Thanks, Chuck, this is Topher, the guy from the article. It's clear that we see eye-to-eye on two of the fundamental tenets of the Rainforest Connection project, namely:

1) The Internet of Things need not wait years for specialized, embeddable hardware. Discarded smartphones offer an immediate shortcut that most developers are able to leverage almost immediately. They're chock full of sensors with mature APIs and built to be power efficient and reliable.

2) Surveillance is a emotional issue, but (to me) it has a different meaning when the hardware and software that produces the data are entirely open-source, and—most importantly—the data feeds produced are made immediately available to anyone who desires access. My hope is that Rainforest Connection will not be interpreted as "spy-[ware]" but rather as an open connection between the forest and those around the world. Forks of the project may be used for other purposes, but at its core, the project is about streaming audio/sensor data openly, and building modules for analyzing the data for distinct patterns (the first example of which is illegal logging).

If either of those statements doesn't make sense based on the Make article, I'd encourage you to check out the Kickstarter project page which contains a lot more information about our overall vision and activities:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/topherwhite/rainforest-...