Data Hacking
Data Hacking
Data Hacking
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192 Part III — <strong>Data</strong> <strong>Hacking</strong><br />
RoboGEO is really clever because it can use the time-stamp information on your digital photos<br />
(applied by the camera) to sort out which waypoints belong to which image. This means<br />
that you should ensure that the time on your camera is correct (set it to the time shown on the<br />
GPS — unfortunately, you’ll have to do this manually).<br />
Now, information about where you took your image, along with when and how, will be stored<br />
along with the image so that you can view the information or even use it as search criteria for<br />
photographs.<br />
Lightning Detector and Plotter<br />
If you are at sea or in the air, then having information about lightning storms is invaluable. By<br />
combining your GPS with a lightning detector, you can do just that. There aren’t many low-cost<br />
lightning detection systems (about $700) on the market, but one of the best has to be the LD-250<br />
Lightning Detector setup. Okay, $700 seems like a lot to spend for a device that detects lightning,<br />
but if you sail or fly, then accurate, up-to-date storm information can mean the difference<br />
between life and death. On a less dramatic front, businesses find accurate weather information<br />
critical to many key decisions they make, so for up-to-the-second information, $700 is cheap.<br />
This hardware plugs into your desktop or laptop via a serial port and it has a port for input<br />
from a GPS receiver. On the PC, you need to load software that communicates with the detector<br />
and plots the lightning storms on a map that is displayed. An antenna also forms part of the<br />
setup. This is placed outside, of course, and detects the lightning and feeds the information to<br />
the device, which processes it before sending that to the PC.<br />
Once set up, it is ready to detect lightning storms. As soon as the external antenna picks up the<br />
electromagnetic pulse from a lightning bolt (within milliseconds after it occurs), its position is<br />
displayed onscreen.<br />
Background maps are available of the United States and other locations worldwide. With a<br />
setup like this connected to a laptop (currently, there is no version for mobile devices such as<br />
the Pocket PC but they are planned), you have a mobile system that can warn you of bad weather<br />
as soon as it happens. By plotting the movement of the storm, you are in a position to take action<br />
to avoid it, whether on land, sea, or in the air.<br />
For more information, visit www.geneq.com/catalog/en/ld_ld250.html.<br />
Wardriving<br />
Another activity that GPS plays a key role in nowadays is wardriving. Wardriving is the name<br />
given to the activity in which individuals drive around with a PC or Pocket PC set up to detect<br />
WiFi networks that are broadcasting signals.<br />
There are many variations on wardriving — warwalking, warriding (bike or motorbike), and even<br />
warflying, which uses light aircraft or helicopters. The idea is to find wireless network spots,<br />
log the location, and then find another. As the popularity of WiFi grew, so did the popularity<br />
of wardriving. If you go wardriving to pick up active hotspots, the addition of a GPS to the<br />
system will enable you to store pinpoint location information about the hotspots that you discover;<br />
so rather than manually storing information such as street names and building numbers,<br />
all of which is prone to change or susceptible to input errors, the software picks up the location<br />
from the GPS automatically, eliminating errors and simplifying the process.