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Comment by Jach | Hacker News Reader

I think you need to make a convincing argument that vandalism will be a problem. Paraphrasing from The Information, pg 144, there was also that concern when Morse and Vail set up their wires wrapped in yarn on 20-foot posts. Morse told Congress they could transmit 30 characters per minute and he also told them that the lines had "remained undisturbed from the wantonness or evil disposition of any one." There is even more ample opportunity for domestic terrorism and destruction of things in the US today yet things seem okay.

Of course if the UAVs did start getting destroyed, it's not a stretch of imagination to think about how they could be protected...

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Drug dealers and gangbangers aren't stupid. If they see the cops installing these things it's only a matter of time before they'll find out what they are and start vandalizing or destroying them.

From the sound of it, if there's enough crime for these things to be cost effective then there are enough criminals around for somebody to get rid of the shot detectors.

I don't think the comparison to telegraph lines really makes sense. If telegram lines were used solely for reporting crime it would be a better analogy.

Every high-crime neighborhood in Chicago is studded with cameras with flashing blue lights. The enclosures are hardened. Destruction of CPD cameras has not been a major issue in the city. If the city can keep cameras operational, they can keep acoustic sensors (smaller, no line-of-sight requirements) secure as well.

My guess (just a guess) is that the "criminals will destroy the sensors" concern is totally overblown.

Well, my comment was specifically directed towards the idea of a UAV first responder system. It's not hard to imagine ways that the detection system itself can be hardened (or hidden).

I heard about pissed of people in the UK putting a tire over a speed / red light camera post and lighting it on fire. Tires are harder to extinguish than your typical fire and it's usually too late before it can be put out. Eventually it becomes unprofitable for the third party contractor to stay there and they start going away.

You can put a tire over a speed camera without your picture being taken by it and instantly transmitted off-site.

It happens but not that frequently.

You don't need to destroy them to make them ineffective. Just find a way to produce a high number of false positives legally. Or hell, get 10 mates to fire some shots in 10 different locations while you make your hit.

Or use a silencer.

I think you greatly misunderstand what a suppressor actually does on a firearm.

what do you mean? I know how silencer (sound suppressor) works and I know (and was shooting) a gun which doesn't require a suppressor. The latter one makes no noise AT ALL, except for the mechanics.

> Drug dealers and gangbangers aren't stupid.

Dispute the premise.

The head capos might have some smarts, in a cunning sort of way. But the footsoldiers and unaffiliated who get into gunfights on public streets? Not so smart. Disorganized American urban criminals aren't at the level of Al-Qaeda or the Mafia.

Presumably the drug _dealers_, who are more likely to be on the receiving end of violence in their own neighborhoods, are going to want to keep those shot detectors unmolested.

"I think you need to make a convincing argument that vandalism will be a problem."

I think if the people having shoot outs are so brazen that they can do this and people aren't necessarily reporting them it's not a stretch to think that they will, just for fun, attempt to shoot down a UAV. Wearing a mask or course to protect their identity. Or try to damage it while it sits up on the pole with a rock etc. (Although I guess it could be protected from that fairly easily).

Assuming these people did add UAV monitoring (a leap), and assuming a UAV was dispatched to every report of gunfire (another leap), it doesn't matter if the assailants shoot it down because they already know where the gunshot was and, with a decent response time (another leap), officers can be there in minutes.

I don't know what thugs do for fun. I don't see why shooting a UAV would be any more fun or wise than taking an axe or chainsaw to a telephone pole to cut the power of a block you intend to commit a crime in. (Plus if you know what the UAVs are for, you know that your shooting will be heard and police can have a very short response time just from that. Add in redundant UAVs that fly higher and faster, you're not getting away.)

Another form of protection: they'd be less likely to shoot at something that shoots back. (Good luck making that legal for a private company though, even if the UAV managed 99% non-lethal accuracy!)

I think UAVs are impractical for other reasons (why not just put cameras everywhere instead of a fewer number of mobile cameras?), but I still don't think they'd be that much more a target for destruction than the electrical grid.

"I don't see why shooting a UAV would be any more fun "

Doesn't have to be the thug shooting it down. Can be a pain in the ass bystander in the hood or someone with a baseball or rock. Have you ever seen kids who throw sneakers up over electrical pole wires in the inner city?

"they'd be less likely to shoot at something that shoots back."

Absolutely positively not going to happen.

> If you know what the UAVs are for, you know that your shooting will be heard..

If only there was a device which could be affixed to the barrel of a pistol which could reduce the decibel level associated with the firing process... ;)

Huh. I'm pretty sure that shooting down a UAV would be fun, and I'm not even a criminal.

I know of army units that have a machine-gun-the-RC-planes day for fun.

Not really the best analogy: telegraph/phone lines sit there passively and pose no apparent immediate danger, while the aforementioned UAVs would present an active threat to wrongdoers’ wrongdoing and thus become targets...

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