this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2025
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/50110241

Flock Safety, the police technology company most notable for their extensive network of automated license plate readers spread throughout the United States, is rolling out a new and troubling product that may create headaches for the cities that adopt it: detection of “human distress” via audio. As part of their suite of technologies, Flock has been pushing Raven, their version of acoustic gunshot detection. These devices capture sounds in public places and use machine learning to try to identify gunshots and then alert police—but EFF has long warned that they are also high powered microphones parked above densely-populated city streets. Cities now have one more reason to follow the lead of many other municipalities and cancel their Flock contracts, before this new feature causes civil liberties harms to residents and headaches for cities.

top 37 comments
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[–] Johnmannesca@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I always knew one day rap music would probably put me on a list

[–] redsand@lemmy.dbzer0.com 56 points 5 days ago (5 children)

Should be fun flooding these with false positives and adversarial noise.

[–] TootSweet@lemmy.world 24 points 5 days ago (3 children)
  • Get an old MP3 player. And speakers.
  • Grab the audio from horror, action, gangster, etc movies.
  • Make audio files with long periods (hours) of silence punctuated with about 2 minutes of screams and gunshots here and there.
  • Go to the location of a Flock microphone with the MP3 player loaded with audio files, speakers, and a trowel.
  • Bury the whole thing shallow and hit play.
[–] extremeboredom@lemmy.world 16 points 5 days ago (7 children)
  • Flock starts using Content ID match to filter out false positives from all known recorded media
[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 20 points 4 days ago

Enter AI for its first white hat job...

[–] Sonicdemon86@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Then use your own voice and gun to make sure Content ID doesn't work.

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 4 points 4 days ago

and gun

😆😭

[–] TootSweet@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Then Flock goes deaf any time someone drives up with moderately loud music playing on their car stereo.

[–] redsand@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago

Adversarial noise

Type to hire a voice actor

thanks for the AV

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Play a game with complex audio simulation and go wild for a bit. May not be 100 percent but it may be variable enough to cause it. If you can't find a game with such a thing, look at the Fallout NV and 4 Nexus modders are batshit.

You made me realize that maybe Home Alone prepared an entire generation for the day we would have to fight dangerous but comically dumb criminals invading our home.

One of the dumbest IRL bad guys even made a cameo.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 3 points 3 days ago

"Keep the change, ya filthy animal!"

(Old timey Thompson pew pew pew sounds)

[–] whiwake@lemmy.cafe 7 points 5 days ago

Or destroy it

[–] Cassanderer@thelemmy.club 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They are already well known for false positives on gunshots.

[–] BanMe@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

My city just ended their contract with our shot spotter company because it hasn't made anyone safer but has resulted in a ton of mistaken dispatches. People know they can fire a gun and simply walk away, it'll be 10, 20 minutes before police roll by. Who cares?

[–] Skyrmir@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

Great, we're gonna go from idiots blasting heavy bass, to idiots blasting anime porn sound tracks around the neighborhood.

[–] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago

Anywhere children are present...

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago

Maybe this guy was doing a public service.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lVUuuuJU7c

[–] ganymede@lemmy.ml 9 points 4 days ago

oh look, the thing they told us would never happen when this shit was installed

the creep is real.

thought for the day: is thin wedge always a fallacy when it's always fucking coming true?

[–] AlecSadler@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 4 days ago (2 children)

What do these devices look like? I'm happy to just put really loud white noise machines right next to them.

[–] EtherWhack@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

Like a little black satellite speaker with a solar panel plugged into it.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Applying a good-sized ball-peen hammer or a vise grip would be more effective, and more costly to them.

[–] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

And be careful not to use a bad-sized one

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 23 points 5 days ago

Flock Safety, the police technology company most notable for their extensive network of automated license plate readers spread throughout the United States, is rolling out a new and troubling product that may create headaches for the cities that adopt it: detection of “human distress” via audio. As part of their suite of technologies, Flock has been pushing Raven, their version of acoustic gunshot detection. These devices capture sounds in public places and use machine learning to try to identify gunshots and then alert police—but EFF has long warned that they are also high powered microphones parked above densely-populated city streets. Cities now have one more reason to follow the lead of many other municipalities and cancel their Flock contracts, before this new feature causes civil liberties harms to residents and headaches for cities.

[–] solrize@lemmy.ml 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Cities now have one more reason to follow the lead of many other municipalities and cancel their Flock contracts

If it's legal to install that stuff at all, it's unlikely to stay left up to the cities. You have to expect that if someone (e.g. federal govt) wants it deployed, it will go in everywhere whether the cities want it or not.

Cancelling contracts at the local level is useless in the long run. The stuff has to be banned by legislation.

[–] FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That’s just incorrect, the majority of these are run by local governments.

[–] solrize@lemmy.ml 7 points 5 days ago

That's NOW. As the stuff becomes cheaper and the voice recognition becomes more powerful, it will keep expanding like a corrosive gas.

[–] Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 days ago

has to be banned by legislation

The list of things that the legislature needs to do is a mile high, but things will only get worse and not better as long as fascists are running the show.

[–] sramder@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Personal white noise generators?

[–] extremeboredom@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago (2 children)

You misspelled flamethrowers.

[–] Blumpkinhead@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I like the cut of your jib.

[–] sramder@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Awesome 😎

[–] blargle@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] sramder@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

You may be confused about the way that microphones work ;-)

I’m expecting the barcode license plates any day now after Ben Jordans adversarial noise video.

[–] thatradomguy@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago