
Turn Your Old Cell Phones into Listening Devices to Stop Illegal Logging - RainforestCx
http://makezine.com/2014/07/25/turn-your-old-cell-phones-into-diy-environmental-listening-devices-to-stop-illegal-logging/
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ChuckMcM
That is a classic "Internet of Things" solution, I've book marked it to add to
my presentation.

My thesis is that the surveillance state exists because it was too expensive
for anyone other than state actors to create one. But the proliferation of
cell phones, and their concomitant ability to record and distribute data is
making it possible for individuals and small groups to do things like this
rain forest project. One of the things I predict will happen is that at some
point a big push will be made to prevent people from randomly disposing of
their old phones, instead either rewarding them monetarily or requiring their
disposal in an 'approved' way. At the recent visit to the equipment liquidator
I sometimes buy from I saw a pallet with a box full of phones. All kinds from
Nokia candybar phones to blackberries to off brand android phones. There had
to be 2500 to 3000 phones in the box. I doubt they sold for more than breakage
(0.03/lb). But a motivated individual could 'fix' that like this guy did. Buy
them attach a solar power + battery source and cheap sim cards and doing
nothing more than the phone was designed to do (record sound or take a
picture, send an MMS message) Lots of interesting intelligence over a wide
area could be acquired. Want to know who the drug dealers are in a
neighborhood? Or who works during the day? Or which houses have nobody in
them? You could do a lot taking 10 snapshots a day and sending them to a
central server.

Clearly it's anathema to a control state to have that ability in the hands of
someone outside their control, so I predict some mobilization against it, from
the phone "trade in" that is too good to be true to new rules and regulations
about running an unattended computing device with recording capabilities.

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arbuge
Thousands of phones sounds like a massive cell phone bill, even with the
cheaper plans overseas referred to in the article. 10 snapshots a day adds up
if you're charged a few pennies per mms. Would be great to see some some
further elaboration on this point.

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RainforestCx
> Thousands of phones sounds like a massive cell phone bill, > even with the
> cheaper plans overseas referred to in the > article. 10 snapshots a day adds
> up if you're charged a few > pennies per mms. Would be great to see some
> some further > elaboration on this point.

Very good question/assertion.

This is Topher, from the article. In our experience so far (Indonesia &
Africa), it's been shocking how affordably we're able to operate the system,
though there are caveats when it comes to having to work around local
standards (to be explained in a moment).

In Indonesia, in our first pilot test in 2013, we were actually able to get
SIM cards with unlimited data in retail outlets the equivalent of $2.89/month.
You can see a tweet from around that time in which we're quite pleasantly
surprised:
[https://twitter.com/RainforestCx/status/342834137163505664](https://twitter.com/RainforestCx/status/342834137163505664)

The caveat in this case was that these plans are pay-as-you-go, which means
that credits must be purchased each month, and applied to the number through
SMS. Thus, while in the field, we had to extend our API to keep track of
credits, interact with the telecom over SMS, and translate keywords in Bahasa
Indonesian SMS's that were returned. When an account was running low, another
device in the forest was instructed to use a top-up code from (provided by the
API) to "top-up" the phone with the low-balance. This is obviously a hack to
emulate what people do for each other—namely purchase credits and top up each
others' accounts.

Going forward, Rainforest Connection will be looking for semi-affordable
monthly plans where available, and only performing work-arounds like the one
described above when absolutely necessary.

It's also worth mentioning that each phone is able to hear chainsaw noises up
to a kilometer in the distance, meaning that one single phone can "protect"
almost 3 square kilometers (one square mile or 300 hectares) of forest. That
means that 100 square kilometers can be protected with only 30 devices, which
at nearly any GSM data price point is a good value.

I'd be happy to elaborate more if you have more questions. Thanks! -Topher

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tomjen3
Are the phones able to tell where in the protected area the sounds come from
(eg. distance and radius) or can it just tell us the approximate distance?

Also you might not have to protect all the areas - if the devices are
sufficiently hidden from view then people don't necessarily know where it is
safe to loot, and so you end up protecting a much wider range.

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fakeanon
I thought it was for the other kind of logging, what if we left a bunch of old
cellphones on with random noises.

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ada1981
What kind of logging is that?

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fakeanon
Data logging (recording and storing). Random noises for NSA.

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ada1981
This project is rad. I spent some time with them as their crowdfunding advisor
and it's one of the most impressive projects I've seen.

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cmdrfred
I agree. This is the kind of work that inspires me. Sure you can make pretty
'apps', things like this might change the world.

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68393459
Trying to understand that title involved double takes and several extra
seconds.

A magnificent Stroop effect for the post-2013 era!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroop_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroop_effect)

~~~
ada1981
Good or bad? Did it catch your attention and curiosity?

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Renaud
I could see something like this being used in large cities to monitor noise
levels, especially from construction.

You could then build real-time maps of the noise in the city, identify illegal
construction noise on the week-ends for instance, or simply help people choose
which area they want to live in.

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sitkack
Legal logging is a bigger threat.

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RainforestCx
> Legal logging is a bigger threat.

This is common misconception, which _should_ be true, but in fact isn't.
Environmental crime is rampant and highly profitable. Interpol estimates that
50-90% of rainforest logging is illegal:

[http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Environmental-
crime/Proj...](http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Environmental-
crime/Projects/Project-Leaf)

