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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

#271

Post by InvertedRhodium »

curiousgal wrote: post #266
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…

> Of course I kept my mouth shut so as to not ruin a holiday What's the point of amassing knowledge if you're not gonna use it to change things?

Personal satisfaction and relative advantage?

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

#272

Post by NonNefarious »

curiousgal wrote: post #266
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…

> Of course I kept my mouth shut so as to not ruin a holiday What's the point of amassing knowledge if you're not gonna use it to change things?

How does calling out bullshit at Thanksgiving "change things?"

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

#274

Post by oceanplexian »

Animats wrote: post #77

Strange. Probably the embarrassing parts relate to the after the fact reclassification of reports after the fact by Shotspotter employees. The first system was in Redwood City, CA. I once went to a talk by the designer. They had leased analog audio lines to each microphone. At the microphone end, they had something like a logarithmic amplifier, which traded dynamic range for frequency response. The idea is that you d…

I would guess that the “compensate for bounces off buildings” part is the Achilles heel of this technology.

When I worked in telecom we had similar problems with reflections in phone lines, which is a highly controlled environment compared to anything that could potentially reflect sound in a city. And even then we weren’t trying to locate something in 3-dimensional space with reflections, just decode information in spite of them. The more I think about it the more this technology sounds like vaporware except in really ideal conditions, like an open field in the middle of farmland or something.

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

#275

Post by fastball »

kbenson wrote: post #174
fastball wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since it's the locality that is deciding whether or not to use ShotSpotter isn't that the most reasonable level to be talking about?

No, as that would be a purposeful misinterpretation of the intent of the original poster, if it was obvious they didn't mean it to be interpreted that way. Even if the response that used it differently was meant to make a valid point (I believe it was, as they expanded on it later), the way they used minority did nothing to help that point and instead caused unnecessary contention. It would have been far more effecti…

To me it read less like misinterpretation and more like reframing.

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

#276

Post by fastball »

lazide wrote: post #224
fastball wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can law enforcement use this technology to create crimes out of thin air?

To create pretexts to search out of thin air. Bad part of oakland? Plenty of random gun shots happening, but no idea where exactly they are coming from - really it’s random spots. But ShotSpotter can give you a high precision (really random) fix on someones house! Wait until it’s someone you want to search, and voila you can.

But if that person was already committing crimes in their house you're not creating crimes out of thin air, just pretext.

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

#277

Post by throwaway17_17 »

zasdffaa wrote: post #262
throwaway17_17 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience you are 100% correct. This is also the potential use case for non-warrant based Ring/Nest video and audio along with smart speaker collected audio. I’m also certain this company and those like it are consistently looking for opportunities to advertise and sell the parallel construction utility of their services.

What experience have you in this area? (genuine qtn)

I’m a lawyer who practices exclusively in criminal defense. In particular I’m a supervising attorney for a large public defender’s office and I’ve represented somewhere around 5,000 clients in my career.

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

#278

Post by zasdffaa »

throwaway17_17 wrote: post #277
zasdffaa wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What experience have you in this area? (genuine qtn)

I’m a lawyer who practices exclusively in criminal defense. In particular I’m a supervising attorney for a large public defender’s office and I’ve represented somewhere around 5,000 clients in my career.

Lovely answer. May I politely suggest that you mention this stuff when next you post as it would be great to know there is real heft behind it and something HN'ers can rely on. There are too many unbacked opinions and gut-feelings around. But thanks.

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

#279

Post by daenz »

woodruffw wrote: post #258
daenz wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but probable cause is not "made up evidence." If there's a report of a noise that sounds like a gunshot, and that results in a search of people who are running, and that search finds an illegal gun, that's reasonable.

Why does this scenario presume that people are running? Even with this technology, it seems exceedingly unlikely that police are arriving on the scene within seconds of a possible gunshot; it's much more likely that they're corralling bystanders and frisking them.

And why does your scenario presume that the situation is completely cold?

The average police response time in Chicago is 5-6 minutes[0]. I'm going to bet that active shootings are on the fast side of the average. Having lived in Chicago for 7 years, I can tell you there are areas where you regularly see police patrolling.

0. https://mediaprogram.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Minimalist/index.h...

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

#280

Post by jfoutz »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #170
jfoutz wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My expertise goes as far as drama TV - but uh since this is a corporation, wouldn't the fine be more like average daily revenue /2 ? A night in the pokey seems pretty common, and that's kinda as close as you can get for the company. Maybe a night in jail isn't all that common though. Sure seems reasonable and effective.

On TV they need the “getting back at the man” narrative to get viewers juices going.

Ha!

I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are a few where the evil journalist or priest is held in contempt hindering finding the bad guy.

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