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Missing California Hiker Found After Mystery Photo Reveals Location (sfgate.com) 97

Posted by msmash from the on-a-light-note dept.
A mystery photo and a geography enthusiast helped locate a missing California hiker who is now safely back home. From a report: Rene Compean of Palmdale was on a hike Monday near Mount Waterman, a popular ski destination in the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California. While the 45-year-old was on his outdoor adventure, he snapped a picture. Compean texted the shot to a friend. And then, he went off the map. He was reported missing at 6 p.m. by a friend, who received one last text from Compean saying he was worried he was lost and his cell phone battery was running low. The photo was turned over to investigators at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department who posted it to social media, asking if anyone recognized the spot in the photograph. Benjamin Kuo saw the message and thought he might be able to help. The report adds: As a satellite image aficionado, he was already familiar with tracking California wildfires in remote areas. "I've got a very weird hobby, which is I love taking a look at photos and figuring out where they're taken," Kuo told NBC Los Angeles. Using satellite images, maps and the scenery below Compean's feet in the photo, Kuo was able to estimate the coordinates of where he believed the man had gone missing. Kuo sent his tip to the sheriff's office, and a helicopter was sent to survey the area Tuesday. There, as if by magic, was Compean.
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Missing California Hiker Found After Mystery Photo Reveals Location More

Missing California Hiker Found After Mystery Photo Reveals Location

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  • What the hell. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wasn't the photo geotagged?

    • Re:What the hell. (Score:5, Informative)

      by lessSockMorePuppet ( 6778792 ) on Friday April 16, 2021 @04:09PM (#61282004) Homepage

      Some of us turn that "feature" off, because then we have to go strip EXIF tags before posting shit online.

      • And before you go, well he was lost hurr durr...

        Seriously. A lost guy, cold, hungry, and very likely having cognitive difficulties due to the situation? He's going to remember to turn on geotags before taking a photo..while his phone is about to die and he's not even sure he can get the photo taken?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tomhath ( 637240 )
          He wasn't lost when he took the picture.

          • I'm doubtful. He was already covered in dirt/ash, and according to him, he lost his way due to a wildfire burning up signs he would've used normally.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tomhath ( 637240 )
              He didn't tell his friend he was lost when he took the picture. That was a different text hours later. It isn't clear from the article how close he was to the image location when the helicopter stopped him. Anyway, he was lucky; needs to be better prepared next time.

          • And hence he didn't need to prevent potential dangers and turn of geotagging like that is any help when they don't find your phone either which you usually always carry with you.

            Your argument is dead. Accept it.

      • Re:What the hell. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday April 16, 2021 @05:35PM (#61282266)

        Basically any website worth it's salt will strip EXIF tags anyway, except for websites which expect you to share your location, like Facebook, and even then they read the location and estimate it and strip the EXIF data anyway.

        Seriously though, which service do you use that retains the EXIF data in an image, I mean other than a photography service like Flickr or 500px which advertise this as a feature they offer. Certainly no social media sites, reddit doesn't, image sharing sites like imgur doesn't...

        • Do you know any website worth it is [SIC] salt?

          And like I’d trust any website to do that without checking their *running* code.

          • And like I’d trust any website to do that without checking their *running* code.

            You don't need to trust. You can verify, and if you think you can't verify without checking their "running code", well that's because you're ignorant.

            • This is just like client-side "validation". It's not. It's never been good enough. I could submit 1 test photo and the code could be redeployed with changes for the literal next photo.

              Doing it yourself, locally, is the only way to KNOW it's actually done, and without risk of something changing out from under you, since we don't have popular fully homomorphic photo editing services yet.

        • He texted the pic...

          • He could have 3d printed it and shoved it up his own arse. What he did with it has nothing to do with the comment I was replying to. Please learn to follow a conversation.

      • Fun fact: (Score:4, Informative)

        by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Friday April 16, 2021 @05:51PM (#61282308)

        Fun fact: Signal Messenger automatically recompresses all pictures you send, as that gets rid of all the metadata, no matter what. (Even steganographically hidden metadata.)

    • Why do all these idiots call their friends instead of police? In British Columbia we always hear about morons who instead of calling police or rescue when they get lost hiking in the mountains, decide to call their friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, just before their phone batteries die. And they are always people unprepared, who have not done even rudimentary research on where they are going, haven't checked the weather, and in many of the dead hikers cases, didn't tell anyone where they were actually going
  • if you're going hiking wouldn't it have been smarter to have a GPS app that you could directly share the co-ordinates from. "Hi, guys. I'm at 'long, lat' please send the rescue squad. Smaller packet and less power needed than sending pictures for best guesses.

    • Re:raw GPS co-ords (Score:5, Interesting)

      by lessSockMorePuppet ( 6778792 ) on Friday April 16, 2021 @04:17PM (#61282036) Homepage

      It's surprisingly hard to get a modern, stock Android phone to give you raw coordinates. At least, that's my impression of it. I personally never noticed them anywhere in recent versions, so I use a separate app that can display the raw GPS , compass, accelerometer data.

      • Likely but then even though I'm not a hiker and seldom leave my urban setting, I downloaded a GPS app for my phone. AH, but I used to do Geocaching, though, so maybe I'm different than most.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by The-Ixian ( 168184 )

        https://what3words.com/product... [what3words.com]

      • Re:raw GPS co-ords (Score:5, Informative)

        by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Friday April 16, 2021 @04:48PM (#61282134) Homepage

        Open Google's Maps app. Long press on your location. Read the latitude and longitude in the "search" box, or tap the "Share" button at the bottom. At least, that's all it takes on my Pixel 3a XL running Google's April update for Android 11. Is that modern and stock enough?

        Yes, you can use a dedicated GPS app, and that can give you extra information like altitude. But basic lat/long is pretty easy.

        • Long pressing location doesn't do anything for me, but I can click randomly on my own location dot and Google will drop a pin with either an address or GPS coordinates if there's no mapping data.

        • When I drop a pin in the iOS version of Google Maps, it provides me with the latitude and longitude of that spot. You do have to scroll to get to it.

          This also seems to be true in Apple Maps, although it might not be obvious unless you open the .vcf file in a text editor.

      • It's surprisingly hard to get a modern, stock Android phone to give you raw coordinates.

        Aside from being able to read them out of Google Maps there are literally countless mapping apps or GPS Status apps (including one called GPS Status which I used on my Galaxy S (original first release) and still works just as fine today on my S10 which just spit out the data. https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]

        There's a shitload of more apps as well that show you sensor data not limited to your current GPS coordinates.

        • It's surprisingly hard to get a modern, stock Android phone to give you raw coordinates.

          I highlighted the important word.

          Unless the "literally countless mapping apps or GPS Status apps" came installed as stock on your phone, which might be slightly worrying unless you've got infinite storage.

          TBH, I do have several GPS and mapping (as in "collect the information inclination/ orientation/ imagery/ lithology data I need to draw a structural map of whatever you are studying") applications on my phone and tab

          • I highlighted the important word.

            Open Google Maps app and just click right next to the blue dot. You can do that on *ANY* stock app and it'll spit out the GPS coordinates in decimal format. On a modern version with a current version of Maps you can also long click the location indicator.

            Please re-read my post. Your "important" word is addressed in the first half of my first sentence.

      • You need OSMand... or one of those GPS diagnotic/analyzer apps.

      • Maybe, if you can afford a $1000 Android phone, you can afford a $300 GPS satellite messenger [popularmechanics.com]. For like, if you go out in the wilderness a lot and might need to send for help.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        Google Maps gives you them. A bit fiddly but it's possible. I have done it several times when I'm trying to get a good location for where I am at the moment so I can then register a geocache properly.

    • Re: raw GPS co-ords (Score:3, Informative)

      by martinX ( 672498 )

      Share your location in the Messages app

      1. Open the Messages app on your iPhone and select a message.
      2. Select the name of the person at the top of the conversation.
      3. Choose the information icon .
      4. Select Send My Current Location. Your recipient will see your location on the map. Or choose Share My Location. Then choose the length of time that you want to share your location for.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      It seems that if you have a phone, and you can text a photo, then you can load a map to get a direction to walk. Or just like most of us have the map loaded. And yes I have been in plenty of places with very limited cell phone service. If I can text a picture, I can load a map. I have little doubt this is real, but it sounds like it was multiple failures that lead to a rescue.

      • Re:raw GPS co-ords (Score:5, Informative)

        by Nkwe ( 604125 ) on Friday April 16, 2021 @04:37PM (#61282100)

        If I can text a picture, I can load a map.

        Not necessarily. You need data service to load a map (when the map data isn't already cached on your phone.) You don't need data service to send a text, you just need cell service. Cell service and data service are not the same thing. For that matter there are cases when you can send a text, but can't make voice call. The data paths for text, voice, and data are all different.

        • You also need data service to send a picture.
        • Newer versions of Google Maps will auto-download maps by default. So if you go offline, the map will still be available (doesn't disappear if you close and restart the app or clear the cache).

          Still, it's possible to get yourself stuck in terrain that you can't easily get out of - e.g. a valley with steep walls with only one climbable slope. In that case you'd still need rescue even if you had a map, unless you happened to enable breadcrumbs on your GPS app and were able to backtrack along the path you to

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by _merlin ( 160982 )

          Picture messages require data service - MMS uses a message centre accessed over HTTP(S), often using a different APN but still requiring packet data. But on LTE, SMS uses packet data as well, because everything on LTE is packet data. LTE drops the circuit switched features.

        • That was the first feature I looked for when choosing a navigation app for my phone: offline maps. Not just cached, but download the whole damn map when you install the app, then download updates as necessary.
          TomTom Navigator does this, so that's what I use.

      • If you have 5% battery left you might not have enough time to use the map to get you somewhere useful

        • ... which is why ink-on-paper maps aren't extinct and are extremely unlikely to go extinct.

          I'll qualify : waterproof ink -on- good quality paper.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yes, and since most people have phones that's realistic. The state of the art in making sure you alert somebody is a PLB (Personal Locator Beacon). This is specialized device that uses satellites to alert emergency services to your location. They cost about $300 so not everybody has them. I generally stick to established trails that are likely to see other hikers within a day, and I don't have one although I've thought about them. A few weeks ago I stumbled and had no cel reception. Fortunately I wasn

    • if you're going hiking wouldn't it have been smarter ....

      The smart thing to do if you are going hiking where few others walk is to tell a friend about your plans, approx route and return ETA. Hopefully never needed but an easy to do potential life saver.

      • When hiking, always take a compass. Before the hike, figure out what direction you have to go to intersect with a road if you're lost. This won't help you through unfortunate terrain, but it is better than no plan at all.

        • Yes, also make sure not to head directly at the intersecting road or terrain feature. Aim deliberately to the left or the right so when you reach it, you know that you need to walk the opposite way along it, instead of having to figure out which way to go.

        • Before going hiking with a compass, know how to use it.

          Sadly, this does need to be said.

          Even in areas where it is rare to have rocks sufficiently magnetic to render using a compass quite difficult.

          it is better than no plan at all.

          Sadly, the people most likely to need a plan are also those most likely to have no idea at all of why you might need a plan.

      • Casual hiking is refreshing and no intention to become a survival situation. Bring a friend good advice so u can get lost together misery loves company. This assumes both are equally unprepared, which is less likely, plus if one gets hurt other can help, aka buddy system. If no friends want to join , a hiking registration service would be useful. Then location based services could help find. Simple check in and out. Lucky for this guy did not have to cut his limb off to get free. Geek to the rescue.
    • Those GPS apps are frequently wrong, in my experience. Putting me on the wrong side of a river, and then a half hour later, when I still haven't the crossed the river, the blue dot finally moves to the correct side. Sometimes the blue dot even puts me in the MIDDLE of a lake.
      • Yes. And your complaint is?

        The design spec for GPS is a location accuracy of +/-5m. Which is more than enough to be both "right"(i.e. within spec) and report you on the "wrong" side of a river that you'd take an hour to find a fording point.

        If you're only getting intermittent signals (e.g. heavy rain or snow ; anything that puts ), then the location accuracy is going to degrade.

        Quick question - were you reading the data sheets for the GPS system, or the advertising for software which uses the GPS system?

        • 5 meters is enough to put me on the wrong side of a river? Something that narrow wouldn't even qualify as a river. I wasn't even anywhere close to the river. Maybe 1-2 miles away.

          • Maybe 1-2 miles away.

            Then there is either a problem with your GPS receiver, or your mapping application, or the interface between them.

            Though if you were only getting regular packets from two satellites, with only intermittent packets from another, then ... well, you're very far north or south, and you've got heavy overcast cloud (making most satellites hard to . Which is not a place to be learning to navigate.

            What was the weather like when you had your bad location experience? The signals from a GPS sate

            • I just went back and looked at the notes I took from my hiking last year, because I remembered noting the bad GPS. I also looked at the photos I took during that hike, and I took a lot of photos. It was sunny the entire day. I use the AllTrails app for GPS, which is very popular amongst hikers, with an iPhone.
              • Then there is something very peculiar in your systems. Damned if I know what - I probably have seen an iPhone, but I've never handled one. The "water in the line of sight" thing has been causing people problems with GPS on and off since the system came into testing, but it's not normally too bad a problem, and lengthening your position integrating time rapidly cures it. I remember one person being astonished that neither his GPS nor phone reception would work inside a cave. You struggle over where to start.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by j-beda ( 85386 )

      if you're going hiking wouldn't it have been smarter to have a GPS app that you could directly share the co-ordinates from. "Hi, guys. I'm at 'long, lat' please send the rescue squad. Smaller packet and less power needed than sending pictures for best guesses.

      "What 3 words" encodes lat/long as three easy to communicate words (in a variety of languages) which might be better than strings of digits in some instances, with less errors/typos

      https://what3words.com/what3wo... [what3words.com]

      They have Android/iPhone apps as well as a website interface.

      • That's very interesting and informative. That's such as nice idea!!

      • It is a nice idea - as nikkipolya [slashdot.org] says. Unfortunately it is also a propriatory idea belonging to [someone - is it Google? No, they use something else. Cue "standards".] , which nobody else can use. Eventually, the owners will monetize the idea - at the moment they're building user base.

        It also doesn't work unless you've got a data connection (or already-downloaded maps - I've not tried it with that configuration). They seem quite picky about their database, so I suspect they don't allow much caching within

  • Christ people (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 16, 2021 @04:29PM (#61282076)
    Here's someone using tech, to potentially save someone's life, but no, you have to go on about how the guy was stupid to not have GEO tagging on (yet also, saying people are stupid for HAVING it on, because of privacy reasons).

    Why are you all so bitter that you have to find negativity in everything? Are you that insecure about your own lives?
    • If he was lost and his phone is about to die, why not just turn on gps and send his actual location to his friend(s)?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by vadim_t ( 324782 )

        GPS is a considerable drain on battery life. It's well possible he sent the message first, then tried to get a coordinate and wasn't able to before the battery ran out.

        It's hard to get coordinates from Android without extra tools, and he likely had limited connectivity.

    • People do that on the Internet, and it sucks. The only social media I am still part of is /., because at least here we expect people to be pedantic jerks- its part of the job.

      My "oh god, what is the problem now?" issue was when I made an automatic feeder for my rabbits, and posted some pics to Reddit. (My rabbits live outside, free range in a fairly big yard)

      The comments were nearly all about how I was wasting water (possibly a pint per day) and how I would need to wash the bowl out weekly, or algea would

    • Because we're ... on Slashdot? ;)

      Seriously, are you new here?

      Think about the people posting here. ... Now you get it?

      Also, America has a gave positivism problem.
      Everything that isn't almost batshit insane (fake) happiness is called "negativism".
      How about ... you know ... *realism*?

      And the comments aren't even really "negative". They're just reasonable points + online message board infuriation exaggeration.

  • If he had enough bandwidth and signal and battery to post a pic, he had enough to share his location. Why didn't he do that? Was the phot geotagged? Anyway Google tracks everything everywhere. Did they ask Google?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      Because when he posted the picture, he wasn't lost. When he sent the text, he was lost and his battery was nearly dead. At least read the summary!

  • The last time I checked, GPS location data was included with the metadata of the photos taken on smartphones. You have to go out of your way to disable the feature. One of the many reasons I almost never take photos on my phone.

    And even if that isn't the case, there are probably a gazillion apps in the app store that can SMS your lat/long to your emergency contacts. If I were going hiking by myself, I'd either install or write one. Heck, mobile web browsers can do the important bits with a little Javasc

    • The last time I checked, GPS location data was included with the metadata of the photos taken on smartphones. You have to go out of your way to disable the feature

      Not very far out of your way - turn off location services from the (whatever the toolbar across the top of the screen is called) and the photos don't have geotagging. Simples!

      That's something I do when I'm checking the phone in the shop, before moving to be able to see GPS satellites.

      I actually had to struggle a bit to find how to turn it back o

  • The Incredible Awesomeness Award (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jodka ( 520060 ) on Friday April 16, 2021 @04:38PM (#61282104)

    There should be an award for ordinary people who step up and come through unexpecetedly with exceptional bravery or achievement to save a life.

    There are a few of these reported every year, like this one [sun-sentinel.com]:

    "After being attacked himself, the 12-year-old raced to grab a knife plunging it into the dog to save his family."

  • Awesome (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LiquidAvatar ( 772805 ) on Friday April 16, 2021 @05:17PM (#61282202) Journal

    This is a cool story of human pattern recognition... but I can't help asking myself, why don't we have an AI that can do this? I can point my phone at an xbox controller and have it identify it (and helpfully provide me with purchase links!). It seems like there would be some demand for similar image processing techniques that can place a photograph based on landmarks in the background.

    Also, I hope that Compean has the chance to buy Kuo a beer in the not too distant future!

    • Must not be very good if no one can find Waldo, or Carmen Sandiego.

    • That would probably work fairly well if you've got St Peter's Basilica or the Clock tower of the PAlace of Westminster in the background.

      Less well if you've got a wall of high-rise apartments in the background.

      Even less well if (I've been looking at my photo collection) you've got a rock wall with a fine display of recumbently folded schist with a me "for scale" and no background.

      Essentially, it'll work well at locations which people visit because of their uniqueness and popularity, but less well for loc

  • The original picture, before being sanitized and munged on social media, would have had a precise time stamp in its EXIF data. Even if you assume that the hiker turned off GPS and somehow didn't or couldn't turn it back on, the Cell Tower location data of the phone call should be able to localize the call to at worst a few thousand feet, plus periodic operational phone pings would show travel patterns. I doubt a person recognizinging the area from a picture did any better. Does the Los Angeles County Sheri

    • Maybe the paperwork to get that info precludes obtaining it swiftly enough to be useful for a rescue operation. Come to think on it.. how would you create a system that would allow rescue workers to obtain consent to retrieve that data and have sufficient safeguards against abuse?

  • Guy goes missing.
    Guy sent Photo.
    Another guy used science to get exact coordinates.
    Conclusion:It's magic.
    The End.

  • which is I love taking a look at photos and figuring out where they're taken,

    If you want to waste an hour or so:
    https://www.geoguessr.com/ [geoguessr.com]
    The site has changed significantly since I last went there, for example, it never required a login.

  • Luckily for him, he had received his tracking imp^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h "COVID Vaccination" just a few days prior, making it much easier to find him.

  • If you're going to text a friend to say you're lost, at least send them a screenshot of a map app that shows where you are.
  • If more people who venture into places where things could go wrong, carried a SPOT (or equivalent) Tracker at the time they were in a predicament. The people who would be doing the searching and worrying could be greatly reduced. At least most of the time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by j-beda ( 85386 )

      If more people who venture into places where things could go wrong, carried a SPOT (or equivalent) Tracker at the time they were in a predicament. The people who would be doing the searching and worrying could be greatly reduced.
      At least most of the time.

      On the other hand, increased safety gear (in sports, automobiles, play equipment, etc.) tends to also increase the number of people who take on the now slightly lesser risks.

      If everyone thinks they have a tracker, then the number of people going "off-trail" and not taking other precautions and thus getting into trouble might increase by more than the increased safety provided by trackers would decrease the trouble numbers.

      In the case of sat trackers, I could see the proliferation of inexpensive and ineffect

      • Word!

        In Norway everyone and their dog (literally) go on cross-country skiing vacations during winter and Easter vacations. Most of us are actually reasonably well versed in safety rules, map-and-compass use, and what equipment you should bring while hoping you don't need it. We literally learn it in school as well as from our parents. Technology can boost your safety significantly if used properly in addition to, and not instead of, other safety measures.

        Most of us know the theory and the basics. In spite o

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by j-beda ( 85386 )

          In Norway everyone and their dog (literally) go on cross-country skiing vacations during winter and Easter vacations.

          My son recently decided that Norwegians are such cool skiers that he has gone all "Breaking Away" and learned to speak the language and is trying to go there for university.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          He turns his nose up at the GPS and would prefer to make his own survival knife....

          https://www.sapiens.org/archae... [sapiens.org]

  • It should not be too hard to automate this, if the location is known within a reasonable radius, say 50 miles.

  • "There, as if by magic, was Compean."
    No, not 'as if by magic' at all. It's the opposite of magic: it's the intelligent and thoughtful application of technology and geography and maps.

  • How do you manage to get lost with a GPS?
    • With a GPS you can know very precisely where you are going to die, without the GPS helping you to get out of there. A section of path (with you on it) slides down the slope and drops you (and several tonnes of boulders and dirt) into the river. You've no way out, the way you got in isn't reversible, and the GPS continues to tell you - uselessly - exactly where you are. It's happened to me, in a not-particularly remote place. (I forded the river 4 times to unload my bike, then re-forded the river 2km upstrea
      • So, you are saying that this guy was involved in a rock slide? BTW, follow the river downstream, not upstream, when lost.

        • BTW, follow the river downstream, not upstream, when lost.

          Depends entirely on the circumstances - such as whether you were going along the river upsteam or downstream, or going across from one watershed to another ; whether or not the river has any inhabitation along it before it hits the sea (or large lake). Little things like that.

          Generally, in the region where I do my walking, 10 hours of consistent walking will get you to one coast or the other, and along one of those coasts you'd be guaranteed to cros

  • Here's a business opportunity. Upload a photo that has had it's EXIF stripped. Use Benjamin Kuo's techniques -- automated -- to determine location.

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