Hacker News Reader

Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

Wow.

On the one hand, I'm not surprised at all that there are security people in the company that can instantly pull up security cam footage of a register from the receipt number. That makes total sense.

But on the other hand, I never would have guessed that a customer service rep would have access to the system -- or even that if they had to transfer it to the security department, that the security department would be allowed to use the footage for anything customer-facing like that.

Still, that's kinda cool and helpful! Assuming it can't be used for any kind of nefarious invasion-of-privacy uses...

View on HN

YMMV, as not familiar with all retail, but typically CCTV footage review is limited to a select group of people.

I'd guess your friend was forwarded to an asset protection person at the store or similar.

Also, in this case, there's not much sensitive about "we saw you put it in your purse."

It'd be a different story if your friend had asked "Did you see what 4-number code I entered on the PIN pad?"

If I left something at a store I would be calling the store itself which I think to this day will eventually get you an internal store employee. Seems like that would be an easy bounce to the security person.

There's a lot of ATMs in Targets. If they have that much watching, I think I want to stand with my hand over the buttons now.

Although someone could probably watch your fingers at the checkout lane put in your pin. Camera script to correlate fingers to access pins automatedly. Machine vision is so much more advanced. Four finger movements, four numbers, tada, debit card access. I could probably write that with ML Kit.

Correlated to your exact receipt, purchases, and time of purchase (with enough fidelity to say "you put your card in your pocket at ##:##"). Track your card through the system, and what bank/clearing house is passing the transaction. When did this exact number amount of money go through and where did the lines send the data? What account was the final transaction processed through?

I usually put my wallet over the touchpad to block it.

Maybe I'll mess up on the PIN, too, to throw people off (although that's probably caused by not being able to see the numbers).

They could also use sound to detect the keypress, but I'm hoping any legit retailer hasn't gone that far, yet.

this is absolutely impressive, but target is in no way representative of the avg. level of surveillance/LP tech in retail. they are notorious for being at the leading edge of technology and dedication. Their forensics actually did contract govt work at some point in time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com