Re:The Smart Gun Doesn’t Exist for the Dumbest Reasons
by kevingadd on Monday April 15, 2019 @10:15AM
(#19665442)
It's interesting how this is a story where to a degree, the demands of the power-user (who probably wouldn't want this product to begin with) help make the product not happen at all:
> The trouble is that fingerprint readers struggle with sweat or dirt, and friends in law enforcement advised Stephens that cops often wear gloves. A sensor error in a self-defense situation could prove fatal.
It's absolutely the case that (for example) fingerprint readers are flaky, and cops would not be willing to tolerate anything that could stop them from using a firearm in an emergency. But really, does the technology even matter then? Why would a cop want a smart gun? So from the beginning, looking at what cops think about your smart gun prototype means you're looking at the entirely wrong audience.
Likewise, are hunters the ones who want a smart gun? What about single mothers who need to be able to defend themselves during a home invasion? The right authentication mechanism and tradeoffs depend on each audience, and the things they want definitely don't match with what cops want. If I was picking up a firearm to use on the range or for hunting, being told 'this RFID ensures nobody can use it after stealing it or taking it from you, but it has a 1% chance of not letting you fire it' might be a pretty good pitch - but if I'm a cop, there's no way I want even an 0.1% failure chance, because if I had to draw my gun a lot of stuff has already gone wrong.
Kind of a baffling place for an effort like "let's make smart guns" to end up at.
> The trouble is that fingerprint readers struggle with sweat or dirt, and friends in law enforcement advised Stephens that cops often wear gloves. A sensor error in a self-defense situation could prove fatal.
It's absolutely the case that (for example) fingerprint readers are flaky, and cops would not be willing to tolerate anything that could stop them from using a firearm in an emergency. But really, does the technology even matter then? Why would a cop want a smart gun? So from the beginning, looking at what cops think about your smart gun prototype means you're looking at the entirely wrong audience.
Likewise, are hunters the ones who want a smart gun? What about single mothers who need to be able to defend themselves during a home invasion? The right authentication mechanism and tradeoffs depend on each audience, and the things they want definitely don't match with what cops want. If I was picking up a firearm to use on the range or for hunting, being told 'this RFID ensures nobody can use it after stealing it or taking it from you, but it has a 1% chance of not letting you fire it' might be a pretty good pitch - but if I'm a cop, there's no way I want even an 0.1% failure chance, because if I had to draw my gun a lot of stuff has already gone wrong.
Kind of a baffling place for an effort like "let's make smart guns" to end up at.