Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ShotSpotter defamation lawsuit against Vice has been dismissed

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 79 posts

Re: ShotSpotter defamation lawsuit against Vice has been dismissed

#41

Post by Auracle »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #32
b112 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rural Canada here, in an area with no real gun crime. There are people on their farms shooting things (rabid animals), or hunting in season. I guess you could only use these things in downtown of a city, otherwise so many false positives.. I can't even imagine in the US, land of 7 guns per person, plus of course the dogs are even armed...

>> There are people on their farms shooting things (rabid animals) I don't really care if "rural people" are using guns but to claim shooting rabid animals is a major use-case is wrong or initially misleading.

I’ve done it once and I witnessed my mom do it once.

I’m sure it’s way, way less then 1% of the shots fired but it’s absolutely something that happens.

Re: ShotSpotter defamation lawsuit against Vice has been dismissed

#42

Post by stepanhruda »

rpmisms wrote: post #28
InCityDreams wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...even if you have astonishingly low gun crime in Europe...." Er, no. You have astonishingly high gun crime in the States. Sorry 'bout that.

Our gun crime rates per gun are flabbergastingly low. Our gun crime rates per capita are excellent, except in some of the largest cities.

We have lots of bugs in our product, but you will be happy to hear that our ratio of bug per line of code is excellent!

Also US numbers per capita are actually very bad (https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-us-gun-violence-worl...) and worse in rural states, are you just going by feelings?

Re: ShotSpotter defamation lawsuit against Vice has been dismissed

#44

Post by b112 »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #32
b112 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rural Canada here, in an area with no real gun crime. There are people on their farms shooting things (rabid animals), or hunting in season. I guess you could only use these things in downtown of a city, otherwise so many false positives.. I can't even imagine in the US, land of 7 guns per person, plus of course the dogs are even armed...

>> There are people on their farms shooting things (rabid animals) I don't really care if "rural people" are using guns but to claim shooting rabid animals is a major use-case is wrong or initially misleading.

In the US, I know you guys have to be shooting at anything and everything, just because you have a gun.

In Canada, people on farms often buy guns just as a tool, not for cultural reasons, or pleasure, such as long guns, to shoot.... yes, rabid animals, or things preying on their livestock.

It is a major use case, if you own a gun for rabid animals, and really don't get it out otherwise.

I also have a chainsaw, and never get it out to cut trees, unless it has already fallen, or a danger.

EG, I have a chainsaw, but never use it to cut down trees for fuel.

Why do you object? Some areas have a strong local rabis population...

Re: ShotSpotter defamation lawsuit against Vice has been dismissed

#45

Post by delecti »

sva_ wrote: post #22
ceejayoz wrote: post #10

We had a similar case of ShotSpotter faking shots for the cops in my city. https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2017/11/17/s... > On April 1, 2016, the ShotSpotter sensors picked up several audio bursts from a northwest Rochester neighborhood. Unable through its algorithms to detect a specific location, the system did not alert 911 or police. The system also thought the sounds to be the whirring blades of…

> The system [...] thought [...] Weird how people say that.

It's not accurate to say the system thought, but it's often easier to describe behavior of systems by anthropomorphizing them. We're also just very wired to ascribe intent to complex systems; it's safer for a caveman to overthink the rustling grass sometimes than to ignore it as a rule and get eaten by a lion.

Re: ShotSpotter defamation lawsuit against Vice has been dismissed

#46

Post by dmix »

dontbenebby wrote: post #40

Can they abuse those mics to pick up human conversation?

They claim in the complaint that the microphones protect privacy by only recording audio when sharp high pitched sounds happen and they limit recordings to 30 seconds. Of course they are listening 24/7, it's just the persistence part that's capped.

The microphones are also high up, like in light posts, so it's not the best place for audio surveillance.

Re: ShotSpotter defamation lawsuit against Vice has been dismissed

#48

Post by millzlane »

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #36

VICE is so frustratingly good at doing investigative journalism while simultaneously being filled to the brim with total crap.

I think some of the total crap is what drew me to them. I don't think it was the hard hitting journalism as it was the bit of gonzo style stuff.

Re: ShotSpotter defamation lawsuit against Vice has been dismissed

#49

Post by indymike »

b112 wrote: post #44
skeeter2020 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> There are people on their farms shooting things (rabid animals) I don't really care if "rural people" are using guns but to claim shooting rabid animals is a major use-case is wrong or initially misleading.

In the US, I know you guys have to be shooting at anything and everything, just because you have a gun. In Canada, people on farms often buy guns just as a tool, not for cultural reasons, or pleasure, such as long guns, to shoot.... yes, rabid animals, or things preying on their livestock. It is a major use case, if you own a gun for rabid animals, and really don't get it out otherwise. I also have a chainsaw, and ne…

For most Americans... guns are used as a tool just like in rural Canada.

Re: ShotSpotter defamation lawsuit against Vice has been dismissed

#50

Post by plorkyeran »

wbl wrote: post #30
yieldcrv wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah for the past decade I’ve had awesome results by not doing anything during a controversy, and then sending DMCA requests and other digital cleanup methods to every source a few weeks later The idea was that people’s system caches would have deleted stuff by then, so anyone that noticed at that point couldn’t go resurrect to attempt to start a Streisand Browsers and the internet are super different now, but the sa…

You can only issue a DCMA request on behalf of the copyright holder. There is no takedown for butthurt.

In practice you can issue DCMA requests for any reason and there are zero consequences for lying.
Post reply on HN