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Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

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Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#451

Post by cronix »

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #404
kawfey wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned from Nextdoor, that a neighbor of mine put cat litter in an amazon box, and later found out her car's driver side window busted in and the litter dumped on the seat. I now just have packages sent to lockers and UPS/FedEX access points, and I know a few who have packages delivered to their office. The crappy part is that she captured clear detail of both events but police couldn't be bothered. Nest and Ring…

> there's still a ways to go before security camera footage can be sent to the PD and automatically identify the offender via facial analysis. Be careful what you wish for. I don't want the police to be able to perform accurate facial recognition at the kind of scale you're talking about, even if that would make it harder for thieves to steal packages.

> I don't want the police to be able to perform accurate facial recognition at the kind of scale you're talking about

Amazon is helping cities and counties implement Rekognition systems fairly cheap with cameras tied to criminal databases. It's happening. They've done it in Washington County, OR, Orlando, FL, and others [1]. Amazon is also teaming up with law enforcement to install Ring doorbells with cameras (Amazon owns them) hooked up to the same type of system.[2] Palantir Systems (CIA backed) have done similar in NYC[3] and even doing PREDICTIVE crime analysis in New Orleans[4] and Chicago [5]. In the case of New Orleans, the public and city counsel was not even made aware. Only the mayor knew. Yes, be very, very careful what you wish for.

[1] https://aws.amazon.com/rekognition/customers/

[2] https://qz.com/1495241/amazon-has-a-clever-way-to-catch-pack...

[3] https://gizmodo.com/how-palantir-is-taking-over-new-york-cit...

[4] https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict...

[5] https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/19/12552384/chicago-heat-lis...

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#452

Post by Frondo »

scarejunba wrote: post #344
EForEndeavour wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better yet, we could wall in the criminals and declare the inside of their "cells" to be the outside, thus walling them out.

Nah, to do that you need to curtail people’s freedom. What I’m proposing is simply that we privatize large parts of society and exclude people from the private areas based on their tendency to be bad actors. It’s not about restricting freedom. It’s about enabling free safe association for everyone who opts in. Like a massive HOA.

You are absolutely proposing restricting freedom, just that you want to be the one defining how to do so, i.e. you want to be in charge.

It is a story as old as time.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#454

Post by rconti »

stingraycharles wrote: post #224
Rainymood wrote: post #16

I'm honestly really shocked by how casually people seem to steal these parcels, like what the hell?

As a European, I'm surprised that the postal services in the US just leave the packages outside, rather than ringing the doorbell and/or delivering it to a neighbor. Over here in The Netherlands, pickup points are common (my local groceries store is one), you can choose your delivery time (also in the evening) and they will deliver it to a neighbor when I'm not home. Why not avoid this whole problem with any of these…

Nobody's home during the day. What neighbor? How do you know which neighbor will be home, or which neighbor to trust? When 90% of your package recipients are not home, you spend 3x as much time per package delivery.

Carriers offload responsibility by allowing the sender or receiver to opt-out of signature/package acceptance, so why would they care?

Just one data point, but I've been having packages delivered to my home my entire life and never had a single one go missing. Seems like a really high cost to prevent something unlikely.

On the other hand, I had never had a home or vehicle broken into until someone smashed my car window last night at the movie theater. So, there's a first time for everything.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#455

Post by weberc2 »

Guest10928391 wrote: post #180
weberc2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, let me spell it out: that the law protects criminals and punishes innocent citizens in such cases is indicative of a problem with the law. And yes, defending your property from theft is categorically "innocent".

Booby traps are not "innocent". What happens if you stop responding and paramedics are sent to your property? They get paintballed because they approached your porch at night when there should have been no visitors? What happens if you put a car airbag in a booby trapped package, and someone steals the package and brings it home. Then later that day their child or spouse finds and opens the package not realizing it w…

We're not talking about liability when a trap injures an innocent person; of course the innocent person would not be held liable. When a trap injures a thief, the thief should be liable.

I agree that traps are a bad idea because I don't trust most people to devise traps that don't harm innocents; however, this is markedly different than the argument that "when a trap hurts a thief, the thief bears no responsibility". Also, the specific scenario we're discussing is a thief getting a bit of glitter in their eye.

Anyway, I welcome any advancement that can help deter thieves (and/or make sure they're prosecuted) while protecting innocent bystanders. I'm not convinced pervasive facial recognition software is the key given the privacy concerns, but maybe it's inevitable. However, all of this is orthogonal to the question of who is culpable for injuries incurred by a thief during a theft.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#456

Post by edc117 »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #400
blacksmith_tb wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the video evidence is meant to help the police (or, obviously, to deter the thieves), but it's useful for requesting a replacement from the shipper.

I don't think the shippers are responsible for any theft that's not caused by their staff.

Does anyone know the answer to this? I'm very curious. I actually wonder if it would be worse to report that you have video evidence of a thief, because they may no longer be liable (hey, we delivered it to where it had to go, rest is up to you) vs just saying 'it never got here'.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#457

Post by tlrobinson »

shaftway wrote: post #390
tivert wrote: post #256

If you're concerned about package thieves, just buy an outdoor cabinet and put it next to your door with a note asking that packages be placed in it. I use an Ikea Josef: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage-furniture/outdoo... You don't even need a lock for it. If you can get the deliverymen to consistently place packages in it, the thieves will have no idea if there's actually a package at your door to steal…

Yeah, we had a package stolen off our porch, so we did that. It's a bench with a liftable top. The plan was to put a padlock on it. All of our packages are addressed to: Shaftway Place in Bench - Code 1234 24601 Where I Live St. My City, ST, ZipZipZip We order a lot of stuff, and probably average 3 deliveries per day. In the last 3 months we've had exactly one package placed in the bench. And we never even got around…

I used to write delivery instructions in the address, but some delivery companies would pretty consistently cross out that line with a black marker.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#458

Post by SCAQTony »

Is this even legal or safe to have a glitter "bomb," or more accurately, a spinning motor spraying glue if an accomplice opens the package within a moving car? How about just a GPS signal to notify cops. The glitter stuff and chemical spray is probably a civil liability as well.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#459

Post by weberc2 »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #440
weberc2 wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, we were talking about a theif getting a little glitter in their eye; I understand why shooting someone is controversial.

You understand why shooting someone is controversial, but you don't understand why recklessly causing someone to go blind is controversial?

This is a silly comment. You're more likely to blind someone with the dust your car kicks up as you drive by them, and such a person would be actually innocent as opposed to our hypothetical vision-impaired thief.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#460

Post by tlrobinson »

redeemedfadi wrote: post #346
tivert wrote: post #256

If you're concerned about package thieves, just buy an outdoor cabinet and put it next to your door with a note asking that packages be placed in it. I use an Ikea Josef: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage-furniture/outdoo... You don't even need a lock for it. If you can get the deliverymen to consistently place packages in it, the thieves will have no idea if there's actually a package at your door to steal…

Full disclosure: I work on this: https://www.getboxlock.com/

Neat. Does it somehow know which barcodes belong to your packages, or could a thief rip a barcode off any package and use it to unlock it?
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