Nuffing.com – Page 619 – Just another WordPress site

October 30, 2014

Vermont’s Automatic License Plate Readers: 7.9 Million Plates Captured, Five Crimes Solved

The sales pitch for automatic license plate readers is how great they are at helping cops solve crimes. From hunting down stolen cars to tracking pedophiles across jurisdictions, ALPRs supposedly make policing a breeze by gathering millions of time/date/location records every single day and making it all available to any law enforcement agency willing to buy the software and pay the licensing fees.

The systems come with civil liberties baggage — privacy issues that aren’t completely articulable, at least not in terms of what the courts have held to contain sufficient expectations of privacy. A single photo of a car on a public road isn’t a privacy violation. But what about dozens or hundreds of photos that more resemble a passive tracking system than a set of public snapshots? That’s a bit more of a gray area — one that hasn’t been fully explored by the courts at this point. Adjacent decisions notwithstanding, ALPRs are mildly intrusive and have troubling implications due to their capabilities, but at this point, they still operate within the confines of the Constitution.

So, if civil liberties are still intact, what’s the next point of attack? Maybe it’s the alleged efficiency. Are law enforcement agencies getting their money’s worth?

It’s a trick question. First and foremost, it’s the public’s money paying for these. In many cases, DHS grants have paid for ALPRs, with local agencies name-checking terrorism and extremism to increase the odds of obtaining funds. Even when paid for out-of-pocket, it’s still the public footing the bill.

The systems aren’t cheap. And from what VPR (NPR Vermont) has uncovered, they’re not really worth the expense. (via Digital Fourth)

Over the past five years, law enforcement agencies in Vermont have invested more than $1 million in technology that gathers millions of data points every year about the whereabouts of vehicles across the state.

Yet even with the millions of scans, the system has not led to many arrests or breakthroughs in major criminal investigations, and it hasn’t led to an increase in the number of tickets written for the offenses the technology is capable of detecting.

No one sells a city council (or the general public) on the wonders of ALPRs by highlighting how many unregistered vehicles might be ticketed or pointing out other mundane traffic enforcement benefits they might provide. Probably just as well, considering these systems have had no discernible effect in these areas.

It’s the "big ticket" crimes that sell ALPRs and push them past the complaints of those concerned about citizens’ privacy and civil liberties. Kidnapping, auto theft, child pornographers, terrorism, etc. These are the sort of thing that put lead in legislators’ collective pencils, stirring them to approve funding or sign off on grant requests, and so on. How do Vermont’s ALPRs stack up against capital-C "crime?"

In the 18 months leading up to Jan. 1, 2013, the 61 license plate readers operating in the state at the time did a lot of recording. A VPR study of public information from local, state and federal law enforcement showed that during that time period, police across the state logged 7.9 million license plates and stored them in a central, statewide database along with the time and location they were scanned.

Despite the financial investment in the systems, they were helpful in solving fewer than five crimes in 2013. The number of tickets written for driving with a suspended license and driving with an expired registration (two violations that ALPRs can detect) hasn’t gone up since the technology was introduced in mid-2009.

Millions of plates. Five (5) crimes solved. Number of tickets issued flat.

So, what do you do? As a legislator who approved funding for this, do you accept this as part of the learning curve or do you demand more from the technology? Do you tell the public, "We appreciate your input but feel that a literal handful of successful criminal investigations far outweighs any privacy issues or budgetary concerns"?

An interview with an officer who uses the ALPR system adds some nuance to the discussion, including the fact that law enforcement’s civil liberties precautions contribute to the perceived inefficiency of the system. But underneath it all, it’s viewed as just another "tool" for local law enforcement to use, albeit one that can’t seem to pull its own weight. No one wants to say the equipment is non-essential or possibly redundant, but the officer interviewed (Sergeant Cram) makes this damning statement.

Despite the $25,000 tool, Cram says the majority of the Winooski Police Department’s traffic stops are still done the old-fashioned way, with officers stopping drivers for infractions like rolling through a stop sign or failing to yield at a crosswalk.

Still, Cram says the federally-funded ALPR is a valuable tool, even though he doesn’t think the city would have put up $25,000 of its own money to buy one.

The city wouldn’t have ended up with one if the DHS wasn’t giving them away. That’s how extraneous this "tool" is. The lack of successful criminal investigations backs this up. The fact that traffic enforcement has remained stagnant even with the addition of several million plate scans per year is the final nail in the coffin.

No one — at least not in Vermont — needs this technology. But if someone else is willing to pay, they’ll take it. And they’ll use it. And years down the road, they’ll likely still have nothing to show for it but a massive database tracking the movement of millions of non-criminals.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

via Techdirt.
Vermont’s Automatic License Plate Readers: 7.9 Million Plates Captured, Five Crimes Solved

October 30, 2014

Scare your neighbors with a spooky Halloween network name

Here’s how to give (or at least try to give) your network a little holiday chill.
via Ars Technica
Scare your neighbors with a spooky Halloween network name

October 29, 2014

This is the vault where KFC guards the Colonel’s secret original recipe

This is the vault where KFC guards the Colonel's secret original recipe

In a random hallway inside the KFC headquarters, inside their legal department, across from a copy machine, next to a shelf that stores three stacks of paper and possibly the saddest Keurig machine in existence is… a broom closet. Or well, that’s what it looks like. It’s actually the vault that hides KFC’s biggest secret: the Colonel’s Original Recipe.

Seriously.

KFC goes to extreme measures to keep the original recipe a secret (and to exploit the mystery for a big capital-M marketing ploy). Only one person in the world knows the combination for the safe and only two people know which 11 herbs and spices actually go into the Colonel’s secret recipe and how much of each. In fact, KFC purposely uses two different companies to make the recipe for them, one company does one part, the other company does the other and then a "computer processing system" blends it together. So secretive!

And yet they couldn’t even put a poster of, I don’t know, The Colonel on the wall or something. Or make it out of steel like a bank vault. Or at least, plug in the Keurig. Nope, the vault stays sad.

For what it’s worth, the safe is more intimidating than it looks. The security is layered like an onion. The sad, empty exterior hides thick cement walls, another safe and probably more security measures that might include lasers, sharks and or laser sharks. But still, dress it up a little! Have some fun! Hide it in a giant bucket of chicken. Or guard it with a thousand Colonel Sanders in Terra Cotta form. Basically anything but that blank wall.

To their credit, no one can find it because for one, it looks like every other wall and secondly, it means you have to step into the legal department of KFC:

This is the vault where KFC guards the Colonel's secret original recipe

Here’s what the previous vault that hid the original recipe looked like:

This is the vault where KFC guards the Colonel's secret original recipe

From Fort Knox to the set of Office Space.

Disclosure: KFC arranged for travel and accommodations to tour their kitchen and facilities at the KFC headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky as part of a KFC Insiders Event for the media.

SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

via Gizmodo
This is the vault where KFC guards the Colonel’s secret original recipe

October 29, 2014

You’ll Never Not Know What To Watch On Netflix Again

You'll Never Not Know What To Watch On Netflix Again

For everyone out there who’s spent a feature-length-film amount of time trying to find something good to watch: What Is On Netflix is about to seriously streamline your selection process. The site lists streamables, ranked in descending order based on their respective Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB scores. Yay!

You'll Never Not Know What To Watch On Netflix Again

How cool is this?? Reddit user BelgianMyWaffle posted about this cinematic accomplishment on the r/movies thread this morning and I think the best part is how varied the top results are, in terms of genre and year of release; for example, there’s a seamless run of Apocalypse Now to Jiro Dreams of Sushi to 20 Feet From Stardom, all ranked up at 99% on the Tomatometer and all ready to watch right this very moment. The rating Netflix imagines you’ll give its recommended titles is… not always accurate, even when you can compare it to its general average amount of stars, so these two, maybe-a-little-bit more authoritative takes are nice for perspective.

Sure, it’s a pretty bare-bones interface and there are some limitations—it’s not comprehensive, and doesn’t dip down into the lower-rated films—but for an at-a-glance decision-maker, it’s pretty freaking great.

This really, really makes me realize how much I need to hunker down and commit to seeing way, way more movies. Also: Has anyone done this for the AFI’s 100 years categories yet? C’mon! [What Is On Netflix, via Reddit and @nickbilton]

via Gizmodo
You’ll Never Not Know What To Watch On Netflix Again

October 29, 2014

76 Stunning Photos Of Fall Leaves

The leaves of fall are one of the most gorgeous gifts from nature. Every year, we ask you to share your best photo of the season. And as usual, you didn’t disappoint.