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Gunshot Tracking Cameras to be Deployed in LA
apok04 writes "Get out your tinfoil hats (and ski masks). A USC engineer uses his expertise with nerve cells to create a surveillance system that can recognize the sound of a nearby gunshot - and identify the shooter. In a unique pilot program, L.A. and Chicago will deploy test units in high-crime areas. The creator emphasizes that the system cannot recognize voices or words, but his previous research into speech recognition systems suggests otherwise."
The system can then locate, precisely, where the shot was fired, turn a camera to center the shooter in the camera viewfinder and make a 911 call to a central police station.
If the shooter is still there, she deserves to be caught.
According to the article, this device is listening for the entire sound pattern of the gunshot, not just the initial explosion, which makes it much less likely to mistake other loud noises for shooting.
So it may be difficult to fool it unless you can also simulate the whole shooting sequence (think of Matrix's bullet time).
I guess FPS game developers can use one of these to create realistic gunshot sounds.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
first gunshot found!
what if they shoot the camera?
If the surveilance system will determine who fired before it ceases to function due to gunshot damage.
Get out your tinfoil hats
Why?
Doesn't seem like a bad idea to know who's shooting who - don't you think?
In unrelated news, sources report that knive sales have skyrocketed in recent days. No plausible explanation could be found.
Well I guess that just means its time to switch over to my golfball gun or spudgun... Bwa ha ha ha
I thought in LA they already have a system of listening devices on mutiple towers in a given high crime area that can triangulate the exact spot a shot was fired from. Or is this the same thing?
The LAPD has also promised a speedy patch to adress the widespread camera control issues in the first release.
Ñ'
any chance we can have this feature incorporated in the next Grand Theft Auto?
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Big Brother is watching you...
Brilliant detective work!
An engineer working in the area of sound recognition who's also done work in voice recognition. Boy, you really found the smoking gun!
I don't really know if this is a good or bad thing. I like the idea of having people caught quickly but at the same time I feel that law enforcement agencies would quickly find a way to constantly monitor the cameras, cutting into our privacy even more. Since these cameras are in public it doesn't bother me as much.
Over all I think it's a good idea but it will be exploited so I can't support it fully, even though I'd like to.
An increase in gun-silencers sales has been reported.
I don't have to be careful, I've got a gun.
And put a sniper rifle instead. Kill instantly the offender.
Neural nets commit no mistakes, or I am wrong?
hey, at least we could've proved than Han shot first!
I just hope they make it multiplayer and include a deathmatch mode. Also, does the system support skinning?
M
misposted this earlier, my bad
Thing is, this can work both ways... if the police have a "questionable" incident, will the video be availiable to the public or courts? I'm thinking no...
As I recall it turned out that the company doing this was closely affiliated with one of the local politicos and the system was basically bunk. I don't remember how it all played out, but maybe someone else out there does?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
This can accurately determine where a gun shot was fired, which is useful, I suppose. But, in the article it states that a camera is used to identify and track the culprit. In order to deter gun related crime properly, there'd have to be cameras EVERYWHERE.
*puts on tinfoil hat*
Big Brother is watching!
Machine sounds are the only ones in SENTRI's vocabulary. It cannot eavesdrop on conversations, the scientist emphasized.
...because we're not done coding that yet, you've got at least another few years.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
The Reagan administration told the Taiwanese that if they did not punish the person who masterminded the plot, then the USA would levy sanctions against Taiwan. The Taiwanese promptly complied, and the military officer who masterminded the plot was sent to prison.
So this thing is going to take my picture everytime my '78 Ford Pinto backfires? Sheesh, I think I really do need a tinfoil hat (or a new car).
If the system is calculating timed pulses, does that mean it can also determine the direction and velocity of the shooter, as in a drive by shooting, and lock the camera onto that projected calculation?
The creator emphasizes that the system cannot recognize voices or words, but his previous research into speech recognition systems suggests otherwise.
You better not go shooting your mouth off in LA.
"You are fined one credit for a violation of the Verbal Morality Statute..."
Man on street yells: "Allah Ackbar!!! Allah Ackbar!!!!!". ."
*Directional Finder*: 1) TRIANGULATING... 2) AIMING... 3) FIRING BULLET!
Man on street: "Allah *BAM* Ackkkkkkbahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhrr!!gurgl..lee..l.
SCENE 2
Woman on street whispers to friend: "I hate that dumb idiot Bush"
*Directional Finder*: 1) TRIANGULATING... 2) AIMING... 3) FIRING MIND CONTROL BEAM!
Woman on street whispers to friend: "I.... I... love Bush... and I love Jesus, SUVs, large corporations, and I agree with the righteousness of preemptively saving the rest of the world from themselves and their oil. Let's go shopping."
What game does this remind me of? There was some game where there were little pods on top of all the street lamps that detected gunshots and fired back at the shooter.. for some reason I'm thinking it was Liberation on the Amiga/CD32.. or possibly even Syndicate or Syndicate Wars.. anyone know what I'm babbling on about, 'cuz I don't
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
Just do what they do in Los Santos and make every other person a cop with the authority to use deadly force for any crime.
The cameras will go berserk trying to capture all of the shootings if they put them in high crime areas
There is no sig
Haven't they had the audio part of this (figuring out where gunshots come from) in Redwood City, CA, for years? I believe they do (or did), but that it went bonkers every Cinco de Mayo.
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
Once it did detect gunfire that it would play sounds of other guns and semi-automatic gun fire to scare off the person who shot the gun in the first place.
And make siren noises and shoot friggin laser beams, but that would be for version 2.
If only this technology existed a long time ago in a galaxy far far away...
We would really know who shot first, Han Solo or Greedo.
The creator emphasizes that the system cannot recognize voices or words, but his previous research into speech recognition systems suggests otherwise.
Right... so, surprise surprise, this guy has done research in speech recognition, an area likely quite related to the job of recognizing gunshots, and so somehow we must assume that this system is going to be used to spy on the general public? Damn... Slashdot is getting worse than FOX for just making things up in order to add some sensationalism to its stories.
I remember seeing a system like this years ago. I'm quite sure in the 1980's! Possibly on that Beyond 2000 science show from Australia (we get weird shows here sometimes). I wondered why it was never used it seems like a great invention.
Why so long to get a system like this produced?
Put it in Iraq attached to a machine gun, calibrated to shoot at the sound of an AK-47 not an M16. Since it seems to be able to tune out other explosive noises why not refine it ever further to just a certain gun type?
The device is listening for the entire sound pattern of the gunshot, not just the initial explosion, which makes it much less likely to mistake other loud noises for shooting.
...is, what, about 760 MPH? So, the camera is sound activated? And takes a picture. Of what? It takes a picture of reflected light. Which travels at 186,282 miles per SECOND.
Tell me what I'm missing here, somebody. Unless L.A. is a big TiVO that exists 5 seconds into the past and 20 seconds into the future, like some kind of fuzzy warp point in time-space, I don't get how this works.
Yeah sure now it's gunshots, but before you know it they will be taking your picture everytime you fart.
Just attach a high-powered rifle on a robotic rig (from that recent 'web cam gun') to this baby and stick it in a blimp and you could solve a city's crime problems in a day! (yeah im anti gun rights, sue me).
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
This is OLD news man. I heard about this 2 years ago in Popular Science.
Uh, no, it doesn't. The fact that the guy has worked on different types of signal processing doesn't "suggest" that he builds those capacities into every project he touches.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
... and take out the perp immediately.
;-)
(irony)
Seems like these could be deployed all over the place then. They'd be useful in Iraq
(/irony)
Of course, some technology shouldnt be done just because ITS POSSIBLE..
I remember quite a few years back when I read about a similar system developed at Lawrence Livermore Labs, they used an array of microphones deployed across the city to triangulate the source of gunshots, and activate cameras pointing at the source. A few years back I even saw a demo on some science show about what LLL had cooked up for the military, a portable version for use against snipers in combat zones, it triangulates.. and SHOOTS BACK.
During the initial studies the camera was placed in front of a TV with Star Wars on it. The sophisticated equipment could still not tell who shot first between Greedo or Han.
So how does it deal with multiple gunshots coming from different shooters? (i.e., gunfight)
I can see that camera jumping back and forth trying to catch each shot.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
now lets use one on star wars and really see if Han shoots first!
I for one, welcome our new hot grits... PROFIT!
Fine, so it detects the sound. Minimize the volume of the sound, or change the profile of that sound, and the shot becomes less-likely to be detected. A suppressor would help in the former, but I'm not sure about the latter (any experts?).
Suppressors are not difficult to manufacture, after all, although it's a felony to do so (or to possess one), in violation of the 1934 National Firearms Act...
Predictions:
1) monitoring devices get destroyed and/or hacked, and/or
2) suppressors increase in popularity, and/or
3) alternate means of killing (knives, swords, blowguns, etc.) increase in popularity
or,
4) nothing changes, except more shooters are detected
Anyway, just because the microphone's input is piped to a neural-net program which detects gunshots does not mean the input cannot *also* be outputted to a file, or to speakers on a computer, etc..
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Get your recordings of gunshuts ready! Watch them hunt down phantom shooters!
What about black cat fireworks???
Just ban the guns and the problem will go away!!!
!!!
I picture the camera rotating so fast it turns to butter as all the idiots fire their guns up in the air on new years eve.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
The creator emphasizes that the system cannot recognize voices or words, but his previous research into speech recognition systems suggests otherwise.
Don't be a dumbass. If someone is doing work in pattern recognition in an audio signal, something, something that they have done is related to speech recognition.
this is like saying that because a programmer has contributed code to Apache and MySQL, that this suggests that they might be trying to hide database software in the webserver.
Sorry, but it was a stupid side comment that makes you look like a dolt.
Pure speculation, but I'm curious whether a computer gamer with a high-end sound system, turned up fairly loud, would trigger the gunshot sensor.
...that have plenty of gunfire on the tracks. You'll have reports of gunmen speeding down the freeway at 65 MPH.
BTW, will it identify the cannons in the 1812 Overture?
Pointing a camera with a smoking bullet hole in it will accomplish what exactly?
If this is implemented and works well, eyewitness testimony will become a lot less important, and this will probably be just as important as DNA evidence.
But I would hate to be wrongly accused by one of these things.
Pole-mounted cameras could be pivoted and focussed within 5 seconds, but nobody may be identifiable from that angle, the vehicle will be gone, or there may be visual obstructions. Still a help to police, other than on New Years!
Should they put effort into stopping people before the gun shot? i.e. police the streets?
And I wear a tin foil hat because it's styley!
--Sir_-_Jeff--
The creator emphasizes that the system cannot recognize voices or words, but his previous research into speech recognition systems suggests otherwise."
Yes, his "previous research" suggests that his new claims are just as bogus as his old claims.
It recognizes the entire sound of a single bullet huh?
What if before the entire sound of the bullet is determined, another comes out? like a fully automatic.
Silencer stands on every corner just below the camera.
Contributing to "Judgement Day" one line of
Not to mention any potential problem they have with backfiring cars...
This soulds a bit like a neural net. I know of neural nets taking a FFT and being able to tell one jet engine from another (eg. 747 vs 727) or a Toyota engine vs a VW or an accoustic return from a box vs a sphere.
Gunshot signatures could be quite easy to decipher since a pistol sounds different to a shotgun or rifle and a subsonic (eg. .45 APC) sounds different to a supersonic (eg. 9mm). However the sound does get filtered and some components are lost. Perhaps this is why the system only works for a couple of blocks.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
In a unique pilot program, L.A. and Chicago will deploy test units in high-crime areas.
Hmmm... Let me guess, the south side of Chicago and Compton?
Rather than looking for pro-active solutions to lowering crime in lower-income neighborhoods, like good education systems, quality health-care, living wages, etc. we continue to see crazy-ass reactive schemes like the above camera system that don't do anything to solve the real problems. In the meantime, as these useless systems become the norm, our society moves closer and closer to the ultimate police heaven, where everyone is monitored every second of every day. When's it gonna end?
Hey, golly-gee-whiz, it sure is a neat technology, Wally.
But like most things of that sort, no one's actually thought about how it actually makes things better, or how it can make things worse. So you catch a few people shooting guns, so what? They end up in jail, their families get torn apart, their chances of actually becoming a productive part of society diminish and they end up back on the street shooting a gun again, which is caught on camera, etc. etc. etc. Wow, crime sure is decreasing now.
It's nice to talk about being tough on crime, but oftentimes what's really needed is not the cracking of a whip, or the monitoring of a camera, but rather a signature on a diploma, or on a paycheck. If you start suspecting everyone as a criminal, then they start seeing themselves as criminals and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you first look at people as raw material that can be shaped and molded into something productive, well, you see what I'm getting at.
I'm getting sick of reading about high-tech crime monitoring systems, but it's appearing to be inevitable that we will live with them in our daily lives now and in the near future, so let me practice my indoctrination recitation:
"I for one, welcome our all-seeing camera overlords."
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Americans do.
Not surprising.. USC is in South Central LA. Of course he devised a system like this. Probably to make the school safer.
Let's get those combat robots getting sent to Iraq to drive around our cities and automatically counter attack any shooters..... After that all we need is a seriously deranged computer running the whole show and we've got a science fiction movie!
It would be great to have a system like this for farts... Maybe in Singapore...
kin242.net
The profile for a voice is much different from that of a gunshot, and creating a multi-purpose system to do this would make both perform much worse.
Also speech recognition knowledge is very different from speaker recognition (one cares about what the person says regardless of how they say it, the other cares about how they say it regardless of what it is). The mathematical models for both are very different.
Also the microphones are likely specialized in the wrong frequency/volume range to be useful for speaker authentication.
The system can tell the difference between someone playing a shooting videogame or watching a movie with shots?
shoot the camera first.
I do security
"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could igve you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face... was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime..."
Gee, this would have saved the town of Springfield a huge amount of pain on May 21, 1995! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Shot_Mr._Burns%3F
If this sytem is so accurate, maybe they can put the sucker in space so it can hear an ICBM whooshing by. That might be a bit more accurate than the piece-of-shit "missile defence" laser based tracking systems they've been testing.
Didnt this idea bring about the invention of the nano-sword in deus ex? Im all for it.
But the version in my head was slightly different.
The same idea, diversely located sensors with precise clocks, listen for a sharp sound and communicate by radio to determine arrival times and triangulate the source.
My version used GPS for timing and positioning, and allowed the sensors to be mobile. When a shot was detected, the relative location would be shown on the helmet-mounted display(s) of security officers who could then neutralize the shooter.
Friendly guns could chirp RF "don't-detect-me" messages, allowing the alert to only trigger for guns not enrolled in the system.
As I was saying to myself, "If they'd had this in Dallas in 1963, the secret service could've taken Oswald out while he reloaded after his first shot."
Of course, humans are already decent at figuring the direction a sound came from. Perhaps this would be better suited to a surveillance role, where no friendly forces are avilable.
How long until they come up with a version that automatically shoots back? (With ink, hopefully.)
What will they do with all those photos of people with wide grins standing next to loudspeakers?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
If you fire at the sensor first are you free to commit crimes then? Which makes me wonder if anyone has ever gone postal on those red light cameras.
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
Can you point to any actual reference to this assassination plot, or to Reagan, or even to the year 1984 on the page you linked? I actually read all of it and there is nothing about any assassination on that page. Nor anywhere in google that I looked. You didn't happen to just, you know, MAKE THAT CRAP UP, did you?
1917 ish. Somebody in the Canadian Expeditionary Force to WWI figured out how to accurately direct counter artillery fire using two human ears, a telephone and some trigonometry. The Germans never did figure out why they couldn't fire more than a round or two before they got nailed.
What happens if you shoot the camera?
A buddy of mine and I did this in a physics lab. We used an array of 5 condenser mics wired into a PC running LabView, wired out to a laser pointer mounted on some toy motors.
Someone would clap 15-30 feet away, and the computer pointed the laser pointer at their hands. We got the position within a foot or so, even in a echoing cinder block room.
Insights:
- You need at least 4 mics to get an object's position. (There are 4 degrees of freedom, x, y, z, and time) If you only need the angle, then you need 3 (for time, theta, and phi).
- There are some places to shoot where due to the symmetries, it would be hard to compute a position. If the mics are arranged in a plane, then one problem area is straight out from the mic, normal to the plane.
- Another project group in my class developed a computer-controlled ball bearing cannon. I wish we had time to link the projects.
- Thermal variation in the air can disrupt your results.
- If you used well-tuned directional mics, you might be better off. Rather than compute the location based on the path-length of the sound to each mic, you could then find out the incident angle of the sound on each mic, based upon how much the sound level is reduced.
Does anyone besides me see possible applications of this neural research in robotics?
...as was an increase in shootings that occurred indoors.
I mean, none of us do, but we do that assuming that the brief synopsis provided by the poster is an accurate abstract of the topic. Perhaps the topic of this should be "Incredibly paranoid poster submits interesting technology article." Then again, that's probably why all my submissions get rejected...
He says he uses neural networks, fine, it's like saying "I use a computer to add numbers". It doesn't say anything about how it works. This can be an hoax.
The only thing we know about his "suprahuman sound recognition" is that he can distinguish four words (yes, no, fire, stop) better than Dragon NS who has a LARGE vocabulary. Good way to get more research money, but not impressive for me.
-Tapitsss from the north.
Their original test city was Redmond, CA in 1996.
so what if you just shoot the thing...would the system recognize its own death?
Seriously though, how tamper-proof is it supposed to be?
And if you're doing nothing illegal, the police and/or government won't care either, and they'll keep on listening for others.
Unfortunately, the police and/or government are also responsible for defining which activities are illegal, and are increasingly oriented toward keeping their own actions secret in the name of 'security'. There is quite literally no public accountability for much of the security apparatus closing into place right before our eyes, and when even a congresswoman is unable to obtain the federal regulations authorizing someone to search them, something is really fucking wrong.
Additionally, individual members of the police and/or government are uniquely vulnerable to corruption, hiding their betrayal behind the shield of 'security' and 'need to know'.
The tired old 'Law-abiding people have nothing to hide' argument needs to roll over and die already. The only workable safeguard against government hypersurveillance is ensuring that the system is constructed in a completely transparent and publicly-accountable manner.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Machine sounds are the only ones in SENTRI's vocabulary. It cannot eavesdrop on conversations, the scientist emphasized.
Bullshit...
Innocent people are still vulnerable to harassment, intimidation, and coercion from agents acting on behalf of the government.
When the watchers are the only ones with access to the results of a given surveillance technology, nobody can watch the watchers to see whether they're abusing it.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Quick! Someone invent a handgun that goes PALOOKA!
Or we could just write bills in simple sentences understood by all, leaving no room for the wonderful interpretations that lead to statements such as "We don't have to," and the ensueing uproar.
By making such a system publicly viewable, the information is now available to a theoretically unlimited number of corrupt individuals, as opposed to the limited number in the police or government.
They had this for years in Redwood City, CA, among other places. Didn't work very well. The cops hated it. Too many false positives.
>In a unique pilot program, L.A. and Chicago will deploy
no, it's not unique.
...one in my hand and the other connected to a long ass string that I drag 100 yards behind me. Wait. What happens if you shoot someone inside a building, then leave in a ski mask? Okay, so, the way I'm seeing this is that it only catches extraordinarily stupid criminals. Ya, those are really the mother fuckers we should worry about. It wouldn't have caught a damn one of the 9/11 terrorists though. Use the money for something more worthwhile assholes, and fucking stop shooting each other.
They had these in the PC game "Deus Ex"! In the HongKong level...
Pratical to tactical (or tactical to tactical)
In most counties in California it is difficult or impossible to get a license to carry a concealead firearm (unless of course you're rich.) Illinois (where Chichago is located) does not issue permits for carry at all. I believe in Chicago specifically it is almost impossible to get a permit to own a handgun.
It is illegal to carry without a permit, so law abiding citizens can't do it, and of course criminals take firearms offenses very seriously. What's the point in putting these systems in where almost no one can possibly carry a firearm?
espo
Now, as a geek I do stand out like a sore thumb, but next to a guy with a tinfoil hat on I look close to normal.
So is there something with more style that can protect my brainwave, prevent the spreading of my finger tips, keep as many loose skin and hair cells from falling off my body and hide my face without making me stand out. Also comfort is another factor.
Please give me input.
wouldn't that be "Gunshot Tracking Microphones"? Last I checked, cameras didn't recognize sound.
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
in response to this, the gangs enter into a temporary truce to develop a sword that uses nanotechnology to slice through objects.. however, an aging actress/philanthropist, who is actually a spy for a secret government organization, will steal it, and a terrorist will steal it from them. the terrorist will eventually go on to collapse all communication networks in the civilized world. /deus ex
Here's an evaluation. Median location error is about 25 feet. That at least gets it down to two or three houses.
I met the designer of this system some years ago. The original prototype worked using microphones and hard-wired phone connections for each microphone. The signal from each microphone was transmitted using an analog FM carrier system over the phone line designed to trade frequency response for dynamic range. The system had terrible audio frequency response but huge dynamic range, so that pulse events like gunshots come through cleanly without overload. When you have enough dynamic range, gunfire is easy to recognize, because the leading edge of the pulse is so sharp. Few other sounds have that form.
The microphones are up on telephone poles and atop buildings, and they're omnidirectional. So they mostly pick up loud bangs, wind, and aircraft noise. The original pole units were entirely analog, phone line powered, and very dumb. The original central processing system was a PC with some data acquisition cards running LabView. Since then, it's become fancier, with better integration with mapping programs and transmission of gunfire locations to PDA-type devices. But it's not really very complicated.
There is already a commercial system that does this. They say there is a six second delay between a gun being fired and the location showing up on 911.
Oh, and it looks like both systems use microphones -- not cameras
The blackmarket has reported that silencer and surpressor sales have reached an all time high! I hear they make great stocking stuffers in Compton.
Gunshot Tracking Cameras to be Deployed in LA
It's about time someone started surveilling those reckless rednecks in Louisiana. We'll see how many poeple go shootin' off their guns on New Year's Day now that Big Brother is on the job. Don't they know that Falling Bullets Kill!
(While my post is tongue in cheek, firearm responsibility or in this case, the lack thereof, is a serious issue).
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Some street lights already do this in major cities. There is a gunshot sound detector.. if it hears what it thinks is a gunshot, it will report (most likely with pager technology) to alert police/etc. about the potential gunshot.
u n- 01-13-03.asp
Here's an article on it:
http://www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2003/0113/web-g
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I think this post is a poster child for everything that's wrong with slashdot. A guy gives a knee-jerk response about how evil technology X is, disputes what the article explicitly says without a shred of evidence or even well reasoned... heck even POORLY reasoned logic, and gets moderated "Insightful"?!
My web site is definitely under construction (damn cascading stylesheets--the links on the left and right side are not clickable for some reason), but I recently wrote about this very subject on October 26th.
Briefly, I've wondered the same thing, and came across someone actually using "amn't" in The Crying Game when I saw it again awhile ago. I'm all for contractions.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
I have an idea. Why not just sell handguns that have a flimsy camera, like the kind you plug into your USB so you can talk to someone over the internet, right on the barrel of the camera and pointing at the shooter, so that when someone blasts a gat in the cut, the camera films this action and sends the video to the police over satellite. Then, all the police have to do is come over and arrest the shooter. Of course, since this camera is flimsy and all, the shooter could simply break it off and put it in the trash. But the law, being as perfect as the law always is, will assume that these cameras are always properly mounted on the camera; thus, if someone gets shot and there is no video, then the shooting is considered never to have taken place in the eyes of the law. This would especially apply to trigger-happy police occifers.
Alright, I don't expect high journalistic standards from slashdot, but this attack on the creators veracity is beyond the pale. Making an ad homenim attack like this is something I expect of Fox News I thought slashdot at least had enough intelligence to recognize such an atrocious logical error.
Whether or not the creator of this system *also* knows how to make speech recognition systems is completly irrelevant to whether or not this system has this ability. This is like suggesting that because Boeing makes missles as well as planes every 747 is equiped with a self-destruct capability like missles.
In any case as I keep pointing out, in the long run we can't hope to maintain our privacy (if this even should rightly be called privacy...your speech on the street is public after all). If we seek to maintain personal liberty you can't stop people from using electronic aids, which will no doubt eventually expand to include microphones and cameras so that you can simply ask your personal information system what the name of that hot girl you talked to about philosophy today. Neither can you prevent these people from sharing and indexing this data, which most people would probably do to help catch terrorists or something.
Rather, what we should be worrying about is the *unequal* infringment of privacy. The reason that privacy infringment, by the government not a creepy neighbor, is worrisome is because we fear prosecution or beratmeant for our oddities. We are afraid the government will choose to prosecute those who engage in S&M, or smoke pot, or read Das Capitol.
Luckily nearly everyone has private oddities and perversions. So long as differnt societal groups lose privacy at the same rate this effect will help head off the persecution mentioned above. If people found out that it isn't only minorities and lowlifes but also their neighbors and respected citizens who are smoking pot or having kinky sex they are unlikely to prosecute this group and perhaps our rights would even expand as a result.
However, when privacy is eroded disproportionatly horrible results can occur. Whites use many kinds of drugs in *greater* proportions than blacks yet blacks are many times more likely to be in jail for these crimes. Some of this is just outright discrimination by juries, judges or prosecuters. Most of it though is because of increased scrutiny/loss of privacy, i.e. blacks are arrested more because they are far more likely to be searched or looked over by police.
I worry that this current system is going to have similarly bad results. Most likely it is only installed in the city itself, possibly only the high crime areas. This doesn't seem so bad if you are thinking only about murders, but consider what happens on new years eve. If you live in a poor neighborhood you are arrested for firing into the air but the rich are virtually free of this restriction.
Admitedly, I'm not very worried in this case. I tend to think celebratory shots *ought* to be prohibted and the penalties are small, unlike drugs. However, rather than inaccuratly implying this thing is going to record speech we could put our efforts into setting a good example about impinging on privacy in an even manner.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
I'm sensing a new market... a market for GUNS that sound like DOGS BARKING!
Fo schizzle my grizzle
Look, faggot, fisking is not a valid form of rebuttal. If someone's flogging a strawman here, it's you.
Either shut the fuck up or provide us with a civil, decent, educated rebuttal with substance instead of a hollow veneer of rhetoric.
There are those who are poor, but doing the best they can, trying to create a better life. Then there are those who see nothing wrong with shooting other people. The latter is more likely to be poor, but includes all classes. (drugs are often involved, but they don't have to be)
The first group is who we should help. They are best helped by allowing them to live their life in peace. Allowing their children to get an education. Allowing them to walk to work safely. While their schools might not be as good as what the rich go to, they are good enough that you can get into Ivy League schools if you study hard, a requirement even the rich kids have to meet. (scholarships mean that you can pay for it)
It says it works for silenced shots too.
The system is discontinued once police get busted trying to cover up illicit police activity.
If so, you could use the recording as evidence that
a particular gun was used...
These are exactly the functions of a firearm sound suppressor--to reduce the volume of the shot, and to make a gunshot not sound like a gunshot. When you add a suppressor to a firearm, you not only get a softer sound, you get a different sound altogether.
If this system is listening for "the entire sound pattern," I wonder how it differentiates between a gun being fired and, say, a car backfiring, or fireworks. There are many different kinds of guns out there, and they each can shoot many kinds of bullets. Each combination will have its own unique sound signature. These sound signatures can be further altered by many other factors--shooting through a cushion, a 2-liter soda bottle, or in contact with the victim.
It seems to me that because there are too many factors for it to identify specific gun shots, it would have to recognize a broader range of sound patterns, and thus could easily be spoofed.
Oh, incidentally, it's not necessarily illegal to own a suppressor. I believe they're legal to own in 32 states. I plan on getting one for my Walther P22, as soon as I run out of other toys to spend my money on.
BBN TECHNOLOGIES out of Cambridge mass. Developed an acoustically system that can pinpoint a bullet form the soundwave created by the bullet cutting through the air, it was deployed in a form in iraq. It can even tell you the type of arm that fired the bullet.
Google cache: here
Put all the detectors in poor and minority neighborhoods with gun shots going off everyday and then catch some guys so you can give them their 3rd strike and lock them away forever.
How about keeping the guns out of your state and off the streets. When you are playing that kind of catch up you have already lost.
And who says the cops would come to those high crime neighborhoods anyway when they know suspect is armed; in some of those places it can take 30 minutes for cops or ambulance to come. I'm sure cops want to run right into the middle of a gun battle, they would rather arrest you in your underwear while you are sleeping.
Euphemism, what is that a euphemism for something.
What you are noticing is a total lack of protection and respect for you by those who run our society. This camera is a guaranteed failure, which will at best enrich a few vendors. At worst it will be used as a tool of political oppression. If Big Brother can listen in on conversations in poor neighborhoods, he will soon have microphones everywhere. The people making decisions for you don't care what happens so long as you keep working for them and buying their crap.
Monitoring innocent people is not a "get tough on crime" thing to do. Executing murderers and giving stiff sentences to violent criminals instead of a five years at camp iron bar is. There is no excuse for harming your neighbor and people who do should be removed from society. Real law enforcement takes real policemen on the street, where they have a chance of showing up when called and catching the bad guys. Gun shot microphones will lead to wild goose chases when thugs figure out where the cameras don't see and fire into the air for fun. None of us can live with dignity under observation by an abusive state that thinks our lives are only worth five years of lock up but refuses to do what it takes to protect us.
Education, jobs, home and hearth all start with you knowing that you can keep what you earn and own. No one puts forth effort when they know that anything of value they have can be taken by thugs at any time. Real protection starts with the ability to call the police when you feel threatened, knowing that they will arrive in a timely fashion and those who do harm will be punished. Who's going to call the police when all that does is gain the attention of every thug on the block? Without real law enforcement, what have you got? Nothing, ever.
The people who dreamed up this plan could care less and it shows. They have got what they want and are not willing to part with it for your protection. Instead of building jails for the real animals, they are wasting money on crackpot ideas like this camera system that are supposed to lower the cost of law enforcement.
They should and do know better. Camera systems in the UK, originally put in to catch "terrorists" have neither caught terrorists nor deterred any form of crime. Big Brother is here.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
With most of these systems, common sense tells you that they can (and will eventually) be abused, but they initially don't tell us of that capability because it would create a backlash.
So what they do is:
1.) Get the system installed first, and don't use it until people calm down
2.) Then begin seeing what "uses" you can find for it.
Things like automatic toll collecting systems (EZ pass), GPS transmitters in cars, etc. will be installed and not abused until they are more widely adopted, then once they are commonplace they can begin to abuse their power with the public having little recourse.
I suspect there's an organization of trolls that generate this kind of claptrap.
Unlike you, I actually live in a neighborhood which is affected by gun violence. At this moment, one drug dealer from my block has been murdered, and one is a level A paraplegic (no feeling or movement from the neck down - and good riddance). A number of others have been shot, or shot other people.
In the current system, criminals have a number of technological resources at their disposal, which most pseudo-liberals ignore:
cell phones - these make traditional street gangs unnecessary. For instance, nowadays threats like "I can burn your house down with one phone call" (Mr. Paraplegic, above), are more common than traditional turf wars. Police used to have an advantage, with radios vs. landline POTS. This advantage no longer exists - in fact, Police IDEN frequencies are even intermixed with the criminals' Nextel walkie-talkies, making jamming very difficult.
automobiles - there was a time when one could read the license plates on cars before they hit 60 mph. That time is past. Shoot-and-run in a car is now a major criminal tool. The remedies, gunshot location systems, and neartime video recording, are hardly new ideas - I sketched out a similar system several years ago.
trauma centers - the old days of "bang bang, you're dead" have been supplanted by endless round-trips to be revived at the taxpayers' expense. It's not uncommon now to arrest people with guns, artificial limbs, and colostomy bags. The ones they can't put back on the street end up as 24-hour care, with their friends going out to do the dirty work.
guns - handguns now go through most building walls. Assault weapons are available and are easily converted to machine guns.
police dispatch - this hasn't changed in 100 years. To summon police, one dials a number, waits for an answer, then gives a verbal description of the suspect and the vehicle. At 30 wpm, this amounts to several minutes of descriptive prose before the cops have any idea of who shot who and what color and make of car they drove away in. By that time, the Lexus is 2-3 miles away. The reality is that you can shoot digicam video of your entire family and mail it around the world in the time it takes to get the cops to answer the phone (that's Idea II - dispatch systems that actually take email, cameraphones, and other media).
Don't think the criminals don't know how f**ked up the current system is. Many just drive around and spend 5 minutes at each location; the cops can't respond in that time frame.
Haliburton will give you a nickel for that patent. Without them, what can you do? Consolidated industry sucks.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Now all we have to do is arm these cameras with machine guns and have them automatically gun down the shooter.
drive by crossbowing is going to become real popular with the Crips and Bloods.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
So, while you are chasing down the so called "bozo", the criminal who set up the distraction is busy doing as they please. I'd prefer all those phone lines were used for an emergency response system that works.
That's a very interesting study you linked to and it confirms very well that the system is a waste of time. No one is ever caught, police workloads are increased to ineffectively track down something that is only reported 25% of the time to begin with.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I never read anything about corruption regarding ShotSpotter, nor did I find any mentions in news archives.
The article I found just mentions that there was significant debate in Redwood City before buying the system from Trilon for $85K. "Opponents, however, claim it is a boondoggle and that the money could be better spent elsewhere, such as on hiring more police officers." (SFChronicle, 3/18/97, "Redwood City Endorses Gunshot Locator System")
The National Institute of Justice funded a study of the ShotSpotter system in Redwood City and Dallas.
The December 1999 report can be found on the NIJ website:
http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/nij/179274.pdf
The report compared Alliant's SECURES system in Dallas to Trilon's ShotSpotter system in Redwood City.
It sounds like they had a lot of fun with this test in RWC:
Dallas chose not to allow the firing of blank rounds on random street corners:
If you're wondering why Redwood City would be picked, keep in mind that neighboring East Palo Alto had the highest per capita murder rate in the country after a string of drug murders in 1992. (The homicide rate is lower now.)
The NIJ report page is pretty entertaining reading:
You seem like of those people who says "If you don't have anything to hide, then why are you worried about it." (that's about the Patriot Act).
In this country, since 1776, the American ideal is personal freedom. The government's role is to provide a national defence, police force, and a few other services. Government intervention is usually only permissible when it has been deemed necessary by a majority of the population.
Any thoughts against this are foreign ideals from countries where people are used to reduced personal freedoms.
How does this tie-in to the parent post?
Keeping guns "out of your state and off the streets" is a removal of a personal freedom through government intervention. Personally, I like going to the shooting range occasionally.
"Guns don't kill. We do." - NRA Mantra
..anyone?
An implementation by Swedish FOA (military/Security research) was demonstarated on Swedish TV the other day. That system used microphones on portable video cameras. You could have police/media covering an event and afterwards make a 3D model of the event.
In case of a gunshot the multiple cameras were used to pinpoint the gunner who could then be tracked until apprehended. (The point of this system was to prove that the guy arrested was the guy that shot.)
These systems are for use in situation with large crowds though. Eg in resonse to soccer hooligans or large demonstrations with violent demonstrators. It is not designed for permanent installation. (There isn't much problem with gun shots in Sweden.)
It would probably detect the radio on that teenager's shoulder as a missile launcher. Intergrate that with the missile defence system.......... I see dead rap lovers.
Why bother with silencers. Better create some firecrackers that sound just like gunshots and dDoS the system.
--Coder
They're designing stuff that recognizes gunshots. They probably didn't think people would try to shoot them...
And the fact that they're doing that using some sort of neural network is a nice indicator that they're dumber than Anonymous Coward and didn't even think of it!
blah
The Swedish defence research institute http://www.foi.se/ develops a similar system that would use 3+ pairs of microphones to triangulate gun shots. They then link that to a multicamera surveillance system and can then track the individual firing. The idea is to use this at riots to make sure the police gets the right guy (they are often masked, change clothes etc, so it can be difficult to know).
More info (in Swedish): http://www.foi.se/
Hows about this (I'm going to regret saying this when Bush implements it)
When the system hears a gunshot, it turns around and (drumroll) shoots the culprit!
Huzzah!
Better yet, hows the system at pinpointing illicit substances? Stolen Rfid Items? Dissent? Turbans?
'plex
Rich Gentlemen Hide - The Existential Comic
This means he's aware of the problem but close to solving it, so yes put on your tin foil hats and gags.
Sindri Traustason.
Ha ha ha, you American fools!
Here in dear old England we sensibly stopped anyone having or carrying a gun (except those persons whose job it is to protect important people or property).
Hooray! At a stroke we kept the guns out of the country and off the streets! Whoopee!
The only drawback is that the crimnals have no problem importing and distributing guns, so the likelihood of being shot by someone robbing you is still rising. What can we possibly do to make politicians safer ? Israeli style walls around all government buildings?
(The idea of doing something to help ordinary citizens defend themselves is, of course, unthinkable)
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
The murder rate in Britain was a small fraction of the murder rate in American cities BEFORE we got rid of legally held guns.
If we had banned peanut butter instead of guns we would still have a lower murder rate than America. Then people could say 'Whether you like it or not, it being illegal to own peanut butter makes it less likely you'll get shot. Look at America with its high murder rate and easy availibility of peanut butter'.
The people most likely to shoot you WILL NOT OBEY the ban on guns.
Banning guns DOES NOT stop guns being imported/sold.
Banning guns HAS NOT decreased the likelihood of being shot.
FFS! Gun bans? Tried in Britain, didn't help gun crime problem, caused more problems than it solved, next brilliant idea please..........
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
"...disputes what the article explicitly says without a shred of evidence or even well reasoned!"
The fact that the system involves microphones suggests that it's capable of picking up sound. Human voices, being examples of sound, can therefore be picked up by the system. The system might not be able to recognise individual words but a human controller surely can.
What about people using silencers to muffle the
sound? How about zip guns? Crossbows?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The 90 minutes or so it will take 911 to answer the phone, and police to be dispatched and arrive?
I remember a news story about somethig similar in Bosnia. The troops had an anti-sniper device that worked pretty similar. Only it used 50cal machine guns in place of the camera.
s /surveil lance/metravib/
It had several sensors to triangulate the source of a shot and automatically return fire. By using a 50cal machine gun, it had no problem shooting through the walls of buildings.
I found this link through google
http://www.army-technology.com/contractor
but it doesn't mention the auto-mated return fire.
Anyone else remeber this?
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
I would assume it already (in theory) could tell the difference between different gunmanufacturers just by the sound. Expanding upon this and manufacture guns with unique soundpatterns makes it possible to identify which gun that actually fired.
Apple built a platform for their ideas, Google built one for everyone's.
"A simple loud noise, even an explosive noise, won't set them off," Berger said.
So remember, if you're in LA and trying to kill someone, skip the guns and use explosives!
actually the companies which sell the cameras to jurisdictions such as DC have advised them to retime yellow signals to make them shorter so as to generate more revenue
t ic les/000/000/001/078ftoqz.asp
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Ar
additonaly on several occasions, it was found that police officers weren't the ones reviewing the photos taken from cameras rather the contractors themseleves (who pay the police overtime for controlling the mobile cameras and get a cut from each ticket)
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
I remember reading about a system from Sandia or some other national lab in the late 80's that would locate and automatically return fire on snipers.
[n/t]
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
These systems have been around 20 years. I havent seen whether it is worthwhile to deploy them. Perhaps in dense urban centers with high crime.
> The creator emphasizes that the system cannot recognize voices or words
Only the gunshot, m'am.
Must-not-watch TV!
Because of the second amendment, we could never end up with such a thing here in America!
Will firecrackers be detected as well?
What about a recording of gunfire? If I play gunfire records loudly, will that trigger the system? Lots of rap has gunfire sounds in it.
I recently shot a suppresed firearm for the first time. Not at all like Hollywood would have you believe, but it definatly changes the sound, there is no more crack as the bullet goes supersonic. The sound also seemed to last longer to me, vs a regular report. Something to do with the gases swirling about and then exiting later I imagine, but it was a very un-scientific outing. (BTW, check local and state laws, but suppressors are legal in the US, you can even build your own. Just make sure to pay the $200 tax _first_)
I really don't see this system working so well. Sure, it'll probably cut down on celebratory gunfire, since the perpetrators tend to live where they shoot their guns off and stay around after shooting.
But let us say that a guy walks up to someone on the street and shoots him. This system alerts the cops that shoots were fired at 7th and Main. I doubt the shooter will hang around long after the shooting, so how is this any different than someone calling the cops after hearing shots fired? The response time will be the same. The information about the perp will be about the same, especially if the shooter wears a disguise/baseball cap/baggy jacket to be disposed of quickly after leaving the cameras range, which is common around here for robbing 7-11 type stores.
Perhaps a much better use of the money spent would be on...hiring more officers to patrol the area, thus lowering the response time?
Or spending the money on proven community outreach programs?
Do you have some kind of obsession with Twirlip of the Mists?
...and over, and over, and over?
You sure like to respond to his posts.
Does it make you feel good when you repeat "Twirp" over, and over, and over, and over, and over...
amazing more police state measures to track and trace your everyday lives.
enjoy!!!
Hmmmmmm, let's see . . . . .wav file of gunshot, plastic toy gun, 400 watt amplifier, 60 bored geeks = riot.
It is bullet proof! costs 5-6 grands juz for the bullet proof material!
Won't the cameras suffer the Slashdot Effect from continuous gunfire?
Here is just one very qualified and independent 10yr study in the US that shows... The CCW theory is FUD, to support small arms sales in the same devastatingly simple style as the "tabacco is harmless" industry did not so long ago....
"Ziss is
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
And they've done the world of good in my opinion...
But then I don't posess the persecution complex and level of paranoia that many do, and thus I'm a firm believer that a person should only be worried about the Police knowing what they are doing if they intend to commit a crime. I also feel very strongly that people should be able to feel safe, to actually *be* safe, and to *not* be victims of crime - a basic but important human right in my opinion.
I have no "spying" worries with regards to the CCTV in my town, the cameras are localised to the town centre and are very obviously placed to monitor past trouble spots. If the government really wanted to spy on us, they could do so covertly and we would never know. They could be doing so already, so I wouldn't personally waste any time worrying about it, life's too short.
CCTV has done nothing but good in my town. Within a week of it going online a trainee camera operator was playing around with the pan and zoom capabilities and noticed a collection of weapons on the passenger seat of a parked car. Police waited for the owner to return, apprehended him, and later it divulged that he was on his way to attempt the murder of his ex-wife when he was arrested.
The cameras here have aided successful prosecution following crimes, helped to prevent imminent crimes, and deterred crimes, the overall result being a huge decline in the crime rate.
Check out http://amandahades.com/ Its a cool online series, and in some of the episodes they mention that they can't shoot because "gun shot triangulators" will have the cops on their asses in less than a minute or two. Actually, english is descendant from german, which does have a case for the unknown gender ;-)
--Schvoo, gEEkD
> Except that banning guns is usually followed by banning the people.
... - have tough gun laws, and are not committing genocide. Ergo, your claim - that banning guns leads to banning people - is demonstrably false.
No, it isn't.
What may be true is the _reverse_ - banning people is usually preceeded by banning guns - but that is a VERY different argument.
Many societies - Canada, Britain, Japan, Australia,
Yes "accidents happen" and kids bring guns to school in the USA, not over here my friend since they can't get hold of them so easy. My nephew's best friend at age 16 took his fathers revolver and shot himself in the head on his parents bed and nobody will ever know why he did it except himself. His father was a police officer at the local cop shop. The revolver was in a locked safe that was subject to regular "surprise" inspections by the authorities and all the other rigorous rules of owning a handgun in Australia. Maybe he would have killed himself some other way if the gun was not there. I don't know but I can however see why you have this idealistic image of perfect children through education where sad and sensless things only happen "due to lax parenting".
"my son/daughter (for the sake of argument, I have neither)"
You Sir, are talking through your arse from within the vacum of inexperience.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I was living in EPA from 88-93, and they did talk about deploying a gunshot locator system like this. Since EPA had no money, it never occurred to me that it could actually happen.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.