Panic button - keeping it simple

The LVD testing survivors have arrived. One remote is damaged, two remotes and three receivers still stand (after two different tests, getting zapped with ESD and overheated and shorted in all possible ways!)

With these we're moving ahead and finishing up the last safety bits and we're also starting on the documentation.

Today a panic button was added that allows the male to reset the receiver and turn off leash/canine/timer and all other modes in case of emergency.

The administrator can disable this button from the DL Uplink's admin panel locally.

In the context of on-site male training the panic button will probably only be used when the parties are familiarizing themselves with the device and the DL2K-LINK is plugged into the male's own PC.

Remote managing users won't be able to disable this button, but if the male clicks it during a sessions, administrators will be notified.

Additionally, when the administrator enters the management session remotely the leash status (on or off) is now displayed. This prevents an administrator from thinking the leash mode is still active when the panic button has been used while they were offline.

Comments

By lizliz at 2010-11-29 15:38:26 Reply

So, if the panic button is pressed while the administrator is off-line, the only indication of that is that the leash mode will be off? Shouldn't the administrator be made aware of panic button use regardless of whether or not she was on-line at the time?

If leash mode wasn't active when going off-line, would there be any sort of indication that the panic button was used? Couldn't that negate any timer functions?

By dreamloverlabs at 2010-11-29 22:39:05 Reply

> Shouldn't the administrator be made aware of panic button
> use regardless of whether or not she was on-line at the
> time?

And how? One could disconnect the internet connection, push panic and then shut down the application. Or if you make the internet connection compulsory to push the panic button then you lose much of the safety margin it provides.

> If leash mode wasn't active when going off-line, would
>there be any sort of indication that the panic button was
>used?

No

>Couldn't that negate any timer functions?

Feel free to propose a solution!

By lizliz at 2010-11-30 00:51:27 Reply

A record of clicking the panic button could be logged on the hosting computer. When the administrator reconnects, all panic button activity for the past x days is reported.

By dreamloverlabs at 2010-11-30 02:19:06 Reply

And how do you prevent such records from being erased? We have to get into encryption, messing with the registry etc... some systems may prevent file creation in some directories and even registry key creation... is it worth the complexity? Any easier way?

By pjpjpj at 2010-11-30 02:59:34 Reply

I can think of one way to do it, but it depends on altering the firmware of the DL2000 further and so may not be doable. Send a time-stamp (need only be a 32 bit unixtime seconds since epoch stamp) to the DL2000 when the panic button is pressed and this can be retrieved back into the host computer via some simple code. When the host is next online and in range of the DL2000 if the timestamp does not match the last one stored in an online log somewhere then send a notification of the button being pressed.

This is the only way I can think of to do it that would survive a full backup and restore before and after pressing the button on the host computer.

By lizliz at 2010-11-30 06:05:54 Reply

option 2: When the administrator reconnects, the host program reports any panic button history and how long the program has been running (based off of cpu tick counts rather than system time since the time can be easily reset).

If the host program has not been continuously running since last connection, an inquisition can begin to determine if any unauthorized activity has taken place.

By sub3604 at 2010-11-30 07:27:13 Reply

couldn't it be made possible that the push panic button is also a send email to admin informining them of use button (which keeps trying until sent) At the very least a log should be made of the amount of ticks and if the amount doesn't match the amount it should and leash mode is off (a double check) the administer is informed when they are both online.

To be honest I really don't like the panic button idea. In the event of a emergency as long as tamper evident seals instead of a real lock are used the cb could be removed. So it isn't needed anyway.

By JohnKelso at 2010-11-29 18:38:21 Reply

LizLiz,

Are you a male or female? Your comment here and on other posts sound like you're a male. I hope you haven't fooled Dreamloverlabs by telling them you are a female when you're really a male because I saw you listed on the Training Committee which is reserved only for females.

By sub3604 at 2010-11-30 08:30:35 Reply

can the male disable the panic button himself before it being entered into leash/dog/timer mode this could be done so he is only able to reactivate it when not in such a mode. It would also be nice if the administer was made aware if this button had been disabled