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A natural extension of the Shot Spotter system would be to dispatch a small drone to go collect evidence immediately. I’ve actually witnessed a drive by shootin

• jncfhnb 3y ago
  What could possibly go wrong
  • jeron 3y ago
    they drive under a bridge and lose the suspects that or the suspects shoot at the drone, which would be really cyberpunk
    • doublerabbit 3y ago
      Or the drone shoots the suspects, which would be really dystopian. We have two universes: 2077 or 1984
      • kube-system 3y ago
        Militarized human-driven drones have existed since the 80s. Militarized automated drones are being used today, in the wars currently happening. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2278852-drones-may-have-attacked-humans-fully-autonomously-for-the-first-time/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2278852-drones-may-have... https://www.newscientist.com/article/2282656-israel-used-worlds-first-ai-guided-combat-drone-swarm-in-gaza-attacks/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2282656-israel-used-wor...
        • tootie 3y ago
          Arguably the V-2 rocket was the first unmanned military aircraft.
          • deleted 3y ago
            [deleted]
        • jncfhnb 3y ago
          Sure but there are many military weapons that are not used against one’s own citizens
          • kube-system 3y ago
            Right. I'm saying, 2077 tech exists today -- just some places decide not to use it.
            • jncfhnb 3y ago
              Seems… a little misleading to me. Cyberpunk’s central technical element is without a doubt the cybernetics.
              • kube-system 3y ago
                We have cybernetics today too, their aesthetic style is just more Medtronic than it is Blade Runner.
          • anigbrowl 3y ago
            Teargas is an interesting contrasting example.
            • dontlaugh 3y ago
              Mostly because it's useless against another army, like most chemical weapons.
              • anigbrowl 3y ago
                I mention it because it's illegal to deploy in a military context but OK to use on a domestic population.
• gustavus 3y ago
  I love the idea. We could be marginally safer and all it would require is a constant 24/7 aerial surveillance at all times. I'd feel so safe and secure, it'd be like having an older sibling that was always there to watch over you and make you feel safe, like an older brother perhaps.
  • neaden 3y ago
    This has been tested before, here is an example: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/baltimore-maryland-to-become-first-city-monitored-by-police-surveillance-planes/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/baltimore-maryland-to-become-fi... there is no legal objection to it as far as I understand. The quality isn't super high but it let's you retroactively follow vehicles to see where they have been.
    • adolph 3y ago
      From a June 24, 2021 ACLU press release: BALTIMORE — The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc,ruled today that the Baltimore Police Department’s (BPD) aerial surveillance program, which put the daytime movements of virtually all Baltimore residents under surveillance for 12 hours a day over six months, is unconstitutional. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/federal-appeals-court-rules-baltimore-aerial-surveillance-program-unconstitutional https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/federal-appeals-court-ru... The decision is worth a read: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca4/20-1495/20-1495-2020-11-05.html https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca4/20...
  • tootie 3y ago
    I mean, they do it now with noisy, expensive helicopters. Drones are just cheaper and quieter.
• meheleventyone 3y ago
  Wasn't the Shot Spotter thing pretty useless in reality though?
  • theultdev 3y ago
    What are you referencing? Everywhere it's installed officers find usefulness in triangulating where shots are popped off. The alternative is an extensive investigation which is difficult to determine the location, if not impossible. I don't mind these shot spotters being installed vs CCTVs as the microphones are really just tuned for gunshots and can only serve one purpose (in the current form)
    • meheleventyone 3y ago
      It was widely reported a few years ago that the tech was pretty useless for triangulation amongst a bunch of other worrying behavior by the company and police themselves: https://www.techdirt.com/2021/08/26/chicago-pd-oversight-says-shotspotter-tech-is-mostly-useless-when-it-comes-to-fighting-gun-crime/ https://www.techdirt.com/2021/08/26/chicago-pd-oversight-say...
      • theultdev 3y ago
        That article is quite a mess isn't it? Seems they found more of a problem with the Chicago PD than ShotSpotter. > If this result is attributable in part to missing or nonmatched records of investigatory stops that did take place as a direct consequence of a ShotSpotter alert, CPD’s record-keeping practices are obstructing a meaningful analysis of the effectiveness of the technology. Should have been the end of the article right there, but techdirt decided to write one anyway. And false positives really aren't that big a deal anyway. You get false police reports, at least with the sensors you can recalibrate and adjust.
        • meheleventyone 3y ago
          "The study, which reviewed ShotSpotter deployments for roughly 21 months (from July 1, 2019, through April 14, 2021) using data obtained from the City of Chicago, found that 89% of ShotSpotter’s reports led police to find no gun-related crime and 86% turned up no crime at all, amounting to about 40,000 dead-end ShotSpotter deployments." If only we took companies out to defend their product at face value we could waste even more time and resources!
• tempodox 3y ago
  Yay, and the price would only be ubiquitous surveillance of everyone 24/7. What a steal!
  • Angostura 3y ago
    How does follow, from the police deploying a drone to quickly react to a call? I'm all for pointing out problema, but tht sounds like catastrophising.
    • tamimio 3y ago
      Criminal shooting the drone down, while non-criminals that are under surveillance won’t. A police person cannot look inside of your house without a warrant, while a flying drone can have a 4K of what’s inside. You shouldn’t be Identified (asked for an ID) without breaking the law, while a drone can record and facial recognize you without committing any offense. List goes on
      • philwelch 3y ago
        > A police person cannot look inside of your house without a warrant, while a flying drone can have a 4K of what’s inside. A drone can see into your windows, but you don’t have the expectation of privacy through your windows in the first place; for instance, you can be charged with indecent exposure for being naked in your own house if the blinds are open.[1] > You shouldn’t be Identified (asked for an ID) without breaking the law, while a drone can record and facial recognize you without committing any offense. It’s not generally based on whether you actually broke the law, but whether the police have “reasonable suspicion” that you did. The police can be reasonably suspicious of someone who, it turns out, did not break the law. Also, once you’re in public, anyone with a phone can record you and upload it to a social media network, most of which probably have more extensive facial recognition databases than the police. One thing the police do have though, is that the dash cams in their patrol vehicles can scan license plates and alert them if a vehicle was reported stolen or if the registered owner has warrants. [1] https://www.valleycentral.com/news/local-news/police-provide-privacy-law-insight-following-indecent-exposure-arrest/amp/ https://www.valleycentral.com/news/local-news/police-provide...
• dmitrygr 3y ago
  I wish there was a way to send all y’all who want to live in a 24/7 surveillance dystopia to live in one, and leave the rest of us to enjoy dangerous liberty.
  • pixxel 3y ago
    They’d be insistent on you enjoying surveillance, too.
    • psychlops 3y ago
      "Cause we're all in this together!"
  • salamandersss 3y ago
    Plenty of rural places like that. Many on HN would call them unregulated shitholes but it's not hard to find a place where police are an hour drive away and the residents are expected for better or worse to handle our own business. We like it that way, and we're glad the others feel unwelcome here.
    • kube-system 3y ago
      I have lived in both places. People in both places like to cheerlead for their chosen way of life, convinced that they are right and everyone else is wrong. The truth is that rural and urban living have different pros and cons and different wants and needs. There's no one ideal way of living.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    • gosub100 3y ago
      your comment could apply equally to (urban|rural) areas. I see no distinction, "handle our own business" could mean the urban credo "stop snitching". police are an hour (-drive) away could mean police are investigating a more serious offense and won't show up to your 'hood.
• fasthands9 3y ago
  I'm skeptical this would ever be more cost efficient than just a series of cameras capable of tracking cars/people/objects from one view to the next. The cameras would also have the benefit of footage being accessed after the fact in the case of a carjacking or mugging or whatever, even if no shot was fired.
  • adolph 3y ago
    Similar to the "Persistent Surveillance Systems" deployed to Baltimore in 2016 [0]. The hypothesis was to deploy something similar to the military "Gorgon Stare" [1] program domestically. Wide-area motion imagery (WAMI) is an approach to surveillance, reconnaissance, and intelligence-gathering that employs specialized software and a powerful camera system—usually airborne, and for extended periods of time—to detect and track hundreds of people and vehicles moving out in the open, over a city-sized area, kilometers in diameter. For this reason, WAMI is sometimes referred to as wide-area persistent surveillance (WAPS) or wide-area airborne surveillance (WAAS). [2] 0. https://www.wired.com/story/cities-curb-surveillance-baltimore-police-took-air/ https://www.wired.com/story/cities-curb-surveillance-baltimo... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide-area_motion_imagery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide-area_motion_imagery
• 3seashells 3y ago
  Need a getaway gimmick? Buy the master laster, a remote detonated drive by Sounds stem guaranteed to keep the little blue men busy. In your dark et stores now. Certified cartel tech quality. Tech will never solve the root cause of America's crime problem, the societal level hatred for the working poor.
• tamimio 3y ago
  It will be used in a mass surveillance, a criminal will not hesitate to shoot it or take that drone down, while the law abiding citizen won’t.
• nine_k 3y ago
  (Shoot Spotter, another thing literally and correctly predicted by Deus Ex back in 1999. In the game it's deployed in Hong Kong though, not in NYC.)
• leoqa 3y ago
  A more scalable system is already in place. Some cities have loitering planes 24/7 that are taking pictures every N seconds. They can go to the crime scene and trace the path of the criminals in the past, or follow them in ~real time. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/mass-surveillance-tech/592117/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/mass-surve...
  • vaughnegut 3y ago
    I remember hearing about this exact tech being used by the Americans to surveil Iraqis and trace suicide bombings (typically with a loitering blimp), described in breathless dystopian tones. I'm not sure why I'm surprised it's used by civilian agencies to watch American citizens. It's a kind of death of privacy in which you're constantly being watched and you can be watched even backwards through time.
  • yonran 3y ago
    Radiolab also covered Persistent Surveillance Systems but noted that the Baltimore program was ruled unconstitutional because the police had the ability to track everyone even when not suspected of a crime. https://radiolab.org/podcast/eye-sky-2306 https://radiolab.org/podcast/eye-sky-2306
• Spooky23 3y ago
  The police contain and detect these folks with traffic control devices. Most red light cameras, for example, roll and retain a month or more of data. LPRs are all over as well, but of course in NYC, cops officers and friends avoiding tolls and tickets have normalized running cars without license plates.