App turns power button into panic button for activists at risk | Hacker News Reader

App turns power button into panic button for activists at risk

wired.co.uk

69 pointssecfirstmd34 comments

Since this would never pass Apple's approval, why not take another approach: create an app that checks in automatically on a pre-set interval. If the phone ever gets turned off and a check-in is missed, the dead man's switch will flip. When you're in danger, just turn the phone off. This also has the added benefit of triggering the alert if the captor/aggressor turns off or destroys the phone. Just enable it when you know you're going to be entering a dicey situation.

As I understand it that is SOP for undercover work - and a much more sensible idea.

That idea is a lot more practical. It'd be tough to find your phone and pound the power button in a bad situation. A program/service that triggers on a lack of input is a lot more likely to actually WORK when it's needed.

As another poster pointed out, this already exists for iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/safetrek/id716262008?mt=8

Then you have another problem: battery drainage, which may or may not be a problem depending on location.

Sorry to hijack the thread but: does anyone know the "dead man switch" online service? Can be as simple as sending email if some action is not completed at predefined time. It's pretty triaval to do, but if there is an existing one…

https://deadmanssnitch.com/ is what we use.

Depending on the update interval you won't get the actual location. But you could develop the app and distribute it as source, for everyone to compile and upload to their phone. They'd need access to somebody with an apple developer account, but that's fairly easy to get.

Nice. Panic App meet signal jammer.

Perhaps a combination with some form of dead-man's-switch could be useful? A basic design might be: record gps coordinates at an interval, encrypt to chosen gpg/pgp keys and store on a server. Additionally have a heart-beat, and pre-recorded message. When the heart-beat signal is interrupted for a configurable length of time, send email(s) with encrypted message and gps trail?

The reason for encrypting the data, would be an effort to minimize the risk associated with a compromise of the server account(s) (could really just be smart remailers - allowing the server interface to be via smtp).

Perhaps combined with a panic-button for signalling immediate distress along with destroying the signing gpg sub-key (so that, when authorities get help from the vendor to unlock the phone, they can't send a signed "I'm ok, never mind"-message).

Would require the usual mess of administrating keys, of course.

Soon:

I came as quickly as I could, are you OK?

Yes, I was just trying to turn up the volume of my music, but wasn't paying attention.

I have no idea why you were downvoted. This is definitely going to happen.

Volume button != power button. Nobody ever hammers on the power button repeatedly.

I've done this lots of times. On my phone, volume up and power are on opposite sides. I've often tried to turn the volume up without looking and wondered why nothing happened.

You haven't seen some tech illiterate people try to work a phone have you?

That's something my mom would do. She once asked me how you can tell if the phone was on or off... no joke.

Tech illiterate people probably aren't the ones to install a panic button application for use by demonstrators.

Nice .. I wrote a similar app, a "Fall Detector", which allows you to send an SMS (or Twitter alert) if the app detects you have fallen over:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.spantec.sec...

Seems like it would also be useful to have some mechanism like this in such an "emergency app", so that operator interaction is not required - more of a dead man switch than a big fat button ..

Built this 5 years ago. You will get an expired SSL error as the acquirer has since abandoned it.

https://plerts.com

It was free to use with friends and family, or you could have paid a small fee for 24x7 S&R and medi-vac backed by Lloyds of London.

One of the biggest issues is "top of mind". During times of severe distress – most people forget they have these services available. They are so distraught and in fear of their life, they are not thinking clearly. 911 is an exception because it's been engrained in us (Americans) since we were born.

> During times of severe distress – most people forget they have these services available

Indeed. Even just playing video games, so many times I'd find the Magic Thingamajoober that saves your life against scary monster Fuzzlewump so long as you push X when you're being attacked. "Remember to push X. Remember to push X." Then a Fuzzlewump comes and starts wumping you withing an inch of your life, you're panicked and fighting back using your sword and shield the only way you know how. Fuzzlewump wins, "Do you want your possessions identified?", and only then you realize you forgot all about the Thingamajoober you were saving for exactly this scenario.

This is why in real life people train against dangerous scenarios. Brains just don't work under fight-or-flight conditions, even when there's a pause button.

Can I ask why you gave it up?

Without going into detail, a lesson in M&As.

I would be interested in a chat at some point. Interesting business model. I reached out to you on twitter.

Combine it with a Pressy button[1] and you won't even need to override the power button.

[1]: http://get.pressybutton.com/

This is a really cool idea, I particularly like the fact that it can be disguised as another app on the phone. Rather than it being "I'm the panic button app Mister oppressive government operative, please delete me" it can just be disguised as a calculator.

I wonder if there is a choice of which app to mimic for the disguise, and whilst this isn't going to be a silver bullet it definitely adds another layer of defence to people who really need it.

I had a friend who worked for a well-known movie director who built a "black book" contact list disguised as a tip calculator. A quick search does not return any association between his name and an app, but I can see there are a number out there.

There's a similar app called SafeTrek:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/safetrek/id716262008?mt=8

Of course, SafeTrek is intended to contact the police. The "Panic Button" app seems to be intended for those for whom the police may be the people they need to be rescued from.

This might be a good thing to install on my kids' phones?

I can't tell if you are serious or not...

Are your children human rights activists at risk from attack, kidnap or torture? Do you anticipate them being in a situation that requires them to dial for help in a stealthy manner?

Do your children know how to dial you or 911?

Mostly I'm pondering if this would be useful for them in the (very unlikely) case that they get into a situation where they can't dial 911 (need to be quiet or otherwise don't want to draw attention to themselves). But, as others point out, actually remembering the app exists when you need it may be problemmatic. And even so they would then have to find it on screen 27, past all the 2048, angry bird, and flappy bird games and things.

This could pretty easily be setup on a jailbroken device also.

Nice, we're evolving the same mechanisms for quick herd notification that animals have.

This is why humans and animals scream when we're in danger (not because screaming is a very effective danger mitigator), and this is why some animals jump in place when they detect danger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stotting).

We've had these two signals exploiting our vision medium, and our sound medium. And now increasingly, we're adding signals exploiting our digital network medium.

As those become more and more commonplace they have a very tangible effect on our society. Think Twitter riots and what not.

BTW, people in Japan get an instant smartphone warning when there's an earthquake.

> BTW, people in Japan get an instant smartphone warning when there's an earthquake.

To be specific, BEFORE there's an earthquake. Otherwise it wouldn't be very useful :) And it's not just smartphones, this system is in place on dumbphones well (using the GSM Cell Broadcast feature).

Americans get an instant smartphone warning when a child has been kidnapped http://www.imore.com/amber-alerts-your-iphone-what-they-are-...

> To be specific, BEFORE there's an earthquake. Otherwise it wouldn't be very useful :)

To be even more specific, after the earthquake has been detected, but hopefully before the seismic waves reach their location. Otherwise it would be magic ;)

> To be specific, BEFORE there's an earthquake.

Yes, it takes a little while for seismic waves to travel from the epicentre to locations a fair distance away. The high speed trains are programmed to start braking as soon as an alert is heard - it's usually enough to shed 100mph or so off the speed before getting in trouble.

www.panicguard.com sasha@panicguard.com

Was built in 2011 and serves giant security companies.

Old news.

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