In college we discovered everyone's ID number was evenly divisible by 13. Presumably it's because that's the smallest number you'd need so that you could detect any one digit being incorrect, or two adjacent digits being swapped (I think?). Or that it's just very easy to implement the increment when assigning new numbers.
They started their example pattern with an citation number 984,946,606 they earlier said wasn't valid rather than 984,946,605 given initially (and shown in the image).
Odd detail about the page, on the left it says "Audio feed courtesy of Orchestra" but the link goes to some dystopian panopticon kinda surveillance app.
I think they're being cheeky. I assume Orchestra is the dystopian company providing the "ShotSpotter" service to SF, and bop spotter is piggy backing on the api.
I gotta say, it's incredibly inconsiderate and thoughtless to publish the real time location of a bunch of public safety officers in an individually identifiable way.
I understand the sentiment, and I appreciate the hackery... but you put these people at risk today. You need to think much more carefully about how you approach things like this in the future.
I disagree. There should be no expectation of privacy for any public officer. Things like this website, body cameras, and FOIA requests are all for the public good. Expose corruption and keep everyone safer with a little accountability.
> There should be no expectation of privacy for any public officer
It's worth noting that SF Parking Control Officers aren't "police" by most any definition. They're not sworn, and they don't qualify as peace officers under California law. They can't execute warrants, make arrests, or carry firearms, etc. They work under the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), not the SFPD.
Their enforcement powers are limited to issuing parking citations, ordering tows, and directing traffic. About the only thing they share with actual police is the word "Officer" in the job title. Tracking these folks is about equivalent to tracking individual USPS employees.
there is no public good afforded by violating parking restrictions. the public good comes from enforcing them, so that parking spaces turn over quickly and remain as available as possible.
circumvention of the rules for a priveleged few (like those who know how to surveil the enforcement officers) is actual corruption. this service doesn't expose corruption, it enables it.
> There should be no expectation of privacy for any public officer.
So live public webcams in the employee restrooms in all government buildings?
I would argue that public officers would retain personal privacy, but that such privacy cannot be a shield against the public for the government concealing substantive operations, and that the identity of public officers and the substantive means by which they are engaged in the exercise of public functions, are therefore not within the space of their personal privacy.
There is a world difference between everything you mentioned, and publishing the real time locations of officers by their actual name (initials) on a website anybody can visit.
Then you should also have no problem with an app that helps people spot and identify people that break into cars, imo a much larger problem in SF than parking spot thieves.
Any public officer, so also the spies you have in Russia, the investigators on murder cases, really everyone should have no privacy whatsoever in your mind?
As soon as the bodycams oh so requested by the Left were worn, it became slowly clear who the majority of perpetrators are in Cops vs. Blacks, Antifa, white liberal women... Now the Left's opinion seems to turn against these.
Thank you for thinking about the safety of our neighbors.
May I ask whether you've considered the unique vehicles the parking enforcement agents use?
SFMTA is hard to miss in their 3-wheelers--believe it's the Westward Industries "GO-4" Interceptor. I may have a blind spot here (like someone with access to an armed drone fleet could have made use of the map?), but essentially all private citizens will see these unmistakable three-wheelers simply by opening their front doors or heading downtown. Or into most any neighborhood.
For others reading this besides you, what additional safety burden could be presented by this map which is absent simply with any of the 800,000 pairs of human eyeballs in SF? (Here to learn, no snark!)
The 800,000 pairs of human eyeballs aren't hooked up to a public real-time reporting system? Functionally, this is pretty different. Could argue either way.
Most states have a public real time map showing snow plow locations. Ask yourself why is it not a problem when their info is public.
At the end of the day what this comes down to is the current scale of parking tickets being something that needs to be backed by more violence (i.e. deploy actual cops with all their associated costs) than society would tolerate (people would complain about costs, request the resources be spent elsewhere, etc).
> Most states have a public real time map showing snow plow locations. Ask yourself why is it not a problem when their info is public.
From what I’m reading, I imagine it’s because the snow plow trackers don’t individually identify their operators as this seems to.
Seems weird to me (from nowhere near SF) that some of the cheapest things to do are to block fire stations, fire hydrants and 'fire lanes' (I assume that's like a bus lane but for fire engines, in places that's common enough for whatever reason, like right by a fire station?) - wheelchair/disability related stuff is much more penalised, but even all sorts of other 'regular' mis-parking seems for some reason slightly more expensive than blocking fire crews. Odd isn't it? Have I misunderstood?
> 'fire lanes' (I assume that's like a bus lane but for fire engines, in places that's common enough for whatever reason, like right by a fire station?)
Fire lanes are not express lanes for fire engines. They're more like reserved parking for fire engines only. Typically the curb is painted red, and you'll see markings 'no parking - fire lane'. I think of these showing up in parking lots everywhere you're not allowed to park.
Most of the parking violations are about the same level of fine. There's tiers, really big fines are for using disabled placards inappropriately, pretty big for blocking disabled parking, then blocking busses, abandoning vehicles, defaced license plate, no registration, blocking bike, then kind of everything else.
Fire lanes fit in the everything else, but they probably get more enforcement, so the low per instance fees add up if you are highly likely to be ticketted if you park in a red zone.
One of the few things that everyone in American society agrees upon is that violating disabled parking spots is egregiously wrong and should be punished fiercely
The fine is low because the "typical case" is like a long van that's hanging over the line into the hydrant zone or something but doesn't actually block access.
They'd rather have the fine be low for the people who are actually blocking the fire lanes in spirit in order to rake in the money from the people who are only doing it in technicality.
Actually... those fees are outdated. It jumped to me because for the first time in years I got a fine for "parking on grades" - Somehow I was distracted and turned my wheels the opposite direction.
So I found the fees for July 2025[1]. My fine was $108 and not $68
But also they made errors in publishing their fees, they claimed it didn't increase this year, but it did [2] - and asked the AI to find all the other inconsistencies.
So now I wonder if I should ask for $40 back. That's a dramatic increase, and seems like the intent was it to stay at $68
There are a ton of interesting use-cases for public city data. When I was an Airbnb host, I built an early alert system to send me email if my address was ever reported or under investigation. The government moves at a snails pace, so anyone who was paying attention would have plenty of time to cure any issues before any formal investigation was even started. I even had a personal dashboard showing how the enforcement office operated, how many investigators they had, which neighborhoods were getting the most enforcement actions, stats on how cases were resolved, how long they took, etc.
Amazing to see the scale of it. As a piece of feedback my assumption is that different officers are assigned to different areas and so since street sweeping is either the first and third or second and fourth week of the month for most residential areas, this will allow different officers to float to the top in different weeks. Having at least a 2 week lookback for the leaderboard is probably best. Otherwise great work!
> street sweeping is either the first and third or second and fourth week of the month for most residential areas
On my block we get it 2x/week. I've never seen a street sweeper come by and the street is always dirty, but I sure have gotten tickets for leaving my vehicle out front overnight on the wrong day.
I think the street is dirty precisely because there are vehicles out on the wrong day such that the street sweeper couldn't sweep that part of the street. Getting a ticket means the street sweeper couldn't do its job and you don't see clean streets.
As far as I know you only get a ticket if you're actually parked there when the sweeper comes by. There's a parking cop car following the sweeper and ticketing the cars. You're allowed to re-park in the street after the sweeper has done its job, even if it's still technically street sweeping time.
So if you've got a ticket, there almost certainly was a sweeper that came by at that time.
FWIW the sweeper comes by my street on the posted schedule. Most days one or two parking cops come ahead of the sweeper writing tickets. I have never seen them come behind the sweeper though I have seen the sweeper wait for them. I believe it is policy not to write tickets after because as other posts have noted it is perfectly legal to park right after the sweeper comes through even if it is still sweeper hours.
Of course we are on the corner and the other street does not get sweeping (it is also concrete). I assume that is because it is too steep.
Readit News
> In rare lightning speed, the SF government changed their site within hours of this site going live. I can't get data from it anymore.
That pattern feels suspiciously like how a tacked-on modulo check-digit would act.
It seems the real citation number, x, excludes the last digit, and you only needed to +1 increment to it.
Then they tack on a last digit, a check-digit, of (x+1) mod 7. That would be the same pattern.
The contract for the system does have the clause "validate the data transcribed from handwritten Citations…a check-digit algorithm to control errors in the Citation number field" https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-docume...
They started their example pattern with an citation number 984,946,606 they earlier said wasn't valid rather than 984,946,605 given initially (and shown in the image).
Deleted Comment
So wait.
cop-spotter is brought to you by the people who brought you bop-spotter?
I understand the sentiment, and I appreciate the hackery... but you put these people at risk today. You need to think much more carefully about how you approach things like this in the future.
It's worth noting that SF Parking Control Officers aren't "police" by most any definition. They're not sworn, and they don't qualify as peace officers under California law. They can't execute warrants, make arrests, or carry firearms, etc. They work under the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), not the SFPD.
Their enforcement powers are limited to issuing parking citations, ordering tows, and directing traffic. About the only thing they share with actual police is the word "Officer" in the job title. Tracking these folks is about equivalent to tracking individual USPS employees.
But the idea that current public locations of identifiable public officers is not justifiable at all.
That would be allowing individuals to be stalked in real time. That's not OK.
circumvention of the rules for a priveleged few (like those who know how to surveil the enforcement officers) is actual corruption. this service doesn't expose corruption, it enables it.
So live public webcams in the employee restrooms in all government buildings?
I would argue that public officers would retain personal privacy, but that such privacy cannot be a shield against the public for the government concealing substantive operations, and that the identity of public officers and the substantive means by which they are engaged in the exercise of public functions, are therefore not within the space of their personal privacy.
There is a world difference between everything you mentioned, and publishing the real time locations of officers by their actual name (initials) on a website anybody can visit.
As soon as the bodycams oh so requested by the Left were worn, it became slowly clear who the majority of perpetrators are in Cops vs. Blacks, Antifa, white liberal women... Now the Left's opinion seems to turn against these.
May I ask whether you've considered the unique vehicles the parking enforcement agents use?
SFMTA is hard to miss in their 3-wheelers--believe it's the Westward Industries "GO-4" Interceptor. I may have a blind spot here (like someone with access to an armed drone fleet could have made use of the map?), but essentially all private citizens will see these unmistakable three-wheelers simply by opening their front doors or heading downtown. Or into most any neighborhood.
For others reading this besides you, what additional safety burden could be presented by this map which is absent simply with any of the 800,000 pairs of human eyeballs in SF? (Here to learn, no snark!)
If it just showed where the cars were, that would be much better. Although still questionable IMHO.
(Even though respecting privacy would mean that a massive number of HN techbros would quickly be unemployed.)
Deleted Comment
At the end of the day what this comes down to is the current scale of parking tickets being something that needs to be backed by more violence (i.e. deploy actual cops with all their associated costs) than society would tolerate (people would complain about costs, request the resources be spent elsewhere, etc).
Fire lanes are not express lanes for fire engines. They're more like reserved parking for fire engines only. Typically the curb is painted red, and you'll see markings 'no parking - fire lane'. I think of these showing up in parking lots everywhere you're not allowed to park.
Most of the parking violations are about the same level of fine. There's tiers, really big fines are for using disabled placards inappropriately, pretty big for blocking disabled parking, then blocking busses, abandoning vehicles, defaced license plate, no registration, blocking bike, then kind of everything else.
Fire lanes fit in the everything else, but they probably get more enforcement, so the low per instance fees add up if you are highly likely to be ticketted if you park in a red zone.
It doesn't count the glass shop bill when the fire fighters gleefully fuck up your car to run the hose between the side windows.
They'd rather have the fine be low for the people who are actually blocking the fire lanes in spirit in order to rake in the money from the people who are only doing it in technicality.
So I found the fees for July 2025[1]. My fine was $108 and not $68
But also they made errors in publishing their fees, they claimed it didn't increase this year, but it did [2] - and asked the AI to find all the other inconsistencies.
So now I wonder if I should ask for $40 back. That's a dramatic increase, and seems like the intent was it to stay at $68
[1] https://www.sfmta.com/media/42628/download?inline [2] https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/3330732a-2bd1-497d-ab...
On my block we get it 2x/week. I've never seen a street sweeper come by and the street is always dirty, but I sure have gotten tickets for leaving my vehicle out front overnight on the wrong day.
So if you've got a ticket, there almost certainly was a sweeper that came by at that time.
Of course we are on the corner and the other street does not get sweeping (it is also concrete). I assume that is because it is too steep.