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Gunshot Tracking Cameras to be Deployed in LA
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Dec 01, 2004 07:10 PM
from the mixed-senses dept.
from the mixed-senses dept.
apok04 writes "Get out your tinfoil hats (and ski masks). A USC engineer uses his expertise with nerve cells to create a surveillance system that can recognize the sound of a nearby gunshot - and identify the shooter. In a unique pilot program, L.A. and Chicago will deploy test units in high-crime areas. The creator emphasizes that the system cannot recognize voices or words, but his previous research into speech recognition systems suggests otherwise."
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Response Time (Score:5, Interesting)
If the shooter is still there, she deserves to be caught.
According to the article, this device is listening for the entire sound pattern of the gunshot, not just the initial explosion, which makes it much less likely to mistake other loud noises for shooting.
So it may be difficult to fool it unless you can also simulate the whole shooting sequence (think of Matrix's bullet time).
I guess FPS game developers can use one of these to create realistic gunshot sounds.
Re:Response Time (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Response Time (Score:4, Insightful)
If the shooter is a criminal, she deserves to be caught whether she's still there or whether she ran away and hid.
Parent
Re:Response Time (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Response Time (Score:3, Insightful)
She? What planet do you live on where women commit gun crimes?
Re:Response Time (Score:4, Informative)
In English, we do not posess a grammatical gender to refer to the unknown: we have male, female, and neither, but not a possibly-either. The convention in English for nearly two millennia, and in her precursor languages (English is grammatically feminine, incidentally, much like a ship), has always been to use the masculine when referring to the unknown or the general. That is, the masculine gender serves double duty: it (amusingly, the masculine grammatical gender is itself grammatically neutral) refers to both males and other grammatically-male individuals, but also to those whose grammatical gender is unknown or general. This isn't sexist so much as a limitation of the language. Incidentally, the very word 'man' is actually a gender-unknown holdover from Old English; the word for a male man (a phrase which seems redundant now) was 'were' (like werewolf, and pronounced similarly); because 'man' could refer to either a man or a woman, words like 'wifman' (means wife-man), which became 'woman,' or 'leman' (a mistress: means love-man) could be formed.
Moreover, in this specific case the distribution of male vs. female shooting perpetrators can hardly be said to justify the use of the feminine. Quite the opposite, really.
Parent
what if (Score:2, Funny)
Or, conversely (Score:3, Funny)
Re:what if (Score:3, Informative)
They look like a turret, and we're told they're bullet proof and even work with a silencer.
Then again they have cameras that give you $90 tickets for trying to go through a yellow light.
I wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
Seems a great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Why?
Doesn't seem like a bad idea to know who's shooting who - don't you think?
Re:Seems a great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
These people are in public areas, presumably. No spying would be involved.
it adopts the principle of guilty before proven innocent
I could see this case if (1) they were actually 'spying' and (2) if it was humans doing it rather than a computer system defined specifically to look for ILLEGAL ACTIONS, and the system has proven to be ACCURATE.
It is illegal to fire a weapon in the city. I don't see a problem with a system designed to report a fired weapon, record video of the person firing it, and calling for help.
Protecting citizens from violence is one of the very few jobs the federal government is actually SUPPOSED to be doing, according to the Constitution.
Under a just system of law, individuals are innocent until proven guilty.
I wasn't aware that this system was finding anyone guilty? That is still done in a court of law.
Parent
Re:Seems a great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, what do you call surreptitiously observing peoples activities, then? Video taping an unaware couple making out in a park isn't spying? Yes, it is a public place and therefore I could be being watched at any time. That does not mean it is acceptable to me to actually be watched all the time. If you disagree, then why don't you just stick a transmitter on yourself whenever you leave the house so the government can track you at all times -- but only when you're in public! That makes it okay!
a computer system defined specifically to look for ILLEGAL ACTIONS, and the system has proven to be ACCURATE.
And what is this system doing for all the time that there aren't any gunshots going off? The "system" may be for detecting gun shots, but it's still a moveable camera and a microphone. So they blanket a few neighborhoods with these -- are the LAPD going to be happy with just passively waiting for the system to identify gunshots, or are they going to want to expand what they can do with their new camera/microphone network? Hint: Only one answer is consistent with the history of law enforcement.
In the article, you should postpend every statement on what the system doesn't do with "... yet." Tracking limited amounts of speech, certain "alarm signal" words, wouldn't be a huge addition to the system and with microphones everywhere... think an Echelon or Carnivore for meatspace. But now that I think about it, my emails and phone calls travel on wires over public property, so I guess it's no big deal if the government listens in on that either.
Parent
Re:Seems a great idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Aceeptable to you? Perhaps not. Legal? Certainly.
3 cheers for senile judges.
Re:Seems a great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps you can point out the passage, I haven't found it yet.
I always thought that was a responsibility of the state. In this case it should be O.K. since the city is the one setting it up and the state prosecutes.
How did this become a federal issue?
Parent
Re:Seems a great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Who said anything about spying? This system is well known and out in the open. By this logic, photo radar and red-light cameras should be banned, because they "spy" on driver behaviours.
Now, if the government was secretly monitoring specific people it felt were "dangerous", but haven't yet committed a crime, I'd have a problem. But this system most certainly doesn't fit that definition.
it adopts the principle of guilty before proven innocent.
Oooh, pulling out the strawman... nice...
This principle is immoral, corrupt, unjust, and backwards.
And there you go, knocking it down. Well done, but you failed to actually make a point.
Under a just system of law, individuals are innocent until proven guilty.
Very true. Of course, the idea that this system deviates from that principle is a matter of opinion rather than fact.
Parent
Re:Seems a great idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, I think what the original poster was trying to say is that once a system like that is in place, its uses may "vary" a little from its intital "sold to the public as" message.
They already said that the designer of this device has worked on speech detection devices as well. Who's to say that after this system is installed, a nice happy firmware upgrade is done, and now the system listens for key words such as: murder, shoot, kill, government, president, etc etc...
The American people should be up in arms over systems like this, and the red light and speed cameras as well. It encourages abuse of the system and promotes lazy and dishonest law enforcement.
And do we need an example of dishonest and lazy law enforcement: In the mid 1970s, three women were raped, sodomized and beaten in their home for 14 hours, regardless of the repeated phone calls made to police by the women any chance they got. What did the police department have to say about this: Warren v District of Columbia: "A government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services such as police protection to any particular individual".
Nice... This is the same government that wants to increase its revenue with speed and red-light cameras, and prevent you from defending yourself with firearms.
Parent
Re:Seems a great idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I think what the original poster was trying to say is that once a system like that is in place, its uses may "vary" a little from its intital "sold to the public as" message.
Which is, of course, why you have public oversight of these things. It's not like the cops work under a cloak of secrecy... their actions are there to be scrutinized, and should be.
They already said that the designer of this device has worked on speech detection devices as well.
So? As many others have pointed out, thi
Innocent, yet harassed/intimidated/coerced. Great. (Score:3, Insightful)
When the watchers are the only ones with access to the results of a given surveillance technology, nobody can watch the watchers to see whether they're abusing it.
BZZT! Wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the police and/or government are also responsible for defining which activities are illegal, and are increasingly oriented toward keeping their own actions secret [msn.com] in the name of 'security'. There is quite literally no public accountability for much of the security apparatus closing into place right before our eyes, and when even a congresswoman is unable to obtain t
Meanwhile, out in Comptom (Score:5, Funny)
So many kinds of guns to choose from.... (Score:4, Funny)
Keeping score (Score:3, Funny)
The LAPD has also promised a speedy patch to adress the widespread camera control issues in the first release.
Good or bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
Over all I think it's a good idea but it will be exploited so I can't support it fully, even though I'd like to.
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's Hoping (Score:4, Funny)
M
Bay Area Scam (Score:5, Interesting)
As I recall it turned out that the company doing this was closely affiliated with one of the local politicos and the system was basically bunk. I don't remember how it all played out, but maybe someone else out there does?
Right then. (Score:5, Funny)
Machine sounds are the only ones in SENTRI's vocabulary. It cannot eavesdrop on conversations, the scientist emphasized.
...because we're not done coding that yet, you've got at least another few years.
The not too distant future... (Score:4, Funny)
*Directional Finder*: 1) TRIANGULATING... 2) AIMING... 3) FIRING BULLET!
Man on street: "Allah *BAM* Ackkkkkkbahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhrr!!gurgl..lee..l.
SCENE 2
Woman on street whispers to friend: "I hate that dumb idiot Bush"
*Directional Finder*: 1) TRIANGULATING... 2) AIMING... 3) FIRING MIND CONTROL BEAM!
Woman on street whispers to friend: "I.... I... love Bush... and I love Jesus, SUVs, large corporations, and I agree with the righteousness of preemptively saving the rest of the world from themselves and their oil. Let's go shopping."
Why so long? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why so long to get a system like this produced?
Put it in Iraq attached to a machine gun, calibrated to shoot at the sound of an AK-47 not an M16. Since it seems to be able to tune out other explosive noises why not refine it ever further to just a certain gun type?
The device is listening for the entire sound pattern of the gunshot, not just the initial explosion, which makes it much less likely to mistake other loud noises for shooting.
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, no, it doesn't. The fact that the guy has worked on different types of signal processing doesn't "suggest" that he builds those capacities into every project he touches.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Funny)
Limitations (Score:5, Funny)
Multiple sources (Score:3, Insightful)
I can see that camera jumping back and forth trying to catch each shot.
What about silencers/suppressors? (Score:3, Informative)
Fine, so it detects the sound. Minimize the volume of the sound, or change the profile of that sound, and the shot becomes less-likely to be detected. A suppressor would help in the former, but I'm not sure about the latter (any experts?).
Suppressors are not difficult to manufacture [yahoo.com], after all, although it's a felony to do so (or to possess one), in violation of the 1934 National Firearms Act...
Predictions:
1) monitoring devices get destroyed and/or hacked, and/or
2) suppressors increase in popularity, and/or
3) alternate means of killing (knives, swords, blowguns, etc.) increase in popularity
or,
4) nothing changes, except more shooters are detected
Anyway, just because the microphone's input is piped to a neural-net program which detects gunshots does not mean the input cannot *also* be outputted to a file, or to speakers on a computer, etc..
multiple shootings? (Score:3, Funny)
a wrong direction (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm... Let me guess, the south side of Chicago and Compton?
Rather than looking for pro-active solutions to lowering crime in lower-income neighborhoods, like good education systems, quality health-care, living wages, etc. we continue to see crazy-ass reactive schemes like the above camera system that don't do anything to solve the real problems. In the meantime, as these useless systems become the norm, our society moves closer and closer to the ultimate police heaven, where everyone is monitored every second of every day. When's it gonna end?
Hey, golly-gee-whiz, it sure is a neat technology, Wally.
But like most things of that sort, no one's actually thought about how it actually makes things better, or how it can make things worse. So you catch a few people shooting guns, so what? They end up in jail, their families get torn apart, their chances of actually becoming a productive part of society diminish and they end up back on the street shooting a gun again, which is caught on camera, etc. etc. etc. Wow, crime sure is decreasing now.
It's nice to talk about being tough on crime, but oftentimes what's really needed is not the cracking of a whip, or the monitoring of a camera, but rather a signature on a diploma, or on a paycheck. If you start suspecting everyone as a criminal, then they start seeing themselves as criminals and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you first look at people as raw material that can be shaped and molded into something productive, well, you see what I'm getting at.
I'm getting sick of reading about high-tech crime monitoring systems, but it's appearing to be inevitable that we will live with them in our daily lives now and in the near future, so let me practice my indoctrination recitation:
"I for one, welcome our all-seeing camera overlords."
No, right direction (Score:3, Insightful)
There are those who are poor, but doing the best they can, trying to create a better life. Then there are those who see nothing wrong with shooting other people. The latter is more likely to be poor, but includes all classes. (drugs are often involved, but they don't have to be)
The first group is who we should help. They are best helped by allowing them to live their life in peace. Allowing their children to get an education. Allowing them to walk to work safely. While their schools might not be
Re:a wrong direction (Score:3, Insightful)
You talk about "poverty" like it's the brink of death. Poor people in America are growing fat. LITERALLY! They're overweight! They've got access to more calories per day than a person needs to consum
All this needs is Combat Robots! (Score:5, Funny)
As one currently working for a voice company (Score:5, Informative)
Also speech recognition knowledge is very different from speaker recognition (one cares about what the person says regardless of how they say it, the other cares about how they say it regardless of what it is). The mathematical models for both are very different.
Also the microphones are likely specialized in the wrong frequency/volume range to be useful for speaker authentication.
prior art (Score:4, Informative)
I did this in school.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone would clap 15-30 feet away, and the computer pointed the laser pointer at their hands. We got the position within a foot or so, even in a echoing cinder block room.
Insights:
- You need at least 4 mics to get an object's position. (There are 4 degrees of freedom, x, y, z, and time) If you only need the angle, then you need 3 (for time, theta, and phi).
- There are some places to shoot where due to the symmetries, it would be hard to compute a position. If the mics are arranged in a plane, then one problem area is straight out from the mic, normal to the plane.
- Another project group in my class developed a computer-controlled ball bearing cannon. I wish we had time to link the projects.
- Thermal variation in the air can disrupt your results.
- If you used well-tuned directional mics, you might be better off. Rather than compute the location based on the path-length of the sound to each mic, you could then find out the incident angle of the sound on each mic, based upon how much the sound level is reduced.
Bzzzt.. Wrong answer. (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit...
Redwood City CA has had this for eight years (Score:4, Informative)
Here's an evaluation. [ncjrs.org] Median location error is about 25 feet. That at least gets it down to two or three houses.
I met the designer of this system some years ago. The original prototype worked using microphones and hard-wired phone connections for each microphone. The signal from each microphone was transmitted using an analog FM carrier system over the phone line designed to trade frequency response for dynamic range. The system had terrible audio frequency response but huge dynamic range, so that pulse events like gunshots come through cleanly without overload. When you have enough dynamic range, gunfire is easy to recognize, because the leading edge of the pulse is so sharp. Few other sounds have that form.
The microphones are up on telephone poles and atop buildings, and they're omnidirectional. So they mostly pick up loud bangs, wind, and aircraft noise. The original pole units were entirely analog, phone line powered, and very dumb. The original central processing system was a PC with some data acquisition cards running LabView. Since then, it's become fancier, with better integration with mapping programs and transmission of gunfire locations to PDA-type devices. But it's not really very complicated.
Re:Redwood City CA has had this for eight years (Score:3, Informative)
A banger or a car backfire miss the Swoosh.
tech review covered this a month ago. (Score:3, Informative)