4 ms·

Why didn't you mention that the only "conversation" recorded by ShotSpotter admitted in court was a guy saying "[shooter's name], why did you shoot me!" two sec

by verteu 3y ago

Why didn't you mention that the only "conversation" recorded by ShotSpotter admitted in court was a guy saying "[shooter's name], why did you shoot me!" two seconds after the sound of gunfire? It seems an important piece of context if you are concerned about surveillance.

jacurtis 3y ago
Yes it is very important. Shotspotter is like a DVR. It's always "recording", but it is running on a very very short recording loop. The detection of gunshots is based on an algorithm. When triggered, it saves a few seconds before the sound and several seconds afterward. It is different than police just being able to pull up the recordings for a certain street corner from 2 weeks ago or even a day ago and listen in on people's conversations. The case in question came from a shotspotter recording gunshots, and the short clip also happened to include speech within it since it directly followed the sound of shots.
- bhaney 3y ago
  > it is running on a very very short recording loop I'm curious what your source for that information is
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    They made it up
- jcrawfordor 3y ago
  ShotSpotter's own public statements say that audio is retained for 30 hours, see e.g. https://www.soundthinking.com/faqs/shotspotter-privacy-faqs/ https://www.soundthinking.com/faqs/shotspotter-privacy-faqs/. In the past they provided Albuquerque with a document that said 72 hours, but I believe they have been reducing that period over time. It may also depend on their specific contract with the law enforcement agency. Still, we know that they must retain recordings, because they do take requests from customers to reanalyze data that did not result in an alert. For convenience, the most relevant text: "If the system misses a gunfire incident, police may contact the company to see if there is any audio or location evidence. In this case, only authorized ShotSpotter personnel with proper credentials can access sensor audio to search. Their search is limited to the 30- hour sensor storage timeframe." ShotSpotter used to have significantly fewer privacy protections, and retention was indefinite early in the product's life. Fortunately, a combination of legal challenges and statutory privacy policies among their customers have lead to them significantly improving their privacy controls over time.
- bikezen 3y ago
  Is that, like provable though, thats my biggest issue. Cities are allowing a private company to mass deploy microphones all over (mostly lower income) areas and just _trusting_ them to not be keeping recordings.
- helpfulclippy 3y ago
  How would we know if this is true? For instance, is the source code subject to independent review, with verifiable builds made from that source so that all deployments have to show matching hashes? Or is more of a pinky-swear kind of a thing? If so, is the pinky swear even documented somewhere?
BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
Are these things public microphones that pick up street conversations or are they specialized microphones without stored recordings? The capability of these things is the only important question, since if they can be used for mass surveillance we shouldn’t trust cops with them.
- Renaud 3y ago
  My guess would be that since they need to record a shot without knowing when it happens, and then forward the sound of the shot to an expert to confirm it was gunfire, they must have the capability to locally listen and record continuously, and we can hope that they only keep a few seconds of recording before/after the event.
notatoad 3y ago
that doesn't really change the fact that they have microphones that are capable of recording voices, they have storage of the recordings, and are able to retrieve recordings and are willing to provide them to the police.
Retric 3y ago
There are multiple conversations from shot spotter admitted into court. New Bedford, Connecticut and Oakland had court cases off the top of my head, but a much wider range of conversation ends up being listened to by police and parallel construction is a thing. Further, the concern is unequal policing biases statistics resulting in more uneven policing. A grid of microphones covering a full city is unbiased, placement based on past data isn't. Drug crime is known to be fairly evenly distributed across different incomes, arrests are extremely biased.
- jjallen 3y ago
  Isn’t this whole article about shooting though and not drug crime? How would you hear drug crime? Are shooting crimes known to be fairly evenly distributed across different incomes?
  - Retric 3y ago
    ShotSpotter is recording conversations inside peoples homes and on the street. You can definitionally hear someone making a drug deal or talking about the joint their smoking etc. I'm reasonably concerned that once recordings exist getting access to them is much easier, especially as police have already heard many conversations taken from these recordings.
    - wl 3y ago
      Can you point to an example of a ShotSpotter sensor recording a conversation inside somebody's home? That seems unlikely given that these sensors are installed outdoors.
      - loteck 3y ago
        They are installed outdoors, sometimes on top of people's homes. https://twitter.com/loteck/status/1760859493133697237?t=AQTPpLbJqE2miKlCnXwJgA&s=19 https://twitter.com/loteck/status/1760859493133697237?t=AQTP...
- 3y ago
9935c101ab17a66 3y ago
I mean, yah, it makes sense the one they admitted was pertinent to the case? I don’t see how that context is meaningful. I actually strongly disagree with you — the context doesn’t matter. We have a private quasi-law enforcement entity installing thousands of surveillance devices in American cities without any external oversight or knowledge of where they are installed. These surveillance devices that were pitched as tools to locate gun crimes all of a sudden record audio? And this quasi-law enforcement company with no oversight is storing that data and then furnishing it to the police? We have no idea what’s recorded, we have no idea where these devices are, we have no idea who is listening to the recordings, we have no idea what access LEOs have to these recordings, we don’t know how they are stored, and we don’t know how long they are stored for. You’re seriously okay with a non-government entity operating like this?

by verteu 3y ago

jacurtis 3y ago

Yes it is very important. Shotspotter is like a DVR. It's always "recording", but it is running on a very very short recording loop. The detection of gunshots is based on an algorithm. When triggered, it saves a few seconds before the sound and several seconds afterward. It is different than police just being able to pull up the recordings for a certain street corner from 2 weeks ago or even a day ago and listen in on people's conversations. The case in question came from a shotspotter recording gunshots, and the short clip also happened to include speech within it since it directly followed the sound of shots.

bhaney 3y ago
> it is running on a very very short recording loop I'm curious what your source for that information is
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  They made it up
jcrawfordor 3y ago
ShotSpotter's own public statements say that audio is retained for 30 hours, see e.g. https://www.soundthinking.com/faqs/shotspotter-privacy-faqs/ https://www.soundthinking.com/faqs/shotspotter-privacy-faqs/. In the past they provided Albuquerque with a document that said 72 hours, but I believe they have been reducing that period over time. It may also depend on their specific contract with the law enforcement agency. Still, we know that they must retain recordings, because they do take requests from customers to reanalyze data that did not result in an alert. For convenience, the most relevant text: "If the system misses a gunfire incident, police may contact the company to see if there is any audio or location evidence. In this case, only authorized ShotSpotter personnel with proper credentials can access sensor audio to search. Their search is limited to the 30- hour sensor storage timeframe." ShotSpotter used to have significantly fewer privacy protections, and retention was indefinite early in the product's life. Fortunately, a combination of legal challenges and statutory privacy policies among their customers have lead to them significantly improving their privacy controls over time.
bikezen 3y ago
Is that, like provable though, thats my biggest issue. Cities are allowing a private company to mass deploy microphones all over (mostly lower income) areas and just _trusting_ them to not be keeping recordings.
helpfulclippy 3y ago
How would we know if this is true? For instance, is the source code subject to independent review, with verifiable builds made from that source so that all deployments have to show matching hashes? Or is more of a pinky-swear kind of a thing? If so, is the pinky swear even documented somewhere?

BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago

Are these things public microphones that pick up street conversations or are they specialized microphones without stored recordings? The capability of these things is the only important question, since if they can be used for mass surveillance we shouldn’t trust cops with them.

Renaud 3y ago
My guess would be that since they need to record a shot without knowing when it happens, and then forward the sound of the shot to an expert to confirm it was gunfire, they must have the capability to locally listen and record continuously, and we can hope that they only keep a few seconds of recording before/after the event.

notatoad 3y ago

that doesn't really change the fact that they have microphones that are capable of recording voices, they have storage of the recordings, and are able to retrieve recordings and are willing to provide them to the police.

Retric 3y ago

There are multiple conversations from shot spotter admitted into court. New Bedford, Connecticut and Oakland had court cases off the top of my head, but a much wider range of conversation ends up being listened to by police and parallel construction is a thing. Further, the concern is unequal policing biases statistics resulting in more uneven policing. A grid of microphones covering a full city is unbiased, placement based on past data isn't. Drug crime is known to be fairly evenly distributed across different incomes, arrests are extremely biased.

jjallen 3y ago
Isn’t this whole article about shooting though and not drug crime? How would you hear drug crime? Are shooting crimes known to be fairly evenly distributed across different incomes?
- Retric 3y ago
  ShotSpotter is recording conversations inside peoples homes and on the street. You can definitionally hear someone making a drug deal or talking about the joint their smoking etc. I'm reasonably concerned that once recordings exist getting access to them is much easier, especially as police have already heard many conversations taken from these recordings.
  - wl 3y ago
    Can you point to an example of a ShotSpotter sensor recording a conversation inside somebody's home? That seems unlikely given that these sensors are installed outdoors.
    - loteck 3y ago
      They are installed outdoors, sometimes on top of people's homes. https://twitter.com/loteck/status/1760859493133697237?t=AQTPpLbJqE2miKlCnXwJgA&s=19 https://twitter.com/loteck/status/1760859493133697237?t=AQTP...
3y ago

9935c101ab17a66 3y ago

I mean, yah, it makes sense the one they admitted was pertinent to the case? I don’t see how that context is meaningful. I actually strongly disagree with you — the context doesn’t matter. We have a private quasi-law enforcement entity installing thousands of surveillance devices in American cities without any external oversight or knowledge of where they are installed. These surveillance devices that were pitched as tools to locate gun crimes all of a sudden record audio? And this quasi-law enforcement company with no oversight is storing that data and then furnishing it to the police? We have no idea what’s recorded, we have no idea where these devices are, we have no idea who is listening to the recordings, we have no idea what access LEOs have to these recordings, we don’t know how they are stored, and we don’t know how long they are stored for. You’re seriously okay with a non-government entity operating like this?