6 ms·

Wonder what the RoI on all this is, and how they allocate resources to each ongoing investigation. Seems like it would cost a heck of a lot. I mean, you would

Wonder what the RoI on all this is, and how they allocate resources to each ongoing investigation. Seems like it would cost a heck of a lot. I mean, you would need trained people sitting around listening to all those recordings.

ddalex 10y ago
Or maybe you just need to feed it into a voice to text engine, and then grep through the output for interesting bits. I'm quite sure that the NSA capabilities in this regard are quite beyond what is publicly available.
- Supi-lee 10y ago
  I have seen such systems in use by medical transcription companies. The key is you need to know what you are looking for. If not someone has to actually sit and listen to all those hours of recordings. Which translates to a high operational cost. Audio\Speech mining they call it, but it has a ways to go. Even with just one speaker in a noise less environment, there are all kinds of issues with transcription accuracy. I can imagine it being much worse in the kind of conditions the FBI needs it to work in. Ofcourse high end equipment can make things better but it all adds to the cost.
marincounty 10y ago
I'll get hammered for this, and I don't like FBI secretly recording anyone, but in this particuliar case; I'm kinda glad they were at least interested in stopping this alleged crime. The crime? Supposedly, guys were buying up foreclosed properties. Yea, they were just doing what every get rich in realeste book/seminar suggests. They were buying up forclosed houses/apartments by the thousands. They were paying off competitors to Not bid on certain properties. They were rigging the system. They were in violation of The Sherman Anti-trust Act. Again, I think it's wrong, but have no sympathy for shinagigans concerning public auctions, and rich guys breaking laws. (These forclosed properties usually only get a blurb in back of some newspaper. If I had money, I would be bidding on them. I went to one years ago in my county, and I was suprised how few people were there.)

ddalex 10y ago

Or maybe you just need to feed it into a voice to text engine, and then grep through the output for interesting bits. I'm quite sure that the NSA capabilities in this regard are quite beyond what is publicly available.

Supi-lee 10y ago
I have seen such systems in use by medical transcription companies. The key is you need to know what you are looking for. If not someone has to actually sit and listen to all those hours of recordings. Which translates to a high operational cost. Audio\Speech mining they call it, but it has a ways to go. Even with just one speaker in a noise less environment, there are all kinds of issues with transcription accuracy. I can imagine it being much worse in the kind of conditions the FBI needs it to work in. Ofcourse high end equipment can make things better but it all adds to the cost.

marincounty 10y ago

I'll get hammered for this, and I don't like FBI secretly recording anyone, but in this particuliar case; I'm kinda glad they were at least interested in stopping this alleged crime. The crime? Supposedly, guys were buying up foreclosed properties. Yea, they were just doing what every get rich in realeste book/seminar suggests. They were buying up forclosed houses/apartments by the thousands. They were paying off competitors to Not bid on certain properties. They were rigging the system. They were in violation of The Sherman Anti-trust Act. Again, I think it's wrong, but have no sympathy for shinagigans concerning public auctions, and rich guys breaking laws. (These forclosed properties usually only get a blurb in back of some newspaper. If I had money, I would be bidding on them. I went to one years ago in my county, and I was suprised how few people were there.)