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A group in Washington is promoting an initiative to reduce gun crime by using laser-etched bullets to track shooters. According to their website, the data will only be used for legitimate investigations (no datamining) and secured with "recursive verification" features (sounds like a blockchain). Washington state already requires ammunition purchasers to produce valid ID when making purchases. Googling reveals that previous efforts by state legislatures to enact similar legislation have been torpedoed by the gun lobby. Initiatives are not subject to lobbying, so it should be interesting to see how the opposition tackles this campaign.
http://dosomethingwa.org
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-guns-ammunition-idUSBRE90J02K20130120
http://igg.me/at/dosomethingwa
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Wednesday February 10 2016, @10:16PM
What guarantees one has that the information will be reliable (or, indeed, even available)?
why does it need to be a guarantee? what guarantee is there for serial numbers on guns? what guarantee is there for license plates on cars? should we do away with gun serial numbers and car license plates?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 11 2016, @03:23AM
Yes. Next question?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 11 2016, @06:37AM
To paraphrase: great costs requires great benefit. And: there's greater costs in huge numbers.
How many guns/cars in circulation in US? Now, how many bullets?
How fast/cheap a car without a license plate can be detected? Now, how would one detect a non-licensed bullet? How expensive would it be to produce such a bullet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Thursday February 11 2016, @08:30AM
How many guns/cars in circulation in US? Now, how many bullets?
millions and many millions. what's your point? do you think we are going to run out of numbers or something?
How fast/cheap a car without a license plate can be detected?
it's super easy to remove and replace the plates, so you could wait until just before you commit a crime to remove them. it couldn't be detected in time to prevent crime but that's not the point of them, now is it?
Now, how would one detect a non-licensed bullet?
the same questions apply to gun serial numbers. it's after the fact but that doesn't mean we should just give up on them.
How expensive would it be to produce such a bullet?
the expense is in the time it takes, just like serial numbers on guns.
just because it doesn't work 100% of the time does not mean it's not worth doing.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Thursday February 11 2016, @08:32AM
To paraphrase: great costs requires great benefit. And: there's greater costs in huge numbers.
why do you think it's going to cost a lot of money to simply start putting serial numbers on ammo?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 11 2016, @09:55AM
Come one, mate: a bullet is not a digital bitcoin (to be easy to attach a block chain to it and record the transactions). Even assuming that everything would go legit, recording a transaction of a bullet changing hands every time means quite a huge amount of info to be entered in a system. And this come with an effort: you sure do know what happens when you ask others to put an effort for you, effort from which they derive no benefit.
Plus, the entire system can be gamed so easily, this info will be unreliable at best
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Thursday February 11 2016, @11:51AM
It's not the etching of the codes, it's the tracking (of those great numbers of bullets) that comes with high cost.
non-sense. POS software would just be adjusted so that you scan an extra barcode on the package of bullets and maybe swipe an ID card and you are done. the transaction goes into a DB somewhere and sits until queried. why is it going to be expensive?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 11 2016, @12:21PM
Where's that barcode etched? If somewhere visible, then I'll guarantee you a black market of "fake barcoded bullets" will appear in a very short time - not like one has troubles in buying an engraving laser.
If it's not easily visible, then the transfer of a bullet could only be done only in specialized places. Yeah, sure, the good citizens will always do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Thursday February 11 2016, @01:02PM
how many times do you have to be told?
just because it doesn't work 100% of the time does not mean it's not worth doing.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 11 2016, @08:49PM
How many times do you have to be told: even if it works 100% of the time, it may not worth doing (due to the cost).
(your position reminds me of some micromanagers that I encountered during my professional life: putting a burden on the team of reporting on daily activities and wondering why the things progress so slow towards completion)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Thursday February 11 2016, @09:26PM
even if it works 100% of the time, it may not worth doing (due to the cost).
which part of a simple database of sales is going to be costly? you act like we'll have to invent some sort of new technology just to incorporate it into the existing framework of our society/economy.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 11 2016, @11:15PM
That part in which the real-world transaction need to pause for the data to be recorded in the system. A big number of times.
Even honest players will game the system to gain back their time, making the recorded data unreliable.
Which, in turn, will cost the investigators effort to certify the data. So the investigators will use it only if everything fails.
The result? Everybody pays for little benefit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Friday February 12 2016, @01:53AM
That part in which the real-world transaction need to pause for the data to be recorded in the system. A big number of times.
your ID lookup would take maybe 200 milliseconds but the storage transaction would take no time because it's an asynchronous database insertion. it would be a few extra seconds for people which would be used swiping their ID.
The result? Everybody pays for little benefit.
you can't spare a few seconds to help make more murder cases solvable? are you really that self-centered?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday February 12 2016, @05:26AM
Asynchronous my ass. The operation involves taking the bullet, scanning it, putting it aside, taking another and repeat. Yeah, I can really see this happening whenever a bullet (together with others) changes hands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Friday February 12 2016, @05:49AM
Asynchronous my ass. The operation involves taking the bullet, scanning it, putting it aside, taking another and repeat. Yeah, I can really see this happening whenever a bullet (together with others) changes hands.
bullets are sold in boxes, so it make a lot more sense to put a barcode identifying the box number on the outside and just push that info to the database. stop making this out to be some sort of monumental effort.
(Score: 1, Troll) by c0lo on Friday February 12 2016, @06:02AM
(yeah, sure, seems wise)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0