Am I pushing technology too far?

[cobright]

Okay, I'm not claiming the next great thing but I built up something that I both think is pretty cool and is also maybe a bit much or controversial. I'm not a social creature so I would appreciate any unblemished reactions...

Last month a friends 7 yr old child was involved in an attempted stranger abduction on way to school. The man was caught and the information on the guy coming out is horrible. I won't get into specifics because they would 'out' some of the people involved and they aren't really important. Except for one. The guy had been following this kid for days before the attempted abduction.

Kid's mom, my friend, is very messed up over this and has taken to extreme (some may say) levels of protecting the kiddo from the outside world.

So this, and the arrival of a new computer board, got me thinking. The computer board is called the Jetson Nano and it's tiny and is developed to make AI, Machine Learning, and Computer Vision easier to develop, and boy does it. Things it's really good at is taking a camera feed and identifying specific things in that video and also, to varying extents, figuring out what those things are doing. Think about these new cameras that identify faces, can tell when you're smiling, can tell when you blink to avoid snapping the shutter then. Think about self driving cars avoiding pedestrians. That's the sort of thing this little computer is designed to do.

So here's what I built...

1. It's a 4"x4"x1.5" box that fits into kiddo's backpack.
2. It connects to a 1"x1"x1" 360° camera that is snapped onto the top of the right backpack strap.
3. It records kiddo's GPS location and sends it to kiddo's mom's computer or phone. (this is nothing new) There is also a button in the strap kiddo can press to send an alert to mom and also begin storing current location on cloud server.
4. It views area around kiddo and identifies faces, stores those faces. It also observes those faces and determines if they are watching the kiddo, if so, for how long.
5. Each night, we go through the list of faces of people who were looking specifically at kiddo for more than fleeting glimpses. Anyone we know, we tag as such.
   • Anyone who happens to be in the same-ish location at the same-ish time we flag as such.
   • This step goes on for several weeks.
   • The computer learns kiddo's normal routine and many of the people who she will encounter on a normal day.
   • The computer can identify a lot of mitigating behavior. Like someone looking at kiddo followed by kiddo turning around to face the person and having a conversation. It can also identify someone watching her who turns away every time kiddo turns to look at that person.
6. So now I'm testing this and I have written an algorithm that will pretty reliably identify when a stranger is watching me, if he's watching me over the course of several days or weeks, showing up in unusual locations, and if he's watching me but doesn't wish to be seen doing so by me.
7. The algorithm can alert me if I'm being followed. Or if someone just happens to be where I am way more often than normal. It's a 360 cam so it can watch everyone around me all the time. It compiles reports identifying suspicious persons and actively seeks those people out and geo-locates them in a report.
8. Not relevant to this particular use-case, but images of a particular person, like a non-custodial parent or known neighborhood sex offenders, could be added and flagged for immediate alert.
9. So far in my testing, me wearing the backpack, the computer does a great job observing and categorizing the people around me as not-suspicious, because 99.999% of people I walk by every day are not suspicious. But when I test it with friend "strangers", it does a great job of flagging new faces and attaching appropriate risk flags based on certain behaviors.
10. New machine learning software modules propose "identifying human intent" by observing things like posture, face, and gesture. Essentially, picking people out of a crowd that "act guilty". My current system doesn't use anything this advanced but it would not take much to integrate new learning into my current software.

I'm actually really pleased because the program works so well. At the same time I'm also really bummed because this sort of thing is kind of a really scary application of this sort of technology; moreso because its development was inspired by fear.

Kiddo's mom wants it. Now I'm having doubts. In the state I live is as well as the state my friend lives in, there is no legal privacy issues. The device geo-locates and can be told to turn off within school property. Even audio can be saved as both states are single-party consent states.

I can't think of a solid reason not to put the gizmo into use. Letting her have it will get the kid a little bit of normalcy back, being able to go off with friends and walk to school and such. Holding me back is this mantra I've been saying since I started playing with machine learning, "Do we want Skynet? This is how we get Skynet."

Thoughts? Good outweighs creepiness? Vice-versa?

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

I think it sounds great! But it would be illegal in my state--you can't record audio or video without consent here. We just use a good old-fashioned cell phone with an app called Life360. I can see exactly where my kids are at any time

 

[BrianL]

Okay, I'm not claiming the next great thing but I built up something that I both think is pretty cool and is also maybe a bit much or controversial. I'm not a social creature so I would appreciate any unblemished reactions...

Last month a friends 7 yr old child was involved in an attempted stranger abduction on way to school. The man was caught and the information on the guy coming out is horrible. I won't get into specifics because they would 'out' some of the people involved and they aren't really important. Except for one. The guy had been following this kid for days before the attempted abduction.

Kid's mom, my friend, is very messed up over this and has taken to extreme (some may say) levels of protecting the kiddo from the outside world.

So this, and the arrival of a new computer board, got me thinking. The computer board is called the Jetson Nano and it's tiny and is developed to make AI, Machine Learning, and Computer Vision easier to develop, and boy does it. Things it's really good at is taking a camera feed and identifying specific things in that video and also, to varying extents, figuring out what those things are doing. Think about these new cameras that identify faces, can tell when you're smiling, can tell when you blink to avoid snapping the shutter then. Think about self driving cars avoiding pedestrians. That's the sort of thing this little computer is designed to do.

So here's what I built...

1. It's a 4"x4"x1.5" box that fits into kiddo's backpack.
2. It connects to a 1"x1"x1" 360° camera that is snapped onto the top of the right backpack strap.
3. It records kiddo's GPS location and sends it to kiddo's mom's computer or phone. (this is nothing new) There is also a button in the strap kiddo can press to send an alert to mom and also begin storing current location on cloud server.
4. It views area around kiddo and identifies faces, stores those faces. It also observes those faces and determines if they are watching the kiddo, if so, for how long.
5. Each night, we go through the list of faces of people who were looking specifically at kiddo for more than fleeting glimpses. Anyone we know, we tag as such.
   • Anyone who happens to be in the same-ish location at the same-ish time we flag as such.
   • This step goes on for several weeks.
   • The computer learns kiddo's normal routine and many of the people who she will encounter on a normal day.
   • The computer can identify a lot of mitigating behavior. Like someone looking at kiddo followed by kiddo turning around to face the person and having a conversation. It can also identify someone watching her who turns away every time kiddo turns to look at that person.
6. So now I'm testing this and I have written an algorithm that will pretty reliably identify when a stranger is watching me, if he's watching me over the course of several days or weeks, showing up in unusual locations, and if he's watching me but doesn't wish to be seen doing so by me.
7. The algorithm can alert me if I'm being followed. Or if someone just happens to be where I am way more often than normal. It's a 360 cam so it can watch everyone around me all the time. It compiles reports identifying suspicious persons and actively seeks those people out and geo-locates them in a report.
8. Not relevant to this particular use-case, but images of a particular person, like a non-custodial parent or known neighborhood sex offenders, could be added and flagged for immediate alert.
9. So far in my testing, me wearing the backpack, the computer does a great job observing and categorizing the people around me as not-suspicious, because 99.999% of people I walk by every day are not suspicious. But when I test it with friend "strangers", it does a great job of flagging new faces and attaching appropriate risk flags based on certain behaviors.
10. New machine learning software modules propose "identifying human intent" by observing things like posture, face, and gesture. Essentially, picking people out of a crowd that "act guilty". My current system doesn't use anything this advanced but it would not take much to integrate new learning into my current software.

I'm actually really pleased because the program works so well. At the same time I'm also really bummed because this sort of thing is kind of a really scary application of this sort of technology; moreso because its development was inspired by fear.

Kiddo's mom wants it. Now I'm having doubts. In the state I live is as well as the state my friend lives in, there is no legal privacy issues. The device geo-locates and can be told to turn off within school property. Even audio can be saved as both states are single-party consent states.

I can't think of a solid reason not to put the gizmo into use. Letting her have it will get the kid a little bit of normalcy back, being able to go off with friends and walk to school and such. Holding me back is this mantra I've been saying since I started playing with machine learning, "Do we want Skynet? This is how we get Skynet."

Thoughts? Good outweighs creepiness? Vice-versa?

Wow! First of all, kudos on the system - it sounds very cool and high-tech and I can totally understand its utility. Also, good for you for considering the impact and ramifications of such a unit. I do think there is not much harm an allowing it's use. If anything, what it will likely do is allay any fears and eventually the parents will realize it isn't really necessary, at least not in such an advanced configuration. As you said, 99.99% of everyone the camera tags are normal people with no ill intent. That's what they will see, and after a while, they won't worry so much.

Of course, if I'm wrong about that, than the system will have educated us about how much true evil is in the world and that it really was necessary to begin with. If we just let it take over, then we will all be safe. That's what Skynet was for, right?

 

[kimblebee]

Sounds a little much for me, but I’ve never had my child almost abducted.

One question, I get why it has gps but, worst case scenario, if the kid is taken, wouldn’t the bad guy just have to leave the bag in a garbage or just dropped wherever to make the gps useless? It can’t track the child if it’s not with the child.

 

[jrmasm]

No thanks, I don’t live my life with that type of paranoia. The mother’s reaction is understandable but for the average person it’s over the top imo.

 

[kdonnel]

For those who’s kids are abducted by strangers there is nothing they wouldn’t have done to stop it but the truth in the matter is that the odds are extremely low that your kids will be abducted by a stranger. Extremely low.

It is an irrational fear we can’t shake as a society.

https://reason.com/2017/03/31/kidnapping-stats/

 

[mjkacmom]

This reminds me of a black mirror episode https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkangel_(Black_Mirror)

 

[wenrob]

Sounds a little much for me, but I’ve never had my child almost abducted.

One question, I get why it has gps but, worst case scenario, if the kid is taken, wouldn’t the bad guy just have to leave the bag in a garbage or just dropped wherever to make the gps useless? It can’t track the child if it’s not with the child.

It would at least have the last known location but then again so would a cellphone, iPad/Tablet or Smart Watch depending on how they’re set up.

So, I’m a mom who swore her kids wouldn’t have a phone until at least 8th grade but ended up handing down some at the age of ten because when they walked to the bus stop or school (and now friends houses) I could check and see that they made it. I say this to state that I understand wanting to know where your kids are but IMHO this is overkill. I think in the end this would actually create more paranoia and possibly make the situation worse.

 

[kaytieeldr]

For those who’s kids are abducted by strangers there is nothing they wouldn’t have done to stop it but the truth in the matter is that the odds are extremely low that your kids will be abducted by a stranger. Extremely low.

It is an irrational fear we can’t shake...

Even lower that the same child would be an abduction target in the future. I wouldn't want or use one, but I guess if you're absolutely certain it's legal, I guess go for it.

 

[cobright]

I think it sounds great! But it would be illegal in my state--you can't record audio or video without consent here.

I would have to learn more about the biometrics programming, but most of what I'm building can be done without recording audio or video. The machine processes the AV feed in real time so there is no storage. Like running an old video camera without a tape inside it. It stores photos of individual faces it sees. But what it stores for future recognition is a data string taken from that audio and video feed that is not a recording.

Think like a picture of your fingerprint. The advanced fingerprint matching computers don't find a match by looking at picture after picture. they take each picture and generate a sequence of geometries that is unique to each picture. that mathematical sequence is compared much faster. If you were to be given the sequence for your fingerprint picture, it would be impossible to generate a picture of your fingerprint from it.

So it's possible to keep even audio recognition, even if no actual audio recordings are made. Much of what is being analyzed from video is done on the fly and a recording isn't exactly necessary. Things like whether the person is watching the kid, watching only from behind, and other behaviors.

One question, I get why it has gps but, worst case scenario, if the kid is taken, wouldn’t the bad guy just have to leave the bag in a garbage or just dropped wherever to make the gps useless?

The GPS records the position of the kid, but that's really a secondary function. Primary, is recording the location each person in the video feed. This lets me program a flag if a person is showing up at lots of different places. In the event of an attack, there would be data stored about all of the places the person had been seen.

In the event of an abduction, a backpack would likely be tossed soon enough, but it would provide location data right up to that moment, as well as video and audio of the attack once recovered from the cloud.

This reminds me of a black mirror episode

What it reminds me of most is every episode of 'Person of Interest'. My wife's favorite show a few years back. Even writing my description I had to go back and edit out usage of the term 'the machine' a few times.

To be honest, I love this technology, Machine Learning. The stuff this new computer module can do, for its $90 pricetag, are straight out of science fiction. My main goal is developing smarter power wheelchair controls, this was a side project; albeit the first one using this development board that's reached the alpha stage of testing.

At the same time... it's a computer that's watching everyone around you and making decisions about them for you... That's not usually how the happier parts of Sci-Fi are described.

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

I would have to learn more about the biometrics programming, but most of what I'm building can be done without recording audio or video. The machine processes the AV feed in real time so there is no storage. Like running an old video camera without a tape inside it. It stores photos of individual faces it sees. But what it stores for future recognition is a data string taken from that audio and video feed that is not a recording.

Think like a picture of your fingerprint. The advanced fingerprint matching computers don't find a match by looking at picture after picture. they take each picture and generate a sequence of geometries that is unique to each picture. that mathematical sequence is compared much faster. If you were to be given the sequence for your fingerprint picture, it would be impossible to generate a picture of your fingerprint from it.

So it's possible to keep even audio recognition, even if no actual audio recordings are made. Much of what is being analyzed from video is done on the fly and a recording isn't exactly necessary. Things like whether the person is watching the kid, watching only from behind, and other behaviors.

I agree, if there is no outlet/way of watching the video it might no be illegal. What more you might be able to photograph/ still shot any suspect and that might be legal.
That said my kids very seldomly used back packs most girls use designer bags about 1/2 way into middle school, and were seldom left unattended in grammar school.

 

[sam_gordon]

Let's talk practical issues for a moment...
1) What's the weight of this thing?
2) Will it fit in any backpack or specific ones?
3) Is there still room in the backpack for books, assignments, lunch boxes, etc?
4) How does it send an alert out? Cell? Who pays for that?
5) How does it download? Wifi?
6) How long does the battery last?

I'm not sure I understand how does it differentiate between a stranger seen on the same route every day versus a stranger who is actually stalking the child.
I'll also second @kdonnel and @kaytieeldr (I guess that would make it "third") that is this really enough of an issue (stranger abduction of a child) to warrant it? Yes, I'm sure a parent who had a child abducted by a stranger would wish they had it, but is it not like saying "everyone should learn how to fly a plane in case the pilots are incapacitated"? OK, extreme example, but hopefully you get what I'm saying.

 

[sam_gordon]

I agree, if there is no outlet/way of watching the video it might no be illegal. What more you might be able to photograph/ still shot any suspect and that might be legal.

If they are in public, you can photograph (and presumably) video tape anyone.

 

[cobright]

I'll look at them In order and answer the same way.
Pardon typos, took half an Ambien and nightmare woke me up soon after, so maybe A bit of a ride through this one...

Let's talk practical issues for a moment...
1) What's the weight of this thing?
2) Will it fit in any backpack or specific ones?
3) Is there still room in the backpack for books, assignments, lunch boxes, etc?
4) How does it send an alert out? Cell? Who pays for that?
5) How does it download? Wifi?
6) How long does the battery last?

Okay ...

1. It weights about 8oz. total.
2. The stored modules dit in a 4"X 4"1.5" project enclosure. Thje top flap of most back packs usually have a pocket that accomodates.
3. There is a butten sewn into on strap and a very small camera riding another strap up above the shoulder. Backpack is otherwise unencumbered.
4. It broadcasts first by a network of free and municiple wi-fi she may be in range of. after that there is a s cellular data radio that will get her at least 3G service with any domestic carrier. I think it costs a few bucks unless Verizon is handy; at which point this thing is just another connected device of their verizon plan.
5. Downloads over municipal wifi when able or any number of local shops' free wifi already programed in, and at the same time it will use cellular data to get the message through In a height of paranoia I added the 8 or 9 lines of code needed to make calling out on a satellite phone a real option. Failing all that, and depending on distance from home, the machine is capable of using a LoRa radio system.
6. Battery last very long. 99.9% of system can go to deep sleep if she's in a designated safe area like school or home. After first few weeks, a huge burden of comparing hundreds of faces gets eliminated as those faces are entered into a sort of rancked normalcy.
   • Figuring the battery will last for 4 or 5 days on its own. But it also has quallcomm version 3 power management and whatever the Apple stuff uses now. So plugging the backpack in is something that gets done religiously. Make a kid super popular to be the place kids go to fast charge their phones.

I'm not sure I understand how does it differentiate between a stranger seen on the same route every day versus a stranger who is actually stalking the child.

First thing it does, is gives a long break in where people the kiddo see every day can be followed up on by an adult and on the adult's judgement, flag that person as a safe person.

What happens is it determines which people are spending time looking at specific persons at some location. Imagine you could hide behind tinted glass at a busy baseball game somewhere. Stands are full. and from your vantage point you can see every one in your section. Now...

• you get a voice in your ear pointing out the 20 people who are not watching the game much at all.
• Of those 20, 5 are board girls staring at their phones.
• 10 of them are just not into baseball so they are eyeballing every cute young thing they can see. One of those cute kids is ... call it... backpack kid. Ten of the boredo guys glance at BP_Kid at least once. On several such occasions BPK catches one of these 10 dudes sliming at them when BPK catches them looking.
• Then there are 5 remaining uninterested sportsfans. They seem very interested in their fellow fans. Approaching them to make crude double entendre, or maybe just hanging back and staring at one little butterball all night long; turning his head any time the BPK turns to see in his direction; hiding his interest in this kid.

Now it goes further by analyzing the sort of thing being said to BPK. It can tell coersive sentences pretty easily and form an opinion against someone using rude, mean, exploitive language.

Another module I'm kicking around simply keeps an eye on where all the cops are. Easy, even for a computer to spot and how comforting to have that information available to a kid who gets worried. Push that button and the program will tell you just how far away a cop is, his name and everything.

 

[scrapquitler]

Okay, I'm not claiming the next great thing but I built up something that I both think is pretty cool and is also maybe a bit much or controversial. I'm not a social creature so I would appreciate any unblemished reactions...

Last month a friends 7 yr old child was involved in an attempted stranger abduction on way to school. The man was caught and the information on the guy coming out is horrible. I won't get into specifics because they would 'out' some of the people involved and they aren't really important. Except for one. The guy had been following this kid for days before the attempted abduction.

Kid's mom, my friend, is very messed up over this and has taken to extreme (some may say) levels of protecting the kiddo from the outside world.

So this, and the arrival of a new computer board, got me thinking. The computer board is called the Jetson Nano and it's tiny and is developed to make AI, Machine Learning, and Computer Vision easier to develop, and boy does it. Things it's really good at is taking a camera feed and identifying specific things in that video and also, to varying extents, figuring out what those things are doing. Think about these new cameras that identify faces, can tell when you're smiling, can tell when you blink to avoid snapping the shutter then. Think about self driving cars avoiding pedestrians. That's the sort of thing this little computer is designed to do.

So here's what I built...

1. It's a 4"x4"x1.5" box that fits into kiddo's backpack.
2. It connects to a 1"x1"x1" 360° camera that is snapped onto the top of the right backpack strap.
3. It records kiddo's GPS location and sends it to kiddo's mom's computer or phone. (this is nothing new) There is also a button in the strap kiddo can press to send an alert to mom and also begin storing current location on cloud server.
4. It views area around kiddo and identifies faces, stores those faces. It also observes those faces and determines if they are watching the kiddo, if so, for how long.
5. Each night, we go through the list of faces of people who were looking specifically at kiddo for more than fleeting glimpses. Anyone we know, we tag as such.
   • Anyone who happens to be in the same-ish location at the same-ish time we flag as such.
   • This step goes on for several weeks.
   • The computer learns kiddo's normal routine and many of the people who she will encounter on a normal day.
   • The computer can identify a lot of mitigating behavior. Like someone looking at kiddo followed by kiddo turning around to face the person and having a conversation. It can also identify someone watching her who turns away every time kiddo turns to look at that person.
6. So now I'm testing this and I have written an algorithm that will pretty reliably identify when a stranger is watching me, if he's watching me over the course of several days or weeks, showing up in unusual locations, and if he's watching me but doesn't wish to be seen doing so by me.
7. The algorithm can alert me if I'm being followed. Or if someone just happens to be where I am way more often than normal. It's a 360 cam so it can watch everyone around me all the time. It compiles reports identifying suspicious persons and actively seeks those people out and geo-locates them in a report.
8. Not relevant to this particular use-case, but images of a particular person, like a non-custodial parent or known neighborhood sex offenders, could be added and flagged for immediate alert.
9. So far in my testing, me wearing the backpack, the computer does a great job observing and categorizing the people around me as not-suspicious, because 99.999% of people I walk by every day are not suspicious. But when I test it with friend "strangers", it does a great job of flagging new faces and attaching appropriate risk flags based on certain behaviors.
10. New machine learning software modules propose "identifying human intent" by observing things like posture, face, and gesture. Essentially, picking people out of a crowd that "act guilty". My current system doesn't use anything this advanced but it would not take much to integrate new learning into my current software.

I'm actually really pleased because the program works so well. At the same time I'm also really bummed because this sort of thing is kind of a really scary application of this sort of technology; moreso because its development was inspired by fear.

Kiddo's mom wants it. Now I'm having doubts. In the state I live is as well as the state my friend lives in, there is no legal privacy issues. The device geo-locates and can be told to turn off within school property. Even audio can be saved as both states are single-party consent states.

I can't think of a solid reason not to put the gizmo into use. Letting her have it will get the kid a little bit of normalcy back, being able to go off with friends and walk to school and such. Holding me back is this mantra I've been saying since I started playing with machine learning, "Do we want Skynet? This is how we get Skynet."

Thoughts? Good outweighs creepiness? Vice-versa?

It seems creepy and over the top. I think it promotes paranoia. If someone is that nervous, a better option is actual parental supervision.

 

[scrapquitler]

Also, I think your assumption that backpack kid will always be in range of free public wifi or cell service is not necessarily a valid one, at least where I live (we can't even get high speed internet at home without a satellite, and we have spotty LTE cell service. When the weather is iffy, 3G cell service is spotty, and at times we only get 1x.

 

[cobright]

Also, I think your assumption that backpack kid will always be in range of free public wifi or cell service is not necessarily a valid one, at least where I live (we can't even get high speed internet at home without a satellite, and we have spotty LTE cell service. When the weather is iffy, 3G cell service is spotty, and at times we only get 1x.

The system doesn't rely on WiFi. It doesn't actually use it except when at home for wireless downloads and updates. Any real-time connectivity is by way of a cellular network with very good coverage. There is a feature that reports the wearer's location to a parent but I see this as a secondary function of the project.

It's one of the coolest aspects of this relatively new technology (well it's new that I can afford it anyway), that really all of the AI decision making is on board. Got a non-custodial parent you're worried might grab your kid on the way home from school? Feed this computer a few photos of them and it will watch your kid's back, let kiddo know to find a safe adult if that parent shows up, alert the custodial parent, etc.

Got some creep threatening you and you're worried? This thing will keep an eye out for them every time you go anywhere. It's literally looking over your shoulder for you all the time. And whenever it sees the person you're worried about it lets you know, and it documents when and where and saves photographic evidence of it.

It seems creepy and over the top. I think it promotes paranoia. If someone is that nervous, a better option is actual parental supervision.

It does seem creepy and over the top. The mother has had a shock and is looking to 'circle the wagons' around her kiddo. My question is what is worse for the kid? Being sequestered, pulled out of school, having all of their limited personal freedom revoked abruptly? Or having a digital tether that let's mom keep tabs and alerts of possible future threats? If the kiddo were older I would be more reluctant to impose this level of surveillance. If younger I would be less considerate of their autonomy. I still don't know the best answer here.

 

[EveDallas]

The system doesn't rely on WiFi. It doesn't actually use it except when at home for wireless downloads and updates. Any real-time connectivity is by way of a cellular network with very good coverage. There is a feature that reports the wearer's location to a parent but I see this as a secondary function of the project.

It's one of the coolest aspects of this relatively new technology (well it's new that I can afford it anyway), that really all of the AI decision making is on board. Got a non-custodial parent you're worried might grab your kid on the way home from school? Feed this computer a few photos of them and it will watch your kid's back, let kiddo know to find a safe adult if that parent shows up, alert the custodial parent, etc.

Got some creep threatening you and you're worried? This thing will keep an eye out for them every time you go anywhere. It's literally looking over your shoulder for you all the time. And whenever it sees the person you're worried about it lets you know, and it documents when and where and saves photographic evidence of it.


It does seem creepy and over the top. The mother has had a shock and is looking to 'circle the wagons' around her kiddo. My question is what is worse for the kid? Being sequestered, pulled out of school, having all of their limited personal freedom revoked abruptly? Or having a digital tether that let's mom keep tabs and alerts of possible future threats? If the kiddo were older I would be more reluctant to impose this level of surveillance. If younger I would be less considerate of their autonomy. I still don't know the best answer here.

I don't think feeding into her fear is helping the situation. She needs to talk to a professional who can help her deal with her fear rationally.

 

[sam_gordon]

The system doesn't rely on WiFi. It doesn't actually use it except when at home for wireless downloads and updates. Any real-time connectivity is by way of a cellular network with very good coverage.

Now I'm confused. First you said it uses Wifi, now you said it doesn't...

It broadcasts first by a network of free and municiple wi-fi she may be in range of. after that there is a s cellular data radio that will get her at least 3G service with any domestic carrier.

 

[jrmasm]

I don't think feeding into her fear is helping the situation. She needs to talk to a professional who can help her deal with her fear rationally.

Exactly.