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Comment by gxon | Hacker News Reader

This seems like a trivial problem for law enforcement to honeypot. You wouldn't even need to actively monitor. Just get an alert when the devices start moving and dispatch officers to track them down.

If thieves start getting clever and putting the stolen goods in a Faraday cage, then add a camera to monitor and capture faces/plates. Hell, add hidden cameras to all major trailheads and don't even bother with the honeypot.

Obviously, there's funding and expertise issues with a solution like this. But is it really that significant or just law enforcement complacency?

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What you're describing is called a bait car and cops have been using them for decades. Back in the day typical bait cars were shitty cars with aftermarket sound systems. Made for interesting reality TV (for the standards of reality TV at the time).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_car

When I was visiting Oakland this happened to us, on a busy street. Someone wrote down the license plate and left it for us. The police didn’t care.

Reminds me of the NASA guy who built a glitter bomb and filmed people who stole packages from doorsteps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo

Too nice.

Video is fake, author paid his friends 'per outcome', so they manufactured outcomes (pretended being shocked thieves). Redditors even tracked one of the packages going off two houses away from YT account owners registered residence, at his friends house. Allegedly NASA guy didnt know this at the time of publishing.

This assumes the police give a shit. In the bay area, they seem to have given up. Assuming they catch someone, either the DA will decline to file charges or the judge will release them immediately.

There was a comment on Nextdoor today about three cars being hit right in front of Baskin Robbins on Lawrence... one with the owner in the driver's seat.

Santa Clara PD response: "yeah, that happens there every day".

In many cases they don't even follow up when location services tell the former owner where the device is. A shift in policing so that they go after such cases is a better use of time than setting traps.

Yeah cuz what we need is more cameras installed by the gov invading our privacy. You think they should implement facial recognition on them too? Don't leave values in your car easy as that ....

Regardless of the crime committed, victim blaming is not the correct response.

Isnt putting everyone under scrutiny for the bad act of one person as bad as victim blaming?

Glad I live where I dont have to lock my doors. You surveilence obsessed kind make me uneasy.

Odd how it isn't "surveillance" when criminals monitor people. I think there's a certain age where you start seeing things differently, biologically.

It's possible to make the first point without leaping directly to the second.

Cameras in public, theft-prone areas hardly seem like a privacy invasion.

I had security cameras installed at my home last week. We already had a security system. I dont like having the cameraa, but the final straw was when someone tried to break into my home while I was at work and my wife was home the Friday before Thanksgiving in the US. With no cameras, had nothing to give the police.

Id like to get a 12 gauge shotgun and teach my wife to use it, but she's gun shy. (I am licensed by the state, but dont own any firearms). There is something about the aound of a 12 gauge round being chambered that puts the fear of God in everyone (and I'm an atheist).

>>Id like to get a 12 gauge shotgun and teach my wife to use it, but she's gun shy.

That sounds like a great way to get your wife shot to be honest. Either by criminals or by police coming to "help" you. You might as well advise people to carry a knife to avoid a mugging.

Not necessarily. Assuming his wife was comfortable learning more about how to safely handle a firearm it could be a great asset for protecting their household...

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