3 ms·

Neither of those things requires immediate response (in order of minutes), or lives are lost. I’m as disgusted with this story as most seem to be, but I don’t

Neither of those things requires immediate response (in order of minutes), or lives are lost. I’m as disgusted with this story as most seem to be, but I don’t think running KYC and asking for documentation of the emergency is a good idea for 999 calls.

soco 5y ago
In the age of the AI profiling a face in the crowd, it's very difficult to believe that some system to look up the caller ID cannot be brought to work.
- lm28469 5y ago
  AI is still dog shit for 99.9% of applications, we're not playing chess here. It would add an insane amount of complexity and points of failure for an edge case. If it even fucks up once it would need to be retired. I know HN loves to think raw tech will save the world but come on... this is a societal problem, not a tech problem
- therealEleix 5y ago
  Even if caller id had been used in this situation, he could have easily spoofed the number to appear to be coming from the neighbors house since they would have already had all the information necessary to do so. The Caller ID system you're thinking of simply does not exist. The current system is much to easy too spoof. Anyone with $15 and a VoIP number can do it.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  Notably, the caller was identified, it seems. The problem wasn't identifying the caller, rather taking his accusation at face value.
anyonecancode 5y ago
Maybe a better analogy -- when I'm on call and get paged, my first response is not to immediately restart the servers. The immediate response should be to assess the situation, not jump straight to the most extreme approach. Now you may quite reasonably point out that a page on a software system is seldom of the same weight as an emergency call to the police (true in my case -- money, not lives, have always been at stake in the systems I work on), but this ignores the reality that the "swarming with guns" approach _also_ can, and has, cost lives. So if anything, the higher stakes involved for police involvement is an even _stronger_ argument to take the extra time to properly assess the proportional response.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  I guess I'm not disagreeing with this point of view. Perhaps my conclusion would be, rather, that a SWAT team coming in to arrest someone shouldn't also lead to a heart attack situation. Maybe I'm being naive, and probably most people SWAT teams come to apprehend are super-dangerous, but it feels to me it shouldn't be a consideration.

soco 5y ago

In the age of the AI profiling a face in the crowd, it's very difficult to believe that some system to look up the caller ID cannot be brought to work.

lm28469 5y ago
AI is still dog shit for 99.9% of applications, we're not playing chess here. It would add an insane amount of complexity and points of failure for an edge case. If it even fucks up once it would need to be retired. I know HN loves to think raw tech will save the world but come on... this is a societal problem, not a tech problem
therealEleix 5y ago
Even if caller id had been used in this situation, he could have easily spoofed the number to appear to be coming from the neighbors house since they would have already had all the information necessary to do so. The Caller ID system you're thinking of simply does not exist. The current system is much to easy too spoof. Anyone with $15 and a VoIP number can do it.
rich_sasha 5y ago
Notably, the caller was identified, it seems. The problem wasn't identifying the caller, rather taking his accusation at face value.

anyonecancode 5y ago

Maybe a better analogy -- when I'm on call and get paged, my first response is not to immediately restart the servers. The immediate response should be to assess the situation, not jump straight to the most extreme approach. Now you may quite reasonably point out that a page on a software system is seldom of the same weight as an emergency call to the police (true in my case -- money, not lives, have always been at stake in the systems I work on), but this ignores the reality that the "swarming with guns" approach _also_ can, and has, cost lives. So if anything, the higher stakes involved for police involvement is an even _stronger_ argument to take the extra time to properly assess the proportional response.

rich_sasha 5y ago
I guess I'm not disagreeing with this point of view. Perhaps my conclusion would be, rather, that a SWAT team coming in to arrest someone shouldn't also lead to a heart attack situation. Maybe I'm being naive, and probably most people SWAT teams come to apprehend are super-dangerous, but it feels to me it shouldn't be a consideration.