal findings that establishes that police do not need a search warrant to place a GPS tracking device on the outside surfaces of a suspect’s car. Defense attorneys, of course have been milking this for years now, just because you’re client is guilty as sin and you know you’re going to loose is certainly no reason not to pile on another thousand billable hours on the 4th Amendment issue.

At the very end of the article though, the contributor of the post, who clearly has been napping for the past few years since he feels the judge rendered some sort of unique legal decision here can’t resist throwing in a snide comment that calls the judge’s competence into question by remarking that the court seemed to think, in their opinion, that one could track vehicles using a GPS and Google Earth.

Well I hate to wake you up from your long nap, Mr. Beschizza, but I’ve sold or issued contracts to buy hundreds and hundreds of GPS trackers that can be tracked on Google Earth. Matter of fact I’ve mentioned several times in the past few days how the ready availability and high level of detail available in Google earth and its web-based subset, Google Maps is opening the floodgates for a whole new generation of GPS tracking opportunities. See here and here, for example. There’s life here in the old boy yet, I guess.

Photo courtesy dpreview.com where you can read the full release:

OK no astronaut diapers, no big brother contention and not even any of Katie Couric’s legs today.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun and look at something pretty.

This is a pretty high quality 8 Mega-pixel digital cam, but it has two main features I really, really think are great … one is GPS related the other isn’t.

First, the non-GPS idea that Ricoh seems to have gotten right.  Built in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity.  Ever since I lost the cord of a digital camera I begged my boss to buy for our office and then effectively ruined in three days time, I’ve hated most digital camera interfaces. 

• Special cords?  An out and out no no with me.  If I had a buck for every blogger I’ve read a post from that goes like this “pictures when I get back from my trip, I forgot my cord” I’d be so rich people would be coming to see me instead of Darren.
• Memory cards?  Likewise, to my mind, trash.  First of all they cost real money that I would rather invest in basic camera quality, or the travel to go someplace to take interesting pictures.  Second there is too much incompatibility … competing standards … it’s reminiscent of the idiotic DVD technology “wars” that are currently holding back the industry.
• Disk-based transfer systems?  A possibility.  My wife still loves her now ancient Sony MVC with the floppy drive.  Don’t laugh, it work and if you visit her blog the pictures will make you hungry.  But floppies are limited and nearing extinction and Sony’s current offerings with mini CD-ROM or DVD-ROM scare me in their mechanical complexity.

But the Capilo?  Now you’re talking, especially with the Wi-Fi option.  Walk in to your home computer room, a Starbucks, a Grandma Max’s truck stop restaurant, you name it … there’s a Wi-Fi hotspot and bingo! your pics are online and archived.  Nice thinking.

Now of course, as Mr. GPS I’m supposed to be writing about the other uncommon feature here … auto GPS tagging of pictures.  I’m not sure I want to count the ways this is a good idea, but let me just pose a few:

• Always know exactly where and when each photo was taken. 
• Suppose you’re a real estate agent … presto, dots on a map that open up to show your listings. 
• Insurance adjuster?  There’s the properties you viewed today, on the map and documented
• Police Officer:  “Your honor, here’s a view of the subject’s car at the time of the arrest and the location where I was standing.”
• Field Service Tech:  What about a picture before and after every job you perform?  No question about date, time location and no argument about those scratches being there before you started work or not.

I think you get the idea now.  As I said the list could be endless.  Nice idea, nice camera, wonder when I’ll get one?

Many of my readers do, judging by many emails and calls I get.  I don’t blame them, I’ve written here more than once why I feel wholesale tracking blitzes are wrong from both a privacy standpoint and an economic time bomb that most governments have failed to consider.  But in the good old USA, who ya gonna call?

Wonder why Britain, a country still ruled by what is technically not a democracy has to always show us Norte Amerikanos the way, even though we spout the term democracy at the drop of a hat.  Does any college actually teach the meaning of democracy, or is it just another of “Shrub’s” buzzwords to bamboozle the “fly over people” . (RIP< Mollie Ivins, your life was too short but you spent what you had wisely)

Here’s an interesting news item:

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has received more than 1 million signatures on electronic petitions since 10 Downing Street began accepting them in November.

Blair’s office reported this week that the e-petitions encouraged people to state their views and engage in dialogue. The one-millionth petitioner signed a request that live music and dance be protected from regulation, officials said during a morning briefing this week.

The e-petition service is still in beta. Web site visitors can view the petitions online by popularity ranking, or beginning with the most recently submitted petition. Two of the top five most popular petition topics relate to technology.

One protests a planned switch to national identity cards. The petition protesting the ID cards states that the cards won’t prevent terrorism or crime. Another opposes vehicle tracking. That one had more than 637,500 signatures by Friday morning.

“The idea of tracking vehicles at all times is sinister and wrong,” the most popular petition states.

Blair’s office announced that the Web site hosted 2,410 live petitions Wednesday morning, when the one-millionth petitioner signed. People submitted 4,391 separate e-petitions since officials launched the e-petitions page Nov. 13. Officials rejected 1,008 petitions for not meeting terms and conditions. Rejected petitions are posted separately for transparency…. full article here:

Notice that the second most popular electronic petition seems to be giving the British government the clear message that people don’t want large-scale governmental GPS tracking?

Can you even begin to imagine “Shrub” or the rest of his ‘we know best” boys even considering the thought of an official web site where citizens (who are really supposed to be the boss) have legitimate place to register their opinion?  Opinion?  They have an opinion?  Is that even legal?  If you’re not with me you must be one of the Axis of Evil.

Yes indeed the question of proper use and control of GPS tracking is a real issue.  And yes the people with the final say on the matter reside elsewhere than within the Beltway.  But will they ever be heard?