Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes

An anonymous reader writes: Using profiling algorithms, police are tracking suspected criminals to prevent them from committing predicted crimes. We're one step from locking people up for what they might do. The New York Times reports: "The strategy, known as predictive policing, combines elements of traditional policing, like increased attention to crime “hot spots” and close monitoring of recent parolees. But it often also uses other data, including information about friendships, social media activity and drug use, to identify “hot people” and aid the authorities in forecasting crime."

Comments

Minority report.

[sims 2]

I've already seen this movie, And I think its a tv series now too.

Re:Minority report.

[Lab Rat Jason]

There is another salient movie about this... NEXT, in which "Frank Cadillac" says "Each time you look at the future, it changes"

Re:Minority report.

[Voyager529]

Interestingly, the TV series more directly addresses this idea than the movie. In the movie, the Precogs saw visions of the future, and the police acted upon those specific visions.

In the TV series, which takes place ten years after the Precrime division was disbanded, the politician presently running for office is lobbying to implement a system similar to the one described in the summary - using data mining and analysis to predict crime using raw data. The difference between then and now, however, is the amount of data being pervasively collected.

Re:Minority report.

[postbigbang]

And none of the movies looks to underlying factors, like poverty, addiction, mental cases with weapons, peer pressures, gang influences, inability to buy legal help/get actual justice, etc.

The PreCrime motives are unconstitutional, although conspiracy is fair game.

Re:Minority report.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought OP was talking about Person of Interest.

Re:Minority report.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've already seen this movie, And I think its a tv series now too.

The television series "Person of Interest" comes to find as well although in it people are targeted for permanent removal from society. Samaritan is the system's name but was originally designed to help people not as a tool in their killing. The system's creator with his team try to thwart the corporation now in possession of Samaritan.

Re:Minority report.

[Midnight Thunder]

Do electoral candidates risk getting covered or does that automatically get you a free pass?

Re:Minority report.

[davester666]

No, as those show still treat non-'targets' as normal, innocent people.

The problem is, normal people think "suspected criminals" means just that, people who the police have some actual reason that they can articulate for that person to be investigated for. This is not true.

Everyone is a "suspected criminal", with an ever-expanding profile for the police to access, and it is largely "do they feel like arresting you today?"

Re:Minority report.

[Lisandro]

It's been a TV show for five years now. And i doubt this will work as well as it did there.

Re:Minority report.

[Anonymous Coward]

They watched Person of Interest too much :)

Even humans fail to properly diagnose their own mind states :)
A panopticon run by bunch of AIs may give some situational awareness; but predicting intent is practically impossible without telepathy.

Re:Minority report.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like they are developing a new system to get more people into the private jails.

Re:Minority report.

[Freultwah]

There are *two* systems, and the creator of the first one (actually the system itself, by using the humans as feet on the ground) is trying to undo the other system. Kind of like KITT vs. KARR.

Re:Minority report.

[penguinoid]

Old news, we've been doing it for ages. It's called "arrested for resisting arrest".

Re:Minority report.

[antdude]

TV show (pilot so far) sucked though. :(

Re: Minority report.

[ememisya]

It's a fraternity mindset with cops. You mess with my bro, I'll get you bro! They'll go just short of framing you (one would hope) to catch you for your future crimes.

Re:Minority report.

[beastofburdon]

It is a decent show, but it is almost 100% NSA propaganda. They even had a plug in it saying that the NSA data collection had stopped many terrorist attacks. I think that watching it is fine, but you should keep in mind that it was designed as propaganda.

Re:Minority report.

[beastofburdon]

I would say you are not far from the truth, possibly dead on.

Re:Minority report.

[beastofburdon]

That depends, is the candidate favored by those running the system?

There's an expression for that

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this sort of prediction is what's commonly referred to as a "self-fulfilling prophecy".

Re:There's an expression for that

[Anonymous Coward]

That is how our system is designed.

Step 1: Commit crime, go to jail.

Step 2: Spend years confined with other, more hardened criminals. Learn more ways to commit crimes, network with other criminals, get better at being a criminal.

Step 3: Commit more crimes, go to jail for a longer time, perhaps even a private prison and make someone else very rich for staying there.

Step 4: Repeat ad infinitum.

Re:There's an expression for that

[pr0fessor]

The self-fulfilling prophecy would require the person to make the prediction about them self or have someone tell them of the prediction. It doesn't work if the police make the prediction and don't tell you about it.

Re:There's an expression for that

[Falos]

AC isn't just joking. You can pretty much bag people arbitrarily, even before adding this system's scrutiny. I hope the internet has memorized Richeliu's quote by now?
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

http://www.threefeloniesaday.c...

Re:There's an expression for that

[Pseudonymous Powers]

There's also step 2.5 to be taken into consideration.

Step 2.5: Upon release, try to make a living without committing any crimes, realize that basic survival via legal employment is even further out of reach for a convicted felon than it is for a normal denizen of your already precarious economic background.

Re:There's an expression for that

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of technical nuances, it certainly becomes self-fulfilling when the LEO is subject to confirmation bias and seeks evidence which supports their theory/harasses the suspect until they find sufficient evidence to support their pre-determined conclusion.

Re:There's an expression for that

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy if police investigations include entrapment and other stings. You know, like the FBI do when finding someone they consider likely to have terrorist sympathies?

They predict who's likely to commit a crime, feed them an opportunity while watching, and when the person goes for it, they round it up. Low effort, low risk, high payback. The program is a huge success!

Re:There's an expression for that

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, I think Richelieu was saying that given 6 lines of handwriting, he could forge a confession in someone's hand to bogus charges that could convince a court to convict and condemn.

Re:There's an expression for that

[Anonymous Coward]

The more /. relevant version of the quote is:

"If you give me six lines written by the keyboard of the most dedicated of coders, I will find something in them which will make me LART him." - BOFH

Re:There's an expression for that

[beastofburdon]

I think you are exactly right and wish I had some mod points for this comment.

Re:There's an expression for that

[beastofburdon]

You trust the police and legal system far too much.

Minority Report

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report_(TV_series)

Living While Black or Brown?

[Ann O'Nymous-Coward]

GUILTY! Instant Death Penalty!
*muffled Grand Jury applauding in the distance*

Re:Living While Black or Brown?

[Anonymous Coward]

The primary role of the police is to protect the rich from the poor. Any protections granted TO the poor are secondary and generally accidental.

In areas where there is an over-representation of a specific race among the poor class, the police will naturally use that information in their profiling.

I am not saying this is right. I am just observing how the world works.

Re:Living While Black or Brown?

[Anonymous Coward]

The primary role of the police is to protect the rich from the poor. Any protections granted TO the poor are secondary and generally accidental.

Agreed. I just wish the same effort were put into eliminating the causes of crime (e.g. poverty, societal unfairness, hopelessness). Not saying all are preventable, but IMO many are.

But that won't happen for the foreseeable future as the class warfare continues.

In the US the fact that corporations run & profit from prisons only makes the matter worse - 2nd highest incarceration rate in the world. "Land of the free"? Hardly.

Re:Living While Black or Brown?

[kilfarsnar]

The primary role of the police is to protect the rich from the poor. Any protections granted TO the poor are secondary and generally accidental.

I can't disagree. And that's unfortunate, because in my philosophy one of the prime roles of government is to protect the weak from the strong.

Re:Living While Black or Brown?

[Anonymous Coward]

" 2nd highest incarceration rate"

Oh my we've been edged out of the top position, by a tiny country with a population lower than most US counties (Seychelles). Russia is the next major country on the list and they've got a rate 33% lower than the US. China, often quoted as being a horrible human rights country here in the US, has an incarceration rate that is at most 1/4 of ours.

Re:Living While Black or Brown?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know why this was marked troll. Even "liberal" California has its issues, i.e. you don't want to be a brown skin person driving through Atherton unless you have gardening tools.

Re:Living While Black or Brown?

[Midnight Thunder]

The primary role of the police is to protect the rich from the poor. Any protections granted TO the poor are secondary and generally accidental.

Makes me wonder how much this aligns with people who vote vs people who don't vote. If the poor are less likely to vote, then is that because they don't understand the importance or they get convinced it is not worth it? The other question, is if a person from this community stood up and got voted in, would that person remain loyal to those people, following the change in wealth status?

Re:Living While Black or Brown?

[tnk1]

The answer to that question would be complicated. It would probably be ultimately based on how sincere the elected official was, and how able they were to navigate between the interests of their people and what it takes to get anything done in the government.

The simple fact is that getting elected to any major office can have a major corrupting or at least compromising influence on you. Any human tends to view only a few dozen people as their immediate group. If they grew up in the projects, then they'd certainly start out as sympathetic to the projects, but a lot of that is because the people there are part of their immediate group.

As time goes on, however, their immediate group changes to those they work with. That's why long term Congress people tend to all start acting like each other. Representatives, lobbyists, government bureaucrats are now their day-to-day immediate group. They will be influenced by those people even without realizing it. Of course, they'll certainly try to hold on to their roots, and more certainly, they'll do their best to shore up their power base by throwing things the way of their constituents, but they won't be "of that group" any more.

That does not mean that they will be worse for it. There are a lot of groups that have narrow, parochial interests which would not serve the country as a whole. Sometimes getting out of the local scene is a good thing for people expected to run the Federal government.

Still, it almost always comes with some alienation from individuals as people. To be elected above any local office, voters are no longer people you knock on doors to talk to, they're voting blocs that you have to satisfy. Some blocs need to be courted, some are impossible to get, and others are so safe that you can actually ignore them aside from rhetoric and some bones tossed their way.

Re:Living While Black or Brown?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is true, the world would be a better place if the government was both benevolent and competent.

However, government can't ever be benevolent, since being evil gives one a competitive advantage in the enterprise of obtaining political power. The net effect is that all governing officials are malevolent, and only some competent.

The more a country views governance as a necessary evil, and realizes that the evil must be held in check by perpetual public accountability, the better off that country is.

America has forgotten this, and is suffering as a result.

Re:Living While Black or Brown?

[mrchaotica]

In part, poor people don't vote because a lot of them are disenfranchised. They were arrested on trumped-up charges and then pressured to take a plea deal by a public defender who had no time to properly defend them.

Re:Living While Black or Brown?

[tehcyder]

The net effect is that all governing officials are malevolent, and only some competent.

Not everyone lives in the US.

Re:Living While Black or Brown?

[beastofburdon]

... thereby putting a felony conviction or their record which takes away their right to vote. This voting restriction needs abolished.

Re:Living While Black or Brown?

[mrchaotica]

Yes, that's what "disenfranchised" means.

Re:Living While Black or Brown?

[beastofburdon]

I was merely clarifying.

What could possibly go wrong?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I cannot see anything that could possibly go wrong with this idea, except for everything.

Can't wait until it's hacked and they start arresting the police chief, the city council, and everyone with a zip code that begins with a letter or a number.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[gabereiser]

funny how no one mentions that this is yet another government computer system that's vulnerable to hacks because the government's security is shit. Thanks for this, seems like everyone missed it. I would mod up if I had points left.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[JoeDuncan]

LOL - an even better tool for script kiddies than "SWATing".

They'll be "MinorityReporting" people in no time!

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

But what will really bake your noodle is, if the system works, and it pinpoints hackers planning to hack it as criminals, does it still get hacked?

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[fustakrakich]

Can't wait until it's hacked and they start arresting the police chief...

Well, that would be nice if the cops pointed this program at themselves and root out those who are most likely to commit crimes against us. It would probably empty out the department though.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

But what will really bake your noodle is, if the system works, and it pinpoints hackers planning to hack it as criminals, does it still get hacked?

I rate that possibility as somewhere around 0.00000000000000000002%.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Can't wait until it's hacked and they start arresting the police chief...

Well, that would be nice if the cops pointed this program at themselves and root out those who are most likely to commit crimes against us. It would probably empty out the department though.

Easily fixed:

if(subject_is_a_cop){
          return 0;
}

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[nucrash]

Not if the hackers aren't aware of what they are doing. If someone were to mask their intent as a game of sorts, we could enlist some of the most skilled individuals normally incapable of doing anything outside of standard orders.

Think like giving a soldier a weapon and orders to kill defenseless children, only wrapping up killing children under the premise that they are just playing a sick and twisted version of Grand Theft Auto.

If that doesn't work, we just keep layering the attacks until the system trying to predict its attack is no longer possible.

Ultimately the problem with modelling is that not all variables are accounted for. Most of the variables are accounted for, but who guards for the outliers.
Japan built a wall for a tsunami resistant wall which worked until they had an earthquake that was a 9.0
They built a nuclear power plant on a fault line which would have worked except too many systems failed at once.
We launched shuttles from Florida thinking that the temperature was never below freezing, so we never tested parts at below freezing temperatures. Was a great cost savings until January of 1986.

This list goes on of miscalculations of the worst possible scenario. Eventually the planets line up all at once,and gravity gets just a little more wonky than normal.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Error: Unexpected End Of File

Euphemisms

[Anonymous Coward]

If there was ever a euphemism we should actually be afraid of... it's predictive policing.

Ah, yet again...

[Shoten]

To quote Eddie Izzard, himself paraphrasing someone else:

(running to one side of the stage)
"I've got a new idea, I've got a new idea..."

(turning, and running away in the other direction)
"IT'S THE SAME IDEA! IT'S THE SAME IDEA!"

The ability to predict crime has been the holy grail of law enforcement for over a century now. They've tried psychology, sociology, biology...even phrenology...to try and point the finger at people and say "Yep, that guy's gonna commit some crime; let's harass the living fuck out of him so we catch him when he does!" What none of these attempts ever, ever seem to try and ponder is the base rate (most people aren't criminals), it's relevance to statistical probability (it means that you're looking for a needle in the haystack even if you make the haystack smaller), and the impact of false positives (which means you're going to piss off a shitload of people unless your method is impossibly accurate). And until they can account for and address those three factors, I think that any attempts at achieving this goal are entirely doomed.

Re:Ah, yet again...

[Anonymous Coward]

All that work, and so many missed the obvious.
If everything is illegal, then everyone is a criminal. 100% predictive accuracy.

Seems fitting to share that on my drive to work this morning, I was technically guilty of both speeding and obstructing traffic, simultaneously.

Re:Ah, yet again...

[Anonymous Coward]

No. As a base-rate citizen, *we* are doomed. Law enforcement will implement this and crow about its effect, false positives be damned.

Re:Ah, yet again...

[Anonymous Coward]

What none of these attempts ever, ever seem to try and ponder is the base rate (most people aren't criminals),

And you are overlooking the biggest point. To law enforcement, *anyone* who isn't wearing a badge is a criminal. The fact that you aren't in jail right now isn't because you are innocent, it is because they haven't found a sufficient amount of circumstantial evidence to charge you with and make it stick. Yet.

Re:Ah, yet again...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was technically guilty of both speeding and obstructing traffic, simultaneously.

YOU, You're the one that made me late!

Re:Ah, yet again...

[Anonymous Coward]

No. As a base-rate citizen, *we* are doomed. Law enforcement will implement this and crow about its effect, false positives be damned.

And even for the false positives, they'll claim "We prevented a crime!".

Re:Ah, yet again...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was technically guilty of both speeding and obstructing traffic, simultaneously.

YOU, You're the one that made me late!

Of to the private prison go both of you now. Your boss does not tolerate tardiness so the corporation lobbied to make tardiness at school and work a criminal offence punishable with a three-strikes-your-out clause.

Re:Ah, yet again...

[Anonymous Coward]

What none of these attempts ever, ever seem to try and ponder is the base rate (most people aren't criminals),

And you are overlooking the biggest point. To law enforcement, *anyone* who isn't wearing a badge is a criminal. The fact that you aren't in jail right now isn't because you are innocent, it is because they haven't found a sufficient amount of circumstantial evidence to charge you with and make it stick. Yet.

You might be jesting but my sister had this mindset and worldview when she was a police officer. Scary six ways from Saturday and Sunday.

Re:Ah, yet again...

[dcollins117]

I just finished reading "The Terror Factory" by Trevor Aaronson and it describes in detail how since 9/11 the FBI has been using informants to induce (or entrap, depending on how you look at it) people on the fringes of society to commit crimes. In some cases the targets were so incompetent that they couldn't be trusted to tie their own shoelaces without fucking it up at least twice. People who are no threat at all to societyl, and haven't actually committed any crimes (though they may have thought about it) just so the FBI can claim it is "winning" the war on terror. Anyways, I recommend the book if you really want to read something that will put your panties in a twist.

Re: Ah, yet again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Years ago, I had a neighbor who was a police officer. I heard directly from his mouth the same types of sentiments.

Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[MyLongNickName]

Okay, folks, it is time to get rid of the political correctness and call a spade a spade.

There is one group of Americans who cause the vast majority of violent crimes in the United States. They commit a disproportionately large amount of homicides and make up a vastly disproportionate amount of the people in prisons across the country.

They are responsible for being a majority of drug offenders. They cause most fights in schools and make up the vast, vast majority of high school drop outs.

They are also responsible for a vastly disproportionate amount of DUIs.

But political correctness will not allow us to talk about this problem. If we simply locked up this part of society, we'd all be better off.

And I think we all know what group this is.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Males. Lock 'em all up and throw away the key.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[MyLongNickName]

It is always fun to rile up the racists... now getting you to think is something I have yet to figure out how to do...

Re: Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true, the number of female inmates is growing quicker than ever in history .

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[sconeu]

Let me guess... you're talking about politicians?

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't call someone who can read plain crime data a racist. You can argue all day along about the social reasons WHY crime data says what it says, and the GP may very well BE a racist, but the statement, as it stands, is factually correct. Unfortunately, people who aren't racists and simply want to point out facts will be immediately bundled in with KKK members for stating simple, plain truths. Go Political Correctness!

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny but seriously why is preventing the crime through intervention never a solution. If you know someone is poor and unemployed and likely to start robbing them maybe we can provide them with services to become skilled and get a job. Jeez at least feed the poor guy. We will anyway if he's incarcerated.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[epyT-R]

If you actually mentioned certain other groups associated with such things, your post would be labled -1 troll for bigotry.. but since you said 'males', everyone yucks it up and votes you +5 funny. Unintentionally (or perhaps intentionally?), you highlighted the systemic cultural bias against men.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that this already happens, to an extent. Bias against men among police and in the justice system dwarfs that against blacks. Black men, of course, get the worst of both worlds.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

Hilarious. Because there's millions of unreported crimes by females, amirite?

I'm sorry that testosterone causes you to be stupid. It's a common failing.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[kilfarsnar]

I wouldn't call someone who can read plain crime data a racist. You can argue all day along about the social reasons WHY crime data says what it says, and the GP may very well BE a racist, but the statement, as it stands, is factually correct. Unfortunately, people who aren't racists and simply want to point out facts will be immediately bundled in with KKK members for stating simple, plain truths. Go Political Correctness!

Really? I'll take your word on Blacks, since their troubles are well known (not trying to be racist here; the Black community has been getting a raw deal in America for at least 300 years). Do you have stats on Mexicans' crime rates?

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[kilfarsnar]

Funny but seriously why is preventing the crime through intervention never a solution. If you know someone is poor and unemployed and likely to start robbing them maybe we can provide them with services to become skilled and get a job. Jeez at least feed the poor guy. We will anyway if he's incarcerated.

"I said the police were powerless to help you, not punish you."

Sorry, we don't really help people in America. We are happy to punish you if you step out of line, but to extend a helping hand? Sounds like welfare and Socialism to me! People have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, just like all those rich, successful folks did! They did it, why can't everyone? Must be some moral failing, I tell ya! Lock 'em up before they come for my stuff!

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you supply any evidence that suggests you're not a racist for believing that crime is caused by people with brown skin?

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when has it not been PC to trashtalk males?

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, that's exactly where I thought the OP was going with that...

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony is that there's no one - or at least, no one I've met - who argues that one ethnic group or another committing more crimes is enough to justify giving them anything other than fully equal treatment under the law. Whereas there seem to be a fair few people in favour of less-than-equal treatment for men.

Similarly, there are special programs to help members of specific ethnic groups to help prevent them from dropping out of school, etc. - but, to my knowledge, no such programs for men.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[dhasenan]

Privatized prisons demand the same payment regardless of the number of inmates. It's based on the number of beds instead, or it's per facility. So the incremental cost of incarcerating one more person is negligible. Over the long term, in aggregate, it can get expensive, but the cost of prisoner N+1 tends to be pretty small.

Prison labor programs offer large companies the opportunity to get labor at negligible cost and workers who are not legally able to leave or unionize. Whole Foods uses prisoners to grow tilapia, for instance. So there's a strong incentive to keep prisons full. Of course, whatever pittance they earn is spent in the commissary, so it's not like they can save up any money to make a better life for themselves afterwards.

If we could instate a living wage and extend it to prisoners, that would remove a good chunk of the motivation to keep prisons full while also providing prisoners a way to save up money for later. If we also forbade privatized prisons, we'd have our incentives aligned to keep people out of prisons and to address the problems that motivate crime. But that's a long ways away.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

The statistics are freely available. There's this new search engine you could use to find them, it's by a little-known company called googal or something. But don't bother looking at the data, it's a waste of time. After being shown that most criminals are of a certain race you'll find an excuse like that all judges and juries are racist.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

... And I think we all know what group this is.

Is it the same group that suffers the most homelessness, unemployment, mental illness, murder, suicide, drug addiction, workplace death, false imprisonment, legalized theft?

Re: Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

Black males... FTFY.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of a prisoner getting paid a little for commissary but then getting the difference up to the Federal minimum wage put into a saving or even money market account could really help some people get a stable place to stay and allow them to get a real job.

Right now, when a convict gets out of jail, if the person does not have family or friends that can let them crash there, they really have no place to go. They also have almost zero money and no job. They also need to make time to talk with their probation officer (who is given WAY to many cases for any one person to handle).

Life is hard enough as a non-convict, but throwing that on the heap really makes getting back to "normal" difficult.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up the anime Geneshaft, which talks about a society that did just that.

Something like a 1 male to 8 female sex ratio, and males are considered disordered and followed around by a recorder whose job is to keep them in line. It's got the usual anime tropes, but is decent science fiction. Programmers will also love the debug team for the giant robot's software.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[penguinoid]

What about confounding factors? Some races are likelier to be poor. Some races are likelier to be hassled by police and others for looking the wrong skin color^W^W^W^W suspicious. Is the percentage of [race] that get found with something when searched the greater than the percentage of the average population to have something when searched?

Note also that this has all the makings of a self-fulfilling prophesy: Race X gets searched more often, and therefore is more often found with something illegal. Now, a suspiciously large proportion of Race X has been convicted of having something, so it makes sense to search Race X more often.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[ToddInSF]

I agree, but locking-up all the white people isn't going to accomplish anything.





You lying POS.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[ebvwfbw]

Really? I'll take your word on Blacks, since their troubles are well known (not trying to be racist here; the Black community has been getting a raw deal in America for at least 300 years). Do you have stats on Mexicans' crime rates?

You're really really brainwashed. First, there is no such race as black or white. That is a color. There is no such race as Mexican, nor hispanic. That's an ethnicity. Only stupid people say it's a race. Stupid because they don't know-the definition. Hispanics are white people. Here's the heart of the matter - there is no difference between us all. They really weren't kidding when they said we're all created equal.

As for the so called black community, they're crabs in a barrel. Something an elderly black man explained to me. Crabs will drag a crab back into the barrel that is trying to get out. Likewise, the black community drag people trying to get out back in. We've all heard the bullshit - acting white and so on. It's not whites or any other race holding you back, it's your own race. Until you realize it and do something about it, you'll stay where you are.

Turn that rap shit off. That's a good start.
Stop government "help" - that's welfare, food stamps, etc. Put the money back into your community with lower taxes. You know better than government does.
Don't listen to assholes - like Al Sharpton, Nation of Islam Louis Farrakan, Jackson... They're the crabs pulling you back in. A guy like Cosby was trying to pull you out and you see what they did to him. Bullshit allegations. Decades old. Stuff they know would never hold up in court because the circumstances would come out. How dare he try to help black people. They took black people back to the 1970s recently I think.

Tired of all this whining from the black community. Pull yourself up like everyone else did. The Jews, Irish, Italians and so on. You can do it, just like they did. There is no difference between us. Just bullshit that was taught.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[tehcyder]

Turn that rap shit off. That's a good start.

Yeah, why can't they play proper white music like jazz or rock n roll? Oh, wait...

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[tehcyder]

If you actually mentioned certain other groups associated with such things, your post would be labled -1 troll for bigotry.. but since you said 'males', everyone yucks it up and votes you +5 funny. Unintentionally (or perhaps intentionally?), you highlighted the systemic cultural bias against men.

MRA alert - you are now entering the Twilight Zone, and I'm not talking about sparkly vampires.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[tehcyder]

The point is that if you are a member of a priveleged group, then you don't (or shouldn't) need any help. There aren't special government scholarship funds, mentoring services and anti-discrimination laws for rich male WASPs because they don't need them.

Re:Time to Stop with Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even bother to read the whole fucking comment? No, didn't think so...

banal comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I expected the banal comments, but how can this be used positively?

Re:banal comments?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Well, we can harass the darkies; and claim that it isn't racism, it's just the algorithm! I suspect that that will be the most popular application.

Re:banal comments?

[Mr D from 63]

So I expected the banal comments, but how can this be used positively?

My Devils' Advocate attempt: If you can ID a person who is likely on the path to crime, would it not be good to help them change their path?

Re:banal comments?

[fustakrakich]

Use it on the police and politicians. Problem is there will be no one left to run the government.

Re:banal comments?

[sims 2]

Sounds like a better off ted episode.

Better Off Ted: Season 1, Episode 4
"Veridian comes up with an extremely insensitive solution to a problem with its motion sensors that do not detect black people"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt13...

Re:banal comments?

[Opportunist]

Now where's the profit in that?

Re:banal comments?

[Opportunist]

You look at the way our government runs and still say it like it would be a bad thing?

Re:banal comments?

[xenotransplant]

It would benefit society, yes. It would however NOT benefit the LEO and Incarceration businesses.

Re:banal comments?

[tnk1]

Incarceration business? Perhaps not.

However, I don't see how this affects the cops. Someone still has to act on the information. Presumably that will be law enforcement agents. Perhaps not ones with weapons or hand-cuffs, but you wouldn't necessarily spend less money on a program like this.

Re:banal comments?

[Anonymous Coward]

We can target the most dangerous people and offer them a way out. A job and a home. Protection if that's needed. No requirement that they "squeal". A drug program. Most importantly: they can leave the program any time they want. It's not a prison.

I fucking guarantee you this will cost less than the crime and prison sentences that will otherwise be racked up.

Selection bias

[DoofusOfDeath]

Their tool only works (if at all) on certain categories of crime. It misses huge ones, particularly those in which the people in power engage:

* CIA torture.
* CIA, NSA, FBI, and police violations of the Constitution.
* CIA perjury to Congress.
* Bank executives' racketeering in regards to mortgage origination.

I'd pay good money for a tool to detect those kinds of crimes, and to see them properly prosecuted.

Re:Selection bias

[Anonymous Coward]

Aww but that's HARD and doesn't work with our existing prejudices and ignorance.

Re:Selection bias

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the tool, I'd like to pay my money to simply have the easy-to-detect ones properly prosecuted.

Re:Selection bias

[rbgnr111]

ha... if they had something like that it'd never get implemented... either because or out of fear that most of the government would be implicated.

Re:Selection bias

[Anonymous Coward]

.. and to see them properly prosecuted.

You do realize that that has been and continues to be the real problem in 99% of crime, right? Be it the system in which "if you cannot afford one, a lawyer will be provided for you" invariably producing non-speedy trials on overworked public defenders that recommend plea bargains because it'll often produce a short jail/prison sentence given how incapable of properly defending you and the other 300 clients they are. Meanwhile, those with the money and power can afford defense lawyers and prosecutors are unwilling to actually go after the tough cases.

I mean, why go after one high profile case and possibly lose because of consistently sloppy police work (which the poor and lower middle class (ie, >50% of the population) don't know how to readily research themselves and their court-provided attorney doesn't have the time to investigate) when you can bag 20 or 30 nobodies, get 19 to 28 to plea out as guilty, and then likely win the rest of the cases even if 90% of the people are innocent?

The real disgusting part is that (1) crime is down and (2) so police apparently have so much free time they're now going after pre-crime. Right, no. In fact the drop in crime is also met with an ever greater drop in police funding meaning at least part of the "crime is down" is more "REPORTED crime is down" and then even further a lot of criminals get away with things. Unless you're a druggy/drug producer, commit an unrelated misdemeanor, and then the cops eventually show up for failing to go to court and then they bust you for the drugs.

PS - I wouldn't want to excuse the sloppy police work, but budget cuts and clearly a system based more on nabbing the poor without any real regard for good police work and evidence collection has resulted in too many shortcuts taken and too little effort to nab the people in the CIA, large corps, etc who could legally defend themselves presuming prosecutors really wanted to go after them. But then the final nail in it all is of course that the government doesn't want to investigate itself or other related governments because that could lead to retribution on their own misdeeds. And regulation not followed is better (to the government) to save money yet look like it's followed allows them to have their cake and eat it too. So, it's all a very sort of systemic corruption and really very few in power are interested in directly championing that crusade and those above them certainly rarely want to help.

PPS - In short, pre-crime is such a waste and misses the point.

Re:Selection bias

[Atrox666]

I've developed my own algorithm for determining if these people are covering up crimes.
It tracks lip movements, if there are any, they're covering up crimes.

Re:Selection bias

[Anonymous Coward]

If the tool work, it should pin point them selves, cops are criminals by commission

Re:Selection bias

[tnk1]

You may have a point, but you know, if law enforcement isn't having to bust as many small-time perps, maybe they will have some time to deal with the bigger fish.

After all, we need cops to deal with domestic disturbances and robberies and such. If you could simply reassign some of the units busting those crimes to something else, you might see it affect the enforcement of other laws as well. Most cops aren't in the business to crack heads. They can get jumpy and shooty because they feel in danger or become jaded and view small timers as their immediate threat, but I'm sure most cops would want to be in on taking down a kingpin. They wouldn't stop doing the job because small time crime was declining.

Bad or Good depends on what you do with it

[Grax]

While I would probably think this is a "bad thing" in it's current form, I think there is a value to identifying people who struggle with urges to rape, assault, kill, etc and getting them the help they need pro-actively. If they haven't committed any crime that we know of, they should be considered innocent and treated as such, but they might be receptive to programs that would help them to work through their issues without violence.

Re:Bad or Good depends on what you do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all criminals are violent. Not all criminals are mentally ill. If we want to curb crime, we have to implement truer social justice. I don't mean the social justice that /. losers and reddit-morons use as an insult.

Re:Bad or Good depends on what you do with it

[Obfuscant]

If they haven't committed any crime that we know of, they should be considered innocent and treated as such,

The fact you miss from reading just the summary is that the people involved as "targets" of the program are those who have criminal records. In other words, they have already committed crimes that we know of and have been convicted of committing them. Many of them are on probation for those crimes, and being "called-in" is a condition set by their PO.

The guy who is the focus of the article is a convicted drug dealer on probation, who is also a member of a gang. Let's see how hard it is to predict that he might have a tendency to commit more crimes. Hmmm. And his excuse for dealing drugs? He was a poor child with a crack-addict mother. Why yes, my life is so happy and crack has done so many wonderful things for my mother and me, I think I'll sell it to others so they can enjoy the benefits.

And the article also goes on to report that as a result of the program that is causing such paranoia and fear here, this guy has a job, is in a program to help him pay his delinquent child support, and is getting back on a path where he becomes a participant in society. He has stumbled a bit and has been accused of domestic violence, so as he says, it's a tough road to get out of that lifestyle.

Re:Bad or Good depends on what you do with it

[fustakrakich]

If crack is all this guy knows, he doesn't travel far from the swamp. It doesn't take a computer program to detect all that. Somebody is getting a juicy contract.

Re:Bad or Good depends on what you do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

we have to implement truer social justice. I don't mean the social justice that /. losers and reddit-morons use as an insult.

Save yourself the time of explaining this and simply use "justice". No qualifiers are necessary.

Benefits and drawbacks

[schneidafunk]

I have no problem with monitoring parolees, that's part of the bargain. Wearing a tracking device to get out of jail early, submit to drug testing, etc. However, tracking people who have not committed any crime is a different story. Here's a scenario, a 'clean record' man loses his wife due to a drunk driver. He buys a gun and starts hanging out near the defendant (all realistically trackable by an algorithm collecting records & gps data), what is an appropriate response, if any?

Re: Benefits and drawbacks

[Anonymous Coward]

This kind of business is just another reason why social networking, joining sites with real name policies, and anything else that ties data about you to your daily activities, friends, etc should be avoided at all costs.

Re:Benefits and drawbacks

[Anonymous Coward]

what is an appropriate response

Convict the drunk driver of first degree murder* and throw him in jail for life. The guy whose wife he killed might have preferred a death sentence, but he'll be in no position to carry out any such attempt on his own.

* It's unlikely the guy got drunk by accident, therefore he intended to get drunk, thus premeditated. It qualifies as murder because any death occuring during the comission of a felony can be charged as murder. Vehicular manslaughter is a felony. Sure, complicated legal reasoning, but unless somebody can show they got drunk against their will, being drunk (or otherwise intoxicated) should never be a mitigating circumstance for one's actions; they chose to get drunk.

Re:Benefits and drawbacks

[Obfuscant]

He buys a gun and starts hanging out near the defendant (all realistically trackable by an algorithm collecting records & gps data), what is an appropriate response, if any?

I think it is perfectly reasonable for the police, in such a situation, to talk to the person who is stalking the killer of his wife to advise him that he is going to be suspect number one if the guy winds up dead from a gunshot wound. I also think it is perfectly reasonable for the police to drive through the neighborhood on a regular basis, keeping an eye out for the "clean record" man's car and to let him know that they're watching.

"Stalking" is a crime in many, if not most, places, and the threat is pretty clear from his actions. If he's carrying the gun in a concealed manner and doesn't have the appropriate permit, then he's committing a second crime. I'd hope that YOU would appreciate some response from the police were you the "drunk driver" and you noticed that the husband of the person you killed was hanging around a lot, whether you knew he bought a gun or not. I know that I would.

I'm not sure what algorithm would have access to "gps [sic] data" about the guy. If you're trying to claim that the cops are going to tie a GPS receiver to him, well, it's much simpler to just talk to him about the problem and prevent it from turning worse than to track him and convict him later. It's much better for the guy to keep his clean record than to have a murder conviction and wind up in prison, don't you think?

Re:Benefits and drawbacks

[Coren22]

The vehicular manslaughter as a felony leading to a murder charge would fall under double jeopardy. You would have to show him committing another felony, and I don't think drunk driving is a felony

Re:Benefits and drawbacks

[Coren22]

It seems in the last 5-10 years most people have started carrying a GPS receiver most places they go. Accessing this data currently requires a warrant, but is theoretically possible given the nature of the system being described.

Re:Benefits and drawbacks

[schneidafunk]

Or just track their cell phones.

Re:Benefits and drawbacks

[Obfuscant]

Or just track their cell phones.

Yes, this is the "GPS receiver" that most people carry that the other poster was referring to. I carry two, typically, both not enabled.

It required a warrant to get the cellular tracking data, or a signed statement that the data is needed for emergency (safety of life) purposes. And the latter only gets you the current location, not a track.

Re:Benefits and drawbacks

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't troll your betters Coren22. You got repeatedly smacked down http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and again http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and yet again http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Re:Benefits and drawbacks

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't troll your betters Coren22. You got repeatedly smacked down http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + http://slashdot.org/comments.p... & again http://slashdot.org/comments.p... & yet again http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Great idea!

[dirk]

I think this sounds like a wonderful idea. I propose as a test that we use it on police departments to try and determine those officers that are most likely to abuse citizens. If it is successful in dropping those number significantly then we can talk about maybe trying it out on citizens.

Re:Great idea!

[Mr D from 63]

Great suggestion. Also, how about using it to find white collar criminal wannabees? Or better yet, predict which politicians will break the law.

I patent the following high technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the person black? If so, + 5 points.
Is the person poor? If so, + 5 points.
Has the person been convicted of crime previously? If so, + 5 points.
Does the person lack a high-school diploma? If so, + 5 points.
Consider all of subject's known associates. + the average number of points they have (not counting points from this step)

If your points are greater than or equal to twenty, you are probably committing a crime as you read this.

Re:I patent the following high technology

[tepples]

In other words, poor schoolchildren are committing a crime because they're not old enough to have graduated from high school, nor have their classmates.

Re:I patent the following high technology

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew those little bastards were up to no good. now I can prove it with math

Pretty easy, based on criminal records...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

If you've committed a crime, it's more likely that you, rather than someone who has never committed a crime, will commit the next crime. The term is "recidivism."

If you've never committed a crime, I think it's about a 3% chance you'll commit a serious one. (http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet) However, if you have committed a serious crime, you'll about 40% likely to commit another serious one within 3 years. (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/09/recidivism_and_mental_illness_iowa_s_central_pharmacy_pilot_project_is_an.html)

Re:Pretty easy, based on criminal records...

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone has committed a crime. People who have gotten the attention of police before will continue to get the attention of police therefore making it more likely they will get caught.

This "predictive profiling" is just a conspicuous and egregious example of a "self fulfilling prophecy" which is already in effect. White people get away with murder in Del Mar.

Re:Pretty easy, based on criminal records...

[beakerMeep]

A lot of parolees are placed at a serioius disadvantage though.
- Have trouble getting a job due to a record.
- Often have to pay ridiculously high fines and "fees" related to their processing and incarceration
- Rarely get good medical treatment for addictions.
- Were often forced into the system by a plea deal

If we are serious about preventing recidivism, we would lay better foundations for helping these people become productive members of society.

Sadly, the reality is that our society prays upon those least able to defend themselves. No one wants to stand up for a convicted ______.

Here's a link about the "fees" http://nation.time.com/2013/08...

Re:Pretty easy, based on criminal records...

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason we have a high recidivism rate is largely because the government's putting people in positions where they can't find work legally. It has nothing to do with people having committed past crime. The average person commits something like three felonies a day.

Re:Pretty easy, based on criminal records...

[swb]

Some recidivism may be due to an inherent "criminal nature", but it sure seems like a good chunk of it is due to getting put back out on the street with a record that makes it impossible to get any kind of a decent job or stable housing, which in turn often forces offenders back into the same environment they came from, surrounded by the same people and situations that contributed (not caused) to their criminal activity to begin with.

I don't know if it's true or not, but isn't murder one of those crimes that's mostly a one-time crime of passion? Ie, most murderers aren't serial killers.

And then there's the question about what "crimes" they are committing -- I'd like to see recidivism statistics that completely throw out all drug crimes (possession, dealing, all of it).

About the only group I'd kind of suspect to have a high inherent rate of recidivism would be burglary/larceny. I think there's a lot of property thieves who basically turn it into a job and it probably represents some kind of inherent disregard for others which contributes to repeat offenses. But I wouldn't disregard the notion that being essentially unemployable due to a criminal record contributing to going back to stealing. They may be *prone* to theft generally, but without a chance to get a job or a stable lifestyle it's not hard to see how stealing is an easy fallback position.

Re:Pretty easy, based on criminal records...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's be clear. If you have never been CAUGHT committing a crime, there is a roughly 3% chance you'll be CAUGHT committing a crime.

If you have been CAUGHT committing a crime, there is a 40% chance you'll be CAUGHT committing another crime.

I have never seen evidence that we catch (and convict) a representative sample of criminals.

Re:Pretty easy, based on criminal records...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> evidence that we catch (and convict) a representative sample of criminals

You might be looking for something called "clearance" (what percentage of crimes are resolved) and it's tracked by type of crime, region of country, size of population center, etc.
e.g., https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/c...

Good News!

[MagickalMyst]

This is good news for those profiting from the privatized Correctional system.

Benefits? I doubt it.

[hackwrench]

What's the chances that they do something that benefits the would be criminal to keep him from committing the crime?

Not political correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

The term is "pre-crime sentencing", and it is a logical consequence of runaway government (i.e. with no hard limits on power and revenue). We're merely waiting to cross the threshold.

Mentioned this recently...

[QuietLagoon]

In this comment. Just wait until Watson is thrown into the prediction mix...

been done elsewhere for decades

[rubycodez]

people spy on each other and report their neighbor, police spy on everyone: Soviet Union, Nazi Germany etc.

USA is following a well worn path

Lets just cut the bullshit

[Lord Apathy]

Lets just cut the bullshit. Here we go, when a white male turns 18 he gets randomly sentenced from 10 to 20 years in prison. A black male gets 20 to 40 years and a Hispanic male gets 20 to 50.

A women will get a random sentence from 5 to 10 years regardless of race.

There that should do it. I think I covered police prejudices in my assessment quite nicely. Address all present and future crimes all in one setting

if that doesn't work lets just send the police out to collect any random person they want for any reason. Drag them before a judge and lets just let the judge roll dice to determine jail time. or spin some big ass wheel like wheel of fortune.

Oh I like this too. Lets just let the police shoot any random black male once a month during every month with an R in it. Beat a few homeless for sport, and pepper spray any student gathering bigger than 1.

fuck justice and this innocent till proven guilty bullshit , rights. what rights? every is guilty of something. Lets just cut the middleman and all those expensive trials and go right to punishment phase.

The US doing what it does best

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming up with mechanisms to sanitize and justify their disgusting racist views. The headline and the picture say it all.

The other name for this is: police harassment

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because somebody might commit a crime can't justify police harassment. Unless one has a articulated suspicion of a crime that is about to happen the police should not be questioning people. "gut" feelings because someone is black, young, out at 3AM, or similar isn't articulated suspicion. There are just as many people if not more people not committing crimes. That's "gut", not articulated suspicion. If the police pass someone carrying a gun, pointing it at someone, and screaming "I'm going to kill you", that is articulated suspicion. You don't know that the person is going to kill someone, but it's highly likely given the combination of factors, and you can predict *what* the person is going to do next with a high degree of certainty. You can't articulate what a person walking at 3AM is going to do next because it's more likely they're *not* committing (statistically) a crime and not about to commit a crime. Simply saying there is a high chance is a gut feeling feeling and is not articulated suspicion.

I predict

[zlives]

I predict that the police will abuse this.
perhaps they should use this tech on their own selves first.

Here is the code they're using

[NotDrWho]

IF (black) AND IF (shitty_neighborhood) AND IF (gold_crowns)
  THEN criminal = true
ELSE
    criminal = false

Re:Here is the code they're using

[Anonymous Coward]

Not bad. It would better reflect reality if you changed your AND conditions to OR.

Halting problem fail

[mark-t]

If you catch them before they commit a crime based on a so-called prediction they would commit a crime, then they won't be able to commit the crime, which suggests that the prediction is invariably fallible. Either you predict that someone will commit a crime and stop them before they do making the prediction wrong, or else you fail to predict that someone will commit a crime in the first place. In both cases, the mechanism for predicting crimes fails unless it is not used to stop the crime from occurring (which is pointless, obviously).

Re:Halting problem fail

[robi5]

Whoa whoa. Why is it that some people act rationally on a personal level, but lose reasoning power if the question is about the larger society.

If stealth is going on in my dorm room, and I suspect someone, it's possible that I can catch him in the act, or after the fact. There are known techniques, like, you know, watching, or using bills with previously recorded serial number, or marking bills with UV ink. Similarly, for other types of crime, once you have a strong suspicion, it's possible to come up with techniques that lead to proof that the crime happened, or was going to happen, had the police not stopped it (e.g. theft of marked bills is OK, but you wouldn't wait for a victim to be killed, and you could still charge the perp with attempted murder).

So it's not the logical fallacy you make it look like.

Re:Halting problem fail

[mark-t]

You can't charge someone with attempted murder until after they've already attempted it... In case you hadn't noticed, the tense of "attempted" is past tense. The most you can charge them with intent to commit murder, or conspiracy to commit murder.

Re:Halting problem fail

[Obfuscant]

You can't charge someone with attempted murder until after they've already attempted it...

Wouldn't it be great if you could prevent the murder in the first place, by maybe letting the potential murderer know ahead of time that he's being watched? You know, like what this system is doing.

And also let him know that other crimes will be dealt with harshly because, well, he's a multi-time offender and apparently needs more clues that he should stop than the first time offender needs? Some places have three-strikes laws. This is just letting people know they're getting close to the limit.

I don't know, I think a system where people who have already done bad things get warned that they are being more closely watched in case they think of doing more bad things is just fine. Nobody is getting arrested for no reason, or for "association" with the wrong people, or because of their race or gender identity or whatever. It's people with criminal records who are observed associating with other people with criminal records being told that they are being watched more closely than Aunt Martha or Sister Mary Francis.

Re:Halting problem fail

[mark-t]

Of course it would be great to prevent a murder from happening in the first place, but that still doesn't mean you can charge them with attempted murder if they haven't actually already tried to do it. As I saId though, charging them with intent to commit murder, or conspiracy to commit murder would be entirely accurate.

And any system that allegedly predicted they would murder someone in the future would in fact be proven by said thwarting to have been inaccurate, since the murder was prevented, it did not occur, and the prediction was therefore false.

If you take action to prevent a predicted outcome, you either only end up fulfilling the outcome or else you invalidate the prediction. That's not to say that invalidating the prediction would be bad in this case, but it demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that such a system cannot be infallible. What if the would-be-murderer had second thoughts just before killing? Why should the would-be-murderer's actions be any more predetermined by the predictive power of the algorithm than the actions of law enforcement that could show up in time to prevent said murder?

Re:Halting problem fail

[Obfuscant]

Of course it would be great to prevent a murder from happening in the first place, but that still doesn't mean you can charge them with attempted murder if they haven't actually already tried to do it.

The program being discussed does not charge people with crimes they have not committed. Nobody says "we're predicting you have a high likelyhood of re-offending so we're going to arrest you now."

And any system that allegedly predicted they would murder someone in the future would in fact be proven by said thwarting to have been inaccurate,

No. Stopping someone from murdering someone else before they did it does not mean they would not have committed the murder. The fact that the system DID stop them shows that it was accurate, otherwise it would not have stopped them. (You cannot "stop" someone from doing something they weren't going to do. If you were stopped, then yes, you were going to do it, and the prediction is accurate.)

but it demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that such a system cannot be infallible.

No, sorry, it doesn't. But we don't need faulty logic to prove that such a system can be fallible, we already know that it is. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be used. "Hey, you are a known felon on probation who is associating with other known felons who committed the same crime, and we're predicting a high probability that you're going to re-offend. Just letting you know we're keeping an eye on you ..." "Well, I've gone straight, I'm not gonna." "Ok." No harm, no foul.

Why should the would-be-murderer's actions be any more predetermined by the predictive power of the algorithm

The algorithm does not predetermine the action, the algorithm predicts the potential for the action taking place unless something is done to prevent it.

Re:Halting problem fail

[mark-t]

It's not faulty logic... it's a reformulation of the classic halting problem, a well known paradox in computer science, and founded entirely on very solid reasoning.

My point is only that it either fails to predict a murder would happen because the murder is thwarted before it can, it fails to predict a murder in the first place, or else it predicts a murder that nobody will be able to stop. In the latter case, it's worthless, and the other two cases, it's wrong.

That a system might be developed that can be used to prevent crimes that may have *OTHERWISE* happened has absolutely nothing to do with anything that I have said... all I am showing is that there when it comes to matters of human decision or action, there will invariably be a factor involved that can change absolutely any possible so-called predictable outcome.

Re:Halting problem fail

[Obfuscant]

It's not faulty logic... it's a reformulation of the classic halting problem, a well known paradox in computer science, and founded entirely on very solid reasoning.

The halting problem does not include the concept of "I predict it will not halt. I have, however, chosen to manually reset the computer, thus halting the program artificially, and therefore the prediction that it would not halt has been proven incorrect." That's what you are doing if you chose to detain or prevent the murder you have predicted will occur. You have not proven the prediction to be wrong, you have acted outside the system to force an outcome that the original prediction system did not consider.

The prediction of the likelyhood of someone committing a crime does not consider "unless we stop him before it happens", it deals with the chance with no other outside influences. Ergo, if you predict that someone has a high chance of committing a crime but he's run over by a bus the day before he would have done so, the prediction is not invalidated. Nor if you arrest him the day before on a conspiracy charge, the prediction is not invalidated.

The very nature of a statistical prediction means that there will be times when the highest probability outcome will not happen. All-in betters sometimes hit a two-outer. That doesn't mean the odds weren't very much against them (about 20:1), or disprove the statistics involved. And if the dealer manages to stack the deck to rig the outcome, that doesn't make the statistics behind the odds calculations wrong, you've changed the system underlying the odds.

all I am showing is that there when it comes to matters of human decision or action, there will invariably be a factor involved that can change absolutely any possible so-called predictable outcome.

Of course if you change the basis of the prediction you change the prediction. You've changed the assumptions based on the predicted outcome. "There is a 50% chance of Joe Smith re-offending before the end of the year" is a prediction based on allowing Joe Smith to do what he's going to do on his own. If you stop him you have not dissproven or invalidated that prediction, you made a deliberate change to the system to prevent the action because of the prediction. As soon as you act, the system you are predicting is different.

It's like opening the box on Schroedinger's Cat. You don't change the prediction of cat survival, you collapse the quantum field into a determinant state, and by doing so change the state of the system.

Re:Halting problem fail

[tehcyder]

You can't charge someone with attempted murder until after they've already attempted it... In case you hadn't noticed, the tense of "attempted" is past tense. The most you can charge them with intent to commit murder, or conspiracy to commit murder.

Conspiracy to murder is an extremely serious offence, in the UK at least it carries a potential life sentence, the same as murder.

laws are now political, "crimes" arbitrary

[harvey the nerd]

In the US, crime has become pretty much arbitrary in definition and enforcement. So this will be very bad, and it will breed massive crimes.

This system won't last long

[Anonymous Coward]

For it to be accurate, a disproportionately high number of blacks and poor people will be flagged. The PC folks will get their panties in a wad and demand the system not target these groups. Then the system will be tweaked to ignore things like poverty, race, etc, and then it will no longer be effective.

Police Shootings

[JoeDuncan]

How about a tool to predict which officers are most likely to commit unjustified shootings of civilians?

Then we can fire them pre-emptively BEFORE they murder innocent people!

Re:Police Shootings

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually a pretty good idea.

By taking various metrics such as amount of time they spend practicing with their sidearm, testosterone levels, victimization in K-12 education, rejection from Military Service for psychological reasons/Military Service Record(UCMJ violations), failed psychological screenings for State Police/FBI/Coast Guard/etc, domestic violence complaints, steroid/amphetamine use, and pulse-rate when subjected to criticism: I think you could use a clustering algorithm in N-dimensional space based on police brutality complaints to VERY effectively predict unjustifiable use of force.

This scheme may fall apart if over 50% of the total population shares common features with "bad cops". Possible liability there. I suspect there would be limited differentiating features to achieve segmentation effectively.

Re:Police Shootings

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a tool to predict which officers are most likely to commit unjustified shootings of civilians?

Then we can fire them pre-emptively BEFORE they murder innocent people!

Here:
      If everfiredgun=1 then likely=1.

"Many NYC cops never draw their weapons in their whole career. In New York City, only one cop in 755 fired his or her gun at a suspect intentionally in 2012. In 2013, only one of 850 officers fired a weapon at a suspect intentionally."
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2015/01/how_dangerous_is_police_work_1053727.php

and
"Attacks on police are a great media story, but if the false narrative — that policing is getting more dangerous — continues to spread it will have a significant effect on how police do their jobs —- making them more fearful than they already are, with increasingly deadly results for the general public."

So basically, anyone who ever deliberately fired their gun at a suspect is (99.8:0.2=)500x more likely to shoot someone in an unjustified fashion.

Not all uses are unjustified, but since 99.8% never need to shoot at all, it's that 0.2% that are likely to fail to de-escalate an otherwise manageable situation. That doesn't mean every cop who shoots should be fired, but they should absolutely be strongly encouraged to retire the first time they shoot if we are concerned with citizen safety.

As for the cops accidentally shooting/at suspects... yeah they should probably be encouraged into a non-armed position.

Re:Police Shootings

[JoeDuncan]

... yeah they should probably be encouraged into a non-armed position.

LOL "encouraged"

An INDIVIDUAL is NOT a statistic

[Anonymous Coward]

The worst mistake betas make with the field of statistics is to 'think' statistical information can tell you something about a randomly chosen individual. The most common FALLACY is the old "in 80%+ of all female murder cases, the male partner is responsible- therefore when investigating the murder of any woman with a partner, the partner is GUILTY until proven innocent".

Or, to put it another way- as desired by the racist zionist owners of Dice "since most crime in certain situations is carried out by black males, all black males should be assumed by the authorities to be potential criminals". This 'common sense' position is classic misuse of statistical information- but is used over and over as a controlling form of propaganda used for societal control of betas and lower.

Every ALPHA knows the solution to society's ills is universal SOCIAL JUSTICE. Ensuring society gives the same decent breaks to EVERY citizen, regardless of class, creed, religion, 'race' etc. All of the societies in Earth's history that have been raised up, have been improved on this principle. Societies that go the opposite direction (like in America) do so on the constant DEMONISATION of minorities, and the statement that such minorities have a natural inclination to various forms of ms-behaviour - always backed by the same statistical TRICKS used in this article.

There is good reason the insanely evil regime of the USA incarcerates more Humans than any where else on the planet- yet has the HIGHEST rates of all types of crime in the first world. The dribbling beta sheeple of the USA have been sold this exact same racist crap since the days of slavery- and for the same reason slavery was encouraged throughout the USA.

America is sick in the head, yet controls the Earth's greatest WAR MACHINE- a war machine that grows massively every year, and is used to murder ever more Humans across our planet. This war machine is now at the beck at call of Saudi Arabia- and is currently exterminating a popular uprising in Yemen, so the Wahhabi horrors of Saudi Arabia can maintain an iron grip on the entire population of the Middle East.

Pre-crime propaganda always explodes when 'dissidents' are becoming a 'problem' to a war-like police state. Dice is a willing partner of the war-mongers.

Re:An INDIVIDUAL is NOT a statistic

[Anonymous Coward]

There is good reason the insanely evil regime of the USA incarcerates more Humans than any where else on the planet- yet has the HIGHEST rates of all types of crime in the first world

we have more shitheads/pond scum/oxygen thieves/whatever than other developed nations. But don't worry, the EU is busy correcting that.

Just look at the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Officer, put yourself in custody. By Liberty I live.

Captcha: lynches

Easy excuse for racial profiling

[Anonymous Coward]

Arrest a shifty looking black or arab guy? We're not racist our machine told us he was likely to be a criminal...machines can't be racist just ask google!

Because everyone loves selective enforcement

[DumbSwede]

The next time they, or anyone in their crews, commit a violent act, the police will come after everyone in the group for whatever offense they can make stick, no matter how petty.

So... minor offenses that good white people can get away with will now be persecuted (with zeal) against minorities mostly. Nothing there that will inflame some community like Ferguson or Baltimore.

What a lot of words

[Macdude]

What a lot of words to say "we're going to continue harassing the poor and minorities".

Laugh

[koan]

Stop using "social" media, all of it.

Re:Laugh

[Anonymous Coward]

You understand that /. is social media, right?

You just used the method in your example!

[raymorris]

In the article one of the critics describes the general approach as:

âoeBecause you live in a certain neighborhood or hang out with certain people, we are now going to be suspicious of you"

So it's suspicion based on who you associate with. If you hang out with gang members, you might act like a gang member.

Notice you called it "NSA, CIA, and FBI violations of the Constitution ". You didn't ascribe those crimes to isolated individuals. Instead, you're suggesting that many people involved the NSA have done wrong, THEREFORE other people involved with NSA are likely to do the same kinds of things. That's exactly the same approach they are using.

Because we know that some NSA leadership has violated our rights, we should keep a close eye on any new NSA leadership, because they might also violate our rights. It works. And it's common sense.

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Coren22]

Since you know the NSA leadership has violated your rights, maybe you should open a court case.

Last I heard it was suspected but not proven. As what was done was deemed legal, I would be careful of wording as what you just wrote is libel.

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't troll your betters Coren22. You got repeatedly smacked down again http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and again http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and yet again http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and still yet again http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Coren22]

Calling yourself my better APK, while being proven flat out wrong by numerous people, wow, that is hilarious.

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Anonymous Coward]

This apk guy is a plague. It's funny how he doesn't see that the average slashdotter knows everything about him.

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't troll your betters Coren22. You got repeatedly smacked down again http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and again http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and yet again http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and still yet again http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Anonymous Coward]

Where was that? I see this: Shouldn't troll your betters Coren22. You got repeatedly smacked down http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and again http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and yet again http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and still yet again http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Anonymous Coward]

Coren22 we know that's you defending yourself by ac now. You started with apk and he finished you off many times.

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Coren22]

Again APK, I don't post as an AC, you do, don't try to act like I am using your technique on you.

You are the one who schizophrenicly posts agreeing with yourself, not I.

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Coren22]

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

No, normal users cannot use your hosts file, they need administrative privileges, which they don't have in a properly designed network

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

I have proven numerous times to you why privilege escalation is a bad thing, and how trusting your hosts files can lead to MiTM attacks.

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

I am glad you agree with me that your software requires escalation. I have already explained numerous times why this is a bad thing and will only lead to problems, but you are too obstinate to even understand security concepts. Hell it is easier explaining to my children basic security concepts.

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

No, DNSBL cannot be bypassed by Hosts files, as the mail server that uses a DNSBL to mark your mail server as a spam server won't be accessible to you. Oh, and also, it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to downmod you and run away, I have a single user account, so therefore I cannot mod on a thread I have posted on.

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Anonymous Coward]

Apk explained a network admin can migrate them to user machines. They can you know. He proved real security pros like NOD32 ESET people agreed hosts are a good security measure. Not an amateur noobie wannabe like you. A real security pro. You use privelege escalation yourself and admitted the only way he can update hosts is to use it and the user sets it himself knowing why to secure and speed up their machine. He said blocking at dns levels is circumventable by using hosts and not using dns. That's pretty easy to understand. You're foaming at the mouth he showed everyone here you're a moron is all. We can read you know. It's evident you can't and can't handle being schooled after you trolled the man and he blew you away.

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't troll your betters Coren22. You got repeatedly smacked down http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and again http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and yet again http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Anonymous Coward]

Coren22's can't handle he got paddled by apk and coren22 trolled apk first! He had it coming. About time someone smacked the little troll around a bit.

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Anonymous Coward]

He is your better. By far. Apk explained a network admin can migrate them to user machines. You didn't even know that you noob! They can you know. He proved real security pros like NOD32 ESET people agreed hosts are a good security measure. Not an amateur noobie wannabe like you. A real security pro. Real security pros at malwarebytes' hpHosts recommend and host his sofware for security. You've done better? Prove it. You can't. You use privelege escalation yourself and admitted the only way he can update hosts is to use it and the user sets it himself knowing why to secure and speed up their machine. He said blocking at dns levels is circumventable by using hosts and not using dns. That's pretty easy to understand. You're foaming at the mouth he showed everyone here you're a moron is all. We can read you know. It's evident you can't and can't handle being schooled after you trolled the man and he blew you away.

Re:You just used the method in your example!

[Anonymous Coward]

No? Is that why you've logged out of your account several times today? Bullshit. Quit projecting your methods weasel boy! Isn't it bad enough you trolled your superior in apk only to get blown away multiple times for your noob level rookie lack of skills in computing? Guess not. You must like the punishment!

Re: You just used the method in your example!

[Anonymous Coward]

Apk your software sucks, you are a troll, you have no life, and your software sucks. Those download stats are just you downloading it over and over from different proxies. I have worked for many repair shops and IT departments and not once have I heard anyone mention your solution. It's not anywhere on the net either. No one says "you should use apk's host file solution. No one. Not in real life, not on the Internet. The only one promoting it is you. All the people you say agree with you, they don't. They agree that host files are a good way to stop malware. But what they never say or never recommend is using your product. Nobody says use apk hosts file solution, it's awesome. No, they just agree that host files work. You didn't create host files, you just coded and implemented a shitty solution that uses them.

And once again ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans look to spend billions on fighting crime, instead of looking at spending millions to understand the source of crime and try to fix it.

Because moralizing assholes only care about having taxpayer pay for punishment, and absolutely refuse to spend money on fixing the social problems which cause crime in the first place.

Poverty, lack of jobs, addiction, lack of ediucation ... these are the symptoms of your actual problem, and what leads to your crime.

But it's a justice system which has been coopted by puritanical assholes willing to spend tons of money on punishment, and zero money on solving the problems ... because fixing the problems would be evil.

And many of these puritanical assholes call themselves Christian, apparently oblivious to the irony involved in being such a selfish cunt. America is a fundamentally unjust country acting like that's how it should be.

Your libertarians and tea party idiots are undermining the entire premise of "society" by acting like they formed without any help from the society they live in.

Americans are fucking morons. Fix your poverty and social issues, and stop just trying to find new ways to punish. Then you'll have less crime.

No business working in this field

[Anonymous Coward]

Police have no business working in this field. Planting evidence, blue wall of silence, civil forfeiture, etc. They suck so much at the normal job of policework, they have decades of housekeeping to get through before they're trustworthy enough to speculate on keeping troublemakers out of trouble.

Variables with predictive power

[Anonymous Coward]

- Previous charges and convictions
- Age
- Gender
- Socioeconomic status
- Skin color

Abortion

[supernova00]

Great, now fetuses will also be aborted to prevent future crime or might as well lock up the parents for future parenting a criminal.

wait what?

[ltorvalds024]

to stop crime or create surveillance state ?

How do you know?

[kilfarsnar]

From TFA:

"The goal is to do all they can to prevent the crime from happening."

How can you know if you have succeeded? How do you know what would have happened if you hadn't done something? Unfortunately, reality does not have a control group.

Re:How do you know?

[wonkey_monkey]

"The goal is to do all they can to prevent the crime from happening."

How can you know if you have succeeded?

In a single case, ultimately, if want to be really really pedantic about i? You don't. I mean, that kid might have had a perfectly non-lethal reason for bringing a loaded shotgun to school, but that's not going to cause the cop who arrests him before he can (potentially) begin a rampage to lose any sleep.

So no, if you want to get all deep and meaningful and armchair-philosophical about it, if you succeed you won't know, for sure. But that's a lot better than failing by not bothering to try.

Re:How do you know?

[tehcyder]

From TFA:

"The goal is to do all they can to prevent the crime from happening."

How can you know if you have succeeded? How do you know what would have happened if you hadn't done something? Unfortunately, reality does not have a control group.

You would obviously have to look at over all crime statistics. I know this will horrify the rugged individualists and libertarians here.

Gut fermentation syndrome

[tepples]

unless somebody can show they got drunk against their will

Yeah, it's not like the majority of drivers have a yeast infection in the stomach. A Texas man blew an estimated 0.37% BAC in the ER after not having had a sip of alcoholic beverage.

Wrong

[ThatsNotPudding]

If you've committed a crime, it's more likely that you, rather than someone who has never committed a crime, will commit the next crime. The term is "recidivism."

No, the term is "Puritanism", meaning once a criminal, always a criminal (especially if you ain't UMC white), with ZERO chance of going straight as the entire society is arrayed against you. You can't live (rentals only) in vast swaths of the country because you will only be ever hired (if at all) at the worst, lowest type of jobs reserved for the Untouchables, and you can't even vote again, FFS!

'Going Straight' is a punchline to a cruel joke, given that in the US, you're literally worth more to the Prison-Industrial complex when you're locked up rather than 'free'. It's a fait accompli as just like the Scarlett Letter, most of this country still gets a secret near-sexual thrill from 'moralistically' brutalizing other people.

That was easy

[nospam007]

//Algorythm

if not race="caucasian"
    possible_perp=true
endif

Re:That was easy

[superwiz]

//Algorythm

if not race="caucasian" possible_perp=true endif

The problem with you and other people who says stuff like this is that they don't think they are racist.

So, basically, Wall Street

[WillAffleckUW]

I expect to see police arrests of CEOs and execs any second now. .... (waits) ....

Oh, so you don't mean "most crime", just excuses to get underpaid prison labor in slave states?

Re:Minority report, or Moon City?

[WillAffleckUW]

I think you mean Moon City

The previous profiling algorithm

[billstewart]

• - IF black THEN GOTO yes;
• - IF Hispanic THEN GOTO yes;
• - IF race uncertain THEN GOTO close_enough;
• - IF sex=male & income<rich THEN GOTO close_enough;

Re: The previous profiling algorithm

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the government knew that using gotos were bad. That's what slashdot keeps telling us.

Re:The previous profiling algorithm

[beastofburdon]

You mean previous and current.

Found 'em!

[Anonymous Coward]

SELECT * FROM People WHERE Skin="Brown";

There they are!

I predict a record number of fires today.

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict a record number of fires today. They're going to be breaking out from all the friction due to all of the posters masturbating about Minority Report, the "police state", and how this idea can never work.

you can't use math, that's racist

[slashmydots]

If they're a drug user, poor, or black they're multiple times more likely to commit a crime. Unfortunately you can't live in reality or use math if you're a cop. You have to pretend everyone is equal and waste time and resources accordingly.

Re:you can't use math, that's racist

[Anonymous Coward]

Black people are not more likely to commit a crime than non-black people. And you don't believe that they are. You want to believe it, because you're a weak piece of crap who wants to justify his racism. But you know you're full of shit.

You will now prove me right.

Actually the Court ruled it was ILLEGAL

[raymorris]

> As what was done was deemed legal
Actually it was ruled ILLEGAL.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/07/...

The ruling came a month before the Patriot Act was set to expire anyway, so the court chose to delay enforcement of the ruling while Congress decided what, if any, surveillance to authorize in some new law. In other words, the court could have said:

"That's illegal. You must stop, and here are the details of what you must do and what you must not do ... You have 30 days to comply."

Instead, the court ruled:
"That's illegal. You must stop. Congress is busy working out the details right now, and that'll be done within 30 days anyway."

The snooping which the court ruled was not authorized under the Patriot Act ended for a few hours when P. Act expired on a Tuesday morning. Later that day, Obama signed the USA Freedom Act, which said the NSA can't store the records, the phone companies must store them and respond to specific queries from the NSA.

Police, also known as the "Piss Off LICE".

[Anonymous Coward]

"Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes". That will not work because the police don't actually know what is actually going on or how things work. They can't even control a prison, let alone a bunch of galaxies! They should give up and put their hands up.

Re:Actually the Court ruled it was ILLEGAL

[Coren22]

http://america.aljazeera.com/a...

It was also ruled legal. So, what now?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07...
http://www.nationaljournal.com...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB...

The Supreme court will now have to rule, so we will see.

Could it have prevented invading Iraq?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those criminals still roam free.

This isn't minority report at all

[Anonymous Coward]

This is crappy sentencing at work. We know these guys are violent shitbirds because they keep getting convicted of violent crimes. It's not future crime, it's past crime that we don't punish people for and so they are out on the streets robbing and shooting people. You would think after the first or second robbery or trafficking charge they would go away for serious time, but that's obviously not happening in these jurisdictions.

Defense attorney here. I've worked in rural and urban settings and I can tell you that criminals get away with stuff in the big cities that they couldn't in the rural areas. Robberies that would get someone life in prison if committed in the sticks will get that same criminal a plead down charge and a few years in prison if they did it in a big city. I've seen guys who have tons of convictions for burglaries, robberies, etc from Miami come up to the panhandle and get their asses handed to them when they get caught plying their trade. The urban legal systems are often overwhelmed with the sheer number of cases they're expected to clear and for some reason, urban judges seem a lot more inclined to hand out santa claus sentences when prosecutors get convictions. So the outcome is that a lot more serious cases plead out with really weak sentences. The end result is more criminals on the streets committing more crimes more often.

Racist in Effect not in Intent

[JimSadler]

Crime and poverty go hand in hand. Usually poverty occurs among minorities more than upon the majority race. Better said crime that is easy to detect is common among minorities. Crimes behind mansion walls are normally not in the eye of cops. Predictive policing can be as simple as recording what area has the most incidents at a certain time of day and then putting extra cops at that location at that time of day. The effect can be racist simply because cops are evaluated from the number of arrests they make. Is it better to assign much more police effort to white collar crime or to arrest 1,000 people trying to buy crack or carrying an illegal weapon? I suspect that to prevent social chaos that it would be far better to assign a lot of police effort to the types of crimes normally committed by businesses such as falsely labeling workers as independent contractors and thus raising money from penalties rather than spending money locking up people for carrying a knife which may well be needed to survive in some neighborhoods.

Pauley's ruling was overturned on appeal

[raymorris]

You've cited three cases, none of which support your claim.

One ruling that those specific plaintiffs hadn't shown standing to sue. That case didn't reach the legality of the program- the discussion didn't that far.

Another citation you provided was what I mentioned- the court declined a motion for an order of the court ordering changes to the program because Congress was voting on those details. The court didn't say it was okay, the court said the judge didn't need to determine the details of how to fix because Congress was busy doing that already.

Lastly, Pauley was overruled by the appeals court after his 2013 decision in trial court. That case didn't end up ruling that it was legal, in the end.

You're right that SCOTUS will probably end up ruling on the new program.

Re:Actually the Court ruled it was ILLEGAL

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't troll your betters Coren22. You got repeatedly smacked down http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and again http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and yet again http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

... turns out it's the police.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cops: criminals with badges. Framing innocent people, planting evidence, bullying the public & killing black kids.

First target for the new system: DC

[Anonymous Coward]

"Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes" The first trial of the new system has been fitted with a "moving lips" detector. This has been found to be the most effective tool against pre-crime in the DC area. The system is currently enjoying a 95% percent success rate with the single sensor algorithm. Although insiders have anonymously admitted "you wouldn't believe how simple this thing is.. and it really works!!", system analystics predict that the accuracy will most likely fall off with an inverse-distance-squared relationship as the sensors are expanded out from this initial testing ground.

so they will arresting

[Anonymous Coward]

any one who is a politician then?

Police and the low hanging fruit...

[Marful]

Is it better to assign much more police effort to white collar crime or to arrest 1,000 people trying to buy crack or carrying an illegal weapon?

The police and the DA will always go after low hanging fruit as this makes them look good when they tout statistics on how "tough on crime" they are.

Maybe some layoffs are in order...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the cops are caught up enough on all the real crime to be focusing on future potential crime then I propose massive across the board layoffs. Clearly these people are underworked. Given that by the very nature of precognition, future-crime fighting is inherently more inefficient than foiling present-crime. Does it really make sense to spend resources in this direction? Axing these underworked, overpaid, mouthbreathers is the only way to protect the taxpayers.

I'm being serious here, do you really want to pay for stake-outs of innocent people who are flagged by some algorithm? If they are bored enough to think that shit like this is necessary then we really need to act quickly and remove the dead weight before it wastes billions of dollars.

They won't stop until they can justify all the brutality their culture commits on the American people. Christ they must think we are all as braindead as them.

Founding Fathers of Constitution Would Be Pissed!

[BrendaEM]

We need to start sending copies of the U.S. Constitution out. It seem our lawmaker don't know a f'ing thing about it.

what do you mean 1 step closer?

[superwiz]

California (or at least in LA county) already has increased penalties for criminal association (ie, gang membership). This isn't RICO-type penalties. These don't criminalize advise-and/or-coordination of criminal activities. They simply add jail time, if convicted, to acts already recognized as criminal acts. In other words, having friends who are gang members could potentially be used against a person to increase their penalty (years in jail) for non-coordinated criminal activity. This is not in Texas. This is in the "liberal" LA.

I am not a lawyer, but I am paraphrasing anecdotal story told my by a lawyer (practicing in LA). The key is that because gang "affiliation" is difficult to prove because gang members might be to scared to testify against other gang members, gang "association" (being seen together with a known gang members during non-criminal acts) is enough to imply that a person is a more hardened criminal.

Psycho-Pass

[khchung]

No, it should be Psycho-Pass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

They are measuring (poorly) people's Crime Coefficient to focus on the potential criminals.

1984

[Anonymous Coward]

thought crime.
1984
mass hysteria
witch processes
clerical power
prison inc.

So lets create are own algorithms

[kbsoftware]

So lets create some algorithms to watch the police. Where and when they are most likely to be and all that stuff. I'm willing to bet that if the police force starts to use such algorithms on a regular basis some bad guys will find ways to exploit that.

Officer shoots man today for tomorrow's crime

[Anonymous Coward]

Officer: "I was in fear for my life because I knew tomorrow he would have a gun."

Orwellian? WAY WORSE.

[Anonymous Coward]

from an academic standpoint, does their model using predictives change when they start arresting people without evidence? Is it driven to zero? Or do the police keep terrorizing the same people because there system says so?

What happens when people start killing cops? Does the system predict that the increase in crime is **caused by the system**?

Does the system even admit the possibility that a "crime" area might be non-crime?

Precrime

[Anonymous Coward]

what? I need to type something here?

Re: Minority report, or Moon City?

[ememisya]

Either way I don't think I'd mind being identified as a "hot person".

The Web's bad neighbourhood

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Cowboy Neal and he's hiding out at address 127.0.0.1.

Old tech.

[ebvwfbw]

I can predict crimes too. Anyone can. Just watch a politician. Sooner or later they'll commit a crime.

precrime vs avoiding crime

[stoatwblr]

There's a lot of milage in engaging those most likely to commit crime and leading them away from that path.

The US fixation on "revenge" rather than "justice" is rather worrying.

Dumb ass Humans

[spc59aust]

Don't worry about rise of The Machines because we will be all gone before they even appear.

Coren22 "eats his words"

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, have you figured out why privilege escalation is a bad thing yet?" - by Coren22 on Tuesday September 22, 2015 @05:15PM (#50577809)

Tell us another one, hypocrite - You admitted using admin priv yourself & how else could I programmatically update hosts minus it inside Windows, hmmm?

ANSWER:

I have to do it that way, to protect AND speed up users plus make their connections online more reliable!

(The latter of which also functions to make users faster than adblocking alone, by resolving host-domain names to IP address from hosts cached in RAM locally - far faster than calling out to remote DNS & less complex + less overheads ridden vs. locally installed DNS (less power, & FAR LESS if done on a separate machine)).

---

Aha! What's this Coren22 admits?

"Of course it requires elevation to write to the hosts file" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @05:35PM (#50585879)

See subject & BOTH quotes from you contradicting yourself!

(& a REAL security pro, Aryeh Goretsky of NOD32/ESET agrees hosts = good security -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... ).

APK

P.S.=> LMAO - "EAT YOUR WORDS" you hypocritical STUPID little technically incompetent troll wannabe security guru, lol - you're constantly trolling me, your post history shows it - NOW, you're getting a DOSE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE (How's it taste? Better than how "eating your words" does I bet!)

... apk

Coren22 "eats his words"

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, have you figured out why privilege escalation is a bad thing yet?" - by Coren22 on Tuesday September 22, 2015 @05:15PM (#50577809)

Tell us another one, hypocrite - You admitted using admin priv yourself & how else could I programmatically update hosts minus it inside Windows, hmmm?

ANSWER:

I have to do it that way, to protect AND speed up users plus make their connections online more reliable!

(The latter of which also functions to make users faster than adblocking alone, by resolving host-domain names to IP address from hosts cached in RAM locally - far faster than calling out to remote DNS & less complex + less overheads ridden vs. locally installed DNS (less power, & FAR LESS if done on a separate machine)).

---

Aha! What's this Coren22 admits?

"Of course it requires elevation to write to the hosts file" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @05:35PM (#50585879)

See subject & BOTH quotes from you contradicting yourself!

(& a REAL security pro, Aryeh Goretsky of NOD32/ESET agrees hosts = good security -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... ).

APK

P.S.=> LMAO - "EAT YOUR WORDS" you hypocritical STUPID little technically incompetent troll wannabe security guru, lol - you're constantly trolling me, your post history shows it - NOW, you're getting a DOSE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE (How's it taste? Better than how "eating your words" does I bet!)

... apk

Coren22 "eats his words"

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, have you figured out why privilege escalation is a bad thing yet?" - by Coren22 on Tuesday September 22, 2015 @05:15PM (#50577809)

Tell us another one, hypocrite - You admitted using admin priv yourself & how else could I programmatically update hosts minus it inside Windows, hmmm?

ANSWER:

I have to do it that way, to protect AND speed up users plus make their connections online more reliable!

(The latter of which also functions to make users faster than adblocking alone, by resolving host-domain names to IP address from hosts cached in RAM locally - far faster than calling out to remote DNS & less complex + less overheads ridden vs. locally installed DNS (less power, & FAR LESS if done on a separate machine)).

---

Aha! What's this Coren22 admits?

"Of course it requires elevation to write to the hosts file" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @05:35PM (#50585879)

See subject & BOTH quotes from you contradicting yourself!

(& a REAL security pro, Aryeh Goretsky of NOD32/ESET agrees hosts = good security -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... ).

APK

P.S.=> LMAO - "EAT YOUR WORDS" you hypocritical STUPID little technically incompetent troll wannabe security guru, lol - you're constantly trolling me, your post history shows it - NOW, you're getting a DOSE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE (How's it taste? Better than how "eating your words" does I bet!)

... apk

Coren22 "eats his words"

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, have you figured out why privilege escalation is a bad thing yet?" - by Coren22 on Tuesday September 22, 2015 @05:15PM (#50577809)

Tell us another one, hypocrite - You admitted using admin priv yourself & how else could I programmatically update hosts minus it inside Windows, hmmm?

ANSWER:

I have to do it that way, to protect AND speed up users plus make their connections online more reliable!

(The latter of which also functions to make users faster than adblocking alone, by resolving host-domain names to IP address from hosts cached in RAM locally - far faster than calling out to remote DNS & less complex + less overheads ridden vs. locally installed DNS (less power, & FAR LESS if done on a separate machine)).

---

Aha! What's this Coren22 admits?

"Of course it requires elevation to write to the hosts file" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @05:35PM (#50585879)

See subject & BOTH quotes from you contradicting yourself!

(& a REAL security pro, Aryeh Goretsky of NOD32/ESET agrees hosts = good security -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... ).

APK

P.S.=> LMAO - "EAT YOUR WORDS" you hypocritical STUPID little technically incompetent troll wannabe security guru, lol - you're constantly trolling me, your post history shows it - NOW, you're getting a DOSE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE (How's it taste? Better than how "eating your words" does I bet!)

... apk

Coren22 "eats his words"

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, have you figured out why privilege escalation is a bad thing yet?" - by Coren22 on Tuesday September 22, 2015 @05:15PM (#50577809)

Tell us another one, hypocrite - You admitted using admin priv yourself & how else could I programmatically update hosts minus it inside Windows, hmmm?

ANSWER:

I have to do it that way, to protect AND speed up users plus make their connections online more reliable!

(The latter of which also functions to make users faster than adblocking alone, by resolving host-domain names to IP address from hosts cached in RAM locally - far faster than calling out to remote DNS & less complex + less overheads ridden vs. locally installed DNS (less power, & FAR LESS if done on a separate machine)).

---

Aha! What's this Coren22 admits?

"Of course it requires elevation to write to the hosts file" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @05:35PM (#50585879)

See subject & BOTH quotes from you contradicting yourself!

(& a REAL security pro, Aryeh Goretsky of NOD32/ESET agrees hosts = good security -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... ).

APK

P.S.=> LMAO - "EAT YOUR WORDS" you hypocritical STUPID little technically incompetent troll wannabe security guru, lol - you're constantly trolling me, your post history shows it - NOW, you're getting a DOSE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE (How's it taste? Better than how "eating your words" does I bet!)

... apk

Coren22 "eats his words"

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, have you figured out why privilege escalation is a bad thing yet?" - by Coren22 on Tuesday September 22, 2015 @05:15PM (#50577809)

Tell us another one, hypocrite - You admitted using admin priv yourself & how else could I programmatically update hosts minus it inside Windows, hmmm?

ANSWER:

I have to do it that way, to protect AND speed up users plus make their connections online more reliable!

(The latter of which also functions to make users faster than adblocking alone, by resolving host-domain names to IP address from hosts cached in RAM locally - far faster than calling out to remote DNS & less complex + less overheads ridden vs. locally installed DNS (less power, & FAR LESS if done on a separate machine)).

---

Aha! What's this Coren22 admits?

"Of course it requires elevation to write to the hosts file" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @05:35PM (#50585879)

See subject & BOTH quotes from you contradicting yourself!

(& a REAL security pro, Aryeh Goretsky of NOD32/ESET agrees hosts = good security -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... ).

APK

P.S.=> LMAO - "EAT YOUR WORDS" you hypocritical STUPID little technically incompetent troll wannabe security guru, lol - you're constantly trolling me, your post history shows it - NOW, you're getting a DOSE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE (How's it taste? Better than how "eating your words" does I bet!)

... apk

Coren22 "eats his words"

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, have you figured out why privilege escalation is a bad thing yet?" - by Coren22 on Tuesday September 22, 2015 @05:15PM (#50577809)

Tell us another one, hypocrite - You admitted using admin priv yourself & how else could I programmatically update hosts minus it inside Windows, hmmm?

ANSWER:

I have to do it that way, to protect AND speed up users plus make their connections online more reliable!

(The latter of which also functions to make users faster than adblocking alone, by resolving host-domain names to IP address from hosts cached in RAM locally - far faster than calling out to remote DNS & less complex + less overheads ridden vs. locally installed DNS (less power, & FAR LESS if done on a separate machine)).

---

Aha! What's this Coren22 admits?

"Of course it requires elevation to write to the hosts file" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @05:35PM (#50585879)

See subject & BOTH quotes from you contradicting yourself!

(& a REAL security pro, Aryeh Goretsky of NOD32/ESET agrees hosts = good security -> http://it.slashdot.org/comment... ).

APK

P.S.=> LMAO - "EAT YOUR WORDS" you hypocritical STUPID little technically incompetent troll wannabe security guru, lol - you're constantly trolling me, your post history shows it - NOW, you're getting a DOSE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE (How's it taste? Better than how "eating your words" does I bet!)

... apk