48 ms·
'Siri I'm getting pulled over': New shortcut can automatically record the police
- throwaway5250 8y agoCan you imagine the s___storm if they had named this function "Siri I'm getting mugged"? Wouldn't just "Siri start recording" make more sense?
- favorited 8y agoIf you read the article, it explains that the shortcut does more than just start recording.
- djrogers 8y agoBecause of the nature of Siri Shortcuts, you actually get to decide what to say for this - it’s not up to the app developer. I’m sure he chose it because it made for a good headline though.
- Johnny555 8y agoThat's related to one of the use-cases mentioned in the article: one woman planned on using the shortcut to help with a stalker issue she was having with an ex-boyfriend Though your particular use case doesn't sound like a good one -- if you're getting mugged, are you going to risk angering the mugger by talking to your phone first?
- happytoexplain 8y agoI don't understand what the theoretical shitstorm you're postulating would be about, or what you're objecting to with regards to the current trigger phrase. Can you elaborate?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- shagie 8y agoNote that this is a user installed script - its not care iOS functionality. You configure a scripting 'glue' to send a predefined set of messages to different applications in an order. Activating this script may be done by invoking siri with a particular phrase. Siri - sexy time * Run Home Scene {lights at 25%, warm} * Play playlist George Michael - Careless Whisper Same thing. Different apps. Different trigger. Not something that Apple installed.
- qrbLPHiKpiux 8y agoThis is what Workflow changed to?
- moltar 8y agoYes, but it’s way more powerful and integrated now.
- adtac 8y agoUnfortunately it requires Siri to be enabled even if the shortcut itself doesn't use it (like when I want to trigger it with touch). I've disabled Siri on my phone and watch because I never use it and there's a massive battery improvement when I disable it; the old Workflow app used to work without Siri, but Shourtcut requires it apparently :(
- applecrazy 8y agoInteresting comment on the battery impact of Siri. Did you notice improvements when you turned off Siri entirely or just the "Hey Siri" functionality? I find it quite odd that Siri would take up battery even when not running (given that "Hey Siri" is disabled).
- CryoLogic 8y agoMore accountability for police can't hurt. In other private professions bad accountability results in loss of job, so I don't think many can complain about this. A cool feature, maybe given attention due to the hot political climate around cop shootings. But useful nonetheless.
- pranks 8y agoHow about accountability for criminals? That’s the real problem in society despite what Obama and Hillary tell you
- a_wild_dandan 8y agoI think all police should wear body cameras. Police misconduct declines. Civilian misconduct declines. Cameras are a potential source of powerful evidence. Everyone wins.
- CocaKoala 8y agoPolice DO wear body cameras! For example, there was a shooting in Albuquerque, with five police officers present, and all five officers were wearing cameras. Unfortunately, all five cameras malfunctioned at exactly the same time and none of them captured footage of the shooting [1]. What a crazy, unlikely circumstance. [1]: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180624/18081640105/another-police-accountability-miracle-five-officers-zero-body-cam-footage-one-dead-body.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180624/18081640105/anoth...
- zik 8y agoIt seems only reasonable that in such cases not only are the police guilty by default of whatever they're accused of, they're also guilty of destroying evidence and should be charged accordingly.
- jonnycoder 8y agoOnly if you can prove the malfeasance.
- Johnny555 8y agoit starts recording using the iPhone's front-facing camera. Once you've stopped recording, it can text or email the video to a different predetermined contact and save it to Dropbox. Too bad it seems to record locally first -- it'd be nice if it could stream the recording online, in case the phone is seized or powered off before it can save the recording. Maybe it could have a checkpoint feature where it sends the current recording to the cloud while continuing to record, maybe triggered by a keyword or a cough or something.
- viraptor 8y ago> maybe triggered by a keyword or a cough or something. Sounds complicated. Why not upload every 30sec chunk?
- shagie 8y agoThe shortcut app is a single thread. Send a message to an existing application (capable of receiving a message), wait for a response, send a message to the next application in the script and so on. There's no logic, no timer. The script is: * Send message to {contact} with text (some templating done with location) * Take video (Front) * Save to photo album The camera app has two messages you can send to it: take photo and take video. That's it.
- robterrell 8y agoI bet someone could make an app that streams video to a cloud-based recording endpoint and is exposed to shortcuts.
- adtac 8y agoDoes YouTube allow unlisted/private live streams? That would be an easy hack to achieve something like this.
- sattoshi 8y agoIt does, yes.
- meddlepal 8y agoWon't this be illegal in states that require both parties to consent to recording?
- k_sh 8y ago"...the First Amendment protects the right to record [police/gov't officials carrying out their duties in public places] regardless of whether the police/officials consent. This constitutional right would override any state or federal laws that would otherwise prohibit such recording." http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-police-officers-and-public-officials http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-police-officers-an...
- gammateam 8y agoif you're rich enough for appeals court and that motivates me
- justin66 8y agoYou're thinking of the rules regarding phone conversations (one party vs. two party states). You're allowed to record your interactions with police, although sometimes they'll lie and tell you you aren't.
- tptacek 8y agoSee Glik v. Cunniffe; you can record the police in public spaces, and laws that state otherwise are unconstitutional.
- compelledToken 8y agoSiri, I just landed in New Zealand. * changes passcode to a random 256 character alpha-numeric string, locking you out of the phone * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18112734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18112734 or maybe... Siri, they're forcing me to use face unlock. * erases data and performs a factory reset * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18112732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18112732
- nyolfen 8y agoyou can definitely be prosecuted for the latter in the US
- tfha 8y agoYou can? I thought this was okay.
- cortesoft 8y agoDestroying evidence? No, that is a crime
- justtopost 8y agoOnly when knowingly hiding a crime. You can choose to wipe your device without an alibi thankfully.
- akerro 8y agoWhat evidence?
- lighthazard 8y agoWould it be a lesser sentence than a potentially worse revelation?
- FLUX-YOU 8y agoThat phone should have been shredded way before you got pulled over.
- maliker 8y agoNote that this shortcut was built by someone who is a lawyer and had only minor experience with "scripts for macOS in the past". It's great to see Apple building technologies for this audience on the iPhone like they have with Automator on macOS.
- gdubs 8y agoIn the early days of personal computing, things like AppleScript, HyperCard, and Basic, were used by the typical computer user. Computer users were rather self-selected, had invested a lot of money to own a computer, and generally bought into the promise of computing as a “bicycle for the mind.” The iPhone opened the floodgates, bringing TONS of people to computing for the first time, and it resulted in a shift from computing as a creation medium, to one of consumption. It’s interesting to see it start to come full circle. It’s taken about a decade, but something that used to be mainstream in computing (programming your machine to do something interesting interesting / useful) is on the cusp of becoming mainstream once more.
- Illniyar 8y agoThe iPhone is responsible for many things but "bringing tons of people to computing for the first time" is probably not one of them. The vast majority of iPhone users have a computer, it was even more prevalent in 2007 when the first iPhone came out, and was a luxury gadget that was mostly purchased by technology minded and wealthy people - a group who were vastly more likely to own home computers.
- alwillis 8y agoI see plenty of young people with iPhones who aren’t wealthy and because I work in education, I can tell you many of them don’t have computers at home. If there’s a computer at home, it may not have broadband. The iPhone is their computer. If a kid needs a traditional computer after school lets out and they live in an urban area, they go to a library or to a community center. I was surprised to see Mac Pros at the main branch of the Boston Public Library this summer for young people to use for media production, for example.
- Chazprime 8y ago“Siri, there’s a future supreme court nominee in my dorm room”.
- jhabdas 8y agoJust get rid of the police or make them more corrupt so they can be bribed better.
- Karupan 8y agoGenuine question: is getting pulled over in the US really that hazardous that people have to record it in case things go wrong?
- joshmn 8y agoNo. People seem to think it is because of what they've seen online. There are plenty of interactions with police that are friendly or otherwise fine. And this is coming from someone who has had plenty of interactions with them that were ultimately negative for myself.
- lovich 8y agoThe presence of issues is not the main problem. Even the best system is going to have bad actors slip in on occasion or mistakes happen. The problem is that even when an officer makes an egregious and documented violation of the law, on purpose, there is no expectation any more that they will face the same punishment that the rest of the population would face. It's a complete breakdown of the rule of law and leads to more and more disregard for the law, which is only going to be met with more authoritarian responses unless the police decide to actually apply the law to themselves as well.
- ikeyany 8y agoI love the number of white people chiming in, so damn sure others' perceptions must be overblown.
- symfoniq 8y agoI’ve been pulled over four times in my driving history. All my interactions with the cops were pleasant and professional.
- virmundi 8y agoI've been pulled over once (surrounded by 6 cop cars at a later date because I think they were bored). I was told by mother to let the office leave first. I sat. I waited as a white man in my white Honda Civic with a parking permit to a known-in-that-area Christian University. The office loaded a shotgun (that was fun to watch), then came to my car to ask if I was planning anything. I explained the situation. He told me to leave.
- alphabettsy 8y agoAbout 90% of my experience with police has been profesional and unremarkable. The other times should’ve been recorded and discipline may have been appropriate even though I was not harmed.
- BodywearCam 8y agoPolice and FB, the favorite HN’s punchballs. The circlejerk says HN focuses on data yet this kind of posts show up every single day.
- anonytrary 8y ago> About 90% of my experience with police has been profesional and unremarkable. I chuckled when I realized how big your sample size must have been for you to come up with that number. I'm not one to talk, I think the number for me is 80% ;)
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoWhere on Earth do you people live!? I've had numerous interactions with the British police over the years (even one in my misspent youth where I was undoubtedly on the wrong side of the law) and they've been nothing but polite and professional.
- anonytrary 8y agoI live in the US. My worst encounter with the police: > I'm 16. > Two guys break into my house. > I call the police, distraught, terrified while they are breaking into my house. > Guys get cold feet and run away. > Several police officers arrive with K-9 unit and investigate the broken glass window. > Police see a nerf gun in the room. > Police claim this isn't a case because I "probably shot the window with my nerf gun and got scared that my parents would ground me for breaking the window, so I called the police out of confusion". This is America. Where idiots who don't know elementary physics are given guns in order to protect us. Where lawmakers who think Jesus exists and is looking down on us from the heavens decide what is and isn't legal. Welcome to my country. To be fair, most of the other encounters I've had with police have been professional. So, that's how I arrive at 80%.
- Zarath 8y agoI've never seen the horrors of post-modernity summed up so well in a single headline.
- dba7dba 8y agoI would like to introduce to you a really unique youtube channel called "PoliceActivity". It currently has about 1.2 million subscribers, with about 600 videos. The channel basically shows police bodycam footage from various US law enforcement agencies, mostly local police/sheriff departments. The videos are not edited, other than to show perspectives from different officers at the same scene, and etc. There are some footage taken by police cruiser dashcam and also cameras mounted on police helicopters. Most are 10 - 30 minutes long. After watching some on the channel, you might even think some of the videos are too boring. But you know both good/bad are included. Some of the footage show police beating on already arrested suspect, letting loose K9 dog on handcuffed suspect, police (I believe Chicago PD) planting fake drug evidence, swatting, etc. BUT, such cases are rare among the nearly 600 videos uploaded onto the channel so far. Many videos do include active shooting incidents (some justified, some not) and might be a bit intense. But this channel is a really unique window into what Police encounter everyday. I highly recommend it.
- yason 8y agoI wonder what's the difference between countries that makes the police behave so differently as to citizens having to come up with video surveillance to back up their case? In Scandinavia you'd have to be genuinely paranoid to not trust the police. The presence of police generally has an aura of safety: actually, with the reductions in force we've been quite unhappy to not see officers patrolling in the city centre in the evenings as much as before. I'll have to assume that most cops in the US must be friendly and considerate but there seems to exist a minority (hopefully?) that seems to suggest it might be safer to hang out with criminals rather than be confronted by the police. It's somehow mind-boggling but there must be a path of history and reason why the behaviour of the police forces have diverged so much between countries.
- cust0m 8y agoI think the biggest diference here is the society in US is more heterogenous, divided and the levels of inequality is high than in Scandinavia. The white Americans that live in rich neighborhoods would feel safer with police presence but an afro American will be viewed as a threat an enemy by the policial forces so is natural this part of population feel unsafe. basically class struggle
- superflyguy 8y agoAny hypothesis that only a minority of police are bad would have to explain why the good police who outnumber them don't do anything to make the public safer/protect the reputation of the police and law enforcement order generally/explain the higher arrest count of and use of violence against Blacks, etc.
- michaelt 8y agoI’ve heard it claimed of a cop pulls over a colleague’s family member for speeding and doesn’t let them off after seeing who it is, he can expect social sanctions like his locker being messed with. If the culture allows that over a mere speeding fine, imagine the sanction for getting a colleague jail time. OTOH if you play along, you get special treatment for your loved ones. And everyone is doing it...
- nosjwshere 8y agoyou'd think car manufacturers would have cameras for when being pulled over.
- agumonkey 8y agoI've been waiting for smartphone to have similar facilities for situations like these. - police brutality - mugging - robbery Basically evidence recording / storing / uploading and possibly pinging trustworthy people or nearby strangers to alert them.
- man-and-laptop 8y agoOff topic: If the article doesn't show even after you disable the adblocker, turn on the Reader mode.
- wmblaettler 8y agoI've often thought about the use of Facebook Live video in this situation. If I have done nothing wrong it would only be minimally embarrassing to have friends and family see the encounter, on the other hand to have a silent witness with redundant friends, family and a preserved recording of it would be useful in the case of abuse of power or worse. Of course along with this thought, I've done mental exercises of how to address an officer with respect and how to not make sudden moves which would cause increased concern.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- victor106 8y agoI love Siri Shortcuts. Apple gets criticized on HN quite a bit and some of it is warranted but Siri Shortcuts feels like the return of the old Apple. One thing though about this Shortcut it does not automatically send anything to your recipients. It asks you got confirmation before it does.
- mxuribe 8y agoAt least in the U.S. the fear with this type of thing is twofold: * It instantly triggers an antagonistic mood for the entire encounter with police. It should not of course; police should always be under legal scrutiny considering how much power (and weaponry) they have access to...But police get aggravated when the laws are applied to them, so if they see something like this app, they tend to respond negatively and in a hostile manner (by hostile, not necessarily using force, merely that their biases begin to manifest). So, what might have started out as a mild case could be exacerbated by simply using this shortcut. * Also, reaching for a phone, that police might "mistaken" for a gun, could almost instantly trigger a police officer to draw - and of course worse, set off - their firearm. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of this shortcut...but i don't think it is enough. In fact, I think car makers should just sell cameras and recording equipment in their cars for this purpose - as added features! i think built-in devices - to protect US! - would go a long way. Of course, what this says about society - that i would even consider offering a feature for a car that monitors our own police - is a saddening state of affairs.