Live data from Hacker News

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

chicagoreader.com

111–120 of 320 posts

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

#113
post #50
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They didn’t comment on motives, just on reality. That is where these systems are deployed.

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.

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

#114
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.

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

#115

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…

I'm not skeptical of the technology. Acoustic triangulation has been around a long time.

I'm skeptical of this company in particular. See this other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32259253

Edit: I think a novel implementation here is that they often use one mic array (several mics mounted around one tower or vehicle) as opposed to a dispersed network at them. If they made that work effectively, I think IMO it's different enough as to be novel and patent worthy. But it also strikes me as the kind of technology that should be defensible on its own merits, and legitimate copycats easy enough to identify, rather than blanket squelching tactics and going after journalists. That's what snake oil salesman do, not companies with actually superior technology. Read the Vice reports. Their effectiveness record isn't great except in their first party sponsored research.

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

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It’s a lot like saying knives should be required to emit such a sound. A knife is a purely mechanical device, there’s no good way to require an electronic device in a way that won’t be ripped off by every criminal immediately. In the same way, you can’t DRM trigger pulls.

Further, this loud tone would require enough power that you’re talking about replaceable batteries. Those batteries can be removed.

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

#117
post #50
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They didn’t comment on motives, just on reality. That is where these systems are deployed.

Another way of phrasing it is: these gunshot detection systems are deployed where the vast majority of gunshots occur.

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

#118
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jackson MS uses shot spotter and is 80% black, and no, they aren't deploying it in predominantly white "minority" neighborhoods.

Do you seriously think by "minority" they meant at the local populace level and not national populace level? When has that ever been the colloquial use?

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?

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

#119
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In ADS-B, planes broadcast their locations.

MLAT time-difference-of-arrival improves the accuracy substantially. Edit: not true, but can provide equivalent accuracy. https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/how-we-track-flights-with...

Your link does not support that assertion. It states that MLAT is used for planes without ADS-B and that it only matches the precision of ADS-B.
Post reply on HN