From: Eric Murray <ericm@lne.com>
To: JonWienk@ix.netcom.com
Message Hash: ef26d26b28337c226643e122e7048cc626358da61a485356a3faa028dd3f0197
Message ID: <199711012030.MAA03169@slack.lne.com>
Reply To: <3.0.3.32.19971101101925.006eb57c@popd.netcruiser>
UTC Datetime: 1997-11-01 20:46:02 UTC
Raw Date: Sun, 2 Nov 1997 04:46:02 +0800
From: Eric Murray <ericm@lne.com>
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 1997 04:46:02 +0800
To: JonWienk@ix.netcom.com
Subject: Re: Technology 'secures' gunfire [CNN]
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19971101101925.006eb57c@popd.netcruiser>
Message-ID: <199711012030.MAA03169@slack.lne.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Jonathan Wienke writes:
>
> ----==--=----===--===--==---==-====--==--=-=----=-
> Mime-Version: 1.0
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>
> At 09:06 PM 10/31/97 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
> >Forwarded message:
> >
> >> TECHNOLOGY 'SECURES' GUNFIRE IN THE CITY
> >>
> >> Secures October 31, 1997
> >> Web posted at: 4:44 p.m. EST (2144 GMT)
> >>
> >> ARLINGTON, Virginia (CNN) -- If you heard gunshots ring out in your
> >> neighborhood, you might be able to tell the general direction they
> >> came from. And if you happened to glance at your watch, you could
> >> say about what time. In maybe a minute, if you were so inclined, you
> >> could call the police to report it.
> >>
> >> Now police have an electronic witness that can provide similar
> >> assistance: a device called SECURES that pinpoints the time and
> >> location of gunshots.
>
> This would be a network of microphones and processing stations which could
> perform a reverse-GPS location analysis of sounds picked up by 3 or more
> microphones. (Sounds common to 2 microphones could be localized with a
> lower degree of accuracy if directional microphone arrays are used.) Yet
> another instance of Big Brother technology that is of limited value to the
> police. Of course, this means that you will have the police responding to
> every backfiring car, which will dampen their enthusiasm for responding
> unless full-auto fire or a prolonged gunfight is overheard.
They've been testing this in the city I live in. The police got
the company who makes it to set it up as a demo.
There's a significant area of town in which most of the residents
are mexican, and they have a habit of firing guns in the air on
important holidays. The gunshot locator was installed primarily for
tracking down such shooters.
It turns out that it doesn't work very well- when the demo came up or
review, the police said that they didn't want to buy the system, because
it can't tell the difference between a gunshot and a car backfire and
the cops were wasting time searching for non-existent 'gunfire'.
There was an outcry from the citizenry- evidently the gunshot locator
made them "feel safer" although even the cops claim its ineffective.
The sheeple prevailed, and the city council coughed up the money to buy it.
--
Eric Murray Chief Security Scientist N*Able Technologies www.nabletech.com
(email: ericm at lne.com or nabletech.com) PGP keyid:E03F65E5
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