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Geoprofiling Moves Into The Limelight

Posted by Hemos on from the hunting-the-hunter dept.

circletimessquare writes "Interesting and timely. A short piece at CNN talks about the software helping to track down the sniper currently terrorizing the Washington DC area. It was the doctoral thesis of a cop, Kim Rossmo, who developed it while walking the beat in Vancouver and reading about the hunting patterns of African lions. Googling, I found an older but deeper piece which mentions more of the tech behind the software, called Rigel. That led me to the website of ECRI, the company that makes Rigel. More good tech there."

9 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. 1st POST!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    WOOHOO!!!

  2. Jesus Christ!!! by Cmdr+Taco+posted · · Score: -1, Troll

    I never realized how much my site sucks!!!

  3. This is scary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Yeah, they're using this technology right now to track criminals. But how long until they start using it to track normal citizens? They feed in information about your credit card transactions (gas buying, groceries, etc) and viola! They can build a profile of your likely destinations -- and "affiliations". It's inevitable that some bright boy in government will try and use this predictively to determine who is most likely to commit crime.

    It's not Minority Report, but it's getting close.

    The question is, are we going to just roll over and let this technology trample our rights? This needs to stop NOW before it goes too far.

    1. Re:This is scary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      There is no need for sophisticated maps like that.
      Virtually everywhere in the country ( also applies to UK ) one can basically draw map like that knowing only racial makeup of a given city.
      Blacks - red ( high crime), Hispanics - orange ( half of blacks crime rate) , Whites - yellow ( 1/6 of blacks crime rate ), Asians - white ( slightly lower crime rate than whites)

  4. What if sniper reads /. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Obtains a copy of this program. and access to a sun microsystem?????

    Checks to see if the cops are closing in and use the program to plot a location to totally throw them off.

  5. Cowboy Neal and geoprofile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    They should geoprofile Cowboy Neal. Can someone tell me who the FUCK he is?

  6. Inconceeeeivable!! by f97tosc · · Score: 0, Troll

    /Tor

  7. another reichstagg fire event by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Troll

    --this is yet again another reichstagg fire type political event. Support was dropping rapidly in dc for the iraq invasion, ditto in the population in general. congressional offices are getting almost all over 90% opposition to invasion. Solution? Show scared congress critters that no one is safe anywhere. show the population they are vulnerable, even the children, to "inspire terror". Now all they need is to assign "official blame". Random shootings in the nations capital, not out in the heartland anywhere, nope, downtown seat 0 power. What an amazing coincidence the week before the iraqi war debates in congress. Any congressperson is now gonna think twice about voting "no" on invasion or anything else the fascist faction wants. It's the small but powerful fascist faction doing it, using either a mind controlled drugged out zombie or a true believer/hired mercenary and or under "orders". That's my guess. sieg heil no questions asked order followers. The other possibilites, IMO, are way down the list. Another tim mcveigh fairy tale half truth half lie setup is coming.

  8. Re:You mean Mini14 by nanoakron · · Score: 0, Troll

    Hmm...perhaps banning high powered sniper rifles could be an option?

    Oh, I'm sorry - of course you *need* them for home protection, don't you?

    Just like those assault weapons Clinton banned, boy are those sure missed...like a hole in the head.

    -Nano.