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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

#281

Post by Animats »

gentleman11 wrote: post #235
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…

Accurate or not, so we really want companies installing microphones all over where we live that sends the data to the police? That is worse than 1984 because in 1984 the police didn’t have ai profiling everything it finds. Ie, imagine a company that was competent who did this

The origianl was a 1990s weatherproof omnidirectional microphone on top of a telephone pole, connected to an analog phone line. That would be pretty hopeless at picking up conversations at ground level. Combining signals from microphones maybe a block apart yielded direction.

Today, there are steerable microphone arrays.[1] That technology was first demonstrated around 2010. Now it's commercially available. Simple ones with a few channels are used for video conferencing. Surveillance microphone arrays that record a few hundred microphone channels individually exist. These allow steering the beam during playback, so the surveillance operator can choose where to listen long after the recording. Needs a lot of bandwidth and storage, but no worse than HD video. Still, the range of that sort of thing for voice is maybe 10 meters. They're installed on ceilings, not outdoors.

[1] https://youtu.be/_kjEmIA38pI

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

#282

Post by npteljes »

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…

So what's their real accuracy? How much of a difference is there in the real and the pretend stories?

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

#283

Post by Brian_K_White »

Hey, can I request to be held in "friendly contempt" if they ever show up with a warrant to search my house or phone or laptop? At the airport, can I skip having my bag searched yet still fly and suffer no real consequences because "friendly contempt?"

What a fucking awesome new legal principle invention that I am sure everyone will get to enjoy equally!

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

#284

Post by shadowgovt »

pxmpxm wrote: post #217
shadowgovt wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case, a technology encouraging them to go out expecting armed resistance when no crime has been committed is an obvious danger for the community.

If you think armed cops are the obvious danger in shotspotter neighborhoods, you've departed objective reality. Eg https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2022/7/27/23280415/chicag...

> If you think armed cops are the obvious danger

Yes, I do think that.

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/26/1101496374/chicago-police-13-...

It seems to me that to think otherwise is a "the omelet requires breaking eggs" argument.

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

#285

Post by shadowgovt »

SilasX wrote: post #213
shadowgovt wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to ask London police, since they don't. So my Fermi estimate would be somewhere between US and UK rates.

>You'd have to ask London police, since they don't. No, I wouldn't, because your facts are wrong. Yes, London police are generally unarmed, but they still get called to respond to situations where there is a likely armed suspect, and in those cases, they send in special units that are armed. The question here -- that you avoided -- is, what is the appropriate probability before sending in such an officer, and is it h…

If your claim is that the police should always show up armed and expecting to be shot at in the United States because the Second Amendment guarantees the right of a private citizen to own a firearm, then the conclusion is that every instance of calling the police out to respond is a possible fatal shooting in the making. That is definitely a conclusion others have reached (https://dontcallthepolice.com/about/).

In that context, ShotSpotter's mechanism bordering on ascientific prognostication should be considered dangerous to the community because it is increasing the chances of fatal encounters for no benefit. It's basically SWATting with a fancy corporate branding.

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

#286

Post by Brian_K_White »

NonNefarious wrote: post #272
curiousgal wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?"

Helps people learn how to say, and how to hear

"I looked into that and it's actually this... I still love you dad. You're just wrong about a thing that's all. It's even ok if you still want to think I'm the one who's wrong because hey maybe I am."

Helps people learn that domination and submission, or utter seperation, are not the only ways to have peace and cooperation.

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

#287

Post by woodruffw »

daenz wrote: post #279
woodruffw wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Not completely cold. I would just be mildly surprised if someone lingered around for 5-6 minutes and then ran.

In any case, this is all supposition. We aren’t being allowed to review the actual evidence, so for all I know SpotShotter is just telling the police what they’re asking it to.

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

#288

Post by SilasX »

shadowgovt wrote: post #285
SilasX wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You'd have to ask London police, since they don't. No, I wouldn't, because your facts are wrong. Yes, London police are generally unarmed, but they still get called to respond to situations where there is a likely armed suspect, and in those cases, they send in special units that are armed. The question here -- that you avoided -- is, what is the appropriate probability before sending in such an officer, and is it h…

If your claim is that the police should always show up armed and expecting to be shot at in the United States because the Second Amendment guarantees the right of a private citizen to own a firearm, then the conclusion is that every instance of calling the police out to respond is a possible fatal shooting in the making. That is definitely a conclusion others have reached ( https://dontcallthepolice.com/about/ ). In…

>If your claim is that the police should always show up armed and expecting to be shot at in the United States

What part of my comment is that (or anything else you've said) responding to? I asked a simple question: what is the appropriate "probability of a shooter" that justifies going in with a protocol that expects one? Now you're just guessing things that have little to do with what I said.

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

#289

Post by SilasX »

halostatue wrote: post #205
shadowgovt wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to ask London police, since they don't. So my Fermi estimate would be somewhere between US and UK rates.

Let’s tighten that up, some. Canadian police are armed with lethal weapons and need to go into active shooter situations less often than the U.S., which is a wildcard outlier of gun violence, second only to active war zones.

You're both misreading the question. The question was not "how often do police go in expecting a shooter?" The question was, "what 'probability of there being a shooter' justifies going in armed/with a protocol that expects one?" User:shadowgovt, if you followed the thread, was asking us to be outraged that they went in when it was "only" 7%:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32259925

But yes, "tighten up" those Fermi estimates for a question no one asked and which has no bearing on the discussion.

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

#290

Post by lazide »

fastball wrote: post #276
lazide wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nobody said they were actually doing crimes at the home, just that the cops thought they were. Which hey, maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. But using unrelated crimes and fake data to raid their house under a false pretext is still not ok, and is still unconstitutional.

If the cops think they’re committing a crime, they should actually find enough probably cause to get actual paperwork, not just create junk to justify going after the ‘usual suspects’.

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