Gunshot Tracking Cameras to be Deployed in LA 480
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."
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)
Re:Response Time (Score:2)
But the first time an undercover LAPD officer is involved in a shooting during the course of an ongoing investigation, I'm sure you'll be the first to demand that his identity be revealed.
Re:Response Time (Score:2, Interesting)
More likely it depends on the time it takes to slew a camera or three around to point at the source. If they've got 3 cameras per sensor, then each camera would only have to rotate +/- 60 degrees - which doesn't seem like much.
As for gunshots, I'd wager that it wouldn't take 2 seconds for the system to recognize them. And I'd be willing to bet more on the fact that most gang-bangers are stupid enough to hang around for the few seconds it would take for the system to recognize and lock in on them. I mean, i
Re:Response Time (Score:2)
But why would you want to fool it into thinking you fired a shot? So you can be arrested for shooting a gun? Surely people would rather try NOT to get picked up by the device.
I guess FPS game developers can use one of these to create realistic gunshot sounds.
Hmmm I think it would be easier just to do what they already do, and simply record real gunshot sounds.
Re:Response Time (Score:2)
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.
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.
Re:This system would have been useful in 1984. (Score:2)
1984 huh...what an appropriate year for this subject!
Bullshit (Score:2)
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:2)
You know, the ones with a kevlar liner that can stop bullets and mind control.
Re:Seems a great idea (Score:2)
Re:Seems a great idea (Score:2)
Your analogy is not really valid because if I wanted to, I could not go out and set up my own cameras on public property. The government can, though, but even though they are using public money to place public devices in public places, I am denied access to the data they gather.
Personally I feel that if I had access to the data these things gather that there woul
Re:Seems a great idea (Score:2)
Your concern is, in principle, a fine thing. But keep in mind that Policemen of Good Will have some thoroughly legitimate reasons to keep secrets, and civilization depends in part on their ability to do so.
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
Re:Seems a great idea (Score:2)
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.
Re:Seems a great idea (Score:2)
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
Meanwhile, out in Comptom (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Meanwhile, out in Comptom (Score:2)
Along those lines, am I to believe that groups of people wouldn't burn the sound of a bunch of gunshots onto a CD, pop it in & punch play on their ludicrously loud car stereo system, stand on the opposite side of the street, and merrily shoot someone?
If the article addresses that, don't blame me - I can't be bothered with reading it.
So many kinds of guns to choose from.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:So many kinds of guns to choose from.... (Score:2)
Keeping score (Score:3, Funny)
The LAPD has also promised a speedy patch to adress the widespread camera control issues in the first release.
GTA (Score:2)
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:2)
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?
Re:Bay Area Scam (Score:2, Informative)
Stupid idea. (Score:2, Insightful)
*puts on tinfoil hat*
Big Brother is watching!
Re:Stupid idea. (Score:2)
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.
What about crappy cars? (Score:2, Funny)
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."
Re:The not too distant future... (Score:2)
This was in a game (Score:2)
Re:This was in a game (Score:2)
Re:This was in a game (Score:2)
Hello, paranoid much? (Score:2)
Right... so, surprise surprise, this guy has done research in speech recognition, an area likely quite related to the job of recognizing gunshots, and so somehow we must assume that this system is going to be used to spy on the general public? Damn... Slashdot is getting worse than FOX for just making things up in order to add some sensationalism to its sto
Re:Hello, paranoid much? (Score:2)
Re:Hello, paranoid much? (Score:2)
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.
Re:Why so long? (Score:2)
There's a lot of variables that can affect the sound of a fired weapon -- buildings, humidity, distance. If a sentry was set to auto-fire, it could accidentally target friendlies, which would be a Very Bad Thing.
The obvious solution is to make the sentry only target the noise, without actually firing. Have a camera mounted to the gun mount so the operator can select whether to shoot or not.
I thought of th
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)
Pair this with a computer controlled rifle... (Score:2)
(irony)
Seems like these could be deployed all over the place then. They'd be useful in Iraq
(/irony)
Of course, some technology shouldnt be done just because ITS POSSIBLE..
Re:Pair this with a computer controlled rifle... (Score:2)
Indeed.
I'd go so far as to configure it to automatically kill *anyone* who fires a gun in Iraq.
Within a week or so, problem solved;
no more gun-wielding terrorists and no more gun-wielding soldiers.
Its a win win situation.
Old Tech (Score:2)
Limitations (Score:5, Funny)
Multiple sources (Score:3, Insightful)
I can see that camera jumping back and forth trying to catch each shot.
Re:Multiple sources (Score:2)
Re:Multiple sources (Score:2)
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..
Re:What about silencers/suppressors? (Score:2)
Re:What about silencers/suppressors? (Score:2)
Just ban the GUNS!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
!!!
multiple shootings? (Score:3, Funny)
I fail to see why this helps (Score:2)
Multi-point acoustic locating (Score:2)
Pole-mounted cameras could be pivoted and focussed within 5 seconds, but nobody may be identifiable from that angle, the vehicle will be gone, or there may be visual obstructions. Still a help to police, other than on New Years!
Re:Multi-point acoustic locating (Score:2)
If they have really solved that problem, then they are really good. So good one has to wonder why they don't talk about it in generic non-secret technology revealing terms
The sample signals I saw on one of detection systems mfrs websites were either dry labbed or done out in the open. In the real world, acoustic signals with multiple paths from echos get messy. Very messy.
Re:Multi-point acoustic locating (Score:2)
bogosity alert (Score:2)
Yes, his "previous research" suggests that his new claims are just as bogus as his old claims.
Lo-tech solution to Hi-tech problem (Score:2, Funny)
Not to mention any potential problem they have with backfiring cars...
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."
Re:a wrong direction (Score:2)
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.
Ob. Simpson's reference. (Score:2)
Put the sucker in space (Score:2)
Funny, I invented this last week.. (Score:2)
The same idea, diversely located sensors with precise clocks, listen for a sharp sound and communicate by radio to determine arrival times and triangulate the source.
My version used GPS for timing and positioning, and allowed the sensors to be mobile. When a shot was detected, the relative location would be shown on the helmet-mounted display(s) of security officers who could then neutralize the shooter.
Friendly guns could chirp RF "don't-detect-me" messa
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)
Re:I thought they already have this? (Score:2, Informative)
"A microphone surveillance system now is using his insights to recognize - instantly, and with high accuracy - the sound of a gunshot within a two-block radius. The system can then locate, precisely, where the shot was fired, turn a camera to center the shooter in the camera viewfinder and make a 911 call to a central police station."
So, this system can l
The difference... (Score:2, Informative)
This soulds a bit like a neural net. I know of neural nets taking a FFT and being able to tell one jet engine from another (eg. 747 vs 727) or a Toyota engine vs a VW or an accoustic return from a box vs a sphere.
Gunshot signatures could be quite easy to decipher since a pistol sounds different to a shotgun or rifle and a subsonic (eg. .45 APC) sounds different to a supersonic (eg. 9mm). However the sound does get filtered and some componen
Re:Computer games (Score:2)
Re:A better solution. (Score:2)