11 ms·

Not sure where your confusion is coming from. Have you never used GPS in a place with bad signal? Where it gets confused and you miss your turn? It's the same f

by chaps 13d ago

Not sure where your confusion is coming from. Have you never used GPS in a place with bad signal? Where it gets confused and you miss your turn? It's the same failure mode. Just the repercussions are getting arrested instead of getting off on the wrong exit. Also wrote this one, hopefully it helps your confusion: https://chicagoreader.com/news/false-alarms/ https://chicagoreader.com/news/false-alarms/

dataflow 13d ago
You're claiming that erroneously reported movements by ~33 ft lead to incarceration, yet the article you're linking to reports that erroneously reported movements by ~1mi+ lead to police coming to double-check what's going on. Am I incorrect and do you therefore have examples of ~30ft errors actually leading to their incarceration, or are you struggling to see the disconnect between what you're claiming vs. what is actually happening?
- deleted 13d ago
  [deleted]
- chaps 13d ago
  If someone's home is 30' by 30' feet, yes, that person's device will report them having left their home and they'll get a visit if GPS suddenly shifts 30 feet to the left. I'm talking about the class of problem. It happens in normal weather conditions and things like this exacerbate the problem. Really not sure what the hostility's about.
  - saaaaaam 13d ago
    As a neutral participant I think “the hostility” is probably because of your condescending tone when you said “hopefully it helps your confusion”. Your initial article really didn’t say anything about people being re-incarcerated for these sorts of errors. I really want to say “maybe you got CONFUSED and posted the wrong one!” but that would be snotty and condescending too. But maybe you posted the wrong one to begin with. Let’s all be friends and nice to each other.
    - chaps 13d ago
      That's totally fair, I shouldn't have said it like that!
      - hypfer 13d ago
        You seem to care a lot about these issues, and probably have real face-to-face experience with the victims of that. Problem is though that this feeling type of empathy makes you not the best advocate for them - as you can see here, where (on a platform with worse rules than HN) a flamewar would've broken out over not everyone being as emotionally involved. We definitely need people like you, but we also need people like you to not be everywhere and scare/annoy people into not caring. Though, I also agree that scaring/annoying _into_ caring is also often required. Idk. Activism is weird and hard and all.
  - dataflow 13d ago
    Do you have any examples of someone getting thrown behind bars due to a GPS error on the order of ~30ft like you're claiming? That's all I'm asking. Really don't understand why you keep avoiding it. You've essentially claimed police/judges are doing something rather stupid and terrible. I'm asking you to show example(s) of what you claimed (~30ft error → thrown behind bars), not something significantly different (~1+ mi error → only-police-visit-but-not-thrown-behind-bars).
    - chaps 13d ago
      "You've essentially claimed police/judges are doing something rather stupid and terrible." Yes, yes I am. You really need to realize just how unbelievably fucking arbitrary the criminal courts are. At every level. They're not tech people. To answer your question, I have examples of motions by prosecutors to suspend people from the EM program where they specifically cite specific data points just barely out of their homes, where video footage provably shows they were inside the whole time. They're not mine to share. Btw, the courts are public and you should try some criminal courts watching. Pick a random day and just go.
      - dataflow 13d ago
        > To answer your question Looking forward! > motions by prosecutors Motion ≠ incarceration. So, not an answer (yet?)... Did defendants get incarcerated as a result of these motions, or no?
        chaps 13d ago
        They did, yes. I hope you have a better day.
        dataflow 13d ago
        Okay thanks, so here's what I don't understand. When there is video evidence that someone was in their house the whole time, and given that everyone who has used a GPS knows it can easily be inaccurate by 30ft, why in the world would the judge trust the ankle monitor accuracy over video footage they see with their own eyes that directly contradicts it? Something about this just doesn't seem very plausible, especially if this kind of thing is happening more than once in a blue moon. Either the video evidence is not as convincing as we're being led to assume (thus leaving more doubt in the judge's mind than ours, even if the person is innocent), or there should be some other explanation.
  - Aurornis 13d ago
    GPS is not that accurate even on a good day. A small device attached to someone’s ankle with a small antenna and an obstructed view of the sky will frequently be registering locations outside of the footprint of someone’s house. A single 33 foot anomaly is already within the geofence buffer zones used. In dense urban areas the geofence buffer allowance may be 10X that already.
    - brewdad 13d ago
      It should be treated that way but we’re talking about elected prosecutors who are itching for an excuse to put people in prison rather than looking “soft on crime” by allowing people to live under house arrest.
      - Aurornis 12d ago
        No, I’m saying it’s literally treated like that with a buffer zone. That’s how these systems work. If people were getting arrested every time their GPS tracker was recording a ping 33 feet from the center of their house, nobody would ever survive house arrest. This is a basic reality of using GPS.
        chaps 12d ago
        Friend, these things happen even with buffer zones.
- skywhopper 12d ago
  The point is that the enforcement agencies make the assumption that GPS data is always correct. But there are any number of issues that can cause problems with it. People making decisions about how to enforce house arrest or design autonomous farm equipment need to take GPS flakiness into account. Differences in scale are not the point.
avazhi 13d ago
[flagged]
- boomboomsubban 13d ago
  The trackers are part of CCSO’s pretrial house arrest program, so presumably a number of them are attached to people who did no crimes.
  - zx8080 13d ago
    Don't live in the US.
  - avazhi 13d ago
    > so presumably a number of them are attached to people who did no crimes. You and I have very divergent views of the type of person likely to be charged or prosecuted for a crime or indeed to participate in a diversion program that involves GPS trackers, my friend.
    - deleted 13d ago
      [deleted]
    - ryandrake 13d ago
      Right, because only guilty people become involved with the justice system.
      - deleted 13d ago
        [deleted]
    - crtified 13d ago
      Not at all. They're remarkably similar. What differs is our cost:benefit analysis of closing off this errata. Yours (inferred) is "Too Much : Zero". Given that those are terminal values it would challenging for literally-any-other-view not to diverge from yours, on this.
saaaaaam 13d ago
I think the confusion is probably coming from the fact that the one reference to people being potentially re-incarcerated is buried right down the story. > Harkins said that since last October, she has seen 30-40 people ordered back into custody based on these progress reports. When asked what can be done to improve CCSO’s EM program, Harkins said that the sheriff’s office needs to “properly and fully” investigate alleged violations before writing reports or taking actions.
- chaps 13d ago
  Ah. That's probably just a result of the pasted article being part of a series. To be explicit: yes, many, many, many people were reinarcerated because of faulty GPS.
  - saaaaaam 13d ago
    FWIW I enjoyed your articles. You write very clearly.

by chaps 13d ago

dataflow 13d ago

You're claiming that erroneously reported movements by ~33 ft lead to incarceration, yet the article you're linking to reports that erroneously reported movements by ~1mi+ lead to police coming to double-check what's going on. Am I incorrect and do you therefore have examples of ~30ft errors actually leading to their incarceration, or are you struggling to see the disconnect between what you're claiming vs. what is actually happening?

deleted 13d ago
[deleted]
chaps 13d ago
If someone's home is 30' by 30' feet, yes, that person's device will report them having left their home and they'll get a visit if GPS suddenly shifts 30 feet to the left. I'm talking about the class of problem. It happens in normal weather conditions and things like this exacerbate the problem. Really not sure what the hostility's about.
- saaaaaam 13d ago
  As a neutral participant I think “the hostility” is probably because of your condescending tone when you said “hopefully it helps your confusion”. Your initial article really didn’t say anything about people being re-incarcerated for these sorts of errors. I really want to say “maybe you got CONFUSED and posted the wrong one!” but that would be snotty and condescending too. But maybe you posted the wrong one to begin with. Let’s all be friends and nice to each other.
  - chaps 13d ago
    That's totally fair, I shouldn't have said it like that!
    - hypfer 13d ago
      You seem to care a lot about these issues, and probably have real face-to-face experience with the victims of that. Problem is though that this feeling type of empathy makes you not the best advocate for them - as you can see here, where (on a platform with worse rules than HN) a flamewar would've broken out over not everyone being as emotionally involved. We definitely need people like you, but we also need people like you to not be everywhere and scare/annoy people into not caring. Though, I also agree that scaring/annoying _into_ caring is also often required. Idk. Activism is weird and hard and all.
- dataflow 13d ago
  Do you have any examples of someone getting thrown behind bars due to a GPS error on the order of ~30ft like you're claiming? That's all I'm asking. Really don't understand why you keep avoiding it. You've essentially claimed police/judges are doing something rather stupid and terrible. I'm asking you to show example(s) of what you claimed (~30ft error → thrown behind bars), not something significantly different (~1+ mi error → only-police-visit-but-not-thrown-behind-bars).
  - chaps 13d ago
    "You've essentially claimed police/judges are doing something rather stupid and terrible." Yes, yes I am. You really need to realize just how unbelievably fucking arbitrary the criminal courts are. At every level. They're not tech people. To answer your question, I have examples of motions by prosecutors to suspend people from the EM program where they specifically cite specific data points just barely out of their homes, where video footage provably shows they were inside the whole time. They're not mine to share. Btw, the courts are public and you should try some criminal courts watching. Pick a random day and just go.
    - dataflow 13d ago
      > To answer your question Looking forward! > motions by prosecutors Motion ≠ incarceration. So, not an answer (yet?)... Did defendants get incarcerated as a result of these motions, or no?
      - chaps 13d ago
        They did, yes. I hope you have a better day.
        dataflow 13d ago
        Okay thanks, so here's what I don't understand. When there is video evidence that someone was in their house the whole time, and given that everyone who has used a GPS knows it can easily be inaccurate by 30ft, why in the world would the judge trust the ankle monitor accuracy over video footage they see with their own eyes that directly contradicts it? Something about this just doesn't seem very plausible, especially if this kind of thing is happening more than once in a blue moon. Either the video evidence is not as convincing as we're being led to assume (thus leaving more doubt in the judge's mind than ours, even if the person is innocent), or there should be some other explanation.
- Aurornis 13d ago
  GPS is not that accurate even on a good day. A small device attached to someone’s ankle with a small antenna and an obstructed view of the sky will frequently be registering locations outside of the footprint of someone’s house. A single 33 foot anomaly is already within the geofence buffer zones used. In dense urban areas the geofence buffer allowance may be 10X that already.
  - brewdad 13d ago
    It should be treated that way but we’re talking about elected prosecutors who are itching for an excuse to put people in prison rather than looking “soft on crime” by allowing people to live under house arrest.
    - Aurornis 12d ago
      No, I’m saying it’s literally treated like that with a buffer zone. That’s how these systems work. If people were getting arrested every time their GPS tracker was recording a ping 33 feet from the center of their house, nobody would ever survive house arrest. This is a basic reality of using GPS.
      - chaps 12d ago
        Friend, these things happen even with buffer zones.
skywhopper 12d ago
The point is that the enforcement agencies make the assumption that GPS data is always correct. But there are any number of issues that can cause problems with it. People making decisions about how to enforce house arrest or design autonomous farm equipment need to take GPS flakiness into account. Differences in scale are not the point.

avazhi 13d ago

[flagged]

boomboomsubban 13d ago
The trackers are part of CCSO’s pretrial house arrest program, so presumably a number of them are attached to people who did no crimes.
- zx8080 13d ago
  Don't live in the US.
- avazhi 13d ago
  > so presumably a number of them are attached to people who did no crimes. You and I have very divergent views of the type of person likely to be charged or prosecuted for a crime or indeed to participate in a diversion program that involves GPS trackers, my friend.
  - deleted 13d ago
    [deleted]
  - ryandrake 13d ago
    Right, because only guilty people become involved with the justice system.
    - deleted 13d ago
      [deleted]
  - crtified 13d ago
    Not at all. They're remarkably similar. What differs is our cost:benefit analysis of closing off this errata. Yours (inferred) is "Too Much : Zero". Given that those are terminal values it would challenging for literally-any-other-view not to diverge from yours, on this.

saaaaaam 13d ago

I think the confusion is probably coming from the fact that the one reference to people being potentially re-incarcerated is buried right down the story. > Harkins said that since last October, she has seen 30-40 people ordered back into custody based on these progress reports. When asked what can be done to improve CCSO’s EM program, Harkins said that the sheriff’s office needs to “properly and fully” investigate alleged violations before writing reports or taking actions.

chaps 13d ago
Ah. That's probably just a result of the pasted article being part of a series. To be explicit: yes, many, many, many people were reinarcerated because of faulty GPS.
- saaaaaam 13d ago
  FWIW I enjoyed your articles. You write very clearly.