KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - A sight previously thought to be science fiction is very real at a southeast Kansas City shopping center. Instead of a police officer, a security robot has been patrolling sidewalks and shoppers are taking notice.
Since Marshall the robot has been on the job, shoppers say the experiences have completely changed when they come to these stores. The robot can spend 23 hours a day monitoring the parking lot from all angles which gives people a new sense of protection and ease they don’t always have when out.
Marshall took over security at Brywood Centre in April. Before that, Karen White noticed a lot of trouble outside the shopping center.
“Sometimes it’d be concerning for your car like someone could take it or something,” White said.
Knowing now that Marshall is always watching, the risk of crime does not worry her or others as much.
“It made it very better, like you can’t be in the parking lot without seeing the robot,” White continued. “So, I think it scared them off.”
They feel like there is less crime, because they have bought into security theater.
Ironically security theater can have a a placebo effect on crime rates as well. It turns out that the likelihood that someone commits a crime is strongly correlated to the chance they believe they will get caught, not the actual chance of getting caught. That’s why fake security cameras are so effective.
Like the ADT signs people get off of Craigslist.
NRA stickers are probably way more effective.
This only applies to rational actors. The problem is most criminals are not rational nor thinking of consequences.
Case in point, criminals know convenience stores have cameras but still openly rob and steal from them.
“It is not the severity of punishment that deters crime, but the certainty of punishment.”
Bullocks. You could make the crime for stealing death and execute everyone who does. There would still be stealing.
Simply put most criminals don’t think about consequences.
* sees robot. looks around. *
Average idiot: Huh. No crime in sight. Guess it’s working.
Realistically, with the robot having been around now almost six months, I’m more willing to consider that the locals have noticed a difference in their experience going shopping. That’s more than enough time to notice the kind of changes the locals appear to have experienced since they stopped relying on the police.
Last time, it didn’t go so well for the robot:
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2017/7/17/15986042/dc-security-robot-k5-falls-into-water
RESUSCITATE! RESUSCITATE!
“He has a license plate reader, he has facial recognition, he can read IP addresses from your cell phone or watch,” Amanda Bellemere, owner of Brywood Shopping Centre, explained. “He knows who you are basically.”
he can read IP addresses from your cell phone or watch
(X) Doubt
They mean the Bluetooth MAC address. It’ll capture your phone’s and can tell who the manufacturer is but the rest of the address is randomized. That said, lots of watches/earbuds/assorted smart Bluetooth things aren’t randomized because manufacturers are lazy.
Depends on what your cell or watch is broadcasting publicly and if you are connected to the store wifi.
Yea, no, the most likely route is to pickup a MAC address and associate it with an existing assigned IP address (If that device is connected to the public WiFi, but who even does that these days lol), but modern day Android and iOS randomize MAC addresses on every connection these days by default.
And then you’d still need to correlate that to the physical world, most likely route would be detecting Bluetooth hostname, but it’s by no means guaranteed that the device hostname in the public WiFi DHCP table matches the BT one (phones can have different names for each). And again is dependent on the person being connected to store WiFi to begin with. Would also be entirely thwarted of a person’s BT is off which is highly likely
It’s possible, but would be a useless feature to develop and maintain as it would probably actually work out in the real world like maybe 30% of the time.
Unless they shoved a full stingray unit in it or something (extremely unlikely), this is just a statement from someone parroting a sales brochure that they didn’t entirely understand
I suspect it works a lot ore than 30%
As you mentioned, cell ID is there too. Pretty easy to simply capture IMSI data (don’t even have to do anything, phones are alway broadcasting their ID).
Combine IMSI, BT, MAC, date/time, and boy you’ve got one helluva surveillance device.
Add in BT headphones, watches, etc, and you have even more data points to associate.
I wouldn’t be shopping there just because of that.
Actually, no. Phones don’t always broadcast their IMSI. Most of the time they broadcast a Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity (TMSI) and only on a location update (For power conservation). Your cell provider knows your IMSI already and uses a TMSI for updates for the express purpose of privacy and security for these exact scenarios
It is part of the initial work flow of a Stingray device to attempt to force your device to disconnect from the network and get it to rebroadcast its actual IMSI. But it is not floating around in the air all the time and it certainly isn’t trivial to grab.
BT is really the only viable option, and even that can vary wildly depending on manufacturer.
Does it have a stingray inside? wtf?
You don’t need a stingray to simply pickup cell broadcast which has the ID in it. Technically your phone is doing this, as the tower you connect to has an ID.
Shoplifter: fuck you police toaster!
Police toaster: you jerk off to incest hentai.
Closer to this.
Marshall conquer and destroy! Exterminate!
Does kind of look like one, doesn’t it?
“Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.”
Removed by mod
EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!
TBH, I trust a security robot way, way more than I trust the KCPD at this point.
Our police are state-controlled and don’t seem to give a damn about locals, and they’ve shown themselves to be completely inept to stem the stream of burglaries and theft that’s occurred in the city over the past year. My own car got ripped off less than a year ago, forcing me to have to replace a window, but that’s small potatoes compared to what many others are experiencing.
Police don’t prevent crime - their job is the grab people who commit crime.
Prevention is a much more complex issue (cultural).
Even as kids we all did shit our parents told us not to, and we just tried to not get caught.
They’ve seen the YouTube videos of Robocop and didn’t want to get shot in their dicks.
I live in Kansas City. Somebody is going to do a drive by on that thing.
So do I, and yes, that could happen.
However, according to the article, it’s been around six months now and is having a positive effect.
Same. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet
The robot can spend 23 hours a day monitoring the parking lot from all angles
Do they get a mandated one-hour break or something?
Charging maybe? A robot’s gotta eat too.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to have removable batteries it could recharge and swap out on the fly?
I mean, maybe that hour is a human swapping batteries and giving it a light cleaning?
Easier to be automated, like a Roomba.
A mall isn’t open 24hr a day, and I’m sure they know when the least riskiest hour is, probably like a couple hours before opening.
The headline makes it sound like people are scared to report crimes because they don’t want to talk to RoboMallCop.
“Please wait for a human agent to speak with you”
Hold music plays
“You are number 2 in the queue”
Hold music continues playing
“To report an active crime call the police”
……
Remember the movie “Chopping Mall” ?
It’s so fun to watch now. I stumbled across it on prime video or something and loved it.
Thank you for your cooperation.
