[aprssig] APRS RF-ID

[Kurt A. Freiberger]

Rick Green wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Feb 2009, Joel I.  Kandel wrote:
> 
>> Probably a bad precedent to set for security purposes.
>> Joel, KI4T
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Bob Bruninga " <bruninga at usna.edu>
>> To: <aprssig at tapr.org>
>> Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 8:28 AM
>> Subject: [aprssig] APRS RF-ID
>>
>>
>>> APRS-RFID almost!
>>>
>>> Was giving a talk at the local ARES organization in the local county EOC
>>> and mentioned how we could use ARRL radio badges with RFID built in, so
>>> that when anyone entered the EOC, their presence would show up on APRS at
>>> the EOC on the map.
>>>
>    Well, that depends on how much of a 'military' mindset your emergency 
> response team has.  If they're focussed on natural disasters, and have the 
> assumption that the public is equally concerned with efficiently dealing 
> with the situation, then public dissemination of asset locations can help 
> everybody.  But if your leaders and administrators have a 'Military' 
> mindset, and treat the public as if every one were an 'insurgent', bent on 
> thwarting their conquest of the situation, then they'll see this as if 
> you're communicating vital secrets to the 'enemy', and shoot you for even 
> suggesting it!
>    The fact that most county EOC's I've seen have tight security, badge 
> readers, etc, intended to keep the people they're actually serving OUT, 
> tells me that there's a lot of 'military' thinking out there...
> 

EOCs are designed to assume the worst-case scenarios.  There are enough 
wackos out in the world that considering public disclosure of location 
of personnel is a very significant and prudent condition.  It doesn't 
have to be a Dick Cheney extreme, but consider Pandora's Box.  Once 
released, it can't go back in.

We hams are taking a leap of faith as it is with APRS in its present 
form.  By having my Igate disclose its location, I'm telling the world 
that I might have something worth stealing.  The more paranoid could 
assume I'm tracking them, possibly as a covert monitoring operation. 
I'm not sure I'll ever have a tracker in my vehicle again.  If I do, 
it'll be off most of the time.

As many of us do, I have a wife and child to protect and or defend.  It 
ain't military thinking.  It's realizing that we don't live in our 
youthful environment.  I could take a bus to downtown New Orleans at the 
age of 10, and be perfectly safe.  Nowadays, I'd worry about my child 
walking to the neighborhood store.  That sucks.

Mr. Rogers' neighborhood is gone.  Regrettably.

-- 
Kurt A. Freiberger     Austin, TX	kurt at badgers-hill.net
Amateur Radio Callsign WB5BBW  		AIM Handle: WB5BBW
        "Reputation is what other people know about you.
            Honor is what you know about yourself."
         - Lois McMaster Bujold - "A Civil Campaign"