Spotting ShotSpotters

[Weihua4455]

Mainly for fun!

[eads]

In Syracuse.

[ghing]

• Map of ShotSpotters (and one ALPR) spotted in Syracuse: ShotSpotter Spotting Syracuse
• Photos of the devices: https://photos.app.goo.gl/LJGniV8NUjNa2hBr9

[red-bin]

(those aren't actually shotspotter devices AFAIK. A lot of the equipment there is ~400MHz radio gear, probably for their closed network, with "public safety" equipment. It's something we saw in Chicago where a lot of OEMC camera equipment was paired with similar looking radio equipment that they use for internal communication, but not actually shotspotter. There's a chance it is, since shotspotter's branched out into realtime analytics outside of "just" gunshot detection... but just be careful that it's accurate. At LPL we rented a telescopic lens to take photos of the devices' labeling to pull FCC/contract/bar code details to confirm.)

[ghing]

@red-bin, I was worried about that. I did this brief exploration not really knowing what the ones in Syracuse looked like beyond a photo in a news article and vague descriptions from press releases of the areas where they were being deployed. It's possible that the ARPA-funded ones aren't up yet, or I just didn't know what to look for.

This was more of an experiment about what it would look like to do an IRL event around noticing the devices as a way into the ARPA-spending reporting while I happened to be visiting a friend in Syracuse.

Can you point me to a gallery of all the different models LPL spotted when you all looked into this?

[red-bin]

Yeah, shotspotter makes it intentionally difficult to know what devices look like, so it's pretty challenging.

We were only able to identify one model. I've heard that they have more than one model, but I haven't seen any direct confirmation of that fact, like what we were able to get with the telescopic lens.

Have a look at https://observablehq.com/d/0dbc293ec5abfecd -- the second map (the one with fewer dots) has all the shotspotter devices we found. The thing to look for are the two-stack devices, with the top device being the sensor and the bottom being the radio device.

Interestingly, the FCC only has one Shotspotter device that's received certification. There's a chance that a subcontractor or external company filed FCC certs for future devices.

[Solidv666]

F*** yes dude! Ever since I took a pic off my college of this weird device I had take a pic and ask online. Had no idea. Thank you for this. Got a family member who is in law enforcement. Thought I was gonna have to install a keylogger to find this!