Miami Cops Flood Waze With Bogus Speed Trap Data, Don't Understand How Crowd Sourcing Works
from the you-think-you're-being-clever dept
We've been discussing how law enforcement organizations have started ramping up their war on the Google-owned, traffic info crowdsourcing app, Waze, in the belief that it's hindering local revenue generation. More specifically, they've been trying to stop the app and its users from reporting police speed trap locations, going so far as to make the absurd argument that the app allows citizens to become police "stalkers." Of course as noted previously, these officers are usually in plain sight and obviously marked, meaning if you really had an insane hankering to annoy a cop you can certainly do it without an app. It's also worth reminding officers that Waze users are simply having a perfectly legal conversation (just like flashing headlights or even holding up signs is legal), at least for now.With the "mean old citizens are stalking us" defense apparently not working so well, some law enforcement agencies are turning to another, more clever (or so they think) solution: pollute Waze's data with false police speed trap locations. Officers in Miami have apparently taken to downloading the Waze app themselves just so they can flood the app with inaccurate data:
"Hundreds of officers in the Miami area have downloaded the app, which lets users provide real-time traffic information and identify areas where police are conducting speed enforcement. The local NBC affiliate says the officers are flooding Waze with false information on their activity in an attempt to make the app's information less useful to drivers. Disclosing the location of police officers "puts us at risk, puts the public at risk, because it's going to cause more deadly encounters between law enforcement and suspects," Sgt. Javier Ortiz, president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, tells the news outlet."This was apparently something some Los Angeles homeowners tried as well late last year, when they reported false congestion to the app in the hopes of lessening local traffic load. Of course the very nature of crowd-sourced apps like this involves repeated false reports and unreliable users being weeded out not only by the system itself, but by more trustworthy reports from reliable Waze users with higher scores. Even if this dumb idea worked, and all Miami Waze users were confused into thinking speed traps were everywhere, wouldn't they drive slower and ruin revenue generation (what this is really about) anyway?
All the Miami police force is doing is wasting time and taxpayer money in a war on perfectly legal conversation. In fact, you could argue they're doing something worse by eroding their own safety. As it stands the Waze app isn't specifically singling out speed traps -- it allows users to mark any police location. As in, it allows users to mark any emergency vehicle at the side of the road for any reason, notifying Waze users that they should slow down. If this was truly about public safety and not revenue generation, you'd think this would at least be part of the conversation.
Still, law enforcement associations are increasing pressure on politicians (like Chuck Schumer), and Google's shown at least some flexibility on this. For me personally, it's all kind of a moot point anyway. I drove from New York to Seattle and back again last summer and found that police move positions so frequently, Waze probably indicated an accurate speed trap location around a third of the time anyway. Still, you'd hate to see any app made less useful just because it hurts a police department's ability to turn public protection into a major revenue stream.
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Filed Under: crowdsourcing, fake data, miami, police, waze
Companies: google, waze
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In any case I find Waze incredibly useful for a big number of things. I don't usually speed but I do get 'distracted' by, you know, paying attention to the goddamn traffic. When I stop tracking the speed I will move at the speed I find comfortable and sometimes it's faster than the limit allowed, specially in some places where the street is wide and well maintained and the limit is like 30 kph (~19 mph) which makes me mad. So you have speed traps that actually make you divert your attention from the traffic instead of making things safer. I've got 2 speed tickets in over 10 years of driving, both because I wasn't paying attention to the speed butr rather in driving safely.
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30kph zones are almost always playground or school zones. It might make you mad, but human reaction time doesn't change because the streets are wide and well maintained, nor do the physical laws governing stopping times and the speed/damage curve.
But any app reminding you of where those "go slow, protect those who might do stupid things like dash in front of your car chasing a ball" zones are is good in my books -- as long as it's not polluted by false information that may make you ignore the real places where going slow enough to watch the road AND your speed is important.
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Actually, a well-maintained road WILL improve your stopping distance, because you'll get more traction.
If a kid runs from the sidewalk into a wide street, he has farther to go until he's in your lane (especially if there's no parking on the side of the road), so you DO have more time to stop. And if there's a farmer's field on your right and some homes on your left, a kid coming from one of those homes would also have to cross another lane of traffic before he got to your lane, giving you even more time.
There's a place I know of where the limit is 35 mph, and there's nothing there except an abandoned store and a side road that literally goes nowhere. There's no reason why the limit can't be the normal 55, and no reason for the police to enforce that artificially lowered limit - except for the revenue. There are municipalities that annex a silver of freeway just so they can post a cop there and write tickets for something that's supposed to be the state's job.
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Let's review who's really at risk here
People killed by (US) police so far in 2015: 119
(US) police killed by people so far in 2015: 0
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Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
Were the officers returning fire and just better shots?
How many lives were saved by the actions of the officers in each of those situations?
Your data has no meaning without the specifics.
Most people don't like cops, until they need them.
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Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
Can agree that the information, could easily be misleading.
However, it still does not mean anything. People don't like cops even when they need them. The reason you ask? Because police take the default behavior of your a guilty, they just cannot prove it yet.
Police have decided it is no longer best to work with their communities building good rapport and trust... instead, they just blindly & ignorance enforce law OVER THEM. Including some laws that do not even exist.
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Re: Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
That is the proper stance to take until they have all the facts... should they just come up and jovially pat you on the back when getting called to a domestic violence situation?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
No help, no good will, and no trust from anyone including bystanders and witnesses. That's the rapport LEOs are building.
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Be careful that your arguments can't be turned against you
Like say police busting in to a house in the middle of the night for a no-knock warrant, would a homeowner be justified in assuming the worst, and opening fire with any guns they had, injuring and potentially killing the 'robbers' before they were able to threaten their family?
I mean, if it's acceptable for the police to automatically assume the worst in order to 'ensure officer safety', then it seems to me that it should be perfectly acceptable for those interacting with them, knowingly or not, to do the same.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
No, it's not. The proper stance is to not have a default position at all and go where the evidence takes you.
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Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
Whether or not they were, they introduced a deadly weapon to the mix.
>> Were the officers returning fire and just better shots?
No, because then they would have hit the person in the hand, shoulder or hip. Shooting to kill should be reserved for situations where life is in immediate peril, not just where there is the threat of immediate peril.
>> How many lives were saved by the actions of the officers in each of those situations?
How many more lives could have been saved by better handling of those situations?
Your questions, while valid, don't really add that much to the conversation.
Here's a few more though:
Was the protective gear worn by the police responsible for preventing any deaths in this period? How many otherwise fatal shots were taken by such gear in this period?
How many people (both police and civilians) were injured in a life-altering way (meaning they will never be able to do some things they could before) because of a police interaction?
How many reported cases of police being targeted for attack occurred during this period?
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Re: Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
In any situation where you can reliably target anything beyond "center mass," you have no reason to be firing a gun. Mind, police officers definitely need to stop resorting to tactics likely to cause escalations, but the idea of using a firearm against a person in a non-lethal manner is bogus.
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Re: Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
No, because then they would have hit the person in the hand, shoulder or hip. Shooting to kill should be reserved for situations where life is in immediate peril, not just where there is the threat of immediate peril."
Shooting to wound is hollywood fantasy, not something that exists in reality. Even attempting to do so drastically increases the chance of missing completely - and WHERE DOES THAT BULLET GO?
People simply can't shoot that accurately under stress circumstances, even those as "highly trained" as police (who qualify at the range about once per year, vs. civilians who carry who typically shoot at least once per month)
Given how often cops miss already, do you really want them trying to hit smaller targets? Talk about bullets flying all over...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
It happens in other countries, as well as firing "warning" shots, but not here in the US, where cops are trained to always shoot to kill if they shoot at all. That means rapid-firing at least a half-dozen bullets in the blink of an eye, rather than in the old days, when firing more than a couple shots at a time was rare (and more than six at a time non-existent) . Perhaps it was the belief that most people would immediately surrender when the first shot is fired, so it was better to let them surrender with an absolute minimum of (lethal) force. But today, plenty of Youtube videos prove that people who stop and raise their hands will continue to get fired on multiple times.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
I call BS. You're going to have to provide evidence of that claim. And not just anecdotal - show me that this is the training.
Anyone who shoots a gun for defensive purposes is trained to shoot center of mass. The reason for this is simple - it is more difficult to hit a smaller target, meaning a) you are less likely to eliminate the thread and b) you now have a bullet going SOMEWHERE that it wasn't intended to go. Where will it end up? Given how far they can travel, it could easily end in in someone else. Good idea - let's have more bullets going who the hell knows where.
Same goes for warning shots. They are incredibly dangerous. That bullet has to come back to the ground somewhere and it will be traveling just as fast when it does. I have a niece who was hit by such a bullet - so warning shots? No thanks.
And for the record, I am not a cop, and I am sickened by how they operate anymore. But policy by fantasy is terrible policy.
Please, go take a basic shooting skills class. Learn a little something about reality.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
source: http://www.seattleglobalist.com/2014/10/20/israel-crowd-control-palestinian-west-bank-ammunition/296 97
Warning shots are apparently standard practice for police in Germany, where police *nationwide* fired about as many warning shots as aimed shots.
source: http://boingboing.net/2012/05/09/german-police-fired-85-bullets.html
source: http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/polizei-schoss-2011-seltener-im-dienst-a-832037.html
"Same goes for warning shots. They are incredibly dangerous. That bullet has to come back to the ground somewhere and it will be traveling just as fast when it does."
Not even close. Shoot a rifle straight up, and the bullet will hit the ground at about one tenth of the muzzle velocity (handguns about one fifth).
source: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/03/watch_out_for_falling_bullets.html
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
source: http://www.seattleglobalist.com/2014/10/20/israel-crowd-control-palestinian-west-bank-ammunition/296 97
- ok, fair enough, but let's look with the operative phrase here "where soldiers are given special rifles to shoot demonstrators in the legs" - you're basically saying our cops should do this - but you're talking about special training and special weapons. The typical cop as nowhere NEAR that sort of training. I wouldn't argue, for example, that a Marine Sniper could do exactly that - having time to take aim, not being in the thick of things. But you're asking for the same for a typical cop on the street, in the middle of a stress situation. You're not comparing the same thing.
This is what happens more often: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5963288/ "Officers fired 16 rounds at Pena and into his house, according to both the lawsuit and the district attorney's report." - note that he was hit twice. What happened to those other 14 bullets? Our cops are bad enough shots as it is.
"Warning shots are apparently standard practice for police in Germany, where police *nationwide* fired about as many warning shots as aimed shots."
- doesn't change the fact that they are dangerous.
"Not even close. Shoot a rifle straight up, and the bullet will hit the ground at about one tenth of the muzzle velocity (handguns about one fifth)."
- ok, maybe I have the math wrong. I will grant I did not do the calculations. Doesn't mean they're not dangerous. I know one person personally who was almost killed by a shot fired into the air. There are reports of such things all the time (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356851/Seven-year-old-boy-dies-hit-stray-bullet-fired-air- walked-July-4-fireworks-display.html). (Funny, I expected you to suggest shooting a warning shot into the ground, which I wouldn't have an objection to)
I won't at all argue that our cops don't use force far too often. I won't argue that they're not trigger-happy thugs who get off on shooting. It sure seems that they are. But shooting people in a crowd using a special rifle is not the same as a confrontation from 10 feet away that's over in seconds. Show me THAT situation and you might make me a believer.
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Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
Well, hopefully, they won't be so preoccupied entering bogus Waze data, that they'll actually be available when they're needed.
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Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
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Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
When they need them, most people expect cops to turn up and do their damn job, whether they like them or not.
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Re: Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
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Re: Let's review who's really at risk here
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Sounds like a threat.
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Correct me if Im wrong but doesn't that mean if you drive a car and know a cop is close they will shoot you because "how dare you to know they are there"?
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DDoS or ToS
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Re: DDoS or ToS
Cops are knowingly/unknowingly committing a federal offense for the purpose of collecting ticket revenue. Typical.
The tactic of flooding the site with illegitimate speed trap data makes the app less valuable to drivers. Once they abandon the app there's little chance they'll go back to it when the cops stop tampering, breaking federal law.
Too bad about the crowd sourcing and quickly soiled reputations, but they can always attack that by creating accounts en masse and then using them to drive up another dummy user's reputatio.
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Re: DDoS or ToS
Cops are knowingly/unknowingly committing a federal offense for the purpose of collecting ticket revenue. Typical.
The tactic of flooding the site with illegitimate speed trap data makes the app less valuable to drivers. Once they abandon the app there's little chance they'll go back to it when the cops stop tampering, breaking federal law.
Too bad about the crowd sourcing and quickly soiled reputations, but they can always attack that by creating accounts en masse and then using them to drive up another dummy user's reputatio.
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Re: Re: DDoS or ToS
2. TAFTA/TTIP passes with ISDS.
3. Belgium is awarded ownership of Florida in full.
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Re: Re: Re: DDoS or ToS
As a floridian, I would be perfectly okay with that.
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safety or money?
Also how is a speedtrap report going to cause a police officer to die?
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Re: safety or money?
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Re: Re: safety or money?
Natural selection at its finest.
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Re: Re: safety or money?
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Re: safety or money?
Of course, Florida is a completely different situation. It's got to the point where there are some areas where the regular police do not unlock/leave their vehicles. I'd say Waze is the least of their issues in these areas.
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And now citizens *gasp* knowing where they are!
How can they be expected to remain riding around in their clandestine state with this app ruining their cover?
Oh, the humanity!
/s
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https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141030/07262928986/wisconsin-town-sends-bearcat-tank-to-co llect-civil-fine-seventy-year-old.shtml
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Hey, I think what Miami cops are doing is silly and pointless and has no merit. But your comment is equally pointless and shows no appreciation for the danger these guys place themselves in on a daily basis.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/08/22/americas-10-deadliest-jobs-2/
This is from last year.
http://www.businessinsider.com/most-dangerous-jobs-in-america-2014-12
Being in law enforcement DOES NOT even make the top ten list for most dangerous jobs in the United States. That's according to actual facts and evidence.
Those guys DO NOT place themselves in that much danger on a daily basis. Contrary to misguided popular belief or their own (flat out lying) words.
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Waze isn't going to influence domestic disturbance issues.
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I thought it was eating a doughnut without choking.
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Statistically, an officer is most likely to be killed by themselves...
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Or did I miss the sarcasm in your post? Probably missed the sarcasm.
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Mistaking jealousy for sarcasm wasn't totally unexpected...I wouldn't expect a cop's ego to allow for such blasphemy without reminding me how grateful I should be (that's sarcasm again, in case you missed it).
But to put it simply, if they're afraid of the risk, then they can certainly do what everyone else in the country has the freedom to do - find another line of work.
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Personally I think they make their jobs much harder by supporting brutality against citizens. As well as staying silent when they see their fellow officers break their oaths.
If you beat a dog enough times eventually it will start biting you on sight. Then most people will say it the kickers fault in the first place, while supporting the dog.
If that was too much to grasp. police are facing an irate and violent public because they keep beating up and murdering unarmed people with zero accountability because of it.
They have a hostile work environment because they made it that way. This should not be a combat zone where police treat citizens like enemy combatants
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(you won't believe me)
THEN come back and tell me how rough the donut-eaters have it...
IF we go by your 'metric', cabbies and min-a-mart clerks should be the highest paid, bravest people in our country...
urine authoritarian idjit...
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Just post actual signs
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Re:
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Here's an option the police might like...
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Re: Here's an option the police might like...
http://postimg.org/image/yxcmwqsc7/
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...no drive-up windows... Never had these.
...walk through a gauntlet of remote-control-lockable doors... You get to walk through one door during business hours, other times there's a doorbell. Then you get to the electrically locked doors.
...video cameras... Always had these.
...a human sitting behind an inch-thick bulletproof glass window... Always had this too.
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Those "concrete barricades" are not just the obvious highway divider types, more often than not they're strategically-placed sculptures, raised-bed planters, and/or giant flower pots that will prevent a car or truck from smashing into the building, just like has happened in so many Hollywood movies.
With good landscaping design, these barricades are completely blended into the scenery and unnoticeable -- except to someone with a trained eye.
http://www.remodelaholic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/planting-fall-flowers-20-600x400.jpg
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Do you live in a war zone or something?
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My small town police station technically does have a "drive-up window", its just not in use anymore. They relocated to an old bank, which still has the teller window attached.
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Walking through the forest while seeing no trees
They can't see anything else: If the Waze map were a forest, they'd walk right through and never see a tree.
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Do they consider this part of their job duties? Because I don't think that's what we're supposed to be paying them for.
(Yes, I know, they do far worse things while on the job, but still...)
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CFAA violation?
If so the broad interpretations of the CFAA could be used against Miami PD.
Funny to think that Miami PD are possibly committing federal felonies.
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I would like a prosecutor to get them for a CFAA violation, because we all know how it can be applied broadly... I would argue that the servers they sent their commands to were protected computers (need user account), they subsequently caused damage to the data (false reports), and all of that was unauthorized (Waze terms of service).
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this is all about ticket quotas
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Re: this is all about ticket quotas
When ticket revenue becomes part of the operating budget, then problems will emerge.
Speed traps have nothing to do with increasing public safety.
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Re: this is all about ticket quotas
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Hand Held Device???
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Re: Hand Held Device???
https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Voice_Commands
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Another fine moment in policing.
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It's all BS
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Violation?
Doesn't this mean they are violating the CFAA?
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For-profit policing is insanely stupid.
Fines and the like should go straight to the federal government, or somewhere where the cops levying them doesn't gain money for their own organization directly. Send all the fines straight to social services or something and give the police the same yearly budget allocation fully tax-payer funded instead of making them money-chasing thugs like now.
Having the cops worried about making money is asinine and guaranteed to lead to massive problems. Like this, now.
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The result would be a database of Waze users most likely to be cops, and then Waze can utilize that data-set against them-- for example, users suspected to be cops can continue to make as many reports as they like, and Waze will populate that suspect's feed, and pollutes ONLY his feed with all those bogus reports so that he continues to believe his mischievousness is effective.
Waze would then transform into a more useful police-carried beacon, even when that cop is on the move his whereabouts will be updated in real-time to all other non-suspected police users and unknown to him. This is far more useful then using the freshness of reports to gauge the accuracy of a cop still being located at a speedtrap 10 minutes prior.
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