Ralph Morelli, Trishan de Lanerolle of Trinity College, and their
students (Antonio Alcorn, UConn, Christopher Fei and Prasanna
Gautam, Trinity, and Qianqian Lin, Wesleyan)
presented POSIT (http://posit.hfoss.org/), an Android-based search and rescue
tool that implements a form of ad-hoc networking called Random Walk Gossip (RWG).
This is work in conjunction with the Prof. Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Mikael Asplund, and Gustav
Nykvist of the Real Time Systems Laboratory at Linkoping University in Sweden, where
RWG was developed (http://www.ida.liu.se/~rtslab/HFN/rwg/index.shtml).
Data encoding/structured SMS?
User Interface: Firefighters can't read POSIT screen on the job.
Use preferred system, then failover to SMS
Get text out if you can't send the pictures because of bandwidth
In disaster area, get coverage by driving around
Get into an exercise.
Don't try to test prototypes in a disaster zone; becomes a nuisance to relief efforts.
Try to attend Camp Roberts exercise (in CA in November) and the Google Hacathon.
Generic synchronization of data structures; server drives around and updates extended RSS feeds
Observations from disaster/crisis scenarios.
In Afghanistan: cell towers are autonomous, fenced in, with generator, guarded, satellite up link.
In US, most critical infrastructure is in the hands of the private sector
In Mexico Zapatistas want internet;
Mexico has a cell # database -- security issues.
Military capability to create WiFi corridor: drop long-range heavy duty military routers every mile.
Mexico 1988 computer voting fraud: system "crashed" at a crucial time during the election