Feral Jundi

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Building Snowmobiles: The Bounty Hunter Mobile Application

Filed under: Building Snowmobiles,Law Enforcement,PMC 2.0,Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Matt @ 8:56 AM

Dog Chapman

   This is a basic one, but I think extremely intriguing.  The idea behind this post, is that I am hoping that some programmer or entrepreneur will take this idea and run with it. Meanwhile, my ultimate goal of wanting to see an increase of criminals and terrorists being captured would be the best outcome of all, along with people making money off of the concept.

    You can thank me later, if someone does take the ball and runs with it. Or maybe some whiz kid has already produced something like this? Nothing has come up on my PMC 2.0 radar that would indicate this, but if you do know of a similar concept, I would like to hear about it.

   So lets get this started.  This concept is really pretty simple.  Everyone owns or will own a smart phone with GPS capability.  That is an inevitability in my opinion, and the trends in mobile phone technology and availability points to this. They will actually be free with service plans, and you are already seeing this with some of the older smart phones.

   If everyone owned a smart phone with this GPS capability, then you could very well introduce a type of bounty hunter mobile application, which would connect folks who are looking for something or someone with the folks that are currently signed on with the BH application as hunters.  And what would really make it a ‘bounty’ hunter tool, is if those individuals looking for whatever, offered a reward.

   The way I see this working, is that you download the program onto your phone for free or for a small fee, and have the option to participate in the program or not, based on your personal preference . Just turn on the button that puts you into hunt mode.  You can either participate as a bounty hunter, or you could be the guy or gal offering the reward.   It could be individuals, police departments, organizations, schools, telecom companies, computer companies, countries, it doesn’t matter.  The application is open to the world, and they can sign up and play, all with intent of connecting folks for a common goal and creating an industry out of it.

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

PMC 2.0: Soldiers Track Each Other With Smart PDAs

Filed under: PMC 2.0,Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Matt @ 8:27 AM

   Very cool, and Wired Danger Room pumped out a little deal about this as well.  I don’t think us security contractors will ever have access to this PDA, but really, we don’t need to.  We have access to a multitude of PDA’s or smart phones.  I currently deploy with a iPhone 3GS wrapped in an Otterbox Defender Case, and love it.  For secure communications, I just use Hushmail.  For navigation purposes, I use Google Maps with the GPS interface.  For information collection, I just use Google Search, and can find what I need on a normal browser.  For communications, I can use the phone, text message, or email using 3G or Wifi.  Lots of options. The iPhone is amazing, and it is one of my best investments as far as technology is concerned. The battery life is not too bad either, but that could always be better.  And it will.

   I am also seeing a lot of contractors with smart phones now. It’s either a Blackberry or iPhone, and I think most go with the Blackberry.  With that said, companies need to get on board with getting mobile friendly, and explore the numerous ways that they can tap into this technology that all of us are using now.  And believe me, there will come a point where everyone will get a PDA with their mobile plans, and basic cellphones will just kind of fade away.  Better to start thinking about this stuff now in my opinion. –Matt

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iPhone 3GS in Otterbox Defender Case

iPhone 3GS in Otterbox Defender Case.

Soldiers Track Each Other With Smart PDAs

December 2009

By Grace V. Jean

Many of the military’s ground vehicles are equipped with blue force tracking systems that help troops monitor the locations of friendly units and enemy forces. But when soldiers dismount to patrol an area on foot, they lose that digital awareness of their surroundings.

The Army’s troubled Land Warrior program — a wearable computer, GPS, radio and monocle display technology ensemble — was designed to give dismounted troops that battlefield information. The program is still alive and showing progress, according to Army officials.

A team at Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Advanced Technology Laboratories in Cherry Hill, N.J., meanwhile, has developed a Land Warrior-like handheld computer for small infantry units to track and communicate with each other on the ground.

The “distributed operations,” or “DisOps,” system consists of a group of PDAs and a software package that can be installed on a laptop.

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Friday, October 2, 2009

PMC 2.0: Mesh Networks

Filed under: Disaster Response,PMC 2.0,Technology — Tags: , , , , , , , — Matt @ 11:11 AM

   This is important research for PMC’s and PSC’s, because if companies want a simple way for contractors to communicate with each other on some disaster zone or war zone gig, then this will allow them to do that.  Especially since most guys have, or will soon have smart phones that are bluetooth and wifi capable. You could add this capability to your communications plan, and if these guys can make this open source and free, then it would be a no-brainer to utilize Mesh Networks.

   In disaster zones and war zones where there is no infrastructure for 3G or cell towers, or those things were destroyed somehow, you must have a communications infrastructure back up system.  Mesh Networks is a possible solution if they can pull it off.  To make it free is even cooler, because then it will not be something that is exclusive to one company or another.  Along with the Mesh Networks, there must also be a way to encrypt the communications or something, and I am sure some technology will come along to do such a thing.  But first things first–get the Mesh Networks going.

    And for military/police/medical/disaster response crews, this will be awesome. For coordinating purposes and for evolving incidents like the Mumbai attack, you must have communications and information sharing systems that have redundancy built into them. If terrorists or some flood destroys the cell tower(s), then you must have an alternative network for everyone to talk on.  This is smart and I wish them all the luck in their research. –Matt

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Researchers developing free mobile mesh network

Munir Kotadia

Oct 1, 2009

Can provide comms during mobile network blackout?

Researchers from Australia and Singapore are developing a wireless ad-hoc mesh networking technology that uses mobile handsets to share and carry information including high quality video.

The mesh network will make use of Bluetooth or Wifi and could be used at a large sporting event, conference, or even a crowded city centre during an emergency, to swap information between handsets – even if the mobile phone network was offline.

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Monday, September 21, 2009

PMC 2.0: Mobile Phone Applications–Feral Jundi Has Been Mobified!

Filed under: Industry Talk,PMC 2.0,Technology — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Matt @ 1:18 PM

      You’re probably wondering what I am going on about now? Sorry, bare with me.  It’s called the future, and Feral Jundi has now been formatted for mobile phones.  That means if you have an iPhone or whatever, this blog will fit better and read better on your tiny little screen.  Or at least that is the goal, and I am looking forward to any input from the readership about how to make it better.

   Don’t worry though, and I am not getting rid of the web presence here.  It’s just that mobile phones are increasingly the preferred method for reading this stuff these days, and FJ must evolve.  A lot of the emails I get from folks, are all done through phones, and it is important to go with the flow on this and take advantage of this technology and cultural shift.

    Plus, I want to be that site you pull up while you are waiting at the doctor’s office or bank, and I want it to be very easy for you to do that.  Your time is important to me, and it shouldn’t be wasted trying to navigate through several layers of internet and processing just to get to FJ.  That little bit of free time that you have out there, is the most significant aspect of this discussion, because people are using those little windows of time to do what they do normally at home on a laptop or computer.

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Sunday, June 21, 2009

PMC 2.0: MIL-STD-810, Millennial Veterans and Smart Phones For PMC’s

Filed under: PMC 2.0,Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Matt @ 1:22 AM

   I was debating on wether or not to put this under technology, but then I thought, this is far more important to PMC’s and PSC’s.  Look folks, the reality is, is that smart phones are going to be everywhere in the near future.  They already are for the most part, and if you look around, you will see many people using them. If the factor is price, even that is going down, and soon they will be as cheap as current GSM phones.  Even folks in Iran or Iraq are using smart phones, and as they get cheaper and more available, this technology will become even more important and relevant to the private military and security industry.

   And I would even argue, that smart phones will be essential tools for the security contractor of the future.  I have witnessed contractors use these phones, and they love them.  They can bring up Hushmail (free encrypted email), GPS so they can find airports or training facilities or do a convoy operation down the road in Iraq, they can talk to home via Skype (free VOIP service), browse the internet, do their banking, read the forums and blogs, check their Facebook account or follow some Tweets on Twitter–the uses are endless.  Hell, even on iPhone, you can get sniper windage and elevation calculation applications.

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