FBI and Police Installing Spy Equipment on Rooftops

by Swan | January 27, 2008 at 09:15 am

2200 views | 24 Recommendations | 9 comments

Coming out of the FBI is news of a private sector crime fighting technology named ShotSpotter. Though it sounds very much like Science Fiction, this new technology:

..... is a new crime-fighting tool that helps locate and track gunfire using “acoustic triangulation”—caused when sound waves are recorded at two or more locations.

In layman's terms, that means that the FBI are now able to track and pinpoint exactly where a shot came from, by installing sensors on top of buildings. This must definitely give them the edge against snipers.

The technology was suggested to the FBI by Special Agent Ron Chavarro, who had apparently heard of the technology elsewhere. I put the details into a search engine and got multiple listings, so ShotSpotter is widely available to anyone who cares to buy it - and if they have the money.

ShotSpotter costs police departments around USD$325,000, which includes the sensors placed on the top of buildings which are hooked up to a central computer. I'm sure this price varies, depending on the location, how many sensors are required and ease of installation.

What worries me about the technology being publicly available, is that terrorist technophiles would easily be able to reverse engineer the software and eventually be able to combat the way it works, by developing something else. I don't pretend to know exactly how the actual software works, but how difficult would it be to introduce something like a "scrambler" to distort the electronic information that the FBI receives?

ShotSpotter's first real public test-run, was conducted along I-270. It was only a matter of hours before the software registered the sound of gunfire. The data was so incredibly spot-on, that investigators were able to immediately recover shell casings from the shooting - which led to the arrest of Charles McCoy Jr.

Currently in America, (and very quietly installed,) there are now 27 cities protected by ShotSpotter;

82.7 total miles are protected by the software;
543,548 citizens are protected;
40 gunshots detected per night during December.

In Palo Alto, California, just earlier this month, Frost and Sullivan presented ShotSpotter for its "Innovative Gunshot Location System that Enhances Public Safety." Krishnakumar Srinivasan, a research analyst for Frost and Sullivan, said:

“Irresponsible firearm use is an increasing problem worldwide and ShotSpotter has been very successful at developing a proprietary technology that detects and locates gunshots in urban and war torn environments,”

So here's a couple of questions:
If the technology is so fantastic (I'm not questioning it,) why aren't the military using it in Iraq and other war zones? Surely it would save hundreds of lives there. A good example would be the current American/Iraqi war. Before taking over a town, could not a reconnaisance soldier, covertly install temporary sensors (that don't have to be removed,) before the rest of the Army moves in?

They could also carry a (smaller) central computer to immediately interpret the data and turn any snipers waiting for them, nto dust

In addition to providing the exact location of gunfire events, the system captures the actual audio of gunfire events heard by its sensors. This information allows dispatchers and law enforcement officers to have invaluable situational awareness prior to arriving at the crime scene. Additional information available to dispatchers, patrol officers, and investigators include the number of shots fired, the number of shooters, and moving speed of the shooters if they are in motion.

There are numerous police departments and County Sheriffs' Departments that have now endorsed ShotSpotter. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually, they are placed in high crime areas all over the States.

Very impressive are the patent-protected technologies not available anywhere else, which include:

* Low Sensor Density – ShotSpotter’s patented spatial filter technology makes ShotSpotter the only company to offer sensor densities lower than 25 sensors per square mile. (In fact, ShotSpotter systems generally use only eight to twelve sensors per square mile.) No other company can offer a sensor network with fewer than 25 sensors per square mile. And sensor density is critical, not only for the speed and ease of installation and low cost, but also for accuracy.

* GPS-Synchronized Sensors – ShotSpotter holds patents on GPS-integrated gunshot detection sensor. This key advance allows ShotSpotter users to “install and forget” sensors—with no difficult surveyor’s tools, external GPS devices, or data entry required. Moreover, because the clocks in GPS-enabled devices are accurate to 20 nanoseconds or less, ShotSpotter sensors are always precisely time-synchronized, thereby eliminating the time-consuming and costly task of time-calibrating disparate arrays of sensors.

Even more impressive is that the product is easily able to distinguish shots from other noises that can sound like gunshots; such as car backfires; bottle rockets and even nail guns have confused past witnesses who thought it was gunfire.

If you want to be even more impressed, read this report coming out of Wired, which describes how Stanley Bai, a computer programmer with ShotSpot rode with Officer Dadgar on his shift in Oakland, to first test the software. The officer describes how there had been "a shooting spree on pretty much every block we just passed." Scary stuff.

It was in that article that I found a reference to their mobile version of the gunshot-location system, so yes it seems I was on target - the Army can definitely make good use of ShotSpot. It really is a very good article.

You might also enjoy this article from Jolt at the UCLA Journal of Law and Technology.

This statement coming from police in Gary, Indiana is high praise for the product:

“As fast as bullets went into the air, we were arresting shooters.”

Even people on the street (see in one of the movies,) are saying how much safer they feel with the sensors installed in their area. I know that I would too.

If you'd like to see exactly how ShotSpotter works, you'll probably be interested in one of the short movie explanations (to the right.)

When I've finished this article, I'll be uploading a few movies to do with this amazing crime fighting technology - so if they're not visible here (on the right) yet, they'll still be uploading to Now Public.

Sources:

FBI

ShotSpotter

Frost and Sullivan on ShotSpotter

Wired

Jolt: UCLA Journal of Law and Technology - by Christopher Benjamin

Image Sources:

ShotSpotter

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Jordan Yerman

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:17 on January 27th, 2008

An active war zone would have too much gunfire noise for something like this to really be useful: ShtoSPotter seems to assume a single weapon in an otherwise "peaceful" environment. I wonder what else such a network can be tuned to track; i.e. what's the sound threshhold before something becomes inaudible to the system? I'm sure they wouldn't post such data, but its pertinent towards gauging its ultimate reach.

Swan

at 10:28 on January 27th, 2008

Hello Jordan,

Actually I agree with you. But I remember early in the Iraqi war, watching soldiers viewing a very quiet town, where they expected to find someone high up in al-Qaida. As six soldiers (reconnaissance) moved quietly into the town, two were picked off by a sniper.

I think it's in these situations where it could help. Example: the other soldiers would have the mobile central computer and would have been able to triangulate the position of the sniper. They could have taken care of him first, instead of losing a further reconnaissance soldier that went into the town immediately afterwards.

As it is though, it's use in crime filled cities alone is worth the $350,000 it costs to get it in place.
~ Swan

John Astad

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 11:52 on January 27th, 2008

Great stuff! Enjoyed all the links that you provided with additional information

cynthia yoo

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 13:01 on January 27th, 2008

Great work.

Swan

at 13:32 on January 27th, 2008

Hello Watermon and Cynthia,

Thank you for the flags and comments, it's great to know that I've presented a story that's interesting to people. I'm thrilled that it's also the top story today, on the front page!

Have a great day!
~ Swan

Albert Milliron

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 14:44 on January 27th, 2008

Swan, very good work on a complecated issue. We used to trianglate radio frequencies in Alaska for search and rescue operations. Two receivers are good, but the more, the better. The mutiliple shot and weapons thing could work. I mean we have multi channel per carrier televison were we only had scpc, one channel, now. I could go on.. communications is one of my things as well. Swan, like I said good work on a difficult subject.

Swan

at 18:50 on January 27th, 2008

Hello Politisite,

Thank you for your comments and flag!

I believe it could work too, it would be pretty useless if it could only be used in single shot environments.
~ Swan

kodiakphoto

at 15:58 on January 28th, 2008

I believe the scenario with the recon soldiers would not have worked well. A team would have had to deploy prior to the recon team (could have done the recon themselves) to install the equipment but might have failed due to the existing sniper threat. Then there is the situation of a team of "foreigners" roving around buildings installing equipment. This would likely arouse local interest either friendly or hostile. I assume there is some sort of power requirement that would rely either on batteries or directly tied into some existing power source. It seems this technology lends itself better to areas that are already held and allow at least sporadic access to the equipment for maintenance.

Swan

at 16:50 on January 28th, 2008

Hello Kodiak,

Thank you for your comments.

I was actually curious about this one, so I double checked the ShotSpotter web site and foundsome interesting information:

US Joint Forces Command Tests UAV, Gunshot Detection Capabilities in Urban Environments

US Joint Forces Command Worked to Test Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Gunshot
Detection and Interoperation Capabilities in Urban Environments as Part
of a U.S. Marine Corps Exercise in Louisiana.

One of the primary goals for the experiment
involved the testing ShotSpotter, an acoustic locating system that cues
a UAV sensor to locate an enemy when he fires a weapon, whether on a
battlefield or in an urban environment.

"Initial data shows that the capability was fairly well integrated with a
reasonable accuracy, when sensors keyed into the firing location within
the field of view of the sensor," said Roberts. "This allows early
detection of the location of enemy forces and the identification of
those forces."

"This helps lead warfighters to bring in assets to engage the target."