ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology • Hacker News Board

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#31

Post by kencausey » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:44 AM UTC

oneoff786 wrote: post #21

pseudo0 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would results of discovery be public record? If so, I could also see: 3) They don't want their "secret sauce" made publicly available. That would both open them up to commercial competition, and make their product less reliable in court, as anti-Shotspotter experts would start figuring out how to effectively argue against the product's methodology. In general I think technology like this should have to be fully trans…

There’s no way they have a legitimate secret sauce though… right? This doesn’t seem like a hard problem to do. Maybe some of this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_component_analys... Plus basic triangulation logic synced across a bunch of microphones?

There is also the matter of correctly identifying gunshots.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#32

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:44 AM UTC

pledess wrote: post #24

It's plausible that ShotSpotter's main motivation is that there isn't much benefit (e.g., increased sales) to complying with the defense's request, but the costs could be huge, both for collecting the requested information in the required manner, and for the ramifications if they cannot produce information that the court believed they should have been able to produce. Discovery can be extremely expensive even when th…

[deleted]

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#33

Post by nickysielicki » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:44 AM UTC

I don’t understand the argument here. Suppose shotspotter is deeply flawed and often confuses fireworks and car backfires for gunshots, how could that have any impact on this case or the legality of it?

I don’t see it as any different than if a police officer is out patrolling, hears a car backfire, and confuses it for a gunshot. If he then detains someone as a part of his investigation and discovers some other crime, he still has probable cause because it wasn’t unreasonable for him to confuse a loud bang for a gunshot and for him to investigate.

The same holds true for shotspotter, regardless of if it makes mistakes. Even if shotspotter has some bug in their acoustic analysis that identifies loud bangs where there isn’t one, ie: total false positives, so long as it sometimes does detect a real gunshot, the police have probable cause to investigate.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#34

Post by HWR_14 » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:45 AM UTC

oneoff786 wrote: post #21

pseudo0 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would results of discovery be public record? If so, I could also see: 3) They don't want their "secret sauce" made publicly available. That would both open them up to commercial competition, and make their product less reliable in court, as anti-Shotspotter experts would start figuring out how to effectively argue against the product's methodology. In general I think technology like this should have to be fully trans…

There’s no way they have a legitimate secret sauce though… right? This doesn’t seem like a hard problem to do. Maybe some of this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_component_analys... Plus basic triangulation logic synced across a bunch of microphones?

It's phenomenally hard. Echos, indirect routing (bouncing off buildings), sound waves changing speed as they go through various materials (like a lens). It's a very hard problem.

Heck, a truly calibrated surround sound system requires using a microphone to measure the volume in place.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#35

Post by warkdarrior » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:46 AM UTC

monksy wrote: post #28

solardev wrote: post #5

(Not the OP) For background, this is the company that supposedly locates gunshot sounds in cities (and sometimes battlefields) by microphone triangulation. It doesn't work all that well and is selectively deployed in minority areas and is used by police to selectively enforce crimes, sometimes also altering the evidence. Vice did a few articles on them and the company tried to sue but had it tossed out. Shady all aro…

You're telling me that cities are picking minority areas to put these in just for ill intent? Also, the devices don't "enforce crimes", they only alert approximate areas where a gunshot/firework may have gone off at.

Hopefully what is being enforced is the law, not the crimes.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#36

Post by solardev » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:47 AM UTC

pledess wrote: post #24

It's plausible that ShotSpotter's main motivation is that there isn't much benefit (e.g., increased sales) to complying with the defense's request, but the costs could be huge, both for collecting the requested information in the required manner, and for the ramifications if they cannot produce information that the court believed they should have been able to produce. Discovery can be extremely expensive even when th…

I dunno if this company deserves that benefit of the doubt.

Honestly, given their history, they probably just don't want to reveal that their entire business is snake oil, basically existing solely to make money by enabling law enforcement to create crimes out of thin air.

If their science was sound they wouldn't have to resort to such tactics...

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#37

Post by 14 » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:47 AM UTC

The charges should be dropped in order for this man to have a fair trial. I hope there is some justice in this situation

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#38

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:47 AM UTC

pseudo0 wrote: post #8

public_defender wrote: post #2

This is an audio surveillance company which sells itself to cities as a gunshot detection system. Based on how they appear to be acting in court, it would be reasonable to assume that either: (1) Their methodology is about to be debunked, or; (2) It's about to be revealed that they were working with police to allow them to manufacture reasons to arrest people.

Would results of discovery be public record? If so, I could also see: 3) They don't want their "secret sauce" made publicly available. That would both open them up to commercial competition, and make their product less reliable in court, as anti-Shotspotter experts would start figuring out how to effectively argue against the product's methodology. In general I think technology like this should have to be fully trans…

They could ask for the information to be under seal to protect their commercial interests.

The actual technology is not all that complex. Transient detection and triangulation by decorrelation from a microphone (edit: not microwave!) array. You could probably prototype it in a week if you leaned on an established FFT library. Obviously they would not want to reveal their source code and so on, but if you know digital audio you know this isn't that hard.

I think what they really want to conceal is not the technology but its use in operation. I don't know what Chicago pays for the service, but Sacramento CA spends about $1m a year on it and Sac is a fairly small city. https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article231997777.html

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#39

Post by bandyaboot » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:48 AM UTC

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #19

anewpersonality wrote: post #11

The US should mandate every gunshot be accompanied by a loud ultrasonic tone that can easily identify the occurrence to any recording device. The tone could eventually be modulated with the guns serial number.

Quoted post unavailable.

If I’m understanding your reply, you seem to think that it should be obvious to anyone with an understanding of how guns work, that this idea wouldn’t work/isn’t feasible/is a bad idea in some other way. So, wouldn’t it be more productive and informative to state that opinion and support it?

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#40

Post by throwaway81523 » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:48 AM UTC

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #30

Nextgrid wrote: post #7

My understanding is that "contempt of court" is used to either punish someone's "bad" behavior or compel them to do something the court believes they are required to do. In this case, wouldn't they just keep getting punished for contempt (racking up fines presumably) forever until they fulfil the court's request?

Pardon my ignorance, but couldn't the court just order the police to raid the company and forcefully retrieve the data?

The cops can only raid if there is probable cause of a crime, rather than a civil tort. But in principle, the person refusing to comply with the discovery order can be locked up in jail until the info is forthcoming. I don't think that is supposed to happen in this case.