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Reclassifying the type of sound is possibly reasonable. Changing the coordinates seems like falsification of evidence. Later in the article it mentions adding a

Reclassifying the type of sound is possibly reasonable. Changing the coordinates seems like falsification of evidence. Later in the article it mentions adding a fifth shot in a different event. If shotspotter wants to be relied on for evidence, allowing technicians to go back and modify data seems like a recipe to quickly eliminate its use in cities and destroy its market share. Adding notes about manual review after the fact would be the only acceptable thing, but the originals should never be modified/deleted.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
Sorry, but I’m an expert shooter. I can reasonably identify the round and sometimes the gun on the range next to me - I would say I have an excellently tuned ear for these things… And not a chance I could do that based on microphone playback between firework and gunshot with some random mic in a city. 1/2 the “trick” is knowing the location, at my range I know the echo of a 12ga vs a 45ACP, the crack difference in a 223 or a 6.5prc, if I went to some random place and you shot one random shot, it would be ridiculously less accurate. Shotspotter seems like a ton of bullshit to me after reading this article including… > Both the company and the Rochester Police Department “lost, deleted and/or destroyed the spool and/or other information containing sounds pertaining to the officer-involved shooting,”
- bluejekyll 5y ago
  > And not a chance I could do that based on microphone playback between firework and gunshot. I’m happy to agree with you on that point, since I don’t have the experience there. My larger point is that I could reasonably say allow for shotspotter to review the sound, but the location I’m assuming is pretty darn accurate. And yes, the article completely destroys their credibility as a reliable source of evidence.
  - jcims 5y ago
    Multipath effects, which for sound are huge in an environment with large flat surfaces, could create phantom origin spots at the fringes of the covered area.
    - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
      So if your point is it’s too complex and variable for automatic processing; how does adding a human arbitrarily changing classification and location going to improve accuracy? Unless it’s the shotspotter tech put there shooting people, seems the company is very successful bullshit either technically or ethically.
      - jcims 5y ago
        If there was solid external evidence of when a shooting occurred (eg gps timestamped video of the event) I could see them doing it purely for calibration purposes. Clearly those adjustments should not be admitted as evidence in a court case. ShotSpotter just needs to take the 'L' and they will have to prosecute without (or admit whatever was originally recorded as corroborating evidence).
  - Clubber 5y ago
    >but the location I’m assuming is pretty darn accurate. I remember reading about a similar technology used by soldiers in Afghanistan to find snipers, but Afghanistan is largely an open area. I don't see how it would be accurate when the acoustics of multiple buildings are in effect.
- jcims 5y ago
  The idea is attractive because it's quite obvious how well ShotSpotter would work in a cleanroom environment. The part that's less intuitive is how far the standard deployment environment is from that standard and what margin the product has to accommodate.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago

Sorry, but I’m an expert shooter. I can reasonably identify the round and sometimes the gun on the range next to me - I would say I have an excellently tuned ear for these things… And not a chance I could do that based on microphone playback between firework and gunshot with some random mic in a city. 1/2 the “trick” is knowing the location, at my range I know the echo of a 12ga vs a 45ACP, the crack difference in a 223 or a 6.5prc, if I went to some random place and you shot one random shot, it would be ridiculously less accurate. Shotspotter seems like a ton of bullshit to me after reading this article including… > Both the company and the Rochester Police Department “lost, deleted and/or destroyed the spool and/or other information containing sounds pertaining to the officer-involved shooting,”

bluejekyll 5y ago
> And not a chance I could do that based on microphone playback between firework and gunshot. I’m happy to agree with you on that point, since I don’t have the experience there. My larger point is that I could reasonably say allow for shotspotter to review the sound, but the location I’m assuming is pretty darn accurate. And yes, the article completely destroys their credibility as a reliable source of evidence.
- jcims 5y ago
  Multipath effects, which for sound are huge in an environment with large flat surfaces, could create phantom origin spots at the fringes of the covered area.
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    So if your point is it’s too complex and variable for automatic processing; how does adding a human arbitrarily changing classification and location going to improve accuracy? Unless it’s the shotspotter tech put there shooting people, seems the company is very successful bullshit either technically or ethically.
    - jcims 5y ago
      If there was solid external evidence of when a shooting occurred (eg gps timestamped video of the event) I could see them doing it purely for calibration purposes. Clearly those adjustments should not be admitted as evidence in a court case. ShotSpotter just needs to take the 'L' and they will have to prosecute without (or admit whatever was originally recorded as corroborating evidence).
- Clubber 5y ago
  >but the location I’m assuming is pretty darn accurate. I remember reading about a similar technology used by soldiers in Afghanistan to find snipers, but Afghanistan is largely an open area. I don't see how it would be accurate when the acoustics of multiple buildings are in effect.
jcims 5y ago
The idea is attractive because it's quite obvious how well ShotSpotter would work in a cleanroom environment. The part that's less intuitive is how far the standard deployment environment is from that standard and what margin the product has to accommodate.