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The magic box already exists, it's called people who call the cops to report gunshots every time they hear fireworks are a car backfiring. If you think it's wr

The magic box already exists, it's called people who call the cops to report gunshots every time they hear fireworks are a car backfiring. If you think it's wrong for police to investigate a shotspotter alert because it might be a false positive then the logical conclusion of that line of thinking is that it should be illegal for the cops to show up to investigate when someone calls in to report gunshots, since those are mostly false positives too.

quickthrower2 4y ago
I don’t see the logical connection between what the parent comment said and your reply. He is saying they could be selling pure snake oil, and worse using it for discrimination (but not sure what the basis was for that, if any).
- esoterica 4y ago
  Shotspotter stores the raw audio so you can just ask for the audio and evaluate for yourself whether a reasonable person would identify that as a gunshot. Either hearing a gunshot is not probable cause to pull someone over (in which case Shotspotter's accuracy and methodology is irrelevant), or hearing a noise that sounds sufficiently like a gunshot is indeed probable cause, in which case you can just listen to the audio yourself and make a determination about whether or not there was a true gunshot-like noise or the company invented a fake alert out of thin air. I don't see any scenario in which the methodology or accuracy of Shotspotter's devices is at all relevant to this case. The relevant fact here is whether this particular bit of audio can be reasonably classified as a gunshot, not the broader accuracy of the system over the whole data set.
  - etchalon 4y ago
    "Someone hearing a gunshot" is not probable cause to pull someone over, just as someone calling in a gunshot to the police is not probable cause to pull someone over.
    - esoterica 4y ago
      Which means that Shotspotter's methodology is irrelevant since there's no probable cause in any case, so the discovery request is unjustified.
      - etchalon 4y ago
        If reporting from Shotspotter is presented as evidence, the discovery request is justified.
    - SilasX 4y ago
      The article isn't clear. The defense claims that the driver was pulled over solely from the shotspotter alert: >>Attorneys from the Cook County Public Defender Office, contending the police pulled the man over solely based on a ShotSpotter alert, subpoenaed the company as a third party to find out whether that was the case. but that seems unlikely -- it would be really expensive and low-yield to pull over everyone in the vicinity of a gunshot. It would be about the same as with regular human ears hearing a bang: go to the source, then pull over cars with evidence further differentiating them as a possible locus of crime. So probably shotspotter got the cop to that location, where he saw other, more crime-specific evidence. But without more info about this case I couldn't say for sure.
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        > it would be really expensive and low-yield to pull over everyone in the vicinity of a gunshot Expensive and low-yield for whom? For the officer who's been directed their by the robot, they're incentivized to do so; it makes them look like they're doing their jobs instead of doing nothing. What's built into the system to penalize them for inconveniencing / endangering a bunch of people with nothing to show for it?
        SilasX 4y ago
        Searching a car and catching a criminal always makes them look better than just searching a car. [1]And I’m not sure how your point, if you have one beyond making yourself look smart, relates to the broader issue of whether shotspotter was the only evidence, which was the focus of that comment. And if you’re economizing on time, I can assure that a better use of it would be to answer the challenge you kept dodging (or “misinterpreting” as a opportunity to show off irrelevant knowledge): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32259971 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32259971 At this point I’m just going to assume you have no idea if 7% is a good threshold or not, but still see so problem with shouting it because it sounds good. [1] In case you forgot, the only reason you were outraged was because the search did catch a criminal that it shouldn’t have. So obviously someone cares about catching a criminal!

quickthrower2 4y ago

I don’t see the logical connection between what the parent comment said and your reply. He is saying they could be selling pure snake oil, and worse using it for discrimination (but not sure what the basis was for that, if any).

esoterica 4y ago
Shotspotter stores the raw audio so you can just ask for the audio and evaluate for yourself whether a reasonable person would identify that as a gunshot. Either hearing a gunshot is not probable cause to pull someone over (in which case Shotspotter's accuracy and methodology is irrelevant), or hearing a noise that sounds sufficiently like a gunshot is indeed probable cause, in which case you can just listen to the audio yourself and make a determination about whether or not there was a true gunshot-like noise or the company invented a fake alert out of thin air. I don't see any scenario in which the methodology or accuracy of Shotspotter's devices is at all relevant to this case. The relevant fact here is whether this particular bit of audio can be reasonably classified as a gunshot, not the broader accuracy of the system over the whole data set.
- etchalon 4y ago
  "Someone hearing a gunshot" is not probable cause to pull someone over, just as someone calling in a gunshot to the police is not probable cause to pull someone over.
  - esoterica 4y ago
    Which means that Shotspotter's methodology is irrelevant since there's no probable cause in any case, so the discovery request is unjustified.
    - etchalon 4y ago
      If reporting from Shotspotter is presented as evidence, the discovery request is justified.
  - SilasX 4y ago
    The article isn't clear. The defense claims that the driver was pulled over solely from the shotspotter alert: >>Attorneys from the Cook County Public Defender Office, contending the police pulled the man over solely based on a ShotSpotter alert, subpoenaed the company as a third party to find out whether that was the case. but that seems unlikely -- it would be really expensive and low-yield to pull over everyone in the vicinity of a gunshot. It would be about the same as with regular human ears hearing a bang: go to the source, then pull over cars with evidence further differentiating them as a possible locus of crime. So probably shotspotter got the cop to that location, where he saw other, more crime-specific evidence. But without more info about this case I couldn't say for sure.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      > it would be really expensive and low-yield to pull over everyone in the vicinity of a gunshot Expensive and low-yield for whom? For the officer who's been directed their by the robot, they're incentivized to do so; it makes them look like they're doing their jobs instead of doing nothing. What's built into the system to penalize them for inconveniencing / endangering a bunch of people with nothing to show for it?
      - SilasX 4y ago
        Searching a car and catching a criminal always makes them look better than just searching a car. [1]And I’m not sure how your point, if you have one beyond making yourself look smart, relates to the broader issue of whether shotspotter was the only evidence, which was the focus of that comment. And if you’re economizing on time, I can assure that a better use of it would be to answer the challenge you kept dodging (or “misinterpreting” as a opportunity to show off irrelevant knowledge): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32259971 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32259971 At this point I’m just going to assume you have no idea if 7% is a good threshold or not, but still see so problem with shouting it because it sounds good. [1] In case you forgot, the only reason you were outraged was because the search did catch a criminal that it shouldn’t have. So obviously someone cares about catching a criminal!