Boston: GPS on handguns

[fletcher]

OK - I sent the guy an email, and his response stated that the plan was "well thought out", it was "a win for gunowners, because it can be used to retrieve a stolen gun", and that one company had already contacted him, saying their "device is as small as a dime." So, I'm going to have to call BS on this whole thing (on Boston).

 

[Sean Cloherty]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha . . .

No offense but . . . Are you guys seriously debating Farady cages, printed circuit vulnerability to recoil, reception issues and power sources and such? You must have a lot of free time on your hands.

Massachusetts has a multitude of village idiots, who we here in the People's Republic call "legislators". That one of them spouts off some damn fool idea that any posessor of an even a marginally working sense of reality would see as complete B.S. is no reason for this outburst of self indulgence and/or pontificating by the otherwise intelligent denizens of THR.

As you may not be aware, our elected types try to justify themselves by making more and more outrageous proposals (for the cheeeeeelden). On a rare occasion,when the people clamor for action rather than bread and circuses, one of these brain farts of legislation metastisizes and becomes a bill.

So many of these inanities are proposed yearly that we don't take it as seriously as some of you may have. Only after the state legislature (the best money can buy - (thanks Howie)) has a bill with this in third reading should the inmates start taking it seriously.

. . . and now back to your regularly scheduled rant about the number of angels blah blah blah . . .

 

[Deavis]

Are you an electronics engineer?

Actually, yes, I am, with two degrees and experience in embedded system design. I don't think my statement is bogus at all, but after reading it again I can see how my posting in haste led to a large disconnect in the system I envisioned off the cuff and what you are envisioning.

I submit that you don't need anything more than a transmitter to make this system work. The only thing the weapon has to do is "register" on a local cell phone network to provide GPS positioning information. The cell phone towers provide triangulation, which in turn can provide GPS compatible coordinates. The device wouldn't even have to communicate with the towers if the cell towers were designed to accept the communication at face value.

Have you ever heard of a Faraday Cage?

I have and let's use a real-world example of one... it is called a car. Your GPS receiver work in it? Of course it does, so your point is of no value. A metal box causes issues due to signal attenuation not because of the electrical properties of a Faraday cage. Change your transmission frequency to one that is transparent to a metal of your choice. Problem solved, unless of course you encounter a different metal. That of course leads to my next point.

What about underground usage? Have you ever experienced GPS dropout when you drive into an underground parking garage (or even just park under a bridge)?

These are not system engineering issues, they are channel engineering issues. My statement was that the embedded system could be made small enough to fit on a gun, not that it would work under every single situation possible. You can always come up with ridiculous channel examples that would cause any system to stop working. You know that, so it is ridiculous to throw out examples that no system, especially a miniaturized one could be expected to operate under. "What if the user puts it in 12' of lead, takes apart each IC and reverse biases each individual transistor, while attaching their nipples to 1000VDC, and burns a dead chicken?" Silly yes, but my point is that your examples are no better than mine because nobody laid out a spec sheet for us to work from.

It would be practically (emphasis on practical) impossible to make a GPS system that would function reliably in a firearm. Add to that the requirement to have a transmitter in the firearm to relay the position to some monitoring station.

See above, yes you can. You just disagree with the results, which is totally different.

Unless the monitoring station is very close, the power requirements for the transmitter would be very high, and battery depletion would be rapid (consider how quickly your cell phone battery dies when you are more than 5 miles from a cell tower).

Only if you were transmitting all the time. Your cell phone is actively searching for a tower and expecting a response, there is no need for the system to do that. In addition, you can easily work out a system where transmissions are timed to maximize battery life. You don't need to communicate your position more that once, say, every 30 minutes. How about once a day even? There were no constraints laid out as to how traceable the system had to be or its range for that matter, just that you could locate the gun. Once a day might be enough, the original post gave no guidelines.

The cost for such a system would be astronomical, considering the number of monitoring antenna sites that would be required.

Why? Force the cell phone companies to accept these coded transmissions from firearms and handle them appropriately. Once again, this is a channel issue, not a system issue. Who says money is an object? You won't let me use cell phone triangulation and want a dedicated GPS transceiver? Fine, then I'll force every state to put up a tower every 500ft. You can STILL engineer a system that will fit onto a handgun and now we have a channel that will track it.

Another poster has already mentioned the problem with supplying power to such an in firearm GPS relay system; criminals will not replace discharged batteries. Photovoltaic and storage capacitors would be too cumbersome to be workable (and would be defeated by keeping the gun in darkness), and we can't have nuclear power in hand held units. Cold Fusion does not exist yet, so just how do you expect to make this device work for more than 24 hours?

Since there seems to be no limitation on the system from your side why not use the weapon as a potential energy source? Require the gun to have fresh batteries to operate. Better yet, pass a law requiring all guns to be kept in a condition where they transmit, if they aren't the police come get you. Make the peasants plug in their weapons to a state approved land line at home, require permission to remove it, and then you are guaranteed that right after it is stolen you can track it for a couple minutes.

As I said, there is a disconnect. You are not addressing the subject of my original post. A system can be engineered to provide the basic functionality required, a GPS coordinate location of a gun. You might not like its performance, which is a completely different issue, but it is, from an engineering standpoint, simple.

Think about putting that GPS stuff on a pocket-gun like a Kel-Tec or NAA.

I wasn't considering those weapons, your point is well taken on those. I was thinking a gun at least the size of a subcompact. Since we have carte blanche here, those guns are now illegal to own. Problem solved. You don't have to like it, but it would work.

Please tell me you are kidding? Even if you made it as small as a cell phone (which for all the parts needed, batteries, etc would be an expensive difficult task) where the hell on a handgun, even a full sized handgun, are you going to stick something the size of a cell phone?

See above, the device wouldn't need near the capabilities of a cell phone, just 1 small part.

Throw your cell phone on the floor a few times see how well it works, then do that a few thousand times. Firing a gun puts off a good bit of shock that would tear up any electronics you put into it. We aren't talking a light or a laser, these things are simple. We are talking complex microchips that don't like being bashed around.

I've designed boards that have undergone stress tests where the they are shocked every 30 seconds at high G levels (imagine being bolted to a couple tons of steel, lifted up 3 feet and then forcefully wached against a base) Then the went through temperature cycling from -40C to 200C. All those boards had modern ICs on them and nary a failure after hunderds upon hundreds of hours of shock and temp cycling. No offense, but modern electronics are much more resiliant than you give them credit for.

 

[EddieCoyle]

Consalvo is an idiot. Previous poster Sean Cloherty got it right. Don't listen to the "legislators" here. There's been a spate of gun murders in the Boston area over the last couple of months and this is just some of the reactionary BS that is to be expected.

Seriously, have you ever heard the mayor of Boston, Tom Menino speak? You need subtitles to understand the guy.

I don't think Springfield Armory would sign anything. The @$$ kissers Colt and Ruger probably will though.

Dude, check your facts. There is not one Colt handgun on the Massachusetts Approved Firearms Roster. They may kiss ass but they certainly don't do it here in the Commonwealth.

As far as engineering the thing goes: Could they fit both the GPS and the lock into a handgun?

There's no way that something like this would pass (even here) because it would be too easy to disable, and even the elected officials could figure that out. Any self respecting crook that would use a gun in a crime (or steal someone's gun) without disabling the GPS, and then keep it on him is so stupid that he'd be caught anyway.

 

[engineer151515]

.......................



Since there seems to be no limitation on the system from your side why not use the weapon as a potential energy source? Require the gun to have fresh batteries to operate. Better yet, pass a law requiring all guns to be kept in a condition where they transmit, if they aren't the police come get you. Make the peasants plug in their weapons to a state approved land line at home, require permission to remove it, and then you are guaranteed that right after it is stolen you can track it for a couple minutes.

..........................................

I know you were just discussing functional parameters, but can you imagine the response you'll get requiring weapons to have fresh batteries or pre-approved phone log-ins.


That should be worth a couple of pages of resounding howling right here to begin with.

 

[Deavis]

I know you were just discussing functional parameters, but can you imagine the response you'll get requiring weapons to have fresh batteries or pre-approved phone log-ins.

Like I said, people may not like the results or performance of the system, but it is a fairly straightforward engineering problem. We could build a bridge to Hawaii, that is simple from an engineering standpoint, however the pros/cons of such a bridge are a completely different story. All I'm saying is that it can be done and I completely agree, it would be a miserable system with huge drawbacks for your average gun owner. That is, of course, the point of such legislation, is it not?

As far as engineering the thing goes: Could they fit both the GPS and the lock into a handgun?

Definitely. Replace the standard trigger/hammer aparatus with a uC controlled solenoid. Infinitely adjustable trigger by simply changing the trigger return spring and an absolute drop saftey all in a convenient pacakge. No moving parts replace (ever!) and just think what you could do if you hacked the uC to enable a "different" firing mode than that programmed at the factory.

To unlock the gun, it could be as simple as pressing a switch (probably not the trigger!) in a proscribed sequence to unlock the gun. Perhaps a morse-code like entry scheme, where the uC uses a timer to determine if you have entered a long or short (dit and da? I can't remember) That is a software implementation issue, not a hardware issue.

 

[One of Many]

Actually, yes, I am, with two degrees and experience in embedded system design. I don't think my statement is bogus at all, but after reading it again I can see how my posting in haste led to a large disconnect in the system I envisioned off the cuff and what you are envisioning.

I also have 2 degrees in Electrical/Electronic Engineering and embedded system design. My experience includes design of microprocessor and digital circuitry, and firmware/software to operate that system. Now that we have a situation of the pot calling the kettle black, which do you prefer to be known as?

I submit that you don't need anything more than a transmitter to make this system work. The only thing the weapon has to do is "register" on a local cell phone network to provide GPS positioning information. The cell phone towers provide triangulation, which in turn can provide GPS compatible coordinates. The device wouldn't even have to communicate with the towers if the cell towers were designed to accept the communication at face value.

If you live in a large city, or within 2 miles of an interstate, the cell phone system may be able to receive a signal from a system with the transmit power equivalent to a cell phone. In a rural area away from major highways, there will be no cell phone towers close enough to receive the signal from a gun. I have done a great deal of driving on major state highways and lost cell coverage anywhere from 2 to 5 miles away from the interstate, only picking up coverage when approaching the next small town, 15 miles from the interstate. As far as triangulation, it only indicates which cell towers are receiving a signal; it does not indicate the stength of the signal at the cell tower, or the direction from the cell tower. Cell towers use omni-directional antennas; triangulation requires directional antennas.

Quote:
Have you ever heard of a Faraday Cage?

I have and let's use a real-world example of one... it is called a car. Your GPS receiver work in it? Of course it does, so your point is of no value. A metal box causes issues due to signal attenuation not because of the electrical properties of a Faraday cage. Change your transmission frequency to one that is transparent to a metal of your choice. Problem solved, unless of course you encounter a different metal. That of course leads to my next point.

An automobile body is an imperfect representation of a Faraday cage, but it still provides significant reduction in signal strength to a GPS receiver, causing some channels to drop out, and the system accuracy to degrade. The GPS satelites transmit on government assigned frequencies, which are not easily changed; so do the cell phone sites. In order to make your simple firearms GPS system work, we have to completly change 2 major worldwide/nationwide communications system's operating parameters, and you think this is a PRACTICAL engineering solution.

Quote:
From an engineering/technology standpoint, it's impractical, if not impossible, to have a cost-efficient, practical GPS tracking system on a firearm.

Note that practicality and cost were the 2 considerations in the original post that triggered your flight of fancy.

Quote:
What about underground usage? Have you ever experienced GPS dropout when you drive into an underground parking garage (or even just park under a bridge)?

These are not system engineering issues, they are channel engineering issues. My statement was that the embedded system could be made small enough to fit on a gun, not that it would work under every single situation possible. You can always come up with ridiculous channel examples that would cause any system to stop working. You know that, so it is ridiculous to throw out examples that no system, especially a miniaturized one could be expected to operate under. "What if the user puts it in 12' of lead, takes apart each IC and reverse biases each individual transistor, while attaching their nipples to 1000VDC, and burns a dead chicken?" Silly yes, but my point is that your examples are no better than mine because nobody laid out a spec sheet for us to work from.

If you think that changing the channel frequencies of GPS and cellular telephone systems is not a system engineering issue, just what is a systems engineering issue in your mind? That would require billions of dollars worth of engineering and reconstruction work to accomplish, and result in significant loss to the users of these systems. That in return for a firearms GPS system that only works when all parameters align perfectly. Explain how that is either practical or economic.

Quote:
It would be practically (emphasis on practical) impossible to make a GPS system that would function reliably in a firearm. Add to that the requirement to have a transmitter in the firearm to relay the position to some monitoring station.

See above, yes you can. You just disagree with the results, which is totally different.

Quote:
Unless the monitoring station is very close, the power requirements for the transmitter would be very high, and battery depletion would be rapid (consider how quickly your cell phone battery dies when you are more than 5 miles from a cell tower).

Only if you were transmitting all the time. Your cell phone is actively searching for a tower and expecting a response, there is no need for the system to do that. In addition, you can easily work out a system where transmissions are timed to maximize battery life. You don't need to communicate your position more that once, say, every 30 minutes. How about once a day even? There were no constraints laid out as to how traceable the system had to be or its range for that matter, just that you could locate the gun. Once a day might be enough, the original post gave no guidelines.

Once again the issue of practicality; if it only works during the forth blue moon of the year, then why bother to attempt implementing such a system.

Quote:
The cost for such a system would be astronomical, considering the number of monitoring antenna sites that would be required.

Why? Force the cell phone companies to accept these coded transmissions from firearms and handle them appropriately. Once again, this is a channel issue, not a system issue. Who says money is an object? You won't let me use cell phone triangulation and want a dedicated GPS transceiver? Fine, then I'll force every state to put up a tower every 500ft. You can STILL engineer a system that will fit onto a handgun and now we have a channel that will track it.

Quote:
Another poster has already mentioned the problem with supplying power to such an in firearm GPS relay system; criminals will not replace discharged batteries. Photovoltaic and storage capacitors would be too cumbersome to be workable (and would be defeated by keeping the gun in darkness), and we can't have nuclear power in hand held units. Cold Fusion does not exist yet, so just how do you expect to make this device work for more than 24 hours?

Since there seems to be no limitation on the system from your side why not use the weapon as a potential energy source? Require the gun to have fresh batteries to operate. Better yet, pass a law requiring all guns to be kept in a condition where they transmit, if they aren't the police come get you. Make the peasants plug in their weapons to a state approved land line at home, require permission to remove it, and then you are guaranteed that right after it is stolen you can track it for a couple minutes.

And the reason we have criminals using guns to rob, rape and kill people is that they completly ignore the existing laws; why would they pay any attention to these laws?

As I said, there is a disconnect. You are not addressing the subject of my original post. A system can be engineered to provide the basic functionality required, a GPS coordinate location of a gun. You might not like its performance, which is a completely different issue, but it is, from an engineering standpoint, simple.

It may be simple to glue a chip on a gun, but the rest of the support system is far from simple, and certainly not economical.

Quote:
Think about putting that GPS stuff on a pocket-gun like a Kel-Tec or NAA.

I wasn't considering those weapons, your point is well taken on those. I was thinking a gun at least the size of a subcompact. Since we have carte blanche here, those guns are now illegal to own. Problem solved. You don't have to like it, but it would work.

So would requiring all guns to be 10 feet long and weigh 200 pounds.

Quote:
Please tell me you are kidding? Even if you made it as small as a cell phone (which for all the parts needed, batteries, etc would be an expensive difficult task) where the hell on a handgun, even a full sized handgun, are you going to stick something the size of a cell phone?

See above, the device wouldn't need near the capabilities of a cell phone, just 1 small part.

Quote:
Throw your cell phone on the floor a few times see how well it works, then do that a few thousand times. Firing a gun puts off a good bit of shock that would tear up any electronics you put into it. We aren't talking a light or a laser, these things are simple. We are talking complex microchips that don't like being bashed around.

I've designed boards that have undergone stress tests where the they are shocked every 30 seconds at high G levels (imagine being bolted to a couple tons of steel, lifted up 3 feet and then forcefully wached against a base) Then the went through temperature cycling from -40C to 200C. All those boards had modern ICs on them and nary a failure after hunderds upon hundreds of hours of shock and temp cycling. No offense, but modern electronics are much more resiliant than you give them credit for.

I worked on systems that flew on the very early space shuttle flights. The electronics were not commercial grade. The circuit boards were built with extraordinary care, their housings were machined metal designed to minimize shock and vibration, and when electrical tests were completed on the circuits they were then potted to provide extra protection. These are extremely expensive design and construction methods, employed on limited runs of systems, not mass produced. Again, where is the practicality and economy of such an approach. Just because something is POSSIBLE, doesn't make it feasible. You mentioned that it is always possible to come up with rediculous examples; you were correct, and GPS for firearms is such a case.

 

[EddieCoyle]

OK - I sent the guy an email, and his response stated that the plan was "well thought out", it was "a win for gunowners, because it can be used to retrieve a stolen gun", and that one company had already contacted him, saying their "device is as small as a dime." So, I'm going to have to call BS on this whole thing (on Boston).

Well thought out, huh? I don't know how Consalvo expects to get this working when they can't even get reliable cell phone reception in downtown Boston!.

...the mayor says coverage is still too spotty. And, with enough memories of places where he's lost reception to make a map in his brain, he toured several city neighborhoods, noting each time his phone lost its signal. Menino argued that reception is the worst in predominantly minority neighborhoods.

The neighborhoods referred to in that article are the ones with the shootings.

 

[Deavis]

I also have 2 degrees in Electrical/Electronic Engineering and embedded system design. My experience includes design of microprocessor and digital circuitry, and firmware/software to operate that system. Now that we have a situation of the pot calling the kettle black, which do you prefer to be known as?

I’ll take the kettle if it is okay with you. Something about pot just turns me off.

If you live in a large city, or within 2 miles of an interstate, the cell phone system may be able to receive a signal from a system with the transmit power equivalent to a cell phone. In a rural area away from major highways, there will be no cell phone towers close enough to receive the signal from a gun. I have done a great deal of driving on major state highways and lost cell coverage anywhere from 2 to 5 miles away from the interstate, only picking up coverage when approaching the next small town, 15 miles from the interstate.

Once again, this is a channel issue, not a systems issue. Keep them straight and distinct. With your education, you know the difference and I have stated multiple times that my evaluation was for the system, not the channel. You can build a channel to suit the system, while not desirable, is still possible. Also, I live 12 miles from a major high way and receive crystal clear cell phone reception, so your experience isn’t always typical and neither is mine. However, let me continue before you get upset about range issues.

As far as triangulation, it only indicates which cell towers are receiving a signal; it does not indicate the strength of the signal at the cell tower, or the direction from the cell tower. Cell towers use omni-directional antennas; triangulation requires directional antennas.

You are incorrect. Triangulation is completely possible with cell phone towers, it is done today, and your point about directional v. omni directional antennae is completely moot. Triangulation can be done with either type of antennae. For those who aren’t familiar with triangulation, one of the simplest ways to triangulate the location of a device (with some error due to channel interference, mostly multi-pathing) is measuring the time delay between each tower’s reception of the signal (TDOA = Time Difference of Arrival). This requires accurate clocks in the cell towers and communication between them, but they already have that. Furthermore, there is no reason you cannot extract the strength of a signal when received at a tower, it is done all the time. Preceived = Ptransmitted/r^2 .If you know the signal strength, you can also narrow down the location even better because you can adjust for evil things in the channel like reflections (Each reflection will change the signal strength slightly and also the phase, which you can then use to your advantage as well!). If you want more info, check out TDOA, AOA, or FDOA as valid ways to triangulate transmitting devices. Also worth knowing, omni directional triangulation requires 3 antennae whereas directional triangulation needs only one in best case scenarios.

An automobile body is an imperfect representation of a Faraday cage, but it still provides significant reduction in signal strength to a GPS receiver, causing some channels to drop out, and the system accuracy to degrade.

Right, so, your counterpoint to my claim that the signal dropout due to a metal box, which was the previous poster’s example of a Faraday cage, is more from screening than from the properties of a Faraday cage is what? Please, explain to me what electrical property of the metal box Faraday cage is more important than simple signal attenuation.

The GPS satellites transmit on government assigned frequencies, which are not easily changed; so do the cell phone sites. In order to make your simple firearms GPS system work, we have to completely change 2 major worldwide/nationwide communications system's operating parameters, and you think this is a PRACTICAL engineering solution.

My firearm solution provides GPS coordinates via base station calculations, not firearm based calculations. There is an extremely large difference and one that I pointed out in my last post. As I said, my first reply didn’t fully capture what I envisioned when I posted and that was a mistake on my part. I casually used “GPS solution” when I should have said “GPS coordinate system”. My examples above have already shown that you do not need to modify any of those systems to provide a GPS coordinate of a gun nor do you need any GPS hardware on the gun to do it.

From an engineering/technology standpoint, it's impractical, if not impossible, to have a cost-efficient, practical GPS tracking system on a firearm.

Note that practicality and cost were the 2 considerations in the original post that triggered your flight of fancy.

My ideas are hardly flights of fancy. Using TDOA, already available on cell towers, costs nothing for us, so what are you talking about?

If you think that changing the channel frequencies of GPS and cellular telephone systems is not a system engineering issue, just what is a systems engineering issue in your mind? That would require billions of dollars worth of engineering and reconstruction work to accomplish, and result in significant loss to the users of these systems. That in return for a firearms GPS system that only works when all parameters align perfectly. Explain how that is either practical or economic.

I was using hyperbole to counter hyperbole. You are now doing the same thing and acting innocent in a vain attempt to prove your argument. I’ve already pointed out above that the components necessary to receive a GPS coordinate of a firearm are available today and would piggy back on existing infrastructure.

Once again the issue of practicality; if it only works during the forth blue moon of the year, then why bother to attempt implementing such a system.

Nobody gave us any operational guidelines. Based on my expectations and what I consider good results, I believe the system in my mind, is more than enough. With advanced cell triangulation techniques, you can get down to 50m of accuracy. You don’t like the range of the system, but that is easy to change by modifying the transmit power, number of transmissions, and adding cell towers. The latter isn’t cheap but the industry is already doing it so it is, for our purposes, free. Even if we forced them to deploy more towers, that isn’t a cost that we must bear to implement our system. In addition, I’ve also already pointed out ways to increase the range of our transmitter and still keep the package compact.

And the reason we have criminals using guns to rob, rape and kill people is that they completely ignore the existing laws; why would they pay any attention to these laws?

This has nothing to do with the engineering of the system. As I said, I understand the consequences of such a system and the changes that would have to be made, but they have nothing to do with the engineering side. HYPERBOLE WARNING! Forcing people to plug in their gun might not be practical to you but from a politician’s POV, it is practical. As a matter of fact, they should be plugged in inside a state-approved gun safe with a 10,000W transmitter! Your opinion only counts if you are the one defining the rules and since you aren’t the elected official, your view of practical means nothing. I’m not trying to be harsh, just point out that you can’t just look at this with only your personal prejudices.

It may be simple to glue a chip on a gun, but the rest of the support system is far from simple, and certainly not economical.

I’ve discussed this, you can easily leverage current technology to make this happen with results at least as good as current technology allows with no further investment.

So would requiring all guns to be 10 feet long and weigh 200 pounds.

More hyperbole used to counter previous hyperbole that was used for a valid purpose.

I worked on systems that flew on the very early space shuttle flights. The electronics were not commercial grade. The circuit boards were built with extraordinary care, their housings were machined metal designed to minimize shock and vibration, and when electrical tests were completed on the circuits they were then potted to provide extra protection. These are extremely expensive design and construction methods, employed on limited runs of systems, not mass produced.

As someone who has designed for high temp, high stress environments, I can say with certainty that you are incorrect. The forces involved in a gun firing are nothing compared to what a modern mass produced FR-4 PCB is capable of withstanding. If an M3 or Lasermax can take the pounding, so could this device. You don’t even need to go into the pot/frame zone to protect the electronics because where you mount/integrate it means everything.

No offense to you personally, but the difference between wire-bonded THT ceramic packaged electronics available on the early space shuttle flights and current TSSOP/SSOP SMT devices is night and day. If that experience is your analogue to current technology, I’m sorry but it is a very poor indicator of what is possible today in high stress environments with modern ICs. I’m not trying to demean you or degrade your work but I’m merely pointing out that if you haven’t worked with modern ICs in a high stress environment, which I have, then your frame of reference given is not, in my opinion, as up to date as it could be for this discussion. I've also worked with potting and framing, so I know exactly what you are talking about.

Again, where is the practicality and economy of such an approach. Just because something is POSSIBLE, doesn't make it feasible. You mentioned that it is always possible to come up with ridiculous examples; you were correct, and GPS for firearms is such a case.

I think I have proven your last sentence more than a little incorrect. Off the shelf components, small package, no new channel hardware needed. Feel free to disagree but I think I make a strong case.

 

[Jim Diver]

Anyone found a link to a news story on this dumb politician's idea or a link to the proposed legislation?

 

[Manedwolf]

Yup - the gun makers have a "corporate mindset" (that is, profit over principles; good, old-fashioned GREED).

No doubt some greedy ones at the top of the heap at "Brand X Guns" would drop to their knees, break the boycott and service the boycotted cities and their police departments. Selling themselves to the highest bidder.

It seems that the gun maker's outlook is "When guns are outlawed - we'll sell them to 'The Government.' " They know this is where the true money lies, and that seems to be their priority.

Currently, to get around DVD region restrictions (which are NOT based on a law, just an agreement among DVD makers who wanted to increase profit by preventing grey market global sales), you often have to purchase a thumbs-nose-at-standards player from the Asian market via eBay or the like.

I really, really hope it doesn't become that the only way to get, say, a non-chipped handgun is to buy a foreign knockoff, too.

And I think the first time someone chips a true 1911, JMB himself will come back from the grave and go after lawmakers. I hope.

 

[benewton]

Another EE joins in.

I really don't see the problem here, from a technological point of view.

Keep the GPS receiver, and download periodic positioning information into the WOM (Write Only Memory).

Then use RFID technology, which is everywhere, to recharge the GPS power, read. and then report the contents of the WOM over the web, and you're done.

See? Simple, isn't it?



The whole basic premise is gun control, and that's already proven to be a non starter. No way in hell technology can, or should even try, to support a known losing idea into a winning one.




Oh, wait, there's the Apple computer....

 

[Rem700SD]

I'm not an engineer, so I'm just fishing here. What happens when of the chips or devices mentioned is placed into a mylar(?) bag, like the types that electronics/circuit boards are stored/sold in?

 

[benewton]

Electro static discharge protection: the devices are very sensitive to "sparks".

As in walking across a rug.

So the bag protects them from that, and they're not operational in that configuration.


The whole idea is so easy to beat that it simply doesn't make sense to even try.

 

[LAK]

See where "smart" guns are headed

A trial balloon. And when it don't fly; they simply roll it out again at a later time when the wind is more "favorable". And again - until they can make it fly.

-------------------------------
http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates.org

 

[outofbattery]

Given the number of All Lawful Purpose LTC's that are granted in Boston,it sure will make a difference in the number of residents walking around illegally armed I'm sure... Of course it's just fine for us non-Bostonians to buy handguns without the proposed GPS transmitter and carry in the city...Besides,I thought all the gun crime was being commited with ones bought in NH and ME?

I sure hope I don't end up having to walk around looking like this if I want to carry in MA

 

[shermacman]

Jim Diver:

Anyone found a link to a news story on this dumb politician's idea or a link to the proposed legislation?

These two will boil your blood:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/01/12/firearms_tracking_device_urged/

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=120968


This one will give hope that there is at least one more sane person in Massachusetts (besides me, of course).
http://massbackwards.blogspot.com/2006/01/boston-city-councilor-goes-off-deep.html

 

[afasano]

Consalvo is only talking to the voters that agree with him. What else is new?

 

[One of Many]

My firearm solution provides GPS coordinates via base station calculations, not firearm based calculations. There is an extremely large difference and one that I pointed out in my last post. As I said, my first reply didn’t fully capture what I envisioned when I posted and that was a mistake on my part. I casually used “GPS solution” when I should have said “GPS coordinate system”. My examples above have already shown that you do not need to modify any of those systems to provide a GPS coordinate of a gun nor do you need any GPS hardware on the gun to do it.

It seems that you are now saying that GPS on the gun is not part of your solution; you will use the GPS coordinates of fixed locations (antenna towers for the cell phone system), and triangulation from at least 3 cell towers to determine an extremely coarse location of the gun. With fixed tower locations, GPS is not needed to determine location, they are already known. The coordinate system has nothing to do with the method used to determine location in that coordinate system.

My ideas are hardly flights of fancy. Using TDOA, already available on cell towers, costs nothing for us, so what are you talking about?

I am talking about the cost to the whole of society, not just to the gun owners. Your techniques would require a huge cost to be absorbed by the taxpayers in general, not just a small subset called gun owners. The current ability of the cell system to triangulate is extremely coarse, and gets worse the farther away from the cell towers the originating signal transmits from; if the transmitter is located outside the triangle of towers the position determination is probably unusable. In a densely populated area, a location inside the triangle with an error of 50 meters would include a large number of locations and people that were completely unrelated to the gun. Do you go in and arrest everyone inside that 50 meter diameter range and search every home and business?


Nobody gave us any operational guidelines. Based on my expectations and what I consider good results, I believe the system in my mind, is more than enough. With advanced cell triangulation techniques, you can get down to 50m of accuracy. You don’t like the range of the system, but that is easy to change by modifying the transmit power, number of transmissions, and adding cell towers. The latter isn’t cheap but the industry is already doing it so it is, for our purposes, free. Even if we forced them to deploy more towers, that isn’t a cost that we must bear to implement our system. In addition, I’ve also already pointed out ways to increase the range of our transmitter and still keep the package compact.

You previously said that the gun transmitters would not transmit continously, just periodically, in order to slow the rate of power depletion in the gun mounted transmitter, and that the transmit power would be lower than that of cell phones. That requires more sensitive cell tower receivers. In an area with multiple gun transmitters, each gun must be uniquely identifiable by its transmission, so that requires some sort of coding system in both the gun transmitter and the cellular receiver, in order for triangulation to work. The cellular receivers must separate and identify possibly thousands of gun transmissions arriving in close time proximity, then syncronize the data for each firearm with multiple other celluar receiving systems. Do you need a supercomputer to process this data, just to get within 50 meters of a gun transmitter?

This has nothing to do with the engineering of the system. As I said, I understand the consequences of such a system and the changes that would have to be made, but they have nothing to do with the engineering side. HYPERBOLE WARNING! Forcing people to plug in their gun might not be practical to you but from a politician’s POV, it is practical. As a matter of fact, they should be plugged in inside a state-approved gun safe with a 10,000W transmitter! Your opinion only counts if you are the one defining the rules and since you aren’t the elected official, your view of practical means nothing. I’m not trying to be harsh, just point out that you can’t just look at this with only your personal prejudices.

It looks like you are disregarding the SOCIAL ENGINEERING side of this, and concentrating only on the possible TECHNOLGICAL aspects of locating each gun by GPS methods (and even then your solution has nothing to do with GPS). As far as your statement that the only opinion that counts is that of the elected official, it is just as erroneous as your distinction between systems and channels (channels are subsets of systems). The PEOPLE that elect the politicians and pay the TAXES are the ones whose opinion is important, not the engineer or politician that can't see the forrest for the trees.

 

[One of Many]

Another EE joins in.

I really don't see the problem here, from a technological point of view.

Keep the GPS receiver, and download periodic positioning information into the WOM (Write Only Memory).

Then use RFID technology, which is everywhere, to recharge the GPS power, read. and then report the contents of the WOM over the web, and you're done.

See? Simple, isn't it?



The whole basic premise is gun control, and that's already proven to be a non starter. No way in hell technology can, or should even try, to support a known losing idea into a winning one.




Oh, wait, there's the Apple computer....

RFID is not as viable as you believe. In order to obtain small sizes, the RFID tags are limited to ranges of less that a foot from the transmitter that they obtain power from and respond with data. The maximum ranges (such as those used to track pallets in warehouses and trucks) require large power packs and large transmitter antennas. RFID is used primarily in large commercial outlets and warehouses, and those are areas that typically prohibit firearms within the premises.

The power supplied to the RFID tag is just sufficient to power the device while it is in range of the master unit. There would be inadequate power transmitted to charge batteries or capacitor packs (again these would be large units) that would allow tracking information to be obtained and stored for days between readout stations.

I agree with your statement:

No way in hell technology can, or should even try, to support a known losing idea into a winning one.

 

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

GPS and RFID could both be defeated by a piece of aluminum foil wrapped around the gun.

- NF

 

[shermacman]

Nathaniel Firethorn

GPS and RFID could both be defeated by a piece of aluminum foil wrapped around the gun.

But...that would be illegal!

 

[LAK]

.... The power supplied to the RFID tag is just sufficient to power the device while it is in range of the master unit. There would be inadequate power transmitted to charge batteries or capacitor packs (again these would be large units) that would allow tracking information to be obtained and stored for days between readout stations....

Tracking in many places, for a great number of people would be quite easy along public roadways and key areas like entrances and exits to buildings and other facilities in the urban environment.

Information storage is already dirt cheap, and getting cheaper all the time.
--------------------------------------

http:/ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedtstates.org

 

[One of Many]

Tracking in many places, for a great number of people would be quite easy along public roadways and key areas like entrances and exits to buildings and other facilities in the urban environment.

Information storage is already dirt cheap, and getting cheaper all the time.

You overlooked the problem of the distance between the micro sized RFID tags and the base stations (a matter of inches - not feet); so roadside base stations would not be feasible.

Most public buildings do not have RFID base stations, and if you are going to install new technology, why not just have the standard metal detectors like they use at airports and courtrooms? Or the newer vision screening systems that can see right through a persons clothing; just set up an image analysis program to compare objects to stored master patterns, and alarm when a match is found. Then nothing would be required to be added to the guns, and even older guns could be detected. This is much more feasible from a technology standpoint than adding RFID tags or transmitters to firearms. It would be a massive invasion of the privacy rights of everyone passing through the detection system, and a huge expense, so it will never be implemented, just like the so called GPS or transmitter system would never be implemented either.

 

[Deavis]

It seems that you are now saying that GPS on the gun is not part of your solution; you will use the GPS coordinates of fixed locations (antenna towers for the cell phone system), and triangulation from at least 3 cell towers to determine an extremely coarse location of the gun. With fixed tower locations, GPS is not needed to determine location, they are already known. The coordinate system has nothing to do with the method used to determine location in that coordinate system.

You have not been reading my posts. I have been saying since my second post what the relationship between GPS and my system is. The lawmaker wants, at the end of the day, a GPS coordinate of a gun and my solution provides exactly that. That aside, there is absolutely no reason you couldn’t integrate an entire GPS solution onto a full-size Glock type gun, my point is that you don’t need it. If you don’t believe that it is possible to integrate a full GPS system into the space then let’s haul out some datasheets and do a rough layout of the components. I’ll be willing to bet you we can make it fit onto the dustcover of any modern gun without really breaking a sweat.

Now, I’m going to say it one more time, so it is crystal clear, the end product of the system is a GPS based coordinate Joe Enforcer can find, rather than 3.2us from tower1, 2.2us from tower 2, etc… You give him a coordinate that he can map on his fancy GPS receiver in his patrol car and track you down.

I am talking about the cost to the whole of society, not just to the gun owners. Your techniques would require a huge cost to be absorbed by the taxpayers in general, not just a small subset called gun owners.

What costs are you referring to? Please, outline exactly how leveraging existing technology would turn this into a huge cost for society. Certainly, software changes would have to be made, but the hardware is already out there and that is the truly expensive part. The device is paid for by the gun manufacturer and not borne by society at large. Besides, what is a couple million dollars in code changes? Maybe they make the gun manufacturers pay for this safety device infrastructure, why not? Don’t say, “That wouldn’t be practical, it would drive up the costs of guns for everyone and then people couldn’t buy them!” Guess what, that is practical to some people, just not you.

We spend billions on useless public education programs and you expect me to cringe at a few million to ensure the safety of every man, woman, and child in the US? Imagine! Guns crime, a thing of the past! Soccer Moms everywhere would be holding bake sales to pay for this. Once again, you are letting your prejudice cloud your view of practicality. Many people, like it or not, would wet themselves for this system.

The current ability of the cell system to triangulate is extremely coarse, and gets worse the farther away from the cell towers the originating signal transmits from; if the transmitter is located outside the triangle of towers the position determination is probably unusable. In a densely populated area, a location inside the triangle with an error of 50 meters would include a large number of locations and people that were completely unrelated to the gun. Do you go in and arrest everyone inside that 50 meter diameter range and search every home and business?

Once again, you are trying to derail the idea by using your personal prejudice against it instead of logical reasoning. “Well, you would have to cordon off vast areas to find that gun and people wouldn’t allow that!” You’d be surprised at what people will do for some perceived safety. Don’t believe me? Then you weren’t watching TV after 9/11. I’ll digress on that one and provide you a technological fix instead.

A simple solution is to arm the police with a scanner that can detect the transmission. Now you just get in the general area and bingo, you can home in down to the inch. You are going to say, “But the scanner costs money, it is a whole new system to implement.” Sorry pal, the technology needed to implement a hand held scanner is both readily available and cheap, just like our transmitter parts. Mass produced, you are talking nothing compared to saving the life of one innocent child. Once again, “Mr. and Mrs. America, we need this money to keep your children safe…” The dollars would roll in. “If it only saves one!” Police see their budgets rise, always a good thing to them, and now they can disarm people at will. Now, I’ve addressed both the social and technological parts of this issue and have shown it is STILL practical to do this despite your objections.

You previously said that the gun transmitters would not transmit continuously, just periodically, in order to slow the rate of power depletion in the gun mounted transmitter, and that the transmit power would be lower than that of cell phones. That requires more sensitive cell tower receivers.

I did not say what was in bold as a specific design spec at all, regardless your following statement is of no consequence. There is no reason that the transmission can’t be stronger than normal cells and transmitter still last months on modern batteries. Remember, a majority of cell power is used searching for signals and the display. Our device has neither of those shortcomings and your counterpoint is ineffectual.

In an area with multiple gun transmitters, each gun must be uniquely identifiable by its transmission, so that requires some sort of coding system in both the gun transmitter and the cellular receiver, in order for triangulation to work. The cellular receivers must separate and identify possibly thousands of gun transmissions arriving in close time proximity, then synchronize the data for each firearm with multiple other cellular receiving systems.

Come on, certainly you realize the futility of what you are saying in the face of modern computing power and technology. Coding a unique ID for every gun isn’t even a necessity for this system to work (We can discuss the statistics of a repeat code based on active regional ID distribution schemes if you want but I think it is unnecessary since you should know exactly what my point will be given your expertise) but if you wanted it, you could easily do it. Triangulation algorithms are fast and fiber has lots of bandwidth. I know you want it really bad, but you cannot dismiss this as fancy. This is NOT a challenging technological device or location scheme to implement. The components are available, the infrastructure exists, and there are people who would love to build it. You are grasping at the proverbial straws on that one.

It looks like you are disregarding the SOCIAL ENGINEERING side of this, and concentrating only on the possible TECHNOLGICAL aspects of locating each gun by GPS methods (and even then your solution has nothing to do with GPS).

I’ve covered this before. You want so badly to feel that this is an impossible task but the truth is that it isn’t. All of my statements have been geared towards the implementation of a system, which was the challenge. In addition, I have, since you keep bringing it up, shown that the social implications are easily dealt with as well. You don’t like my system and you don’t have to like what it means for you as a gun owner but it doesn’t mean that the system isn’t practical and that people wouldn’t support it. Furthermore, if you would take the time to read my posts and digest them rather than banging off shallow parries, you would understand the GPS portion of the system, as I have been extremely clear since my 2nd post.

As far as your statement that the only opinion that counts is that of the elected official, it is just as erroneous as your distinction between systems and channels (channels are subsets of systems).

Wrong and you know it. I have defined my system as the device on the gun and left everything else out of the picture because I can disregard it based on my system capabilities. It is just like canceling out second order effects. Based on my definitions, everything between the gun and the cell tower is the channel. It is black and white. My system extends to the end of the transmitting antenna and the channel starts after that. I’ve proven the channel is of no consequence to the operation of my device, therefore I can exclude it from my system.

You want to change my definitions to make your arguments look stronger and use that deception to diminish my qualifications and thus ability to counter your points. It won’t work, because you have to play by my definitions to critique my proposal. I defined what is first and second order here, so you can either approach it that way and provide solid counters or continue to play the word game. It doesn’t improve your position one bit.

The PEOPLE that elect the politicians and pay the TAXES are the ones whose opinion is important, not the engineer or politician that can't see the forest for the trees.

Personal prejudice, yet again. Just because you are unwilling to pay the price for this system, doesn’t mean a majority of Americans are. I’m not even going to waste the space positing the numerous times Americans have traded freedom for security, there is no need to do that on this board. If you need proof that people will find this practical and cost effective, let’s go post our ideas over on DU or any anti-gun website. You’ll see very quickly that your opinion is not shared by everyone. Canada spent a billion on a gun registry and despite some belly-aching, it isn’t going anywhere. Your opinion, while important to you, is of absolutely no consequence in this debate. Your opinion will not sway Schumer, Kennedy, or anyone else that wants to see this implemented anymore than it did during the AWB bill. If you truly believe your voice counts when it comes to anti-gun legislators, then I’ve got news for you… You are living in a fantasy world.

I see the forest and I see the trees. Step back, calm down, realize I don’t like the system anymore that you, do some critical thinking, maybe a bit of research, and you will see that my system, while repulsive to gun owners, is feasible and meets the requirements set forth.