Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves
bbc.com
bbc.com
They used my credit card at foot locker (~$500), The Store Manager confirmed two guys made the purchase and corporate said they would turn over the video if police just ask.
A month later the bank fraud dept informed me someone was trying to cash a fake check ($1,600) against my account at an ATM using my ID (stolen from the car) and they ATM video shows the guy and the would turn it over to police if they requested it.
I even emailed the detective with chain and all he had to do was reply all, but the detective refuses (“we don’t look into these things”). Meanwhile these people have my address and key (even though I rekeyed) they may be lurking and try to come in, and I should be entitled to know what these people look like.
I was attacked on HN for suggesting this but I’ll suggest it again, since the author of this post already had video of these theives, there needs to be a platform to post these videos for the public to crowdsource the identity of these people.
I know there are not police resources to pursue every amazon purchase, but in my case it was grand theft and it’s ongoing, and likely to escalate, but the police are unwilling to do anything to help (but be damn sure they’d look into it if they were the victims).
I've had a similar experience to yours, having my back window smashed out and wallet stolen. luckily we have camera's for our property and were able to get a license # and had our own footage to provide the police with. I wonder if that's why it was taken more seriously.
In your shoes I would tell the police you are being targeted & feel unsafe. that might trigger a better response which isn't entirely untrue. It's not like these people are oversea's they are in your city.
And then what? Will the platform also have a portal that will let people en masse vex the local PD with messages containing links to the video until the precinct assigns an officer to the case?
What happens next? Is there going to be a timer or some kind of SLA on the platform that notifies people in the crowd "Sergeant Jones still hasn't found the bastard who stole from the Smith family down on the corner"?
Crowdsourcing criminal investigation, even a passive element of it like identifying mugs from home security footage seems like a rabbit hole I'm not sure we're prepared to go down (it also scares the bajeezus out of me because the general population, sorry to say this, aren't the rational actors I want involved in trying to identify perps so casually through 'platforms').
Yes, it's a "rabbit hole [we're] not sure we're prepared to go down". We're not prepared. We're going down it
Post hoc ergo propter hoc make for valid public policy it does not.
What source do you point to that we as a society are OK with qualified law enforcement looking the other way?
One of my exes is certain what to do, which is why she’s campaigning for the fourth largest political party in America.
Me, I could work on AI to fully enforce all laws, but I suspect that would have unfortunate side effects like accidentally returning to feudalism after all but a few thousand Americans end up with multiple millennia of prison time because the laws themselves are overbroad… and if I limit it to just laws I agree with, well that’s exactly the sort of thing I would be appalled by if done by someone with whom I disagreed about which laws were just.
What should we do, do you recon?
It is also official policy to not investigate theft below of $500, unless special circumstances. Because of this many stores has refused to file police reports, which the state statisticians then complained on national news since that limits their ability to make accurate reports to the politicians on how much crime exist.
You're excluding the admittedly somewhat bleak but still quite plausible third alternative: we as a society are in practice OK with this class of crime going largely unprosecuted.
The legitimate authorities are resource constrained, the political process isn't prepared to allocate sufficient resources to change that, and the societal costs of allowing vigilanteism and extrajudicial punishment are broadly believed to outstrip the scope of the problem they would ostensibly be solving. This leads to an equilibrium where a lot of petty theft goes unpunished and we, as a society, are in practice content to accept it that way.
Money: Reduce spending overseas by cutting down drastically on operations outside the nation's borders.
Education: Establish longer training, covering more in-depth the actual goals of law enforcement, effective strategies in community engagement, de-escalation tactics, psychology and the justice system.
Respect: Integrate law enforcement back into the communities they are supposed to serve. Reduce the barriers, demilitarize law enforcement from the look, equipment and the strategies employed all the way to the mindset of the law enforcement officials. Citizens (all humans in fact) should be viewed more like customers than like potential perpetrators.
Well let me tell you of another event that occurred to me in 08/17.
I was kidnapped at gunpoint from a gas station, forced to drive my attacker with a gun on my for 30 minutes, eventually after getting off the highway I jumped out of my own car in gear, escaped and called the police.
First words out of the sergeants mouth responding, “cut the shit what really happened.” Despite my insistence I’m an officer of the court myself (attorney at Law) that there will be video from the gas station to prove my version of events, I was even told, “we aren’t even sure if you own a car and if you are just calling police for a free ride.”
In that case, in 24 hours I located my car and the gunman and called the police and had him arrested. That’s not to say I did this voluntarily, luckily the gunman connected my WiFi only iPad to the internet and I got the location, of course I called the police first, who told me “they heard about my ‘story’ yesterday, and wouldn’t be going to the address until I drove to the station and showed them the Apple email”. I did just that and after keeping me in the parking lot for an hour and laughing at me 2 officers came out to me (this station was closed on Sunday) and took down the address, drive away and called my cellphone and told me go home they don’t see my car. Unsatisfied I went to the address myself, found my car and the gunman, called the police yet again and they finally came and arrested him.
He bonded out Monday at 8AM. He has since been rearrested, bonded out yet again, rearrested yet again for violation of his bond vis—Avis his GPS tracker I insisted on.
His trial is still ongoing. Someone stole my keys and ID, I should be entitled to know what they look like when 2 videos are available, crimes against me are ongoing, and the cost of the officers time (since you are so concerned about their $150/hour rates...which seem entirely made up, no offense) is a 1 minute reply to an email I forwarded him from foot locker loss prevention.
Edit: I forgot my conclusion, which is, people who engage in these activities in many cases will even have friends and family who turn them in (i.e. the unibomber). But even if they don’t a public platform would be very helpful in deterring these activities, which is the ultimate goal.
Why is the solution to more gun violence more guns?
If I'm unarmed, then I'm likely to be safe, even if I do get robbed.
Armed victim is more trouble for perpetrator so they will find easier prey. Most crimes aren’t specific but are opportunistic. If you’re a crackhead with a gun or whatnot do you stick up the crazy with a gun on their belt? Or wait 5 minutes for an unarmed victim?
This seems like such simple logic that it surprises me that I frequently hear arguments like yours.
I think that a ccw will not help against a hitman. But it sure helps against crackheads.
Since I'm not a rational long term thinker, I shoot my victim and take the wallet from the body, why give them a chance to shoot back?. This is the end result of the arms race you advocate for.
Crackheads aren’t random, they have some reasoning.
I’ve had a lot of experience with crackheads and robbing an armored car and a random care aren’t equally likely to them. Again, a crackhead doesn’t want to rob a particular person. They just want money.
The bear doesn’t want to eat you. They just want to eat someone.
I'd much rather choose an increase in the chance of having my possessions stolen (the chances of getting caught in this crime are pretty small anyway), than an increase in the chance I get shot.
Plus, by taking the "don't carry a gun" route, you can increase legal restrictions on guns. Gun control won't stop hitmen either, but crackheads in the UK don't have firearms.
It's a nice justice boner but it doesn't mean this is the usual outcome.
Especially without military training like this guy had.
2. It's true that when we talk about life and death situations there are many ugly outcomes. It is, however, not clear that the ugly is the most common outcome when a law-abiding gun owner is involved. This is due to the fact that records are more than likely made when someone is shot, but not necessarily if one deters an assailant with a weapon.
If the assailant also had a CCW, he would know how stupid it is to approach someone else with a gun.
Now, granted, many police officers don’t have anywhere near as much gun training than your average NRA member, but I submit they still have way more training with guns than the average person on the street.
Given that, I can’t see how the solution to the gun problem is by having more guns.
You’re confusing open carry with concealed carry.
the number one way that police officers get shot/killed is by having their own gun taken away
I used to think the USA was a "safe" place. Maybe it is compared to Somalia but it isn't compared to Japan or Singapore. Once I got used to the safety of these places I never feel safe in the USA anymore.
I used just take it for granted there were bad parts of town and that even in the good parts of town I should be leery of people, avoid dark alleys etc. Don't walk alone at night, etc. Then I lived in these other places where that concept mostly doesn't exist.
As a concrete example it's common sense in the USA if I get a 3rd party car stereo I should get a removable car stereo and always take it out or hide it. I had 5 of them stolen and my car once and just took it all as "sucks but that's that way life is, my fault for forgetting to take the stereo out or not buying a lojack". But it's not the way life is. It's the way we've let it become.
There's lots of other examples and AFAIK most of it is cultural. An example, find a dropped wallet. In USA/Europe a large percentage of people have the attitude "score for me! found free money!" Not sure if that percentage is 20% or 80% but in Japan (and I think Singapore) the more common response is "OMG, someone is really going to be in a tough spot. I'd better try to get this back to them if possible". In the USA even if people had that attitude they might rationalize that the police won't care and it might be true the police don't care which is just another symptom of the same problem.
I have no clues how to spread the nicer culture to the West. It seems the opposite "me me me" culture is impossible to fight.
PS: these kinds of posts always illicit irrelevant responses of the problems in Japan and Singapore. I'm not saying Japan and Singapore are perfection. I'm only pointing out this one area where they do better.
Swipes like that break the HN guidelines. Can you please edit them out of what you post here? Your comment would be better without that sentence, and maybe also the patronizing bit at the end ("these kinds of posts always illicit irrelevant responses").
What you (the global "you") experience in the world and the results of your interaction are not a template, and other people's experiences may sometimes preclude them from truly realizing, appreciating and unpacking why people in other social groups might see interactions with the constabulary (keeping in context with this comment thread) or other systems of society a bit differently.
As a matter of personal perspective, the suggestion to break one's bubble isn't a swipe, but a request to entertain the thought that one's preconceived notions about a given affair might change with the knowledge that their experiences are not universal and exposure to a different angle.
Maybe the curt nature of the suggestion doesn't meet some arbitrary ideal of discussion, but that doesn't invalidate the root point of the suggestion.
Matter of perspective, no, Dan? Would it have been less of a pejorative to borrow a phrase from the latest incantation of our discussions of race and culture in the US to say "check your privilege?"
Granted this isn't the place for a protracted discussion on dialogue here, I just find the strong reaction to what is a very important clarion call to evaluate ones own biases and experiences against a spectrum of biases and experiences shared by every other human being, however curt or brief, taking it the point of calling it a "pejorative" an interesting reaction-IMO.
Maybe I should have left it out or maybe written something else like "Is it possible you're experiencing the world in a bubble?". In any case too late to edit (the option does not appear)
It's definitely a matter of interpretation. But the online medium is fragile, and if one person (me in this case) reads it as a swipe, usually a lot do.
That being said, I wouldn't throw all of Europe in with them in this case. I lost my wallet for the first time a few months ago in Prague. The ones who found it went through the effort of finding my contact information (I only had my student ID in my wallet, no contact information whatsoever, my mistake) and when we met up and it was returned to me all the money was still in it.
Although that is only one personal case, I spent around 5 months touring 15 different countries in Europe and witnessed people leaving laptops at the coffee shop unwatched and just leaving their bikes completely unsecured in front of the subway entrance as part of their commute, which are both pretty strong signals that many of those nations share a culture where theft simply isn't common.
In India. Police supplies thieves with information. Guards the scene while the theft is ongoing. Shares the spoils, and then harasses the complainer. And to put it mildly this is like a low key operation I just described. They do a lot lot more.
It's like an extended branch of the mafia. Most sought after jobs in India after civil services.
Recently in Bangalore a police guy was caught on cam stealing a journalists scooter.
First impressions matter a lot when it comes to bureaucracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity
Additionally, police have no legal duty or obligation to protect or investigate.
Unless you own a lot of property, you still can’t expect much from the police in the USA.
that's crap.
We've been doing that for hundreds of years, so if there is a rabbit hole, we're at the bottom of it.
My position on this is, if we're talking about being frustrated with the police not generating the outcomes we want from petty theft, and if we're also experiencing gnashing of teeth and tearing of sackcloth aimed at tech companies for things ranging from data breaches to questionable ethics and corporate responsibility (and in some cases, but certainly not all-with seeming impunity), why on earth would we ever conjoin the two roles like this?
Because it's all well and good when the crowd gets it right and the lynch mob goes to town on the bad guy. But the issue is when that mob gets turned on the wrong guy. The internet has a long memory and seldom admits when it is wrong. "Bob Jerry is the Boston Marathon bomber" sticks around much longer than "Whoops, our bad, Bob Jerry is just some dude"
Name-and-Shame systems usually relies on unverified complains: One can "identify" the wrong individual or someone can make a fake complain - In both situations someone's reputation will be damaged, sometimes boyond repair.
That's why police should take care of this. They are supposed to be unbiased, run propper investigation and do proper verification. The fact that they don't do that is a different problem.
Before you argue something like "lets verify those complains", Let me put in a different way: If you keep playing the if-that-do-that game, at the end you are going to see that we have basically two options: Live in a system where lots of criminals goes to jail but more inocents gets falsely implicated, or one where we get less false-positives but we also miss some criminals.
Modern society has chosen the second option for a reason.
sooo, like, down with trial by jury?
If it's something that ordinary citizens can solve, it's something that the police should be able to solve. It's their job, it's a crime with real victims, there's no excuse not to do anything.
And there are plenty of stories about police arresting people on trivial issues, questionable charges, there's stuff about how they shoot black people over nothing, there's civil forfeiture. But actual theft? That is what the police should be working on. If they don't, what are they for?
I'm not smart enough to come up with solutions but there has to be something better than police unaccountable to anyone without excessive amounts of capital to effectively waste.
Assuming the video in OP is genuine the thieves, IIRC, are pretty well off. They certainly have assets that could be forfeit -- nice cars, comfy furniture, smartphones, etc..
These people don't appear to be stealing through necessity.
Lots of possibilities. Don't even need a lawyer if going into small, claims court with video from something they stole. Only thing that concerned me was the confetti and fart bomb possibly counting as battery, booby traps, or whatever. I'd probably just set it to record and track even though other stuff was hilarious.
Also, to reply to your parent - Heinlein recommended public flogging. I believe it's criminally underused.
In part, I understood this. While the personal loss was significant to me, the dollar amount was only a few thousands that insurance covered. Nobody was hurt. No guns were stolen.
In fact, those were two of the first questions I was asked: "Do you have any guns?", and "Were there any company files on the laptop?"
On the other hand, a couple of days later, I found that a piece of paper left on the floor held a perfect if light image in dirt of a sneaker sole that did not match my shoes and I was pretty sure did not match the patrolmens' footwear. So I called the detective and left a message, and followed up once. He didn't even bother to respond.
I mention this, because people should understand, to the extent they don't already: Police "triage" their cases. And for many of those cases, it doesn't matter that a crime was committed. They are putting their time, energy, and political capital towards other things. (They have their own workplaces to deal with, including reciprocity and the need to build their careers. Whether or not you agree with the system (as an insider or an outsider seeking services), it's how things work.)
P.S. That sucks, Will. I can relate to how frustrating that must be. And in my case, a bit more attention might have meant less people ultimately burgled.
Not anymore, they just robbed me!
"Were there any company files on the laptop?"
I don't know, it's fucking gone!
This reminds me of the "hack" I've seen posted here before about preventing the TSA from going through your luggage --- pack it with a gun.
change your key, open a new checking account & close old, lock your credit. and that ends your exposure.
you won't get the video footage because it creates a legal liability for the owners to release it.
EDIT I'm all for broken windows but thats still implemented as a sampling approach. They don't actually pursue every low-level crime.
Crime certainly happens everywhere, no place is immune altogether, but it should never be an everyday occurrence.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/The-Scanner-San-Fr...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...
Then... what the hell are they for?!?! That is utterly insane.
Just how it works. It's how it always worked. The "Protect and Serve" is just marketing. There's definitely plenty of cops that are about that, though. Even some that don't care will risk their lives protecting people because it's part of their job enforcing the law as their supervisors or police chiefs order them. It's all pretty complicated.
In pro-gun areas, we are already operating with this assumption, though. That ruling just reinforced what many of us already believed and sometimes experienced. Each American is responsible for their own safety before anything or anyone else helps them. Each living person is responsible for deciding their own risk avoidance or tolerance in their various systems since there's no guarantee the system can protect them without their own action. It's up to use first and foremost.
The police (and government agents more generally) are not legally responsible to victims for decisions not pursue crimes, or not to prevent predictable future crimes.
This sort of gets at your idea of a platform to identify people.
This is what Reddit tried to do with the Boston bombing.
How do you handle deep fakes?
You prohibit the police from making warrantless arrests for misdemeanors that did not occur in their presence, so they no longer have the power to do that in most cases.
Which is one reason for the lack of action that this vigilante system is proposed to remedy, so, again, how do you deal with the public going after the wrong people?
Not sure what your options are - move to a relatively wealthy suburb probably with a well funded police department where they might not be lazy enough to investigate?
This is how neighborhoods "go downhill" as they say. Car break-ins were a major decision for us to move out that town.
What would you say is a good measure of an effective police officer?
Would you say percentage of closed cases? Because that's what leads to this.
Would you say, the number of crimes reported per capita? Because that's what leads to this.
It's unlikely you'll find these people or catch them on average. You may get them for something else and be able to close several cases at once, but the truth is you'll just never see them again. So if you take the report and open a case, your numbers look bad. Crime per capita is up, percentage of closed cases goes down.
I'm sorry, but the US is still the wealthiest country in the world, and the only reason why car theft is so rampant in SF is the police and DA complete inability to prosecute against it.
so, the chances of my package being stolen and my car being broken into vs. the chances of being publicly misidentified as a package/car thief. Loss of $10-$10000 vs. ruined life. I'll definitely take the former.
Seriously people: your car is not secure storage.
He didn't say "Hide your stuff better", he said "Don't treat your car like secure storage".
Same reason it is OK to tell people that avoiding smoking reduces their chances of getting lung cancer or that wearing a condom reduces their change of STDs, but it is not OK to tell someone with lung cancer that it is their fault for smoking or to tell someone with an STD that it is their fault for not wearing a condom.
If anyone's right to identity and self-expression is exemplified by keeping wallet and keys in their car, then, yes, I suppose they should certainly assert their rights by keeping valuables in their car!
It’s essentially free to anyone who can MITM your connection.
I found out about it on Nextdoor. I wasn't affected by it (I have my packages delivered to my work), but I watched the thread with interest.
The neighbors had cameras - they got good pictures of the vehicle, the woman who stole the packages, etc. Multiple neighbors did this, coordinating via Nextdoor.
Our community resource officer of our local PD station was also notified about this.
One even saw the car, followed her in her own vehicle, and got a license plate number, and called the police. The woman was arrested and everyone who had packages stolen by her gave the police their pictures or videos to help.
The case is still on-going; this only happened last week.
I have no doubt that if something like you describe doesn't exist, that someone can or will make it. What would be nice would be if the site also added similar "glitter bomb" kits (maybe simplified in some manner to make them less expensive) to upload for entertainment, and to help catch the thieves.
These people have no shame, and seemingly no sense or care that they are being watched. Everyone with a camera had signs saying they were filming 24/7 with security cams, but that didn't seem to matter.
If it made their car unsellable out their house miserable I'd call that a success and no one got hurt.
Whether a prosecutor and/or a jury would be interested in that argument is another story.
My car was stolen last Friday night. It's on a car-share platform so the thief took the lockbox that's normally fitted to the window, bashed it open to get the key, and came back later for the vehicle. There is a very conspicuous warning on the lockbox that the car is fitted with two GPS units.
When I first reported the theft, police said all they can do is wait for the car to show up and provide a report for insurance purposes.
Then I checked the location via the car-share site. GPS updates were still working. When I called the police back to let them know I had a current location and could keep them updated in (almost) real time, it changed everything. Suddenly multiple cars were sent out while I kept reporting updates, and they managed to make an arrest within maybe 20 minutes.
It's great to see how a little technology can give victims a taste of vigilantism without endangerment.
Why are they allowed to have a policy like this? They should be properly funded and staffed, and then they should start doing their damn homework.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doe_subpoena
Call an attorney!
Law and justice are very complicated and have a massive impact on lives and society which is why we entrust a few authorized members to carry out enforcement. That doesn't mean we don't have problems with bad police, lack of resources, or politics - but the solution is to fix those areas, not crowdsource criminal justice.
The police in the USA of course have no legal obligation to investigate or protect, contrary to popular understanding. Sovereign/qualified immunity really needs to be scaled back.
Yup, they’re fucked. But you have the time, so you aren’t.
It’s a dumb, bullshit game, but it is what it is.
If they wont even bother with the most non-controversial of crimes, what makes you think they have the moral gumption to not do that to get rid of an annoyance?
No, what you need is a functioning police force. Not vigilante justice.
Edit: You could also make a public platform where you would crowdsource generating the political pressure to make the police work better, as well as monitoring them for doing their jobs. This has the advantage that the people put in the spotlight have a public function already, and that it's a more democratic process.
The main problem I have with your proposal is that it results in the doxxing and witch hunt of people caught on camera and even if mostly effective/just, this will eventually backfire because of the thirst for revenge and spectacle and because we can't have nice things.
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 or not without actually attempting a theft. For extra deterrence, you can install a motion activated camera next to it. The idea is to reduce the thieves' expectation of reward while increasing their expectation of getting caught.
This is backed by research. For example: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-22270052
Psychological deterrence.
If you wonder "Who would carry a portable spectrum analyzer while walking along a street of Christmas light displays in order to see what wireless systems were being employed to control them?" that would be me.
If I were going to pull off a heist in broad daylight, I'd get some cones and print a Rolex logo on a safety vest and pull a van up to the Rolex town clock in Carmel and "take it in for repairs" in broad daylight.
Sound to draw attention if they didn't already see it, movement so they think it's smart enough to track them or someone is controlling it, and it looks like a camera so they think they are being recorded.
From there, you could add simple motion tracking (OpenCV or something like that - there's enough in the distro to easily do blob tracking) and command a servo to track.
Total cost for the basic camera setup (not the tracking extra) was around $60.00 - and you don't have to pay for a cloud service or anything like that (I just have it email me the images), plus it's open source, so you can vet the codebase if you need or want.
Radio Shack used to sell these in the 80's.
A guy I knew who worked at one said easily half of the cameras in his mall were fake RS shells.
[1]: Artificial surveillance cues do not increase generosity: two meta-analyses https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109051381...
While I think your suggestion would reduce the chance of theft, I think you overestimate the accuracy of the risk-benefit analysis happening in the thieves' minds, as well as the actual risk involved.
I mean, the activity is already dumb from a risk analysis point of view.
But if they don't know of a package, they won't try to steal it. That is the area that I do think would do well.
Further to that point, I haven’t even needed to provide evidence of stuff having been stolen. Which seems like a system ripe for abuse but it’s nice that it’s weighted in the customers favour for a change.
Thankfully I’ve not needed to complain about stolen stuff in a long while, partly because generally stuff is tossed over a fence or left with neighbors. But mostly because I now live in a quiet village so I don’t get the same kind of passing opportunists like I did when I lived on a busy school road.
That said, I seldom see or have stuff left outside in the UK - assuming no 'if out' instruction - the vast majority of the time it's a 'sorry we missed you' note or occasionally with a neighbour/over the wall.
If they trail too closely, they'll make the deliveryman suspicious.
Call the police, obviously. Everyone has a mobile telephone these days.
Doing so even makes sense from a business perspective, as the carrier may have to pay the insurance on all the stolen packages.
https://www.google.com/amp/amp.wftv.com/news/local/seasonal-...
I can 100% imagine the driver just putting the box on top and leaving, or trying quickly to scan and have it fail then again put the box on top.
You can add delivery instructions to most shipments that tells the delivery driver to use BoxLock.
Shaftway
Place in Bench - Code 1234
24601 Where I Live St.
My City, ST, ZipZipZip
That plus a grassy slope is enough to hide the packages from street view.
Our neighbor across the street gets their packages stolen often. I have never had any package stolen, and I order 100x times as many packages.
I have a sign low on my door right where a deliveryman would leave a package that asks him to put it in the box (with a simple message in big text, a big red arrow pointing towards the box and a photo of it with a package inside). There's no lock to get in his way.
Deliverymen from all carriers use my box about 90% of the time they want to deliver to my doorstep.
For Amazon specifically (since their deliverymen are gig workers), I entered address-specific delivery instructions into their system, mainly so I could complain about their performance more effectively. I think the actual, physical sign is more effective.
I have a camera watching the porch and have a few videos of deliverymen doing a double-take on the sign, then putting the package in the box.
The incentive structure simply isn't set up to reward a delivery driver taking that extra effort. In fact, it explicitly punishes it.
Biggest reason to leave a package at the driveway is a fence/gate. A fence keeps stuff in or out, either way, not respecting that is how you end up with stories like this: https://www.khq.com/news/responders-ram-driveway-gate-to-sav...
"Carrier Service - Place package in box, take a candy, and remove this note."
However, this did result in one of the delivery drivers not correctly counting how many from the end our townhouse was and put it on the wrong porch...
Wow. I really wonder what the environmental impact is of just one household doing this. I think I order something once every.. two months maybe? Three? And if I could get the desired electronics in a local store, I probably would.
Edit: To reply to the three initial comments at once, I see your point. I was thinking "but it's not just about the last mile, it's about getting that package all the way from China or where ever it comes from"... but of course, if I buy it in a store, it still had to come from china. Someone driving to your home all day seems terrible at first impression, but even without grouping the deliveries, I guess it might not be much worse than someone who gets groceries by car. I'd be interested to hear about research that looked into the topic.
Compared to someone who is super frugal, list driven, plans ahead, has one trip a month to get necessities, and grows their food in their yard, sure, it's more impactful.
Perspective always matters.
That's being disingenuous. There are plenty of more moderate options which are perfectly viable for the vast majority of households, like planning a small amount know advance and getting essentials twice a week, or integrating it into other trips (commuting, school runs, coffee runs, walks).
>coffee runs
Can't you just brew coffee yourself if you care about the enviromental impact?
Couldn't you make the argument that the distance being traveled for OP's packages is only the distance between the package immediately before and after his package?
The product is getting delivered to your house both ways, it's just that one is by you and the other isn't. It's not as bad as you make it seem.
I wish there was a way to centralize it into a single staging area for the region and then deliver things in batches, but that won't satisfy the "I NEED IT ASAP" kinds of people.
You didn't state it, at least not as of this writing, but the responses are about gas/emissions waste of individual trips to the store. For that home delivery is probably break even.
There's also the aspect of individual delivery packaging. All that cardboard, foam, plastic and tape vs store delivery which are palletized and bulk packaged.
Contrast to that - before I moved to this house, my old UPS guy used to honk and wave if he saw me walking down the street, knew me by name and would knock every time.
Delivery people don't have time to care. They aren't even reading the labels you know.
You have something tantamount to public/private key cryptography going on there!
Back to the video, I observed that a lot of the thieves talk to themselves out loud. They probably refer to themselves in the third person when talking to someone. Clearly they can't think before they open their mouths, something people should master being able to do as a ten year old. Maybe the only time they think is when they open their mouths, thinking and talking being the same thing to them.
If the secret shadowy people that rule the world in some conspiracy really had plans to depopulate the world then they should get the NSA to track everyone that talks to themselves, select these folk for the depopulation program and then this theft from doorsteps problem would be gone.
Of course that might make a code lock more important.
After getting past my barking dogs (plus the small one that likes to bite people) - they'd get to the fridge, the dogs would shut up ("the person is going to the magic box where good tasting things come from - maybe they'll drop something!"), open up the fridge...
...then get to "play tetris" trying to fit the crap inside an already full unit.
(1) It's too much of a hassle. Delivery drivers probably won't bother (2) What's to stop a thief from scanning a fake barcode?
I can also see some intrepid crooks suing for glitter damaging their eyesight permanently or some other bullshit claim. Some attorney or DA might decide to get free publicity and see if they can swing a "injured by booby trap" case.
But hope your enemy doesn't have a porch camera...
In more then one instance the thief opened the package at their house. So its fair to say he knows where they live too. Also, very clear HD video of their faces and vehicles. And there is no way all the glitter is going to get cleaned up - so more evidence of who they are. And home security cameras with more images of them. Not to say these idiots are smart enough to let things be at this point - but if they do retaliate, there is a very high chance they would be caught.
As for your comments about liability. Yeah, that sounds entirely plausible.
One thing I hadn't thought of though, is that these items might just be accumulating in someone's horde. Filling up some house or rental storage.
The police are a business and if there's not money to be had (traffic citations, parking tickets, etc.), or violent crime happening, you are the lowest possible priority. Source: personal experience + have worked with a couple of police depts many years back (not as a LEO). The only exception here is if you're a reasonable sized business - they tend to take cases like retail/corporate break-in seriously.
TLDR: Agree. People wouldn't do this if there were a real legal cost.
This is the problem.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sessi...
If you look into civil forfeiture it's a racket... and directly infringes on our rights. Even in cases where there is NO wrongdoing you usually have to go through lengthy processes in order to get your property back, and even then you're considered lucky to get the majority of it back (if at all).
Effectively you are guilty until proven innocent with stuff like this on the books. I just find it funny that the same people who yell about "freedom" and "liberty" in this country are the ones who glorify the police as if they can do no wrong.
Unless you're a career criminal who doesn't mind incidental murder charges, just write it off FFS.
On the other, glitter is actually quite polluting, so my preference would be some means of spraying the thief with brightly coloured dye.
One could argue that so called 'hard-core' criminals were once and in some cases still are opportunists, even if the outcomes of their crimes might or might not be more severe than stealing an Amazon package from someone's door step.
That aside though, I'm curious:
What makes you think an opportunist who clearly has the time and means to swipe packages from someone's door while they're at work wouldn't take similar time and opportunity to conduct other forms of petty deviance like vandalizing the car of someone who blasted them with glitter? They clearly have no qualm or compunction with theft, is avenge-fueled-vandalism that far up the logic latter to next steps?
So that the unwitting landlord can be penalised as well?
Eh, somewhere in between. Back when I lived in Oakland (where there was/is a serious package theft problem) everyone in the neighborhood knew who stole folks’ deliveries (camera systems are basically free these days). It happened daily and the cops were too busy fending off corruption and sex trafficking scandals to give a damn. 20% of the time it was some high schooler and you would yell at their parents and get your shit back. 80% of the time it was semi-organized teams of people from a few towns over who would roll up to the end of the street in plate-less cars and drop a couple dudes off on foot. Dudes on foot would walk down the street and grab packages off people’s porches while the car would drive up to the next intersection. Dudes hop in the car, car hits the freeway and is in another city (and soon County) in no time.
Definitely intentional crimes (these things take planning, including networks to fence the stolen goods), but if you yell at them they just move on the next house without retailiating. The second you start harrasing people and causing a ruckus the police have fewer excuses to ignore the issue, and your easy source of cash is gone.
The crappy part is that she captured clear detail of both events but police couldn't be bothered. Nest and Ring have been doing their part to fight back, allowing people to publicly post and set up neighborhood watches against porch pirates et al, but 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.
Also property crimes always take a backseat to more violent crimes.
Some areas even murder is 60%.
A healthy society keeps people from committing crimes, not a giant police force.
Robbers and burglars usually get attention.
Petty theft that does not involve robbery or burglary doesn't, but there is a world of difference between the three crimes.
Perhaps there are some areas in the US where this is a problem, but I don't know if it's safe to generalize that the US is degrading to third-world status just yet.
My dad used to say "there's few things more dangerous in the suburbs than a bored cop".
Been involved in some of those interactions while walking home in my own neighborhood. They're not pleasant. One involved handcuffs and a 30 minute sit on the curb while my backpack was searched. Yes I'm referring to these past incidents in plural for a reason. No, the complaints to the city and precinct didn't do anything.
I have lived some places where the police culture was more toxic, definitely.
I'm not going to go on some kind of "all cops are bastards" bend here, cause that's not the case and this isn't the forum for it, but I've had more bad experiences with the police than good ones.
None of them resulted in an arrest or charges filed (this is excluding moving violations because death, taxes and speeding tickets; I was a 23 year old driving a Mustang lol) since none of the interactions involved me doing anything illegal. After a few experiences like that you learn to keep an eye on a police officer when you see one, but there's no urge to make your presence overtly known to them either.
Head over to Portland, and the cops are so overloaded with dealing with more serious crimes that they won't even respond to auto theft.
I would definitely call the police for package theft in my town, and I'd have a good expectation that they'd assign an officer to watch for crime patterns and get the guys.
In Portland, I'd be duplicating this guy's glitter bomb.
They're too busy training on their new hand-me-down military gear. Local cops need tanks to keep you safe, citizen.
The police exist to maintain order on behalf of the State, the civil justice system exists to mediate property disputes between people. There is sometimes some synergy between the functions, but they are very different.
The system takes a cut.
Crowd-sourced bounty-hunting.
Of course, once it becomes a cash transaction you're dealing with dispute resolution. "I said it was Fred" "It wasn't Fred" "Yes it was! Pay me!".
Have we learned nothing from Reddit circa 2013?
Twice I have emailed the police and CC the Mayor of my city. I got a sorry can we meet in person response in an hour. The Sargent on Call was eating humble pie when he was called in and got chewed out by the Mayor and the Police. (Story a neighbor I don't know was physically assaulted by his girlfriend and she ripped his shirt and scratched him up. I stopped him from destroying her and going to jail. I called the police and no one came. We walked over to the station with 3 police cars sitting outside and were turned away.)
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.
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...
Good.
I'm against theft, and also against Police and facial analysis mixing.
[0]: https://pe.usps.com/text/pub28/28c2_033.htm [1]: https://www.techjunkie.com/how-to-use-usps-general-delivery-... [2]: https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/508.htm#ep1052038
Just not sure I'd trust them them to decide that exacting revenge on me for setting off a glitter and stink bomb in their car/house would have a negative expected value?
I'm not saying the thieves are in the right here. Just that crimes don't usually cancel each other out.
What I'm saying is; the thief broke a law but the person making the recordings could have also broken laws as well. Two wrongs don't make a right, and all that. Just seems like a good gag for YouTube but a bad practice to encourage.
Thief: Your honor, this man illegally recorded me in my home without my consent.
Judge: You mean the package you stole recorded you for the purpose of identifying you as the thief?
Thief: ...
Judge: Get the hell out of my court room.
Even in two-party consent states, I can't envision any situation in which a person would actually be punished for recording in this way. Remember that laws are meant to be interpreted by a judge or jury in the context of the alleged crime, not applied to every situation where they can possibly fit.
Someone STEALS that device and moves it. The device's owner isn't breaking any law.
You are looking for problems where there are none.
"Camera surveillance of a location where the public has access. Permission 8 § Camera surveillance is required for a surveillance camera to be posted so that it can be directed to a place where the public has access."
Swedish: http://rkrattsbaser.gov.se/sfst?bet=2013:460 (poor) translation: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl=en&u=h...
(In separate guidelines it explicitly mentions the case of home cameras covering public area).
Which pretty clearly doesn't apply to out in the open in the middle of a public street.
I'm also not sure that creating a hoax device with the intention of surreptitiously recording individuals that also damages their property and releases a chemical agent would be considered strictly "a security camera".
There can likely be no expectation of privacy trespassing on someone else's property.
but, for the package. Can you have an expectation of privacy when opening an unknown-thing? The device isn't recording until it is opened. I could see logical arguments on both sides. But, since the audio/visual recording doesn't start until they open the thing it might be on the safe-side of wiretap laws?
Recording audio without two-party consent in my state is illegal and only just recently were there any court cases where recording police officers without their knowledge wasn't prosecuted as wiretapping.
Booby traps causing injury are illegal everywhere.
Calling a smell a "chemical agent" is just inflammatory. Everything is a chemical, sure, but there is no chemical reaction involved here. Would you call perfume a "chemical agent"? It's just something that smells bad.
The only danger would seem to be getting glitter in their eyes.
If someone designed a trap to spray perfume on an unsuspecting person, I would describe it similarly.
And you know were they live also. One side has much more to lose than the other. The guy can exert devastating social damage in the life of the thieves just showing the videos in their street, to their landlord, or filtering it to a friend in the same school, not to mention uploading them to internet. Their faces are clearly seen on film stealing. Their address is known. In some cases even their cars are known also.
The logical step for a smart thief would be to move to easier targets and avoid bothering a guy able to spend six entire months building a very complicated plot to seek exact revenge.
he has also inspired people to make their own booby traps.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupiers%27_liability_in_Engl...
>homeless are generally not thieves as if they could steal they wouldn't be homeless in the first place
The less sense it makes. I 100% do not understand what the OP was trying to say with that. It's nonsense if you really evaluate what it's saying.
Wasn't a homeless person, but in St. Louis Missouri a house isn't out of the question.
If getting that $200 meant risk to you (someone confronting you, someone else taking your money, risk of an officer giving you a beat down), would you still take it?
It doesn't take a lot of risk to offset the "value" of stealing $950 labeled-worth goods (which will net you <$250 in cash).
If you're trying to say the risk isn't worth it, sure, you're right. And the average person wouldn't do it. But plenty of criminals don't live their lives by such risk/reward calculations. Roughly 5% [0] of people in prison in the US have decided to disregard the risk/reward ratio and go ahead with relatively small scale thefts.
[0] https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...
Some will not be dissuaded from crime. The rest of us deserve to live apart from them.
In fact multiple studies suggest that 3 strike laws have unintended consequences like increased fatal attacks on police, and twice sentenced criminals committing more serious crimes (because they will recieve a life sentence regardless of the seriousness of the offense).
Relative value of time and money might be different outside of this bubble.
Oddly, it really stuck in my mind and was present when I decided not to be peer pressured into a few incidents. It changed the equation - it wasn't about fear of getting caught, which everyone was saying wouldn't happen, it became about BEING STUPID, which would be true regardless. What's more, it wasn't an outright "don't do this", but instead "do this only if" which also changed the evaluation (It wasn't "I must be good, always"). Of course, I never HAD the chance to do a crime I would retire on when I was a kid, so the end result was that I lived generally crime-free.
Later I developed my own sense of morals and criteria on why to do/not do things, but I really feel like that advice helped me avoid potential problems in life before I reached that point. I recommend the advice to all new parents, though I don't think anyone has taken me up on the advice yet :)
The hilarious thing, of course, is looking at the news and seeing so many people commit crimes that they actually could retire off of... and then fail to retire, keep committing crimes, and get caught. Also a useful life lesson!
No, it's worth whatever a court determines the fair market value is.
Maybe you do have to argue the point in court, but 6 months of R&D is easily worth way more than $1000.
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1708 [2] https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1333-gen...
I know I've made lots of comments about police response in this thread, but I'm not trying to come across as too negative. However, there's a reason this type of crime is prevalent. Police cannot be everywhere all of the time. At this point in time, I personally would be more worried about the homeowner staging a trap with a shotgun rather than a glitter bomb. That would be legal in Texas.
One Judeo-Christian take on it: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" - Jeremiah 17:9
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 options?
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.
I've not shipped to myself using an Amazon locker since I've never had an issue with package theft, but if a package is worth more than $500 or $1000 I'll often have it sent to my office, which I suspect is what most people do if possible.
If you're not in they try and leave the package with a neighbour. If that doesn't work, they'll try again, and if you're not there again, try for for a neighbour again. If that fails for a second time, they leave it at a nearby depot for you to pick it up.
I've never heard of a package being stolen here in the UK.
Overseas viewer: "This literally never happens here. Try solution (a), (b), or maybe (c) and see if that helps?"
America: "Yep there is no solution in the entire universe"
Substitute "package theft" for: Gun crime / public healthcare / public education / insert social issue here
The package theft "solutions" proposed really are insanely inconvenient and unworkable* in most suburban environments. I've seen all of the reasons listed many places here, so I won't bother rehashing them. If I'm at work on Tuesday, for example, a redelivery attempt on Wednesday doesn't really help, does it?
* unworkable in the sense that they're less efficient than the alternative of just allowing the rare package theft to occur
Assuming your employer allows it, it's convenient to have packages sent to work, AND if you drove a personal car to work, it's easy to drive your own package home. This equation gets flipped if you use transit or live in a multi-unit building where it might get easier to just hold it "downstairs".
In Bristol, I've known a few people have packages stolen from porches or from under recycling boxes/bins, so it definitely does happen. My parents found someone in their hedge a few months ago trying to get one of their parcels.
Choosing when they deliver either costs money (when you can choose during checkout), or you have to create an account and agree to some funny terms (I'd happily save them the trip, but they won't allow me to tell them without agreeing to a whole litany of things).
US Postal Service staff usually do ring the doorbell when leaving packages, and, if nobody answers, they will make an effort to leave it in a concealed location if that's possible.
UPS and FedEx people in our area typically leave it by the door without ringing the doorbell, but usually do still try to conceal the package.
Amazon delivery people typically leave it out in the yard, next to the sidewalk.
I'm guessing the difference has a lot to do with the deliveries-to-time ratio that each company's drivers get.
I think Europe would have been a lot cooler if I had moved from the US straight there instead of coming from Japan :/
How is this not an option in the US?
It's less to do with wholesomeness than it is with a lower population density (there's also a lower crime rate in general in the suburbs, though it's less of a difference than it was 25 years ago).
In the suburbs you have far fewer people walking past your doorstep--fewer crimes of opportunity. You're also much more likely to be noticed as being out of place if you're driving around a quiet neighborhood looking for packages.
This guy had his package stolen many times in a short space of time. Seems like the problem is pretty bad?
What Amazon is doing is much more clever: whenever possible, they’re now recording the serial number of the product they ship to you. This way, if the police find it when busting a fence, they can (hopefully) get the fence’s providers out of them and then actually bust them, too (because now they have real physical evidence—along with testimony—that that particular person stole a particular thing.)
Roughly one third of Americans have ever had a package stolen. (https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/11/20/package-...) It’s not that big a deal. For people who want to avoid taking chances with it, there are various options to avoid it. Not that they should have to, but there are many bigger problems to worry about.
Also it's very unclear exactly how long any of this took there's no timestamps on any of the surveillance video. Could have been months.
I still don't understand why this hasn't been 'disrupted' by a company providing evening deliveries. They could do business delivery during the afternoon and then switch to residential.
Nightcall! I'll even throw a name in for free.
There is way too much volume to fit deliveries into times when people are home.
Usually UPS will put it somewhere out of sight if they think it will be an issue.
Exactly this. I sorta hate it, we have 2 boxes for like 12 units and one of the boxes keys was lost before I moved in so we have 1 box for 12 units with people getting packages almost daily it means I have to rush home and rush to the office to get my packages.
Since moving in it's considerably cut down my Amazon purchases, unless I can time them to arrive on Saturdays or Sundays when I'm home. I'll actually delete my cart sometimes if something isn't going to come on a Saturday or Sunday haha.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/2/18057034/amazon-day-prime...
Overall the rate of package theft is low though, so people prefer the convenience and low cost of normal package delivery.
The US is big and diverse. Most areas have little to no package theft. However, if your home has a very exposed front porch and you live in an affluent area very near a not so affluent area, theft can be more of an issue.
> How is this not an option in the US?
In the US, there are at least four major carriers and in my experience only the official postal service does a decent job automatically delivering to nearby location (the local post office) if they can't hand-deliver to a person or a secure location. Some apartments complexes also have locked drop boxes that only the postal service can use.
UPS lets you set your default drop off to a nearby shop (but then you never get anything at your home), Fedex makes you manually change the delivery location while the package is in transit if you won't be at home. If the latter two attempt a delivery at your door and don't want to leave it, you have to wait until the next day for redelivery or drive to their inconveniently-located distribution warehouse to pick it up.
Amazon has their own delivery service that they use preferentially, and they rely on nonprofessional gig-economy labor, so you're lucky if your package isn't literally tossed at your door. They'll always leave the package at your home if that's the destination. If you don't want that, you have to set your delivery location to a locker, if one is available nearby.
I think if you have get the note, you can do this for that one package but for all you need to create a UPS account.
This breaks down if you don't do car commutes although, in urban places like NYC & SF or can't ship to work.
It was a shitty minimum wage job and my responsibilities definitely didn't stretch to doing unpaid work for multiple people on top of my shitty job.
EDIT: Maybe this is just a lack of understanding of what happens in goods-in? Or working some place where your deliveries don't add much burden?
"Ship to us, and here's how to get automatic email notifications of when your package is here!"
At work, there are people who work at the shipping department and then deliver the packages to people's desks. AFAIK they are paid to do this job and seem somewhat peppy compared to other similar staff in the company.
I would love to see a thief try and bring that case...
EDIT:
NAL but... It's my understanding that the likelihood such a case is brought is small
1. Because it pretty much guarantees the alleged perpetrator will have charges brought against them and
2. Contributory negligence would make that case very hard to win.
It is my understanding that yes there have been cases where such cases are brought before a court, but they are infrequent, and not easy to win.
Certainly if you caused someone harm using one it would be illegal in the sense that causing someone harm is illegal anyway, but a harmless trap like this one doesn't seem to me that it would be illegal. I'm not a lawyer though, so I'd be interested to see if there is some law I'm not aware of.
The Geneva convention, for starters.
It's also a five second Google search: https://definitions.uslegal.com/b/booby-traps/
Which Geneva Convention applies to non-state actors not acting in the context of international or internal war? Please quote specifically the relevant provisions making it applicable to that case.
> It's also a five second Google search
Well, yes, that that's all the effort you devoted does explain the rather giant hole in your argument.
Is the full statement. Individual state laws vary but it's important enough to be international law was the point.
From the article:
>If a person sets up such a trap to protect his/her property, he/she will be liable for any injury or death even to an unwanted intruder such as a burglar. It is illegal to set a booby trap on one's own property to prevent intruders.
> Is the full statement.
And that statement is wrong, AFAICT; the Geneva Conventions do not address the conduct at issue here, whether “for starters” or otherwise.
They might prohibit somewhat analogous conduct in a very disanalogous context [0] but context and conduct are not orthogonal considerations in law.
[0] or, maybe not; the specific instrument you are probably thinking of is Amended Protocol II to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons; it does address booby-traps, but the device at issue here is not a booby-trap as defined in that protocol (not designed to kill or injure).
Seriously?
That betrays a total lack of comprehension for this entire discussion and the law.
The fact is, booby traps which cause bodily injury (including paintball, very easily, without protective equipment) are definitively illegal in most jurisdictions. This is the truth whether you spend 5 seconds or 5 hours googling.
Do better, all of you.
But the Geneva Convention? lol.
The point is that at some point an "innocent" citizen crosses a line and is no longer innocent. We are just debating where the line should be.
Is the death penalty issued for thievery?
That depends. Are we talking about a thief who was accidentally killed in a brawl with the property owner (or the troublesome death-by-glitter scenario that some in this thread are so concerned about)? Or a property owner who subdues, binds, and executes the thief? I'm open to arguments that it should be illegal to use lethal force against thieves when it's 100% clear that the thief poses no physical danger to the victim. I also believe that the property owner generally bears responsibility if their traps or other defenses are mistakenly employed against an innocent party. But in general, any injuries a thief incurs during a theft should be his own responsibility, and I'm okay with a world in which thieves live in fear of committing thefts.
I don't think anyone would disagree that generally stealing is wrong and people who do it in general deserve to face consequences. But the consequences should be proportionate to the crime. I don't think anyone deserves to die for petty theft, regardless of circumstances.
It seems like you are suggesting that if someone takes a $50 package off of my front porch, and then I come outside to confront them, and in the altercation this person makes a threatening gesture towards me then I would be within my rights to use lethal force.
That seems like a disproportionate escalation to me.
Anyway I think we just disagree about some of these proportionality issues.
If someone steals something, that doesn't mean they automatically lose all of their rights to life and property simply because in your mind they are now a "criminal".
Why is that okay?
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 was stolen. Boooom, an airbag in their face and they're seriously injured.
We don't need a world where we're surrounded by booby traps. It's a disaster waiting to happen because there are countless edge cases that people wouldn't consider.
We're quickly moving towards a future with door bell cameras and facial recognition software. We also have more parcel lockers showing up in different cities and neighborhoods where you can have packages safely delivered, available for pickup 24/7. These are better alternatives than setting traps.
Proving things in court is much less efficient, and more likely to harm those who are innocent, than to make sure the crime is punished immediately.
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.
What happens if I setup a machine to fire baseballs at high speed when someone touches my fake parcel? Some teenager comes to steal my package, catches a baseball between the eyes and dies or ends up disabled for life. I'm in the clear because the kid was a thief? Now, I don't think a thief deserves a payday when they slip on ice running from my property, but I also don't believe people should be free to create harmful traps without consequence.
What about those people that run wires across trails on private property? They've killed and decapitated people trespassing on motorcycles or 4-wheelers. Once again, don't blame the property owner that installed the invisible wire? They're in the clear because the person decapitated shouldn't have been riding on that private trail?
How about we don't try to harm thieves. We document and report the case to the police to the best of our ability. Yes, the glitter bomb is extremely innocent, but it's easier to say no to all traps than it is to define what type of traps are acceptable.
because the police are basically never going to do anything unless the squad car happens to roll by as the thief is running away with the package. you may as well send your documentation straight into the circular file.
now I understand that kids do dumb stuff from time to time. riding a dirtbike around someones fifty acre estate is not that serious, and could easily be done unintentionally if property lines are not well marked. going up to someones door/porch without an invitation is quite something else. if you can find a way to mess these people up without putting the mailman at risk, I am all for it. I would be very happy to live in a society where messing in/around a person's dwelling is understood to be a serious risk.
Then move to a state with liberal firearm laws. Seriously, It's amazing how much an intangible line on a map affects the behavior of people seeking to commit property crime in the state I live vs the adjacent state I used to live in.
Stop moving the goalposts, it makes you look silly.
And just for the hell of it, no, it is not categorically innocent even when talking about morals, either. Morality is, by definition, something that is personal to each person. Therefor there can be no such thing as "categorical innocence", as moral innocence will be different for each person.
And while each person may have their own opinion about morality, every society in the world has decided that theft is wrong enough to outlaw, so clearly morality isn’t purely subjective (certainly not by definition). Similarly, every society respects an individual’s right to defend themselves (note that “defense” here is defined as some minimal force required to confidently stop an aggressor thereby excluding things like executing an aggressor after he’s been subdued) so clearly this is moral as well.
Please don’t accuse me of moving goal posts. It’s clear that I haven’t. If you can’t participate in good faith this conversation is over.
Find one place where I said that the law is morally correct. I'll save your trouble: you can't, because I never did so.
So now not only are you moving the goalposts, but you're setting up a strawman. Nice. Two fallacies for the price of one.
This conversation has been about the law and legal liability since the beginning. Nobody brought up morality until you did in your attempt to, yes, move the goalposts. It is very clear that you have done so, and it's absurd of you to accuse me of not participating in good faith, when you're doing all you can possibly do to avoid admitting that your argument is ridiculous.
And yes, by the way, if you drive by someone knowing that by doing so you will launch debris towards another person in a manner that could injure them, and your car kicks up a rock and hits that person in the head, you would also be liable.
Innocence is also irrelevant, as you do not have the right to injure another person, even if they stole from you.
There is a reason we don't want a society where that kind of thing is OK.
EDIT> I think part of why the glitter fart bomb works so well is that it has a sense of humour, and that the designer doesn't come off as cruel.
In certain jurisdictions the ideological pendulum (closely followed by official public policy) has swung a little too far toward idea that criminals have no agency and are victims of an unfair system that forces them to commit crime to get by and that prosecuting minor crimes is a path to further criminality.
The idea is that by not prosecuting certain crimes we can prevent people from becoming criminals at the ground floor which will prevent them getting stuck in a loop where they can't get a real job and have to commit crime to survive and become a career criminal. While this is not totally baseless and is something I generally agree with there's a categorical difference between applying this thinking to victimless crimes and crimes with a victim (a trap which pretty much all real world implementations fall into).
In the case of petty victimless crimes where there's disagreement over whether or not the crime should be a crime at all (e.g. weed possession) having a don't prosecute by default policy is fine IMO. For petty crime with a victim that pretty much everyone agrees should be a crime (like petty theft) having a don't prosecute by default is stupid because it increases crime in order to score political virtue points for the people who implement it at the expense of the community as a whole (I'm looking at your SF and your failure to prosecute minor property crimes, yes I'm fully aware this will not be a popular opinion circa 9am and 12pm West Coast time).
But intentionally doing nothing about theft is just harmful. It rewards the crime and breeds vigilantism.
A lot of times people commit crime for the same reasons they eat unhealthy, fight with their family members, and get addicted to harmful behavior. They aren't thinking long term and they don't care about the consequences that much.
There is no political or economic system that you can design that will keep people from being stupid.
I have very different degrees of sympathy for these groups. The first group needs access to better options. The second group needs to be held accountable. The third group cannot really be allowed to participate in our society.
We might disagree on the prevalence of each group.
As an aside, I don’t know if it legal to ship scorpions.
That's easy, simply refer to Exhibit 526.5: Restrictions on Mailing Live Scorpions https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c5_008.htm#ep203359
Dump 100mg of cadaverine in the thiefs car and they'll never use that car again. And possibly the clothes they wore at the time.
Or other chemicals.
It would be most exciting to find chemicals that yield strongest short-term effects without any damaging long term effects.
The packages were some rolls of vinyl, a box of sealed granola snacks, and some inexpensive jewelry, all rejected by the thief. If the person was homeless, I'm surprised they ditched the food, it was nutritious and shelf-stable. (I redelivered the packages.)
As far as I'm aware, it's the worst smelling chemical known to humans and has no damaging long term effects. You just have to be veeery careful about it unless you want to stink up the whole town by accident.
Kidding of course, but I it makes wonder how easy this would be for an amateur to synthesize. The consequences being making an entire town nauseous makes this whole thing pretty enigmatic.
A thief is already open to the idea of invading your personal space for gain, why not revenge?
I don't understand why everyone thinks the homeowners are helpless and just waiting to be robbed/vandalized/whatever.
Who wants to sign up for that?
Edit: as someone pointed out it's not his address. I just re-watched the video and it's written on the map that it's not actually his house address.
I looked it up a few months ago...and I recognized the google map as soon as it popped up on the video.
Considering the views / subscriptions are the main motivation here, it might justify the expenses poured into this project – that is, it would be quite a waste if all that effort went into the build just to have no one actually take it off the porch.
If actors were used, it would explain the lack of police involvement (it's easy to say, "police weren't interested" ).
An obvious consequence of it being a production without disclosure is the copycats that this will spawn.
Edit: just to add a bit more food-for-thought in response to comments such as, "why do that to your own car?" or "why get sprayed with fart spray": what makes you believe it's their own car (could be a beater picked up for a few hundred dollars) or that the fart spray actually smells?
Also GPS is just not that good for locating anything of that size in given circumstances, and it would not have worked in the parking garage.
Too many things could have gone wrong here, but they did not. The design is subpar in my opinion, for somebody who worked on a Mars rover. Custom printed board plus a bunch of smartphones, seriously?
Why wouldn't you use this? Seems like if you want to push video data over the cell phone network then using some cheapo android phones with data sims is by far and away the simplest and most robust solution? Anything you build yourself to do that job is gonna be way more prone to error?
If it's traceable, throwing it in your own trash isn't much worse than throwing it elsewhere, since it already has the coordinates of your house anyways. GPS works fine on small packages and a lot of businesses/products exist specifically to take advantage of this. Also note that as full-featured smartphones, he's likely got the full power of Google Location Services in play, which can identify what floor of a building (or parking garage) you're on, and of course, even if it failed to get signal in the parking garage would surely show location up to the parking garage. Inside a parking garage, a bright white box is not hard to find. Also, he has four GPS devices facing different directions, so he's got a lot of backup for failure here.
What would you propose? The best design is often the easiest/cheapest one, and this looks like pretty simple.
There are ready made cheap boards with identical functionality to a cellphone, few dollars a pop. And yes, they run Android.
That said, this way he can claim it had something valuable inside in case it is still taken.
With a camera, battery and 3G modem? Got any links?
One phone (or one phone’s SD card) may not have had the IO bandwidth to receive video from four cameras at once, though.
I don't even know what this Mark person did, but going by comments here, if I wanted to build something similar, the only thing I'd have to go out and buy would be the glitter stuff.
Don't discount the stuff us weirdos have in our basements :-)
Oh man, watch the video on his YouTube. It's pure comedic gold. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo
His design is just about right -- it's not overly complex and manages to do what it needs to do for a relatively low cost.
Are you a mechanical/electrical engineer? Not trying to be hostile, but what would you have improved?
What if the phones picked up WiFi networks around the garage?
Uh one guy very much starts manipulating the dispenser and trying to take it apart.
Turns out, Mark himself has already admitted that 2 scenes were staged, supposedly all because of a dishonest "friend" whom he paid to place the box on his porch.
Apparently it is.
https://gizmodo.com/viral-video-of-glitter-bomb-for-package-...
If a contract is sufficient, does it have to be signed in writing or witnessed? If not, then could he have a sign at his door stating that acquiring the package provides consent to monitoring?
Is there a lawyer here that could answer those questions, pro bono?
[Edit] Maybe it would be sufficient to put wording on the box that basically says, "by touching or taking this packages.... yada yada..."
One of the first rules of the legal system is that you don't get to violate the law. This INCLUDES the situation where someone else violates the law first.
In many places this principle is repeated. For instance, you DO NOT get to bump someone's car if they run a red light for instance.
(and no, EVEN the situation where you literally had no choice still isn't an excuse. There is only the small "non-exception" that earlier laws can override later laws. For instance, keeping someone safe takes precedence over obeying traffic lights. If you can avoid an accident by running a red light you MUST do so. There is an explicitly defined order in which laws can override one another, even though I would strongly agree that it's not exactly a clear thing)
So the thief (or whoever) can sue this person for things like willful damage to property, violation of privacy, ... and that the package was stolen won't be a valid defense.
Ah, see, but lack of enforcement from the police goes both ways!
If the police are unwilling to go after petty theft cases, why would they bother with the even smaller crime of "wiretapping" thieves?
Is the opportunist thief likely to have the resources to go after you for this? Almost certainly not.
And even then, it is additionally unlikely that a judge and jury would convict and punish someone. Stories, narratives, and being perceived to be "in the right" go a long way in the criminal justice system, which is enforced by people, not the legal words on a piece of paper.
Granted, the author of the video cannot be sent to jail in such a case, but it is a near-certainty that he'll have to pay.
Second, I don't think the odds of the police pursuing this are quite as small as you perceive them to be. For one, the thief may BE a police officer. What do you propose happens then ? Do you think criminal police officers just arrest themselves ?
I mean, I sort of understand the "the law is just under all circumstances and the law sees all" train of thought, all nice, safe and secure. In reality, law is an imperfect and sometimes outright malicious system implemented by imperfect and sometimes outright malicious people. So I'd be interested in your opinion of what happens if the thief is an ill-tempered police officer, with the predisposition of Joe Arpaio towards you. You might note that this person was not just any police officer, but a 24-year sheriff (chief) of the police of a 4 million people county, including a large city. Those people are part of the police too, and can be very high up in the police force.
> judge and jury
Jury is only in criminal law. In other words, only if you're sued by the public prosecutor. Otherwise, no jury trial. And good luck convincing the jury if a police officer is testifying against you. I will say, it's not impossible. However, ...
> Stories, narratives, and being perceived to be "in the right" go a long way in the criminal justice system
Can I just say, I pity your lawyer if you ever apply this way of thinking in an actual case. In short: it does not. Police and public prosecutors are evaluated on their conviction rate (just ask a police officer. You should be very surprised that he knows that figure in the first place). There's even bonuses for achieving certain conviction rates (and of course you get fired below ...). Secondly there's a sort of constant "contest" between officers for the highest conviction rate. In the criminal justice system, therefore, the primary driver of who the police pursue is whether they believe they'll get a conviction. Nothing, and I do mean absolutely nothing, else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
(That doesn't mean they don't apply sanity, but realistically, if that happens, it's the officer on the ground and they are under VERY high pressure to do "something", like arrest someone. "This guy is not innocent, let's arrest him" definitely happens regularly. If the officer on site doesn't just let you go, it is utter folly to count on anyone else in the criminal justice system to take stories or narratives into account)
But they won't, because they are a desperate individual who is going around stealing packages from people. The kind of person who does this is very unlikely to have the money to sue someone.
They will instead just run away as they are probably just afraid of getting arrested themselves. Someone who has stolen one package has probably stolen dozens. Rationally or not, they'd probably just be afraid of getting caught for all their past thefts.
> . In reality, law is an imperfect
Indeed it is imperfect! Which is why someone who "wiretaps" desperate thiefs is almost certainly going to get away with breaking the law.
Lots of people in this thread are talking about how the police just won't care if you bring them irefutable evidence of theft. If police don't care about that, what do you think is the likelihood that they will care about illegal wiretapping of thiefs? I'd guess that the answer is "a very low likelyhood".
> In other words, only if you're sued by the public prosecutor.
But you won't be sued by a public prosecutor or targeted by the police. Because they have better things to do with their time. They aren't even going after the thieves, if you will remember!
> For one, the thief may BE a police officer
This is extremely unlikely. Instead the thief is probably going to be some desperate individual or homeless person with no ability to go after you for "wiretapping".
My whole point is that if nobody is getting arrested for the theft, the chances of the police bothering to go after people for wiretapping is even less likely. And the desperate thief won't have the money, resources, or motivation to pursue you in private court.
If it is so easy to get away with theft, then it is certainly going to be much much easier to get away with wiretapping thieves.
> But they won't, because they are a desperate individual who is going around stealing packages from people.
The reason we know about the common law status of booby traps is that trespassers (including burglars) have sure after being injured by them.
So, no, I don't think your “porch pirates won't sue because they are desperate enough to steal” argument is convincing. Especially given that porch pirates often aren't destitute, and theft isn't always motivated by desperation.
I don't think the video is fake, though.
I bet somebody will soon start selling this as a product. And people will just send them to their friends instead of targeting package thiefs. "Pranked you bro!" Then there will be a bunch of backlash.
No need to wait for that, it's already a thing:
Some have sent far...erm...shittier things in the mail:
http://time.com/3634443/cards-against-humanity-poop-black-fr...
Where is that stated?
If they plead guilty, they probably would just get a small fine, not worth the time of a detective to make the case.
Edit: Also, its not so easy to sell a bunch of random things for the cash. For every iphone that might get you a 100 or so in one transaction, there's a bunch of random things that you might get you $20 if you spend a day trying sell them.
That's a ridiculous question. It's theft. Which is illegal.
> If they plead guilty, they probably would just get a small fine
1) That's only if it's their first time.
2) It reduces future crime. With the current attitude (like yours) more criminals are incentivized to steal packages.
I'm describing the reality of the world we all live in. Even if its not their first time, they'll be out in a day or two, maybe not even that. Its just packages, most of them under $100, no one in harms way, no drugs, no guns/knives. Even if they broke down your door when you weren't home and went inside to steal your package, there's going to be no APB on their license number, no road blocks, no helicopter sent out to see where they are.
My time in retail quickly taught me that unless you catch and hold a perpetuator, nothing will happen to them.
"We have them on tape! I ran outside and wrote down their license plate?"
"What was stolen?"
"$250 worth of goods!"
"Meh, we know the guy, but if its under a grand the DA won't do anything. Since we know him, we'll tell him to avoid your store, if he does show up again and steals something, we can get him on trespass and stealing, the DA might do something then.
The fact is some people live 100% on small thefts, small odd jobs paid in cash, some begging. They'll be living with their parents at 30-40, with no assets in their name, borrowing cars to get around. There is no down side in swiping a few packages besides the pain in turning that into cash, which is the only disincentive to them stealing.
(If the offense occurs in the presence of a non-police witness, something that a casual observer would describe as a police arrest may occur after the witness reports to police, but that's actually a citizen’s arrest by the witness with police assistance. But a camera isn't a witness, and, as for police misdemeanor arrests, a citizens arrest for a misdemeanor also requires the offense to have occurred in the presence of the arresting party.)
I’ve had my house robbed, and had evidence from the bank when the robbers tried to use the checkbook to send money through Western Union. They had photos, state issued identification, address, etc of the people collecting the payments. The assigned detective would not read an email or respond to voice mails. The detective said he was too busy to read emails.
Not sure that’s the piece of evidence to hang my hat on that this might be a hoax.
https://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2015/12/pressing-charges-w...
You could sue them in court.
You're also left pretty defeated with the lack of response from the police, then you have the beat down with the insurance company. Asking the individuals to go after a civil suit is just too much. Had I known about it, I might have done it. The police nor the insurance ever suggested this was possible. Even still, what are the odds of actually receiving any payment from a civil suit win?
Generally, unless you know more then the insurer about your risk factors, and can afford to eat the loss, you should be self-insuring your stuff.
> it's their own car (could be a beater picked up for a few hundred dollars)
At least one of them was a fairly nice looking Lexus.
The police are not going to do anything in my experience.
I literally caught someone in the act of stealing a package and the police specifically told me to do nothing and file a report. I submitted clear video of a face and apparently this was a known thief to others in the neighborhood, so I even gave them the person's name. They're still stealing packages 6 months later. The police tell me there are warrants pending.
It's easy to say, because after a while it kind of just rolls off the tongue. If there's no blood, my experience says police aren't interested. And in some jurisdictions, it better be a lot of blood.
In a quiet small town it might get a detective assigned. In a lower-class urban neighborhood, well the cops have bigger fish to fry.
there are many comments here that read something like, "mark wouldn't do a fake video..." as if they know mark personally. it's like debating if tom cruise really shoots people in mission impossible.
you can debate this if you want, maybe mark's followers really do "know" what, how, and why he posts to youtube. but please never stop 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 and questioning
Well one, he's not a prank channel. He's a serious professional that even showed video of people stealing his package that started the whole idea. He then went as far as to machine parts, have a custom pcb manufactured etc. Then he contaminated cars and residences with glitter, yeah good luck talking random friends to let you bomb their cars and houses with glitter.
I mean, the dude worked for JPL for almost a decade and has his work on Mars, he already gets tons of views and has a history of deep-diving projects. He's also a tv host. He's also a former TED speaker.
Guy has better things to do than stage videos for YouTube.
> good luck talking random friends to let you bomb their cars and houses with glitter.
Right. Typically you pay an actor to do fake things that a real person would not be on board with.
You think he can get a decent engineering job, especially for a government agency, in the future with a viral public hoax on his record?
Yeah, probably not and YouTube isn't going to rake in money forever, not that he uploads often enough to be anywhere near a top earner anyway.
Who cares? Those are arbitrary rationalizations that didn't necessarily factor into the creator's reasoning; you're simply projecting post facto reasoning that supports your preconceived conclusions. People who fall for scams and fakes use this same flawed reasoning all the time: "would he really lie about this? It can't possibly be worth it, I have considered all possibilities and have perfect information, there is no way that someone would do something that is obviously a bad choice from my perspective"...
He literally says it's not a prank video, that he doesn't do that. He has a solid reputation both as an engineer and as a YouTuber for being scientific and factual, 4 videos ago he showed a fake video from another YouTube user and explained how to help yourself determine when a video is fake...
His videos already get millions of views - his top 5 are nearly 1/4 of a billion views at 99 million, 46 million, 32 million, 31 million, 28 million, even his less popular ones easily clear multiple millions.
Devil's advocate: sounds like someone knowledgeable enough to make a video that's can't be easily dismissed as a prank. :-)
So, I have no problem believing Mark when he said police weren't interested. It's definitely par for the course here in Portland. I would imagine that in other areas, it's similar.
We have a lot of homeless people in our area just walking around. I see "package stolen" notifications on Nextdoor pretty much every other day.
Petty thieves and burglars are pretty low priority for US cops, as long as it's poor people stealing from poor people. Thus you can have an entire class of people that can routinely steal anything they come across that isn't nailed down, yet never get caught. Because no one tries to catch them. And then they get jobs that give them access to things that are only lightly nailed down, because they have no criminal records.
The cops aren't really there to protect you or your property. They will if it's convenient, but if you need real protection, you'll have to pay someone and have a contract in place. Or just do what most people do: get insurance with a reasonable deductible and keep all your stuff locked up or nailed down.
I also know people working in the my county solicitor's office and a large amount of their caseload is prosecuting misdemeanor property crimes. I'm sure this varies by location, but I don't think prosecuting misdemeanor property crime is as rare as you think.
Additional, In most states the bar for felony theft is pretty low, and the way that the value is calculated makes it very easy to go over that limit.
For example, I knew a girl who stole some lip balm in high school, but several other girls she was in the store with stole items with a higher value. The DA lumped all of the items together and charged them all with felonies.
The reason why I know this should be self-evident.
I might also mention that if you know someone in the prosecutors' office, your experience will be very different from the majority of theft victims. Cases that never get referred to the prosecutor due to lack of evidence, due to lack of looking for evidence--or lack of taking the evidence when handed in on a silver platter--are not included in the prosecutors' caseloads.
If you have video evidence plus a person in custody, a license plate, or an address, there's a good chance of an arrest. If all you have is a picture, then they will blow you off.
>Cases that never get referred to the prosecutor due to lack of evidence
That's most cases of misdemeanor property theft though.
No evidence, video and no idea who the person is, or a he said she said between neighbors that's probably better dealt with through a civil case.
In the vast majority of these cases the problem isn't that the police/prosecutors are being wilfully ignorant, it's that there's nothing they can realistically do.
If it costs more to pay a detective 10 minutes to think about the case than it would to just replace the lost property, the naive case-by-case accounting says to just let it go.
The victim probably doesn't care about a successful prosecution. They might just want to recover their property. They want their bike back. Or their catalytic converter. Or their phone. Or their laptop. Or their dog. Catching the crook is nice, but it isn't the victim's first priority. They just want to be made whole again. They feel that they have already paid for the police protection via taxes, and are frustrated when they can't collect.
But the cops don't want to dick around with solving petty crimes. And they don't want to spend $10000 to recover $200 worth of property, and possibly still not have enough evidence to convict. They certainly don't want to give their only physical evidence back to its rightful owner, and then not have it available for a trial later with clear chain of custody. They also feel that they have already allocated their entire budget, prioritizing more serious crimes first, and that focusing their limited resources elsewhere could reduce public safety.
I'm not judging the cops here, just saying the priorities are not aligned in the petty theft victim's favor, with reasonable arguments possible both for and against the rigorous pursuit of petty crimes.
As a general rule, an individual cannot count on the cops to help them. With anything. Especially if you're not white. So you don't even call them, unless someone is dead or about to die anyway, or you absolutely have to for your insurance claim. Handle your own vigilance, buy property insurance, and let the crooks choke on your glitter.
No, as he stated in the video, the police said it just wasn't worth their time.
I wonder if an industry of decoy packages will spring up, maybe "sticky" or "smelly" glitter. Or heck just go full ink bomb.
I wonder where the law stands on this? Can you really be liable if someone steals your property then causes property damage using it?
> A booby trap may be defined as any concealed or camouflaged device designed to cause bodily injury
It doesn't apply.
IANAL - but I'd suppose they could sue you and may even win but it's not going to do much for their public image in the best case and the worst case they get prosecuted for theft.
> Given the police's complete inaction vigilantism was inevitable.
The recipient certainly can't help that someone left a package outside. If the loss is for the recipient, then I can certainly understand the vigilantism, but that's a pretty awful system.
I'm glad I can usually pick up my packages at my neighbours'.
Is there any legal jurisprudence about this? It feels to me like the delivery service should be responsible.
The sender and the sender's agent (shipping company) own the package until it is delivered. That's why the sender insures it and insurance payments go to the sender.
But often it is more complicated than that, because there's a commercial contract between the sender and the recipient that also has to be taken into account.
I'd call it a legally grey area, with the commercial sender often likely filing an insurance claim and re-sending the lost merchandise.
Really I think that's more a customer service nicety than anything the company would be legally required to do. Seems like everyone has done their part to fulfill their obligations once the package hits your doorstep.
In later videos he had license plates--that's an easy arrest, and I'd bet they'd take that video a bit more seriously.
“Hello officer, I made a booby trapped package and I...” gets tased “argh no you don’t under- “ is handed off to the secret service
I doubt the cops would look kindly on what is at best (funny) vigilante justice, at worse a violation of some federal law.
The more I think about this, you could probably make a much safer solution for less than a few dollars if you forego the video capture. Is there a safe non-toxic stinky oil? All you would need is a box that once opened, is very difficult to put back together, that holds stinky oil.
I would probably also put wording on the package that says, "By taking or opening this package, you consent to recording and agree to manage the discharge of a very stinky oil. The opener of the packages assumes all responsibility and liability for any damage that results from touching this package".
Source: what my teenage self thought was a hilarious prank got to the attention of the FBI. Although the matter was cleared up in the end, being interviewed by an FBI agent at 17 taught me not to count on the understanding and second degree of law officers.
In the video he mentions his automatic bullseye dartboard project... even more impressive than this glitter machine IMHO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHTizZ_XcUM
Calculating a projectile's trajectory in realtime.... wouldn't even know where to start.
EDIT: dartboard code from that youtube link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rlmhdjoqzyumme1/darts.zip?dl=0
So you'd have to admit to a felony to sue or press charges against box maker. Second when committing a felony, in many jurisdiction the felon is automatically on the hook for any further 'bad things' that happen during the crime up to and including deaths. So if the felonious package thief got in an accident while opening a stolen package, it could all fall on them as a matter of statute in many places.
There is nothing about his project designed to cause any bodily injury. This is a very important detail.
You can sue anyone for anything. That would be a very uphill lawsuit in normal circumstances (the thief is being negligent by trying to open a package in a moving vehicle and any harm is a result of that negligence). When you add in the fact that the package is stolen it's highly unlikely to succeed. However, I write this from a US perspective. If self defense case law is any indication I suspect that the thief may have a case in the UK.
I would be less worried about the thief's car and more worried about the car the thief runs into.
At the end you would just end up going to the police confess the crime, open the door to be prosecuted for other crimes. And yet end up proving nothing about the other person from whom you stole.
It would be shooting in the foot at epic proportions.
Is such blatant parcel theft not indiciative of a greater societal illness? Not simply poverty and drug abuse.
I find myself trying to imagine why I’d drive through suburbs with a partner in crime and nab the odd parcel from a porch along the way. I could be looking to fence something to pay for the next high, or I could be poor as hell and looking to make ends meet. Or, maybe I might just think that the person I’m stealing from is wealthy enough to deal without it and I simply need whatever it is more than they do?
I wonder, because there’s a lot you can assume about someone living in a pleasant suburb, ordering lots of Amazon packages. The likely colour of their skin, their money, maybe even their politics. And we like to use attributes like those to decide whether or not someone deserves something.
I’ve no idea, but I find it really difficult to explore this without trying to understand why it happens.
Pretty much been a thing since people have large enough societal groups (larger than Dunbar's number), that some anonymity is allowed. We just get to share these events via our high tech electronic networks and everyone gets to see it.
It seems like during the last clip the stink spray failed to activate for some reason?
I reckon they are just average victims of 'asperational' media and general consumerism and materialism, that is quite rampant in modern society. I reckon they just want the latest gadget, or intend to sell it in order to get another useless status symbol of some kind.
I live in a rural'ish area on a very low traffic street. I still get all my packages delivered to work. All the offices I've worked in have never had a problem with me doing this. My current office is a secure building with a metal detector and armed security. No issues.
If someone's on the road, or out of the office constantly, then have the package held at a UPS or Fedex store. Once UPS, Fedex, or USPS drop that package off on your porch, it's your responsibility.
Personally, I'm still not going to perma-dye someone's car.
I really like the reactions of all the folks who picked up the package. The 'fart spray' was a really nice touch. I was also thinking that if you could aerosolize some cyanoacrylate when throwing that glitter bomb, it could make for some good times. But there is a line you don't want to cross or you'll get people into revenge mode. Glitter and farts seems pretty harmless.
Plus, the options you mention are always available for special cases, and are sometimes used.
If you know both parties personally maybe you can, but that's a rarity these days for anyone outside of certain companies. Amazon's ad-hoc delivery service never sends the same person twice.
What delivery options do large online retailers in the US offer if you absolutely don’t want a package left on your porch?
Here it’s usually
- directly to pickup point: free for orders over say $50 or $100, otherwise $10
- to door, or pickup point if not home: $20
Very rarely is there free delivery to the door.
As for delivering to neighbors you have the same problem of actually finding a neighbor that's home and then you've got the chance of dishonest neighbors.
Most packages I get delivered they will tuck it in the most out of the way part of my side porch so they do try but only to the point it causes them hassle. If it's a flat envelope package they'll tuck it between my storm door and the actual door too provided it's unlocked (sometimes).
It's really a question of priorities I think and the raw numbers where package theft is relatively rare. For the delivery company their job is done when the package hits the correct doorstep so there's not a huge incentive for them to go around hunting for a neighbor to give it to or find a clever hiding spot, both of which would eat up time.
Until you get caught.
Leasing a car isn't beyond the reach of petty criminals.
TLDR: Mark is legit.
I wish police would track down thieves more effectively...
I am from India. I didnt know about this untill recent. I gifted Kindle fire stick to one friend in USA. They package was delivered and had note "Placed on Back Porch". I didnt notice that properly and then found it was picked up :P My friend didnt get it.
Thanks to amazon who bared the loss and recent one more again.
Hope govt. comes with some strict laws to fix this before it turns to huge.
Why don't they at least try the neighbours?
But I wonder if sought legal advice before implementing. Because, as others have noted, I gather that booby traps are illegal in the US. Maybe this one is benign enough, but I rather doubt it.
Also, while it's true that thieves aren't so likely to press claims, what about parents of juvenile thieves?
+ I think it's hard to guess what the reaction of a thief will be
+ The only indication that there were phones inside appeared to be the tiny holes for the cameras
+ It appears he had a trace of GPS signals over time so that he would be able to deduce it ended up in garage if it stopped transmitting there
I would say the "fearless approach to the crime scene" is probably the most suspect bit.
Which would work if the cops cared about it at all... Which leads to the glitter bomb being created....
New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/12/11/us/ap-us-porch-t...
CBS: https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/police-department...
Oh you sweet, summer child.
However, not everyone has an office situation like that nor should we need to live in fear of getting items delivered to our home.
seriously, pick up x4 $30 prepaid phones from walmart and they'll do the job perfectly
It sounds so whiny when they start their message decrying that they'll get downvotes for something.
Its even worse when its not something they will get downvotes for.
That's when you realize that they probably get downvoted a lot because of how whiny they are, only they always blame it on some other aspect because they have no self awareness.
There's plastic free glitter[0], which I've seen used at environmentally considerate festivals. He should use that for his pranks.
I hope campaigns against single use plastic become more mainstream soon, and that will not happen without it being talked about more, so thanks for raising the point.
> > He should use that for his pranks.
I'm not.
And for the love of god, do not start comments out with "I know i'm going to get downvoted for this"
I flagged you just for that.
This has been done on YouTube before with people setting up unlocked bicycles attached to some strong difficult to see rope bolted to a nearby structure (e.g. fishing wire), waiting for someone to come and take it, and then laugh when the thief goes flying over the handlebars as they ride off
It's justice porn, but at the same time it makes me feel uncomfortable watching.
Oh -- and to the engineer who made that: you've got a billion dollar idea on your hands if you include a camera that takes video from inside the device when it's opened. I can think of at least 14 people to whom I would send one of these for Christmas, birthday, etc.
And if it's not staged, I see this as an open invite for vandalism, or worse. Those people were pissed and unscrupulous. What's stopping them from coming back and throwing a Molotov cocktail at your house or slashing your tires if you park on the street? First thing I thought about when seeing this video was:"THE GUY KNOWS WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE".
Just ask a cop if he/she thinks this is a good idea. What was initially a crime of opportunity can now escalate to something much worse.
Also, what if the thief opens the package when driving and hits someone? I could easily see a lawyer or an ambitious DA going after the guy for booby trapping a package.
Bad idea all around.