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Boston Police Stop Scanning Registration Plates, For Now
Ars Technica reports that after journalists gained access to a database readout showing a sample of the data gathered by the 14 registration plate scanners that had been in use by the Boston police and analyzed some of that data with embarrassing results, the police force has announced it will suspend use of the scanners indefinitely. Among other things, the data dump (which was not quite as thoroughly scrubbed as the police department had intended it to be) showed that a stolen motorcycle was detected by the cameras 59 times and red-flagged, but evidently no action was taken to recover it.
A stolen motorcycle? Ain't nobody got time for that. Citizen, we have more important issues than a stolen motorcycle. Now, stop hitting my club with your head!
I could have told you that based on how they handle, or don't, the guys who go racing up and down the highway at 100+MPH and who obstruct highway traffic to do their tricks.
It's pathetic, not to mention a menace.
I hope this isn't what they mean if they call the police there "Boston Strong".
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
I do not ride a motorcycle, but I've had friends that do, and as they explained to me once, you can pretty easily avoid the police on one in a lot of situations.
From TFA:
One Harley Davidson motorcycle that had been reported stolen passed license plate scanners a total of 59 times between Oct. 19, 2012, and March 13, 2013. It was often recorded on sequential days or multiple times in a single day, all by the same scanner and almost always within the same half-hour span in the early evening.
The issue here is not cyclists driving like assholes.
The title of the ARS blog article does not say they will stop scanning plates. It says: Boston Police indefinitely suspends license plate reader program.
Suspending the LPR program doesn't mean all that much. Which program exactly? Are there any other programs that use LPR data? Will the cameras be turned off? Will the cameras be removed? Or, will the stolen vehicle reports be discontinued while the tracking database continues to be silently populated/
After all, the Boston Marathon bombing was only like yesterday. The citizenry of Boston must be protected. There still lots of use in that old saw to justify the "need" for LPR everywhere. After all, if you've done nothing wrong, why would this bother you?
They sure do. Like preventing the Mooninites from bombing the subway.
Or closing down the entire city, costing untold billions of dollars is lost productivity, to fail to catch an unarmed, injured teenager. One that they had literally been flat-out told was planning a terrorist attack prior to said attack, but was entirely ignored until after they caught him and realized they'd been told to watch out for him. That's Boston Strong.
one word: Mooninites
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
don't forget the time they shutdown the city over a sponge bob square pants lite brite.
DUTY TO SERVE
Basic Math. IF 40 Million, and 1 ,001% hit rate (one in a thousand will be too low) that's 40,000 actionable interventions required.
Divided by 366 days = 109 IPD Now 14 squad cars, so they should be pulling in 7.7 flagged cars each, per day.
Rego and license, assuming the offender can pay would NOT pay the running cost of 14 squad cars with 2 officers each, with overtime long shifts and whatnot, paperwork, court appearances etc. Assuming they were overworked to begin with.
Journalists should be asking these questions and checking ballpark results match.
This means the person who signed off and approved the project, or committee, need to be demoted or removed, because they are involved in suppressing 40,000 offenses, including some of their own. Maybe they should outsource to rent a cops inc.
Furthermore, the 'computer' can pinpoint the likely route, so it should not be much effort to pick up, say the motorcycle dude, unless it is common practice for undercover cops to use stolen, uninsured motor vehicles..
Anyway the license plate scanners are not going to work. There was this news report about some precocious teens, taking a picture of the license plate of a teacher they did not like, printing it, pasting it over their own number plates and went through several red-light cameras and triggered a number of tickets for that poor teacher. So it ain't gonna work. Criminals are two steps ahead of the cops, they will easy mark some sap and pass the blame on them, use these cameras to create iron-clad alibi etc. Glad it is gone.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
If the records were publicly available, people would see that the majority of stolen items/vehicles are not found unless they are in a vehicle stopped for a traffic violation or an actual stolen vehicle has been stopped. Last year there was a group of people that was stealing stuff out of peoples cards in a near by neighborhood. They pilfered stuff from cars for a month until they got pulled over because their inspection sticker expired. Successful criminals keep their cars clean, insured, up to date, and drive slow.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Why release any data not associated with a wanted vehicle? On the other hand, it seems like it could do a great job finding wanted vehicles... Stolen cars, Amber Alerts, bail jumpers, and wanted felons.. Only when you use it for misdemeanor offenses does it seem to suggest a civil liberties problem. (Say you get pulled over.. turns out your tags was incorrectly reported stolen.. the issue is cleared up and your tags are cleared from the watch list.. probable cause and no real harm done... ) A little law and order targeting felons is something most people can support.
The Ars T "story" is simply a re-hash of this (from the Boston Globe):
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/12/14/boston-police-suspend-use-high-tech-licence-plate-readers-amid-privacy-concerns/B2hy9UIzC7KzebnGyQ0JNM/story.html
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I seem to remember something about this same department rejecting GPS tracking for officers. Maybe they realized the system was watching them too.
http://boingboing.net/2009/01/06/naughty-speed-camera.html
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/12/dont-like-speed-cameras-use-them-to-punk-your-enemies/
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
There's a reason nothing of any worth comes out of Boston.
(1) the band Boston
(2) Bill Burr
I come here for the love
...is money. People, including the police, do what they are incited to do.
The police have very little incentive to go out of their way to recover a stolen bike. They get paid regardless. They DO have some incentive to ensure the safety of large businesses in their area, as a lot of their money depends on the economic conditions created by said businesses. Also, they have some incentive to enforce laws which ensure the continued wealth of already-wealthy people, largely under the same principle but also because such people tend to have a lot of political power and hence influence over the salaries and appointments of the upper echelons of the police force.
Stuff like this is only "embarrassing" because it has the effect of uniting enough not-so-rich people against the current establishment that replacements can actually be made.
These facts are reinforced by the response. Rather than fix the problem by ensuring that the officers do their jobs, they make the evidence go away. Such actions make it crystal-clear who the police serve.
There's a reason nothing of any worth comes out of Boston.
Except, you know, the internet.
But yeah, nothing of any real worth.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
That's "Boston Strong" - wasting massive amounts of money to get no results, when simply not even trying would have allowed normal people to accomplish the goal immediately. And then being smug about it. There's a reason nothing of any worth comes out of Boston.
While I have no love for the Commonwealth, I think you're way off here. The reason a citizen found flash-bang (the kid) hiding in the boat was because the police had driven him into hiding. The other brother was killed while trying to escape the police. If not for the actions taken, those two might still be out and about planning who knows what.
what the problem with police ?
All the while, remember that. in-spite of the FBI having been handed a dossier on the bombers by the Russians and the NSA continuous 24/7 indexing all cellular call metadata and monitoring all overseas calls, the intelligence apparatus of the entire US government was clueless about who these guys were.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I think I like things the way they are--who knows why you're running from the police? Shooting an unarmed person in the back isn't justified. That simply begs to have corruption run wild. "But he ran!"
You don't think that's ripe for abuse? What happened to proportional force? A car is a deadly weapon if you run--a bicycle is not. I hope you rot in hell, you fascist pig.
That's nothing compared to Claude Shannon's master's thesis which laid out the use of boolean logic to solve general problems.
Here's a list (just from MIT, which is one of the 100 or so universities in Metro Boston).
1802 -- Modern navigation -- Bowditch
1886 -- Management consulting -- Little
1901 -- Disposable safety razor -- Gillette et al.
1914 -- "Tech"nicolor -- Founded in Boston by Kalmus et al.
1919 -- Trans-Atlantic aircraft -- Hunsaker et al.
1929- -- Instant photography (Polaroid) -- Land
1931 -- Stroboscopy -- Edgerton, Germeshausen et al.
1937 -- Use of Boolean logic to design "digital" circuits -- Shannon
1940-45 -- Practical radar -- Anglo-American military collaboration at MIT
1944 -- Mark I/II computers and first computer "bug" -- Aiken, Hopper et al.
1945 -- Hypertext -- Vannevar Bush
1951 -- Huffman code
1951 -- Random access memory ("core")-- Project Whirlwind
1953 -- PET scan -- Brownell
1953- -- Doppler radar -- Gordon
1956- -- Chomsky hierarchy
1957- -- Generative grammar -- Chomsky
1957 -- Confocal microscope -- MInsky
1957-61 -- Time-sharing (and some of what we now call virtualization) -- Project MAC
1958 -- LISP -- McCarthy
1961 -- Chaos theory -- Lorenz (and many others)
1961-2 -- Digital videogame (Spacewar!) -- Graetz, Russel, Wiitanen, Kotok
1963 -- CAD -- Sutherland
1964 -- Minicomputer -- DEC
1964-5 -- Electronic mail -- Van Vleck / Morris on CTSS (also network email, Tomlinson in 1971)
1969 -- Apollo guidance computer that navigated to and landed on moon -- Instrumentation (now Draper) Laboratory
1970-90 -- Object-oriented programming and data hiding -- Liskov (and many others)
1972 -- Packet-switching and ARPANET -- Kahn, BBN, etc.
1973 -- Black-Scholes option pricing model -- Black, Scholes, Merton
1978 -- Practical public-key cryptography (RSA) -- Rivest, Shamir, Adelman
1979 -- Spreadsheet -- Bricklin and Frankston
1981-89 -- Copyleft/sharealike, GNU and free software movement -- Stallman
1995- - E-ink -- Jacobsen et al.
2000 -- Zipcar -- Danielson, Chase
Ah Boston PD, you show yet again how absolutely crazy you are. The saddest thing of all, suspect that lack of action in regards to stolen vehicles & and the insanely high (99.99%) false positive rate are not the reasons for their "suspending" of the program. All of those hits in the police employee parking lot that they'd rather not address is probably by the far the largest driving factor.
It should be a felony to run from the police, and police should be able to stop a felony in progress with deadly force. Then it'd be much easier to stop you on a bicycle.
In Australia if you run from the cops you stand a very good chance of going to jail under the following legislation , unless you have a very good defense lawyer and even then you are not going to get out of it cheaply. I would assume that many other countries have some sort of legislation like this in place. Of course the method of perusing and capturing a freeing person varies country to country and the police.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
You'd be pretty fucking sorry if the authorities hadn't put a stop to the Mooninite invasion, pal.
Fucking alien-loving pinko
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The problem is that the hell our fascist friend is creating is right here on earth.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I don't believe, in the UK that the police are that corrupt, and I'm more cynical than most with regards to the UK police. What I _do_ believe is that with the laws that are on the books today, most people can be guilty of a crime, and police _do_ selectively arrest. Part of the problem is that police assume that they are deserved of "respect" above and beyond that of normal citizens... you see this all the time on police shows, telling them to fuck off gets you arrested. Telling normal people to fuck off gets you ignored mostly, or hit sometimes. You don't get arrested.
It's a consistent theme with police following programmes - you show us respect, or you get arrested. Fuck that shit.
Apart from all of that...what has Boston given us?
Shut down everything
I think Boston is America's Madagascar.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Now look here citizen, you'd be really sorry if Sponge Bob Square pants really was out there bombing the subway! Now stop smearing your blood over my boot!
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
MIT would have given us that even if they were in Michigan or Minnesota. MIT is more distinct from Boston than the Vatican is from Rome.
Yes, if the police had done absolutely nothing, the two brothers would still be out planning who knows what.
Obviously, the only other alternative to this was to shut the entire city down looking for two...er...one man.
Just like the NSA. It's either collect every scrap of data on everyone on the planet, or sit on their thumbs as the terrorists walk in and take over the country. There is no middle ground.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
If you think a Harley (from TFA) can sustain 100 MPH.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Knowing that a stolen car is driving right there twice a day is of no use to them at all.
Actually, knowing that the stolen motorbike has driven past a particular camera 60 times in the last 6 months probably isn't that much help unless you have the manpower to stake out that camera site or do a house-to-house search in the area. TFA is pretty vague on whether the camera is on a busy street, or exactly how predictable those drive-bys really were.
Before reaching for conspiracy theories I'd consider the strong possibilities that these systems are the result of police chiefs and other politicians buying into high tech snake oil products in the belief that they are a miracle substitute for expensive and properly trained boots on the street. All such a system will do is deluge over-worked officers with alert emails - and they're probably under strict instructions to prioritise the cases that lead to recovery of unpaid fines rather than expensive criminal prosecutions. To re-phrase Hanlon's Razor - never attribute to grand corruption that which may be adequately explained by petty corruption.
If the powers that be wanted a database of everything there are plenty of large IT corporations they could buy it from.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Judging from cop shows (an iffy source at best) I'd say the UK police are pretty good at interacting with the public. They are polite and don't seem to demand respect, though they do expect courtesy. If you give them any lip they'll lay into you a little harder (verbally), and they'll threaten arrest only when you become really abusive. Watch a Dutch cop show sometime, for a laugh. Now there are cops who don't expect respect; our cops are trained to "de-escalate" at all cost. Some kid drives through a couple of red lights at twice the speed limit, and runs his mouth when stopped by the cops, going on and on while they do exactly nothing. In this situation it may even have been the right choice, though it does shine some light on the question of why our cops get no respect whatsoever.
I was involved in a minor prang some years ago, and called in the cops because the other party was verbally abusive and threatening violence (not uncommon: these people learn from early on that a big mouth will get you anything). The cops show up and the guy starts laying into them... no reaction from the cops. Only when at some point I had enough and told the big guy "fuck you", did the cops turn to me and said "now, now, sir, none of that". Because I was de-de-escalating the situation, see?
This happens all the time here. Some kids attack two passengers at a tram stop, cops show up, kids remain abusive, and the passengers are the ones asked to jog on. To "keep the peace". Arresting the youngsters would only aggravate them further.
Personally I think cops do need to be firm at times. The problem is that when they get told that, they'll religiously apply it and do you for the smallest crosswise remark.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
You mean, MIT is some small territory which was contractually separated from the surrounding town, and the head of the MIT is still the spiritual leader of the majority of Boston? Just because the State of Vatican was founded in 1929 in the Lateran Treaty between the Catholic Church and Italy, and the Pope is still the bishop of Rome.
Nope, in fact I said it was MORE distinct. It was more a suggestion that MIT is an enclave within Boston.
Sounds more like some cops need to be fired. They have also said to the country that if you want a place to hide your stolen vehicles, Boston is the place to go
Don't forget the heroic efforts of the Cape Cod SWAT team. I wish I was making this up.
Yes, he could have just walked around freely even though the entire nation had seen his face on every web page and newspaper in the country.
1958 -- LISP -- McCarthy
Wait, I thought this list was supposed to be of things that changed the world in a good way.
2000 -- Zipcar -- Danielson, Chase
And I'm sure I'm not the first to say, wtf is a zipcar? The world-changing... not so much, in that case.
For terrorists, Russian cooperation has actually been very good. They have every reason to cooperate, because they are being hit by the same terrorists.
But you missed the fact that the FBI sent someone out to interview these guys. They came back and reported seeing nothing, and that is where the followup Stopped. No monitoring, no phone taps, even after the older one subsequently traveled back to the home country and disappeared for a couple months.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Yes, definitely. Because that is the logical conclusion of not executing suspects on sight. Brilliant work, you deserve a prize.
Nobody ever suggested shooting suspects on sight. Perhaps the reason you don't get it is because you knee jerks before you finish reading. Read slower and try again. If fleeing were a felony(and it is in some places) and police are authorized to use deadly force to stop a felony in progress (in some places they are), then a cop can use deadly force. Deadly force doesn't always mean shooting. Ramming a car is deadly force as well, and before even the relatively "safe" PIT maneuver is used, a clear danger is usually documented. The places with liberal deadly force rules often had the cases where a suspect fled and ended up killing someone, but the police couldn't have stopped the future crimes from the criminal without using escalated/deadly force.
Learn to love Alaska
The implication was that the cop should presume innocence, even if witnessing a crime in progress. I just extended that stupid idea a little.
Learn to love Alaska
If fleeing were a felony(and it is in some places)
Lots of things are felonies. Not paying my taxes is a felony. But I don't think it would be justified if I got shot while not paying them.
stopped the future crimes
Laugh Out Loud. I don't think any future crimes that a bike thief can be assumed to commit in the future if not stopped by all means necessary are worth killing him over.
Not paying my taxes is a felony.
False. Since you can't get simple things like that right, how can we believe anything else you say?
Learn to love Alaska
Attempt to evade or defeat tax - Any person who willfully attempts in any manner to evade or defeat any tax imposed by this title or the payment thereof shall, in addition to other penalties provided by law, be guilty of a felony
So there. Now, are you done wasting my fucking time with autistic quibblings over the law (please know that this is not a court and I don't give a shit if you are a lawyer; nor do I care if you can cite some other obscure law that claims otherwise)? Or would you like to continue propping up your quickly failing arguments by calling my credibility into question? Unless you were trying to to resort to legalism in a round-about way....
Also, I'd like to congratulate you on the most textbook example of an ad hominem that I've seen in months! Seriously, that was nice. Usually when people complain about that, it's not really ad hominem because what was actually said was "you're wrong, and that makes you an idiot", but you nailed it perfect with that "you're an idiot, so you're argument is wrong". Bravo.
So there. Now, are you done wasting my fucking time with autistic quibblings over the law
I'll make you a deal. You quit lying. I'll quit pointing it out.
Also, I'd like to congratulate you on the most textbook example of an ad hominem that I've seen in months!
Yes. Most people whine about one when it's just an insult. So rarely do people actually perform a real one. I couldn't let it pass on such an easy target.
Learn to love Alaska
You either know what was meant and have nothing more to say other than meaningless bullshit to evade the issue that you advanced a ridiculous proposal that cops shoot people in the backs; or you are a retard who has nothing more to say.
Either way, I think it's clear that this discussion is over. Go waste someone else's time.
Also note, being "able to" does not constitute a requirement.
Either way, I think it's clear that this discussion is over.
It never started. You thought my idea was stupid. When you enter into a "discussion" with that level of understanding and openness, it's *never* a "discussion." You are the one that killed the discussion by wasting my time. You just didn't expect that I'd be able to respond to your stupid and belittling non-sequitors in an intelligent and logical manner. And I'm wasting your time because you have on self control. You posted it, be responsible for it. Oh no, that's hard. Lets whine that the other guy is stupid and wasting my time.
If you took the time to think before you posted, you'd waste less time.
Learn to love Alaska
Project MAC started in 1963 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MAC#Project_MAC). You are Thinking of CTSS.