4 ms·

Bay Area cops are getting a new Siri-type tool for fighting sideshows

25 points by c420 2y ago

jerlam 2y ago
Really talking down to their audience - the only "Siri" part of the tool is that it's using microphones to trigger an action. It's ShotSpotter for sideshows.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  ShotSpotter has been a lot more politically controversial than Siri in a law enforcement context, so there is probably a very conscious reason besides condescension for the choice of description.
- gs17 2y ago
  The article is pretty fluffy towards Flock (they mention the lawsuit but only talk to Flock's spokesperson), so it's probably intentional to associate it with something with less baggage.
kstrauser 2y ago
I love cars. I love good hacks. I love cars that have been cleverly hacked, and I'd happily pay to attend a side show that was hosted in a blocked off area reserved for it. But when a pack of sociopaths decides to block the Bay Bridge, my desire to throw them and their cars off into the bay is tempered only by my unwillingness to pollute the water.
fotta 2y ago
I don't really know why they need this when a lot of these sideshows are advertised on social media in advance.
- prpl 2y ago
  This (social media harvesting) is really the only option. They can’t be reactive and produce the required response to address the core issues, because they need lots of cops. Drones help, but even with drones predicting time/location will lead to a better outcome with regard to tracking than being reactive will.
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
I've always wondered if playing back recordings at loud volumes could full these things... do a flyby with a drone that has a big enough speaker on it every 15 minutes. How sophisticated is their audio analysis?
- potato3732842 2y ago
  The mics for shot spotter are mounted high up. The word on the street is if you shoot the ground in an area confined from sound on the sides but not above your neighbors won't be too accosted but the police will probably get an alert. I assume this tech is similarly half baked.
  - idunnoman1222 2y ago
    You know you’re not allowed to shoot the ground in a city right?
  - alwa 2y ago
    For what purpose do people on the street want to shoot into the ground to elicit a police response while not unduly inconveniencing the neighbors? Is this a way to jump the queue on the emergency service phone line or something?
    - potato3732842 2y ago
      People who are morally adjacent to the kind of people bringing stolen cars to sideshows do this because "fuck the police" or something along those lines and they only care about their neighbors so far as they don't want their neighbors thinking there's a shootout going on and manually calling it in.
- gs17 2y ago
  You probably don't even need a recording for a car, if it's like ShotSpotter, a lot of common noises that will trigger them. ShotSpotter has a specific "firework suppression mode" turned on for holidays and still 1 in 10 alerts were from fireworks: https://data.aclum.org/2024/04/08/boston-shotspotter/ https://data.aclum.org/2024/04/08/boston-shotspotter/
Dig1t 2y ago
Couldn’t this also be handled by hiring some more cops and having them patrol at times and locations where these things happen? I don’t feel like the creeping surveillance tech we are seeing is better at all than just hiring some more humans.
- _bin_ 2y ago
  This is obviously less bad than gunshot detectors. The risk of those is they bring not just some police response, but police with violence at top-of-mind. Very dangerous at the best of times; moreso when they're wrong. This doesn't seem like it poses the same risk. I don't care for surveillance but I understand why it's being implemented considering the disgracefully bad results of policing and criminal justice in SF.
- gs17 2y ago
  Caltrans already has cameras on the Bay Bridge anyone can look at: https://cwwp2.dot.ca.gov/vm/iframemap.htm https://cwwp2.dot.ca.gov/vm/iframemap.htm They could probably just have someone watch those for cars drifting in circles. Obviously this isn't perfect, but there's definitely other solutions.
- SllX 2y ago
  SFPD is currently understaffed. I don’t keep up with local politics in other Bay Area cities anymore but my understanding is it’s the same pretty much across the region and sideshows were originally more of an Oakland/East Bay thing that spread out from there.
- jerlam 2y ago
  Oakland police is understaffed but it's not for lack of funding - starting salary is over $100K. Due to the lack of officers and high demands, average officer compensation is $250K and some officers get over $600K due to overtime.
ziddoap 2y ago
Despite being in the car scene for a long time, I've never heard the term "sideshows" (in this context) before. Must be a San Fransisco term, maybe? It's too bad people do this stuff illegally, rather than going to the track. Drag strips near me are like $20 for the whole night, with as many runs down the strip as your car can handle. The full tracks are pretty cheap as well, and have open race days as least weekly throughout the summer.
- searealist 2y ago
  Sideshows are not racing. They are typically shutting down an intersection and drifting in circles.
  - ziddoap 2y ago
    I only gave a couple examples (drag and track racing) but the tracks near me do drift days, autocross days, etc. Two tracks near me even haul in dirt in the late season for rallycross. The local college opens up their back parking lot in the summer as a freestyle drift pad. I'm positive that if the attendees joy of these events is car-related (as opposed to enjoying the illegality of it), a track near them can give them the same (or better) feeling.
    - altairprime 2y ago
      The tracks have noise and pollution restrictions, track days aren’t available year-round, and many/most events require the vehicle to have passed a safety inspection. These severely limit the number of personal vehicles that qualify for doing these activities safely, and as there’s no other unsafe or lower-cost method for doing these things, they end up on the streets. This is also a side effect of cuts to street traffic motorcycle police staffing, with limited resources allocated elsewhere and funding starved due to seized-up local politics and police mistreatment of citizens. People sometimes now just disregard red lights in the Bay Area as the chances of a traffic cop seeing them do so are so close to zero as to make it a safe bet. I generally loathe the idea of increasing policing but it’s either that or automated camera enforcement with plate readers, since we can’t trust ourselves to be sensible about it.
paxys 2y ago
> Siri-type tool So a voice assistant that they can use to set kitchen timers?
culi 2y ago
In Bay Area of all places we should really be demanding that the software running on these devices are open-sourced so we can have the confidence that this isn't used to monitor/surveil people in general Even China's Supreme People's Court in 2021 banned the public use of facial recognition technology
- gs17 2y ago
  > China's Supreme People's Court in 2021 banned the public use of facial recognition technology Did they, or only non-government use? I'd presume in China, the government doesn't need to attempt to abuse the third-party doctrine, they can do all the surveillance themselves.
paxys 2y ago
If you want to actually solve the problem, start prosecuting the people who are causing it. Everything else is performative and pointless.
- abeppu 2y ago
  But I have seen reporting that it takes SF and Oakland cops extremely long to respond to complaints about a side-show. Presumably before you actually prosecute people you need cops to actually get there, arrest people, etc while the event is still happening. But also, even if they don't prosecute people but hold onto their cars for a month or two and then the DA decides before trial oops this isn't actually a priority, and then the police slow-walk returning the vehicles, and (as I've heard is the case) you have to retrieve it from an inconvenient location within a specific time window or else they issue a fine, and possibly it's not actually in the same condition when it's returned as when it was taken but that's hard to demonstrate ... even if no one is prosecuted, they could still have a crappy enough time to be discouraged from doing it continuously.
  - paxys 2y ago
    Cops responding to sideshow events simply means they stand by with their lights flashing until it ends and then ask everyone to go home. How quickly they reach the scene is irrelevant.
    - deepfriedchokes 2y ago
      Start impounding cars and it’ll end real quick. If we want a certain behavior to end we have to raise the cost until it does.
  - eszed 2y ago
    Sideshow participants often use stolen cars - which is, you know, another reason to stop sideshow: fewer reasons to steal a car, but... - impounding cars won't necessarily be a deterrent. That apart, I have a principled objection to "administrative punishment". It catches the wicked and (many more) un-wicked alike. We should aspire to a justice system which works fairly and efficiently.
abeppu 2y ago
I think the juxtaposition between this and Flock's (and other's) license-plate reader products is interesting. My gut reaction to a network of cameras that can track people's movement whether or not there's any cause to believe they've done something wrong is ... that's creepy and we should put laws in place to stop it. But with a microphone network that's looking for the actual evidence of the crime itself (noises from a sideshow), and isn't in general capturing identifying info, this seems much more reasonable, even if it is broad surveillance. But a key question is, if these mics are rolled out initially to listen for gunshots, and can be updated to listen for side-shows, then what else will they be used for in the future?
- gs17 2y ago
  ShotSpotter's microphones have already been used to record conversations (they claim this is unintentional). To be fair to them, these cases were arguments that accompanied shootings, but it shows the potential for abuse. Amusingly/depressingly (from Wikipedia): > Remarking on these privacy concerns, in 2015 then-NYPD commissioner William Bratton said "the advocates have to get a life." Bratton had been on ShotSpotter's Board of Directors before then, and rejoined it in 2017.
indigovole 2y ago
Shotspotter for tire screeches? Because Shotspotter works so well for shots: https://www.macarthurjustice.org/blog2/shotspotter-is-a-failure-whats-next/ https://www.macarthurjustice.org/blog2/shotspotter-is-a-fail...
awill88 2y ago
Surveillance tech is the worst and I hope this fails miserably. There should be an outreach program that goes to the community and works with the people who perform sideshows to make them less disruptive. Narc tech won’t fix the problem it just wastes money

25 points by c420 2y ago

Really talking down to their audience - the only "Siri" part of the tool is that it's using microphones to trigger an action. It's ShotSpotter for sideshows.

dragonwriter 2y ago
ShotSpotter has been a lot more politically controversial than Siri in a law enforcement context, so there is probably a very conscious reason besides condescension for the choice of description.
gs17 2y ago
The article is pretty fluffy towards Flock (they mention the lawsuit but only talk to Flock's spokesperson), so it's probably intentional to associate it with something with less baggage.

kstrauser 2y ago

I love cars. I love good hacks. I love cars that have been cleverly hacked, and I'd happily pay to attend a side show that was hosted in a blocked off area reserved for it. But when a pack of sociopaths decides to block the Bay Bridge, my desire to throw them and their cars off into the bay is tempered only by my unwillingness to pollute the water.

fotta 2y ago

I don't really know why they need this when a lot of these sideshows are advertised on social media in advance.

prpl 2y ago
This (social media harvesting) is really the only option. They can’t be reactive and produce the required response to address the core issues, because they need lots of cops. Drones help, but even with drones predicting time/location will lead to a better outcome with regard to tracking than being reactive will.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

I've always wondered if playing back recordings at loud volumes could full these things... do a flyby with a drone that has a big enough speaker on it every 15 minutes. How sophisticated is their audio analysis?

potato3732842 2y ago
The mics for shot spotter are mounted high up. The word on the street is if you shoot the ground in an area confined from sound on the sides but not above your neighbors won't be too accosted but the police will probably get an alert. I assume this tech is similarly half baked.
- idunnoman1222 2y ago
  You know you’re not allowed to shoot the ground in a city right?
- alwa 2y ago
  For what purpose do people on the street want to shoot into the ground to elicit a police response while not unduly inconveniencing the neighbors? Is this a way to jump the queue on the emergency service phone line or something?
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    People who are morally adjacent to the kind of people bringing stolen cars to sideshows do this because "fuck the police" or something along those lines and they only care about their neighbors so far as they don't want their neighbors thinking there's a shootout going on and manually calling it in.
gs17 2y ago
You probably don't even need a recording for a car, if it's like ShotSpotter, a lot of common noises that will trigger them. ShotSpotter has a specific "firework suppression mode" turned on for holidays and still 1 in 10 alerts were from fireworks: https://data.aclum.org/2024/04/08/boston-shotspotter/ https://data.aclum.org/2024/04/08/boston-shotspotter/

Dig1t 2y ago

Couldn’t this also be handled by hiring some more cops and having them patrol at times and locations where these things happen? I don’t feel like the creeping surveillance tech we are seeing is better at all than just hiring some more humans.

_bin_ 2y ago
This is obviously less bad than gunshot detectors. The risk of those is they bring not just some police response, but police with violence at top-of-mind. Very dangerous at the best of times; moreso when they're wrong. This doesn't seem like it poses the same risk. I don't care for surveillance but I understand why it's being implemented considering the disgracefully bad results of policing and criminal justice in SF.
gs17 2y ago
Caltrans already has cameras on the Bay Bridge anyone can look at: https://cwwp2.dot.ca.gov/vm/iframemap.htm https://cwwp2.dot.ca.gov/vm/iframemap.htm They could probably just have someone watch those for cars drifting in circles. Obviously this isn't perfect, but there's definitely other solutions.
SllX 2y ago
SFPD is currently understaffed. I don’t keep up with local politics in other Bay Area cities anymore but my understanding is it’s the same pretty much across the region and sideshows were originally more of an Oakland/East Bay thing that spread out from there.
jerlam 2y ago
Oakland police is understaffed but it's not for lack of funding - starting salary is over $100K. Due to the lack of officers and high demands, average officer compensation is $250K and some officers get over $600K due to overtime.

ziddoap 2y ago

Despite being in the car scene for a long time, I've never heard the term "sideshows" (in this context) before. Must be a San Fransisco term, maybe? It's too bad people do this stuff illegally, rather than going to the track. Drag strips near me are like $20 for the whole night, with as many runs down the strip as your car can handle. The full tracks are pretty cheap as well, and have open race days as least weekly throughout the summer.

searealist 2y ago
Sideshows are not racing. They are typically shutting down an intersection and drifting in circles.
- ziddoap 2y ago
  I only gave a couple examples (drag and track racing) but the tracks near me do drift days, autocross days, etc. Two tracks near me even haul in dirt in the late season for rallycross. The local college opens up their back parking lot in the summer as a freestyle drift pad. I'm positive that if the attendees joy of these events is car-related (as opposed to enjoying the illegality of it), a track near them can give them the same (or better) feeling.
  - altairprime 2y ago
    The tracks have noise and pollution restrictions, track days aren’t available year-round, and many/most events require the vehicle to have passed a safety inspection. These severely limit the number of personal vehicles that qualify for doing these activities safely, and as there’s no other unsafe or lower-cost method for doing these things, they end up on the streets. This is also a side effect of cuts to street traffic motorcycle police staffing, with limited resources allocated elsewhere and funding starved due to seized-up local politics and police mistreatment of citizens. People sometimes now just disregard red lights in the Bay Area as the chances of a traffic cop seeing them do so are so close to zero as to make it a safe bet. I generally loathe the idea of increasing policing but it’s either that or automated camera enforcement with plate readers, since we can’t trust ourselves to be sensible about it.

paxys 2y ago

> Siri-type tool So a voice assistant that they can use to set kitchen timers?

culi 2y ago

In Bay Area of all places we should really be demanding that the software running on these devices are open-sourced so we can have the confidence that this isn't used to monitor/surveil people in general Even China's Supreme People's Court in 2021 banned the public use of facial recognition technology

gs17 2y ago
> China's Supreme People's Court in 2021 banned the public use of facial recognition technology Did they, or only non-government use? I'd presume in China, the government doesn't need to attempt to abuse the third-party doctrine, they can do all the surveillance themselves.

paxys 2y ago

If you want to actually solve the problem, start prosecuting the people who are causing it. Everything else is performative and pointless.

abeppu 2y ago
But I have seen reporting that it takes SF and Oakland cops extremely long to respond to complaints about a side-show. Presumably before you actually prosecute people you need cops to actually get there, arrest people, etc while the event is still happening. But also, even if they don't prosecute people but hold onto their cars for a month or two and then the DA decides before trial oops this isn't actually a priority, and then the police slow-walk returning the vehicles, and (as I've heard is the case) you have to retrieve it from an inconvenient location within a specific time window or else they issue a fine, and possibly it's not actually in the same condition when it's returned as when it was taken but that's hard to demonstrate ... even if no one is prosecuted, they could still have a crappy enough time to be discouraged from doing it continuously.
- paxys 2y ago
  Cops responding to sideshow events simply means they stand by with their lights flashing until it ends and then ask everyone to go home. How quickly they reach the scene is irrelevant.
  - deepfriedchokes 2y ago
    Start impounding cars and it’ll end real quick. If we want a certain behavior to end we have to raise the cost until it does.
- eszed 2y ago
  Sideshow participants often use stolen cars - which is, you know, another reason to stop sideshow: fewer reasons to steal a car, but... - impounding cars won't necessarily be a deterrent. That apart, I have a principled objection to "administrative punishment". It catches the wicked and (many more) un-wicked alike. We should aspire to a justice system which works fairly and efficiently.

abeppu 2y ago

I think the juxtaposition between this and Flock's (and other's) license-plate reader products is interesting. My gut reaction to a network of cameras that can track people's movement whether or not there's any cause to believe they've done something wrong is ... that's creepy and we should put laws in place to stop it. But with a microphone network that's looking for the actual evidence of the crime itself (noises from a sideshow), and isn't in general capturing identifying info, this seems much more reasonable, even if it is broad surveillance. But a key question is, if these mics are rolled out initially to listen for gunshots, and can be updated to listen for side-shows, then what else will they be used for in the future?

gs17 2y ago
ShotSpotter's microphones have already been used to record conversations (they claim this is unintentional). To be fair to them, these cases were arguments that accompanied shootings, but it shows the potential for abuse. Amusingly/depressingly (from Wikipedia): > Remarking on these privacy concerns, in 2015 then-NYPD commissioner William Bratton said "the advocates have to get a life." Bratton had been on ShotSpotter's Board of Directors before then, and rejoined it in 2017.

indigovole 2y ago

Shotspotter for tire screeches? Because Shotspotter works so well for shots: https://www.macarthurjustice.org/blog2/shotspotter-is-a-failure-whats-next/ https://www.macarthurjustice.org/blog2/shotspotter-is-a-fail...

awill88 2y ago

Surveillance tech is the worst and I hope this fails miserably. There should be an outreach program that goes to the community and works with the people who perform sideshows to make them less disruptive. Narc tech won’t fix the problem it just wastes money