cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19944734
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.”
Does it resemble a Dalek on purpose, I wonder?
It’s like if Aperture Science designed a Dalek
Perfection
I believe you mean:
This is a triumph
I think so, lol. Dalek security guards are scary indeed.
Imagine shoplifting and they show up at the exit like:
HALT!
I’m pretty sure privacy goes out the window when you commit a crime. If it isn’t robots it would be humans arresting you.
Don’t support criminals in any form as they are the ones who are actively creating a need to stop crime.
The bootlicking version of “why do you need privacy if you have nothing to hide?”
He has a license plate reader, he has facial recognition, he can read IP addresses from your cell phone or watch,”
Uhhhh… How is it reading the ip addresses of people’s phones?
I imagine it MITM’s the wifi? Obviously wouldn’t work with cellular but thats the only this claim can ve even remotely true.
That being said they could do some shit with malicious bluetooth/NFC behaviour
Well its probably not a MITM if its just an official access point
That’s fair. MITM wouldn’t be the right term.
I’ve heard for a while that stores use Bluetooth to track you as you go through a store. Not for anything nefarious but just to understand how people move around the store typically. So it probably does that too.
Why would it need to MITM the WiFi? The store runs and operates the wifi
good point.
Obviously wouldn’t work with cellular
Ever hear of a stingray?
It probably just has a WiFi repeater in it
Someone made a mistake here. It’s not getting your IP address. An IP address is assigned by the gateway when you’re connected to an access point. An IP address is not an identity. They are always changing and can be shared. This has already been tested and upheld in court.
It’s actually collecting your MAC address. Which is exchanged when your phone or tablet scan nearby WiFi points or Bluetooth devices. However, this can already be defeated. By default iOS and Android both have the option to randomise the MAC address in intervals. Making it extremely difficult to prove anything. This feature exists because the devices real MAC address never changes. It is unique. Alternatively, users can disable WiFi and Bluetooth scanning entirely. However, your device no longer participates in the Find My Devices program by Apple and Google, location does take longer to acquire in some scenarios, and accuracy may take longer to triangulate.
Counter-argument, this is all correct, but when the application is against shopping mall criminals it will work well enough. Not talking masterminds here
I bet it was something like the hardware id instead but she misspoke
It must be for wifi that they operate.
Scarier than I thought 😭
One of these hit my car. It was out patrolling randomly in a parking lot and I pulled up to get a better look at it. I stopped like 6 ft in front of it but it just kept on coming and ran into my fucking car.
“You are illegally parked on private property. You have twenty seconds to move your vehicle.” -ED-209
Sorry, I laughed. Did it do damage? What was the outcome?
Left some paint on the car but that was it.
That’s the downside of having the invisible boatmobile, they just keep coming
EXTERMINATE!!!
CITIZEN! DO NOT BE ALARMED! YOU WILL FEEL A SMALL TICKLING SENSATION AND THEN DEATH!
Wasn’t this the exact plot of Revolution of the Daleks?
I knew I was not the only one
BIG BROTHER advanced to level 3.
On the one hand, yes, on the other hand, it’s unlikely to brutalize or kill people for minor offenses, so maybe a win for a public space?
I don’t know about you but I don’t like to be watched by big brother all the time.
Right there with you, but there’s no legal expectation of privacy in public, so it’s futile to complain about on that basis. Especially when ring doorbell cams are everywhere already. So the silver lining is a security robot won’t do this.
maybe no legal expectation, however I ask you when were you or any other common person asked about legal expectations. don’t come with “everyone at election”, because everyone knows its not true, in any sense
Dude, we’re on the same side in this, I just know what battles have already been lost.
i understand, and sorry if I offended you. my problem was you were referring to a legal expectation as if that should be everyone’s personal expectation
Not offended, just seemed like you thought I was excusing it. I’m not - just acknowledging it. 🙂
Just put a blind fold on it?
Unlikely, but there is still a chance. It could always call its pig cousins to brutalize or kill you on its behalf.
Fair point!
This is relatively low on my list of privacy concerns, being that it seems to be patrolling and surveiling privately owned property.
it literally says it reads shit off your phone/other smart devices, you’re being tracked
privately owned property
quick, name a space that isn’t
National Parks?
It’s good that you’re concerned about the data your phone may be revealing to other nearby devices. It’s generally a good idea to have bluetooth/wifi/nfc turned off if you’re not actively using them. Even without the robot, you have no idea what data companies might be collecting when you’re physically on their property.
Why WiFi? They can’t get much data from WiFi. If you use a VPN, all they’ll see is a bunch of encrypted data going to a VPN server.
I think the lady said they know the IP address of every phone but that doesnt make much sense. anyway, the point was that theyre using the signals from your phone to uniquely identify you. you can simply turn those radios in your phone off when youre not using them.
Interesting, but this question is 10 years old. are you sure android didn’t fix this? They released Mac address randomization since then
I think they are more concerned about mass surveillance that is run by nation states or large companies and data brokers. At the end of the day Target can’t track you if you don’t go to Target. However, Target could buy your data in order to make an ad to get you to go to Target
Almost all of your life happens on someone else’s private property
Although I imagine once you’re in the club of billionaire elites, you’ll be really happy to have taken this live and let live approach towards this matter
All I’m getting out of this is further proof that the “general publics” sense of safety exists entirely removed from anything fact based
Yeah all I see is an expensive CCTV system with high ongoing costs. Seriously it can be overpowered by a trash bag. It’s entirely security theatre.
Removed by mod
First of all if you’re too scared to go into a store because you think your car is going to be robbed You’re probably too scared to live in public. However from the description it sounds like this thing’s just a tall camera? It can’t do anything except monitor? So how is this any better than those towers with cameras on them?
Psychology. Ever see ring doorbell footage where the owner says “drop the package” and people do? Its not like the owner could do anything, but for some reason it makes people behave differently.
This is missouri, it’s not unrealistic that a car especially a those kias might get stolen.
This is in a pretty rough part of town
exactly my thought
people consumed all these dystopian movies and thought “what a great rubric for society!” we’re so fucked lol. These death machines (like drones and such) are also where the most work and funding go for machine learning and AI research too. What could go wroooong
Don’t post pictures of text
It isn’t just text in this case
Its mostly text. how can blind people read the text? We need to downvote people who post pictures of text without transcribing it. Mods are really failing at this
I live under a rock and don’t get out much due to physical disability, but I don’t see a security improvement. I see a data mining monstrosity and further reason to avoid local retail.
Avoid local retail in favor of what, a website? If you’re concerned about the data mining potential of this robot rolling around a strip mall then you should avoid the internet at all costs.
Gaylord fartmaster makes an excellent point.
It’s a roving mobile camera. It doesn’t get distracted easily or bored or tired and isn’t apathetic and It doesn’t hate its job. Criminals don’t want to be filmed doing their crime.
Normally if you are not actively doing anything provably wrong the mall cops will just kick you out, this thing is going to provide evidence to the actual police.
But I have to admit any significant security advantages that it provides are going to be short-lived while the thieves just change their plan. They’ll just have to be faster and more aware of where this thing is, or do a better job of hiding their face.
They are already data mining you without these robots.
They use facial recognition on cameras. They use OCR on your license plate and scan your toll pass. They use your phone location if you connect to their “free” wifi. They track your bluetooth devices that’s constantly looking to connect. They track you foot traffic and see what stores, what aisle, what product you picked it up and how long you had it in your hands.
Google “Target loss prevention” stories of frequent shoplifters that had profiles on them for months and stop them when they can charge for grand larceny rather than petite larceny. There is a reason why Westfield malls are everywhere. It’s easier for them to control their own data than to constantly buy or contract out data from other companies.
These bots are probably getting more data but they are more for security. A moving camera is more of criminal deterrent just because it is moving. These bots are so they don’t have to pay for more security guards than anything else.
It is not like I fail to understand the use case. My issue is that data mining me is stealing from me. It is taking a part of my digital entity to manipulate me. It is digital slavery. To be okay with such a thing is to enslave one’s self; it is to fail at a fundamental understand of the three pillars of democracy and the role of freedom of information and the press. Forfeiting your right to ownership over your digital self undermines the entire democratic system of governance and is an enormous sociopolitical regression to the backwardness of feudalism.
No ancient citizen of a democracy wanted feudalism. These things do not have a parade to welcome them, a coup, or a changing of the guard. This change is a killer in your sleep and a small amount of poison added to each of your meals. Every little concession is a forfeit of future people’s rights. This is that poison. I will go hungry. Enjoy your meal, I respect your right to eat it; after you’ve been warned of its contents. I reserve my right to speak of the poison to any that will listen.
I agree with you that it sucks and is horrible. I wish there were more laws to protect us.
Everything I stated is just a quick summary of why these robot really don’t do much for data collection and is more of a money saving matter to not hire more security personal.
I would agree more if the thing was a product purchased and operated by the establishment, but these things are always run by a third party and their interests and affiliations have no oversight or accountability. What happens when there is an abortion clinic with one of these present. What happens when the controlling company is in KKK christo-jihad hell where women have no rights like Florida, Texas, or Alabama? What about when the police execute someone at random, who loses that recording? No one knows any of these factors or should need to when they wish to walk into a store. This device is stealing your right to autonomy and citizenship as a result.
christo-jihad
“What are we, a bunch of Muslims?”
What data do you think they’re getting from you?
From me specifically? When I was first disabled, I still used most corporate social media and stalkerware. In an isolated environment like I’ve been stuck in for a long time, it became clear that the user retention through suggested content manipulation algorithms and notifications were not able to compensate for someone in my condition and availability. What had always seemed like minor manipulative annoyances, became obvious manipulative annoyances. I started to see how the interruptions had altered my behavior. There were some interests I sought out on my own, but many pointless and frivolous distractions and things or projects I bought into because I felt like I had found or discovered something on the internet. Over the years of isolation, I can more clearly see the pattern of what was really my interests and what was suggested to me in manipulative contexts. One of the prime ways it happens is when I’m frustrated with something I’m working on and getting no where. Suddenly I get a seemingly unrelated suggestion or start getting what seem like random notifications. Those seem to target my emotional state specifically in a targeted way to tended to push me into new things or areas I didn’t really expect or want to pursue prior.
I could write off that kind of thing. I became alarmed most around 2018 when Dave Jones showed some search results on YT and was talking about them. I could not reproduce his search or even find the reference at all. A week or so later, it came up. I had it happen again a couple of months later. No matter what or how I searched I could not find the correct results. It is because google was being paid to funnel me into another website some imbeciles thought was related to my search results but the website in question is a garbage third party referral linking middleman. When they showed up in my search results, I couldn’t find anything I was looking for. They were quite literally paying so that I could not find what I needed. It wasn’t ads placement. It the top 20 pages of google, the results were simply not present at all for what I was looking for. In this situation, I could empirically check and see what was happening. Any company that can do such a thing with what I can see should never be trusted with what I cannot see. That type of manipulation is world changing and extremely dangerous. There are only two relevant web crawlers by size, Microsoft and Google. Every search provider goes through these two crawlers either directly or indirectly. When google failed to work, so did DDG, Bing, and most of the rest. At the time, Yandex still worked.
Since I have offline independent AI running, I’ve been able to test this a bit further. If I start searching for certain niche products in a search engine I will get steered in bad manipulative directions. I do not fit the typical mold for the scope of experience and information I know about going back over two decades ago. When I search for something commercial and industry niche specific, I’ve seen many times when relevant products and information are obfuscated as I am steered to consumer land garbage due to what I shouldn’t know. These are situations where I may have forgotten some brand name, but when searching for all of its relevant properties and use cases, the things never come up in search results. I can chat about the product with a decent AI for a few sentences and it gives me the answer. After I plug that into search results, suddenly I start seeing all kinds of related products in other places popping up like it is some kind of organic thing. It isn’t limited to search results either, it was YT, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and even reddit I noticed similar anomalies. If this kind of connection works in one direction, it must work in both directions, meaning my information bubble is influenced directly by all corporate platforms. It makes me question what interests and ideas are truly my own. I primarily find it deeply offensive that, as a citizen, any corporate shit can cause me to question my informed reality in such a way. Any stranger that asks you to trust them, is nothing more than a thief and con. They are an irresponsible gatekeeper. That is the prima issue.
This robot doesn’t run or have access to google or Facebook servers. Again, exactly what information do you think its collecting from you?
Its actually more privacy friendly to leave WiFi on and airplane mode on. Cell radio leaks a lot more data than WiFi, if you encrypt everything through a VPN
Interesting. But I do need to get messages and calls and airplane mode kills that.
SIP services restore that over WiFi
Hmm. When I’m in airplane mode on Wi-Fi i do not get text messages (sms). I might get calls but I’m not sure.
As expected. You have to get a SIP service to get calls and texts over wifi
I don’t have stats to back this up but most people, like high 90%, don’t turn any of that off.
Google phones give a random fake Mac address on WiFi since like 10 years
I personally am all for stopping shop lifting as I don’t support crime. Maybe we just need humans stopping humans instead of freaky tech. I think part of the issue is lack of people.
This is a cost cutting measure to hire less people.
I wonder if it can be hacked to spin fast in nonstop circles the entire day?
Yelling “Meep morp… Zarrrp… Rooooobot”
“Sometimes it’d be concerning for your car like someone could take it or something,” White said.
Wow, that couldn’t be a better sentence to highlight the layers of meaning in that comment.
I’ve seen Chopping Mall and know how this is going to end
I’m glad someone else had this thought!
Runaway as well, but without the mall.
Imagine it had guns and tasers its gonna end horribly
