7 ms·

I'm curious if the author lives in the wealthier or non wealthy region. I do not own a gun. I currently live in a city and would be happy to learn they were in

I'm curious if the author lives in the wealthier or non wealthy region. I do not own a gun. I currently live in a city and would be happy to learn they were installing shot spotter near me. It's maybe the least intrusive type of surveillance there is. It just says a signal if there is a loud noise in public. edit: previous statement not correct but leaving it up as it's been responded to

JoshTriplett 3y ago
From the article: > Conversations recorded by ShotSpotter sensors have twice been introduced as evidence in criminal trials. In one case the court allowed it, in another the court did not. The possibility clearly exists, and depending on interpretation of state law, it may be permissible for ShotSpotter to record conversations on the street for future use as evidence.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- fasthands9 3y ago
  Fair enough. My previous statement was incorrect. Edited above. I understand the hypothetical case they could be misused but I'm still not aware of any cases they actually were. >On June 8, 2007, the Shotspotter acoustic gunshot detection and location system recorded two gunshots from the corner of 83rd Avenue and Birch Street in Oakland, California. The first one, at 11:10:22 p.m., was at 8236 Birch Street, and the second one, 24 seconds later at 11:10:46 p.m., was at 1775 83rd Avenue. Those addresses are less than 10 feet apart. The recording of the second shot also captured the voice of Tyrone Lyles, apparently addressing the person who shot him: "Ar, Ar, why are you going to do me like that, Ar." I am happy shotspotter helped in the prosecution of this person who needlessly killed someone. I realize there could be ways to abuse this for things having nothing to do with gun violence, but you could also say DUI traffic stops or DNA collection could be misued. That doesn't mean they are misused.
  - kortilla 3y ago
    But that’s not how shotspotter is supposed to work. It’s supposed to detect gunshots, not be used for evidence of voice recordings. If that was the point they could just put microphones recording everyone and play them back whenever there was a crime.
    - modriano 3y ago
      The voice recordings were only picked up because they were incident to shootings. Without the shooting, the audio wouldn't have been written out to file or ever be heard by anyone.
      - soraminazuki 3y ago
        Says who? The people behind these invasive systems who push back hard on the slightest attempt at basic accountability?
        TlrSwftFrPres 3y ago
        You know who else pushes back at accountability? Criminals. The more data the good guys collect, the safer they can keep us from bad guys.
        soraminazuki 3y ago
        The word you’re looking for is “tyrant.” In other words, people with unrestricted authority to beat, kill, rob, spy, or do whatever they want with us. And tyrants don’t keep us safe. “Good guys,” on the other hand, respect the rule of law. It shouldn’t refer to people shielded from legal liability who spouts the “tough on crime” rhetoric to excuse themselves from their own criminal behavior.
        wolrah 3y ago
        > Says who? The people behind these invasive systems who push back hard on the slightest attempt at basic accountability? 100% this, IMO any of these law enforcement vendors like ShotSpotter, Harris (stingray), Taser/Axon, etc. which insist on keeping any and all details secret deserve zero trust. Anything they say without actual data analyzed by an independent third party is worth less than what I scooped out of my cats' box this morning. The public conversation relies on public data, so if your company doesn't want the public to have the data then your company and its clients should not be given any benefit of the doubt by the public.
- modriano 3y ago
  Yeah, but the only reason anyone listened to those sections (or was even able to listen to these sections) of tape was because they contained shootings. These systems work on a rolling buffer storage system; they're constantly recording to a buffer that contains the last N minutes of audio and if a triggering event occurs, it gets written out to a file that is reviewed by a person and if it contains a gunshot, that person confirms there was a gunshot (ie that it wasn't a firework or something) and a notification goes out to the relevant police district/precinct/whatever for that area. If there's just people talking but no gunshots, the buffer never writes out and it's overwritten before too long.
- bandrami 3y ago
  Do I have an expectation of privacy in a conversation I have in public?
bastawhiz 3y ago
> It just says a signal if there is a loud noise in public. This is probably false. There have been two convictions as a result of recordings of conversations that happened through the devices. I, for one, do not want microphones capable of recording my conversations placed near me by the government. Not because I'm paranoid the government is conspiring against me, but rather because I have zero confidence they're storing those recordings securely, being handled by only authorized persons, and being deleted within a timely manner.
- sneak 3y ago
  “paranoid” is a symptom of a disease involving delusions (ie false beliefs) and is not a synonym for “anxious about”. It’s also not paranoia if the government does actively conspire to imprison as many people as possible on flimsy evidence. Both possible usages are incorrect here.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- assimpleaspossi 3y ago
  It sounds like you are paranoid. Why would the government be listening to a conversation you might be having near a device used for tracking gunshots? Is there some little man somewhere just waiting to pounce on you or anyone just for that purpose? I don't know how effective these devices are but any tool that helps the police go after criminals is a good thing and no one should be fighting against good things.
  - humanistbot 3y ago
    Over a two year period in the US, there were over 600 cases where police officers and civilians with access to law enforcement databases violated internal policies and safeguards to access private data about "romantic partners, business associates, neighbors, journalists and others for reasons that have nothing to do with daily police work". This is certainly an undercount, as this is just who got caught and the department didn't cover it up. These are the cases they admitted to doing it and were charged, so the records are public. "Among those punished: an Ohio officer who pleaded guilty to stalking an ex-girlfriend and who looked up information on her; a Michigan officer who looked up home addresses of women he found attractive; and two Miami-Dade officers who ran checks on a journalist after he aired unflattering stories about the department." https://apnews.com/general-news-699236946e3140659fff8a2362e16f43 https://apnews.com/general-news-699236946e3140659fff8a2362e1...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jasonjayr 3y ago
Also, that there is a veil of secrecy of the system's installation and exact capabilities suggest that incorrect or excessive reports could provide pretense for more invasive policing.
redeeman 3y ago
just remember, the shotspotter may well make police come.... AFTER you were shot... why the aversion to getting a gun??
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  [flagged]
zemo 3y ago
> It just says a signal if there is a loud noise in public. as a community we really ought to be suspicious of claims like this. There's another word for "acoustic sensor" and it's "microphone". When a corporation says "trust us, we only use the data for good", we should collectively raise our eyebrows, knowing that when data is collected for one stated purpose and stored, that the data at rest will always be used for additional purposes. Once data is collected, the number of things it may be used for is always unbounded; any claims to the contrary should not be taken at face value.
- modriano 3y ago
  Is there any evidence of shotspotter using the data that it collects for something other than good? Even if shotspotter collected audio that didn't contain gunshot-like sounds (which they don't; without a triggering event, the sensors never write the audio out to a file or send it over the network for review), how could they monitize it or do anything malicious with it? How could they tie loose audio of people walking around to the identities of those people (besides the method in the two court cases cited by the article, where homicide detectives listened to the audio of the shootings and heard verbal exchanges incident to the shootings where the victim verbally identified the shooters)? It it's so amusing to me that people who carry around a phone 24/7 spend time imagining these intricate Rube Goldberg surveillance systems to be afraid of.
  - refulgentis 3y ago
    This isn't intricate or Rube Goldberg. When I joined Google I started thinking to myself "geez, we care so much. why does HN hate us?" It clicked for me when someone pointed out that even if you trust group of employees X with a mountain of data, nothing prevents group of Y from eventually selling it. And after what I saw my last couple years, I'm utterly convinced some McKinsey-ite will be telling 2050's CEO that's a great idea and in fact the moral option. Maximize shareholder value => stonk go up => Americans have safe retirements. Why am I talking about Google? People talk past eachother on this stuff. The problem isn't that "have they ever done anything bad?", it's that the incentive structure is set up such that something that crosses the line will eventually happen. They have an incentive to keep the customer happy. And as the article, and comments below from 1.5 hours before you posted point out, there's no room for argument on that: this already happened. A court threw out info because it was illegally obtained.
mandevil 3y ago
Shotspotter is trash. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/chicago-watchdog-harshly-criticizes-shotspotter-system https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/chicago-watchdog-harshly... https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1512138327205589004 https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1512138327205589004 (criminal defense attorney) https://boingboing.net/2022/04/12/shotspotter-wastes-millions-of-taxpayer-dollars-and-doesnt-even-work-say-critics.html https://boingboing.net/2022/04/12/shotspotter-wastes-million... I supported units with them while I was a contractor to the US Army, and the soldiers I talked to didn't think much of it either.
- wl 3y ago
  You’re probably thinking of Boomerang, not ShotSpotter if you’re talking about military use.
  - mandevil 3y ago
    Maybe? I thought it was the same system of microphones just mounted on a vehicle, maybe it was different. Anyway, they found it unhelpful. "Wouldn't even notice our own gun shots" and stuff like that.
    - wl 3y ago
      Yeah, you’re thinking of Boomerang. ShotSpotter did some limited body-worn stuff for the military back in the day, but the vehicle mounted stuff is all Boomerang. Entirely different approaches (distributed microphones vs. a single microphone array at the expected target) done by different companies.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  It works very well where I live (DC) and I and people I know have seen police respond to actual things with shotspotter Many shootings where nobody calls it in and cops respond with shotspotter
  - smt88 3y ago
yojo 3y ago
The author’s neighborhood is mentioned in the article. “The "pocket of poverty" south of Downtown where I live, the historically Spanish Barelas and historically Black South Broadway, are predictably well covered.”

JoshTriplett 3y ago

From the article: > Conversations recorded by ShotSpotter sensors have twice been introduced as evidence in criminal trials. In one case the court allowed it, in another the court did not. The possibility clearly exists, and depending on interpretation of state law, it may be permissible for ShotSpotter to record conversations on the street for future use as evidence.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
fasthands9 3y ago
Fair enough. My previous statement was incorrect. Edited above. I understand the hypothetical case they could be misused but I'm still not aware of any cases they actually were. >On June 8, 2007, the Shotspotter acoustic gunshot detection and location system recorded two gunshots from the corner of 83rd Avenue and Birch Street in Oakland, California. The first one, at 11:10:22 p.m., was at 8236 Birch Street, and the second one, 24 seconds later at 11:10:46 p.m., was at 1775 83rd Avenue. Those addresses are less than 10 feet apart. The recording of the second shot also captured the voice of Tyrone Lyles, apparently addressing the person who shot him: "Ar, Ar, why are you going to do me like that, Ar." I am happy shotspotter helped in the prosecution of this person who needlessly killed someone. I realize there could be ways to abuse this for things having nothing to do with gun violence, but you could also say DUI traffic stops or DNA collection could be misued. That doesn't mean they are misused.
- kortilla 3y ago
  But that’s not how shotspotter is supposed to work. It’s supposed to detect gunshots, not be used for evidence of voice recordings. If that was the point they could just put microphones recording everyone and play them back whenever there was a crime.
  - modriano 3y ago
    The voice recordings were only picked up because they were incident to shootings. Without the shooting, the audio wouldn't have been written out to file or ever be heard by anyone.
    - soraminazuki 3y ago
      Says who? The people behind these invasive systems who push back hard on the slightest attempt at basic accountability?
      - TlrSwftFrPres 3y ago
        You know who else pushes back at accountability? Criminals. The more data the good guys collect, the safer they can keep us from bad guys.
        soraminazuki 3y ago
        The word you’re looking for is “tyrant.” In other words, people with unrestricted authority to beat, kill, rob, spy, or do whatever they want with us. And tyrants don’t keep us safe. “Good guys,” on the other hand, respect the rule of law. It shouldn’t refer to people shielded from legal liability who spouts the “tough on crime” rhetoric to excuse themselves from their own criminal behavior.
      - wolrah 3y ago
        > Says who? The people behind these invasive systems who push back hard on the slightest attempt at basic accountability? 100% this, IMO any of these law enforcement vendors like ShotSpotter, Harris (stingray), Taser/Axon, etc. which insist on keeping any and all details secret deserve zero trust. Anything they say without actual data analyzed by an independent third party is worth less than what I scooped out of my cats' box this morning. The public conversation relies on public data, so if your company doesn't want the public to have the data then your company and its clients should not be given any benefit of the doubt by the public.
modriano 3y ago
Yeah, but the only reason anyone listened to those sections (or was even able to listen to these sections) of tape was because they contained shootings. These systems work on a rolling buffer storage system; they're constantly recording to a buffer that contains the last N minutes of audio and if a triggering event occurs, it gets written out to a file that is reviewed by a person and if it contains a gunshot, that person confirms there was a gunshot (ie that it wasn't a firework or something) and a notification goes out to the relevant police district/precinct/whatever for that area. If there's just people talking but no gunshots, the buffer never writes out and it's overwritten before too long.
bandrami 3y ago
Do I have an expectation of privacy in a conversation I have in public?

bastawhiz 3y ago

> It just says a signal if there is a loud noise in public. This is probably false. There have been two convictions as a result of recordings of conversations that happened through the devices. I, for one, do not want microphones capable of recording my conversations placed near me by the government. Not because I'm paranoid the government is conspiring against me, but rather because I have zero confidence they're storing those recordings securely, being handled by only authorized persons, and being deleted within a timely manner.

sneak 3y ago
“paranoid” is a symptom of a disease involving delusions (ie false beliefs) and is not a synonym for “anxious about”. It’s also not paranoia if the government does actively conspire to imprison as many people as possible on flimsy evidence. Both possible usages are incorrect here.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
assimpleaspossi 3y ago
It sounds like you are paranoid. Why would the government be listening to a conversation you might be having near a device used for tracking gunshots? Is there some little man somewhere just waiting to pounce on you or anyone just for that purpose? I don't know how effective these devices are but any tool that helps the police go after criminals is a good thing and no one should be fighting against good things.
- humanistbot 3y ago
  Over a two year period in the US, there were over 600 cases where police officers and civilians with access to law enforcement databases violated internal policies and safeguards to access private data about "romantic partners, business associates, neighbors, journalists and others for reasons that have nothing to do with daily police work". This is certainly an undercount, as this is just who got caught and the department didn't cover it up. These are the cases they admitted to doing it and were charged, so the records are public. "Among those punished: an Ohio officer who pleaded guilty to stalking an ex-girlfriend and who looked up information on her; a Michigan officer who looked up home addresses of women he found attractive; and two Miami-Dade officers who ran checks on a journalist after he aired unflattering stories about the department." https://apnews.com/general-news-699236946e3140659fff8a2362e16f43 https://apnews.com/general-news-699236946e3140659fff8a2362e1...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jasonjayr 3y ago

Also, that there is a veil of secrecy of the system's installation and exact capabilities suggest that incorrect or excessive reports could provide pretense for more invasive policing.

redeeman 3y ago

just remember, the shotspotter may well make police come.... AFTER you were shot... why the aversion to getting a gun??

whimsicalism 3y ago
[flagged]

zemo 3y ago

> It just says a signal if there is a loud noise in public. as a community we really ought to be suspicious of claims like this. There's another word for "acoustic sensor" and it's "microphone". When a corporation says "trust us, we only use the data for good", we should collectively raise our eyebrows, knowing that when data is collected for one stated purpose and stored, that the data at rest will always be used for additional purposes. Once data is collected, the number of things it may be used for is always unbounded; any claims to the contrary should not be taken at face value.

modriano 3y ago
Is there any evidence of shotspotter using the data that it collects for something other than good? Even if shotspotter collected audio that didn't contain gunshot-like sounds (which they don't; without a triggering event, the sensors never write the audio out to a file or send it over the network for review), how could they monitize it or do anything malicious with it? How could they tie loose audio of people walking around to the identities of those people (besides the method in the two court cases cited by the article, where homicide detectives listened to the audio of the shootings and heard verbal exchanges incident to the shootings where the victim verbally identified the shooters)? It it's so amusing to me that people who carry around a phone 24/7 spend time imagining these intricate Rube Goldberg surveillance systems to be afraid of.
- refulgentis 3y ago
  This isn't intricate or Rube Goldberg. When I joined Google I started thinking to myself "geez, we care so much. why does HN hate us?" It clicked for me when someone pointed out that even if you trust group of employees X with a mountain of data, nothing prevents group of Y from eventually selling it. And after what I saw my last couple years, I'm utterly convinced some McKinsey-ite will be telling 2050's CEO that's a great idea and in fact the moral option. Maximize shareholder value => stonk go up => Americans have safe retirements. Why am I talking about Google? People talk past eachother on this stuff. The problem isn't that "have they ever done anything bad?", it's that the incentive structure is set up such that something that crosses the line will eventually happen. They have an incentive to keep the customer happy. And as the article, and comments below from 1.5 hours before you posted point out, there's no room for argument on that: this already happened. A court threw out info because it was illegally obtained.

mandevil 3y ago

Shotspotter is trash. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/chicago-watchdog-harshly-criticizes-shotspotter-system https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/chicago-watchdog-harshly... https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1512138327205589004 https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1512138327205589004 (criminal defense attorney) https://boingboing.net/2022/04/12/shotspotter-wastes-millions-of-taxpayer-dollars-and-doesnt-even-work-say-critics.html https://boingboing.net/2022/04/12/shotspotter-wastes-million... I supported units with them while I was a contractor to the US Army, and the soldiers I talked to didn't think much of it either.

wl 3y ago
You’re probably thinking of Boomerang, not ShotSpotter if you’re talking about military use.
- mandevil 3y ago
  Maybe? I thought it was the same system of microphones just mounted on a vehicle, maybe it was different. Anyway, they found it unhelpful. "Wouldn't even notice our own gun shots" and stuff like that.
  - wl 3y ago
    Yeah, you’re thinking of Boomerang. ShotSpotter did some limited body-worn stuff for the military back in the day, but the vehicle mounted stuff is all Boomerang. Entirely different approaches (distributed microphones vs. a single microphone array at the expected target) done by different companies.
whimsicalism 3y ago
It works very well where I live (DC) and I and people I know have seen police respond to actual things with shotspotter Many shootings where nobody calls it in and cops respond with shotspotter
- smt88 3y ago

yojo 3y ago

The author’s neighborhood is mentioned in the article. “The "pocket of poverty" south of Downtown where I live, the historically Spanish Barelas and historically Black South Broadway, are predictably well covered.”