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

#301

Post by shadowgovt » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 8:56 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #298

shadowgovt wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it would be really expensive and low-yield to pull over everyone in the vicinity of a gunshot Expensive and low-yield for whom? For the officer who's been directed their by the robot, they're incentivized to do so; it makes them look like they're doing their jobs instead of doing nothing. What's built into the system to penalize them for inconveniencing / endangering a bunch of people with nothing to show for it?

Searching a car and catching a criminal always makes them look better than just searching a car. [1]And I’m not sure how your point, if you have one beyond making yourself look smart, relates to the broader issue of whether shotspotter was the only evidence, which was the focus of that comment. And if you’re economizing on time, I can assure that a better use of it would be to answer the challenge you kept dodging (o…

Sorry, I'm not sure where you're picking up "outrage" from my comment. You were asserting "It would be really expensive and low-yield to pull over everyone in the vicinity of a gunshot" and I was asking 'for whom?' I don't see how incentives are aligned for that to be expensive at all for the person doing the pulling over, and I tend to evaluate people's behavior on the assumption that, all other things being equal, they'll do what they're most incentivized to in a given situation most of the time.

It's expensive for the community, to be sure, but the cop's not incentivized immediately to care about that.

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

#302

Post by hiptobecubic » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 9:07 PM UTC

esoterica wrote: post #176

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.

Very funny to see HN upvote a comment that boils down to "if they did nothing wrong, they have nothing to hide".

The difference is that 1) they sell it based on their claims about it and 2) it is admitted as evidence in a court of law.

It's pretty different from "Let's just search everyone's houses. Probably someone is committing a crime."

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

#303

Post by hiptobecubic » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

YLE118 wrote: post #136

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…

An egregious example from the first link: Police said ShotSpotter, a surveillance system that uses hidden microphone sensors to detect the sound and location of gunshots, generated an alert for that time and place. Except that’s not entirely true, according to recent court filings. That night, 19 ShotSpotter sensors detected a percussive sound at 11:46 p.m. and determined the location to be 5700 South Lake Shore Driv…

What I don't understand about this is what basis they could possibly have for making such a correction? The data is X, their algorithm says Y about it. Are they just claiming that "analysts" are better at triangulating than whatever their algorithm is? It's not like image classification, where it's at least plausible that a person can meaningfully "correct mistakes."

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

#304

Post by hiptobecubic » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 9:14 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #239

cycomanic wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to rephrase your argument, shotspotter allows police to arrest people with made up evidence. You say that is a good thing, because they were criminals anyway. You have an interesting concept of the rule of law.

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.

I'm sorry, what's the premise here? People don't run away from random gunfights that happen on the street? Honestly, I feel like it's more likely that a random person is not involved if they are running.

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

#305

Post by hiptobecubic » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #238

telchior wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that sounds like a great thing to focus on, but in this particular thread that's specifically about ShotSpotter it mainly serves to change the subject.

The topic has expanded to the related topics, as conversations do. ShotSpotter wouldn't even exist, much less be the topic of criticism, if there wasn't a rampant problem with gun violence in these communities.

The allegation is that gun violence is a requirement for ShotSpotter, but not the reason for it. The reason for it is that a magic wand that generates probable cause wherever and whenever you need it is extremely valuable to a police force that is judged by metrics like "How many guns did you find today?"

The gun violence is just the camouflage that provides plausible deniability. If ShotSpotter had been founded in London they'd have called it "StabSpotter."

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

#306

Post by feet » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #261

jjeaff wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that they don't want to reveal their methods because they are still crude and obvious.

Don't want to reveal their methods cause patent infringement.

My assumption is that if the methods are shown to be highly inaccurate it could invalidate many criminal prosecutions which could open them up to lawsuits from law enforcement

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

#307

Post by feet » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 9:35 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #219

remflight wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that fruit of the poison tree though?

That's where the parallel construction part applies: ShotSpotter lets the police do "vibes based" policing (to put it nicely), and then parallel construct their way backwards to a "legitimate" source of evidence. (If I'm being pedantic, "fruit of the poisonous tree" usually refers to illegally obtained evidence, which ShotSpotter is technically not. It's purely a source of investigatory pretext.)

Correct, it's usually the evidence obtained in the parallel construction phase that was illegally obtained

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

#308

Post by SicSemperUranus » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 9:50 PM UTC

throwaway17_17 wrote: post #211

SicSemperUranus wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this is obviously unethical, but wouldn't this also be obviously unconstitutional in the US? At least if done deliberately? 14th amendment and all that.

Assuming the question were to reach the Supreme Court, and not considering the possibilities in the various Circuits, there is a substantial chance all of the Supreme Court’s various composition over the last 50 years would uphold the use. First consideration would be applicable legal standard, which practically always errs on the side of the State, second is the reasonableness of statistical methodology presenting t…

That was very informative, thank you

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

#309

Post by hiptobecubic » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 10:15 PM UTC

ALittleLight wrote: post #241

elil17 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Honestly I do think it's racism that ultimately is responsible for the demographics of professional sports in the US. The system is powered by people and people do not consider all the players in the same way, e.g. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/03/06/march-....

That's without getting into the socio-economic factors that lead people to pursue sports as a career rather than playing in school and then going on to be an architect or whatever it is.

The rest of your comments have been dissected and examined to such an extreme over the last like... 80 years... that I don't have anything new to add to the discussion.

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

#310

Post by hiptobecubic » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 10:20 PM UTC

sergiotapia wrote: post #114

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…

Imagine working for such a hellscape company or worse, dedicating your life to this bullshit. Really sickening.

I feel like you wouldn't work for a company like this unless you somehow believed that all the bullshit they were doing was for the greater good. I would imagine police probably also don't see themselves as racist-in-a-bad-way but as heroes, otherwise why would you ever work there? That's where all this "thin blue line" craziness comes from. I mean, I get it, wanting to protect people in your community from crooks and scumbags that hurt them is natural. It's easy to trick yourself into thinking that these little exceptions to civil rights are justified.