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

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

#241

Post by ALittleLight »

elil17 wrote: post #206
ALittleLight wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worded in a way that implies racism. You could write "high crime areas" or "low socioeconomic status neighborhoods" or any of a dozen equally accurate terms. Instead, the author chose something vague (are they being placed in Jewish neighborhoods? Chinese neighborhoods? Indian? Hispanic?) And suggestive.

If something has a racist outcome then I don’t see how its “implied” to be racist. It is racist. They just didn’t say anything about whether it was intentional (which no one can know except people who decided where to put the systems).

Ah, then it must be racism keeping white people out of the NBA, right? Maybe not intentional racism, but the outcome is racist. Or Jewish people are overrepresented in Congress - I'm not saying it's some kind of intentional cabal, but you can't deny that it's a "racist outcome". Very few Chinese and Japanese people, per capita, are arrested for violent crime in the US. Is this because the police intentionally avoid arresting Chinese and Japanese criminals or do they subconsciously avoid arresting them because of implicit biases? Or maybe there is some other, much simpler, solution.

The reason violent crime enforcement disproportionately affects black people in the United States is because black people disproportionately commit violent crime. Black people, for example, commit most of the murders in the United States despite not being most of the population.

It is not racist to notice and react to crime. On the contrary, it is racist to insist that law abiding black people, the vast majority, endure high rates of crime. Reducing and hobbling law enforcement necessitates that citizens who might be protected are not.

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

#242

Post by daenz »

nickysielicki wrote: post #55
solardev wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Why are you so skeptical of their technology? Look how accurate raspberry pi powered ADSB plane tracking networks are — and that’s a much harder problem: they have no funding, they’re doing triangulation at the speed of light, and they’re doing it without GPS clock sources. You could also point to the lightning tracker networks that work in roughly the same way. Given a few million dollars to outfit their nodes with…

Regardless of if it works or not, I suspect some people don't actually want it to work because of the implications: it means there is another viable method for tackling gun crime than "take all the guns." It's easier if it doesn't work, then the only solution is a total gun ban.

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

#243

Post by renewiltord »

owlninja wrote: post #180
renewiltord wrote: post #97

Laundering police positions is a pretty profitable industry. I think once I have my American citizenship, I'd like to give it a shot. The small-time stuff like police dog training[0], etc., and the obvious stuff like AI face recognition won't play. But there's a lot of stuff like this that can be relatively decent business. Everyone who could prosecute you is sort of on your side, so you're safe. And it has a natural…

Honestly this reads just like anyone in the business of big consulting.

Thank you. I've never been in that business but I've always suspected I could do their job just as well.

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

#244

Post by etchalon »

esoterica wrote: post #196
quickthrower2 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see the logical connection between what the parent comment said and your reply. He is saying they could be selling pure snake oil, and worse using it for discrimination (but not sure what the basis was for that, if any).

Shotspotter stores the raw audio so you can just ask for the audio and evaluate for yourself whether a reasonable person would identify that as a gunshot. Either hearing a gunshot is not probable cause to pull someone over (in which case Shotspotter's accuracy and methodology is irrelevant), or hearing a noise that sounds sufficiently like a gunshot is indeed probable cause, in which case you can just listen to the a…

"Someone hearing a gunshot" is not probable cause to pull someone over, just as someone calling in a gunshot to the police is not probable cause to pull someone over.

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

#245

Post by etchalon »

gitfan86 wrote: post #102
alasdair_ wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine I made a magic "crime detection" box that called the police each time a crime was "detected". Now imagine all it did was randomly pick a number from 1 to 100 each day and if it were a 1 or a 2, it "detected" a crime, giving probable cause to police to search people near the box. Now imagine I almost exclusively put the boxes in areas where black people without a lot of money lived. You could see this would be…

Imagine if there were 100 gun murders in a city in one year and you had a magic box that was 100% accurate at detection of location of gun shots within 1 mile and the city could only afford to buy 10 magic boxes. Would you put those magic boxes near where previous gun crimes have been committed or would you put those boxes in places based on the race and sexual orientation and disability status and gender of the peop…

There's no evidence the system is 100% accurate within 1 mile.

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

#246

Post by esoterica »

etchalon wrote: post #244
esoterica wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shotspotter stores the raw audio so you can just ask for the audio and evaluate for yourself whether a reasonable person would identify that as a gunshot. Either hearing a gunshot is not probable cause to pull someone over (in which case Shotspotter's accuracy and methodology is irrelevant), or hearing a noise that sounds sufficiently like a gunshot is indeed probable cause, in which case you can just listen to the a…

"Someone hearing a gunshot" is not probable cause to pull someone over, just as someone calling in a gunshot to the police is not probable cause to pull someone over.

Which means that Shotspotter's methodology is irrelevant since there's no probable cause in any case, so the discovery request is unjustified.

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

#247

Post by aaron695 »

hnThrow280 wrote: post #169

I did R&D work for an NGO developing a clone of shotspotter and its kind. I spent an enormous amount of time examining all the variants on the market, including the last two decades of military versions from around the world. I documented all of their various accuracies across all the various axes, how many microphones they used, etc. I also went deep into the academic research to learn all the varied algorithms in u…

No post body was provided.

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

#248

Post by etchalon »

esoterica wrote: post #246
etchalon wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Someone hearing a gunshot" is not probable cause to pull someone over, just as someone calling in a gunshot to the police is not probable cause to pull someone over.

Which means that Shotspotter's methodology is irrelevant since there's no probable cause in any case, so the discovery request is unjustified.

If reporting from Shotspotter is presented as evidence, the discovery request is justified.

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

#249

Post by cosmotic »

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…

It's technically not triangulation, it's multilateration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration

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

#250

Post by bitbckt »

selectodude wrote: post #222
bitbckt wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I have a friend in Humbolt park” reads like “I have a [black/brown/asian/etc.] friend”. Have a little self-awareness.

Lots of white people living in Humboldt Park. Are you at all familiar with Chicago?

Sure am, and that response is proof of the point.
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