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.”
Imagine it had guns and tasers its gonna end horribly
did the engineers install red leds in the eyes? if yes we might have a problem
“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.
This is relatively low on my list of privacy concerns, being that it seems to be patrolling and surveiling privately owned property.
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
Radio signals don’t recognize property boundaries.
nor does visible light
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?”
And that makes this thing OK?
“More for security”. How does boot taste?
These things track every Bluetooth device, every phone, every watch, every headset, etc, etc.
It’s yet another increase in surveillance, and “it’s not a big deal because that’s already happening” is your response?
Oh, and I’d bet a year’s salary these are leased, and the vendor owns all the collected data.
This is about data collection, not security.
How does boot taste?
Things losers say, even if the rest of their argument is sound.
In a country with many vocal boot lickers (“play stupid games . . .”) it seems like a fair term to have in your lexicon
Me explaining how they track you does not mean I agree with it.
Your emotional state does not change reality.
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.
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
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.
It’s gotta be pretty easy to disable.
Wear a mask and gloves, walk up with what, a stun gun and give it a nice jolt. Or just throw a wire mesh bag over it.
Other similar bots have been pushed into fountains.
Yeah taking it out of the picture isn’t the problem but that starts the timer. The thing’s being remotely monitored and that would bring the police
Ideally the criminals want to loiter. Look for targets.
I strongly suspect if you were able to get enough tagged data for shoppers versus Nair do wells, purely from video surveillance footage you could target potential thieves based on location of movement characteristics.
Aaand target loads of people who are from a different culture and innocent in the process. Usually these false-positives fall hardest on people of color, historically
In a few years, they’ll adjust the laws, so that would count as assault on a police officer.
I wonder how much property damage it will cause bumping into everyone’s car when you throw a bag over its head
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.
If I give the robot a wegie and put a piece of dirty underwear in its head, will it shoot me?
It’s in America so yes.
…If I give a cat a wegie and put a piece of dirty underwear on its head, will it shoot me?
My point is that this thing is a dumb robot tha doesn’t have a weapon. So its actually a step up from racist mall cops shooting people because they’re brown.
It could only be a joke. It is? Oh shit…
I wonder if it can be hacked to spin fast in nonstop circles the entire day?
Yelling “Meep morp… Zarrrp… Rooooobot”
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?
It must be for wifi that they operate.
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
Scarier than I thought 😭
I bet it was something like the hardware id instead but she misspoke
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 but that would be a crime.
Well its probably not a MITM if its just an official access point
Why would it need to MITM the WiFi? The store runs and operates the wifi
It probably just has a WiFi repeater in it
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?
Unlikely, but there is still a chance. It could always call its pig cousins to brutalize or kill you on its behalf.
Fair point!
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?
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.
Surveillance is the purpose… Security is the propaganda for the normies to accept the regime’s overreach
EXTERMINATE!!!
I knew I was not the only one
Wasn’t this the exact plot of Revolution of the Daleks?
CITIZEN! DO NOT BE ALARMED! YOU WILL FEEL A SMALL TICKLING SENSATION AND THEN DEATH!
I’ve seen Chopping Mall and know how this is going to end
I’m glad someone else had this thought!
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.