[cosmotron]

What are people's thoughts on if this is staged?

Considering the views / subscriptions are the main motivation here, it might justify the expenses poured into this project – that is, it would be quite a waste if all that effort went into the build just to have no one actually take it off the porch.

If actors were used, it would explain the lack of police involvement (it's easy to say, "police weren't interested" ).

An obvious consequence of it being a production without disclosure is the copycats that this will spawn.

Edit: just to add a bit more food-for-thought in response to comments such as, "why do that to your own car?" or "why get sprayed with fart spray": what makes you believe it's their own car (could be a beater picked up for a few hundred dollars) or that the fart spray actually smells?

[dylan604]

>it's easy to say, "police weren't interested"

I’ve had my house robbed, and had evidence from the bank when the robbers tried to use the checkbook to send money through Western Union. They had photos, state issued identification, address, etc of the people collecting the payments. The assigned detective would not read an email or respond to voice mails. The detective said he was too busy to read emails.

Not sure that’s the piece of evidence to hang my hat on that this might be a hoax.

[ironcan]

This is something you hear all the time, why?

[dylan604]

Think of the number of people living in a large city, and compare that to the number of police officers in that city. It is a tiny percentage of "trained" people asked to protect the citizens. There is only so much you can do, only so many places you can be at one time. An investigation looking into stolen property requires so much effort for so little return. I would be very interested in knowing the number of open cases at any one time a single cop is expected to have to handle. I'd be willing to bet we'd all be surprised by the number. Just like any other profession, as you become senior, the tendency to become jaded is probably even more likely as a cop. We all want them to solve our specific need just like an episode of CSI or whatever, but that's not real. Being too busy to read email sounds just like a guy that is just waiting out his time for his pension. Oh, and there is a significantly larger than 0 percent chance that as they go about doing their job that they could be harmed if not killed. Would you be willing to take on that risk for something like stolen personal items that is covered by insurance?

[rebbie]

You can try to press charges yourself. The police really don't want to help in such cases but I've found that once they know you are serious and have the proper evidence/witnesses they will at least steer you in the right direction.

[jboy55]

You can't press charges yourself. You can go directly to the DA with your evidence and hope they press charges, but there is no role for you as a citizen to instigate a criminal preceding.

https://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2015/12/pressing-charges-w...

You could sue them in court.

[dylan604]

Getting robbed is just the opening salvo in getting fleeced. The second round is the insurance company. Yes, I know insurance fraud exists, so one way the insurance companies "protect" themselves is to issue a check for a fraction of the value of the items stolen. They know most people will not replace the stolen items. If you do replace the items, then you have to re-submit your claim with the receipt to show it was actually replaced. They will then decide if they want to reimburse the difference from the original payout.

You're also left pretty defeated with the lack of response from the police, then you have the beat down with the insurance company. Asking the individuals to go after a civil suit is just too much. Had I known about it, I might have done it. The police nor the insurance ever suggested this was possible. Even still, what are the odds of actually receiving any payment from a civil suit win?

[vkou]

This is why I don't insure my personal property. The probability of theft * the amount of payout will unlikely exceed the cost of insurance.

Generally, unless you know more then the insurer about your risk factors, and can afford to eat the loss, you should be self-insuring your stuff.

[jboy55]

My 'sue them' should have almost had a /s on it. It would be pointless suing someone with little or no assets. Its the only thing you can do, by yourself, within the courts as a private citizen.

[Fogest]

I doubt Mark would be staging things. He works for Nasa and worked on some big projects there and is a pretty smart guy. I can't see him being the kind of person looking to just make some viral fake video. But up to you to make that call if you want to think that. This is one case where I doubt it's staged.

[tylerl]

Given who made the video, I'd give it about a 0% probably of being staged. That's not Mark's gig.

[hjek]

> That's not Mark's gig.

Apparently it is.

https://gizmodo.com/viral-video-of-glitter-bomb-for-package-...

[stupidbird]

Feels real to me generally — actors are usually easy to spot, and these would be surprisingly good actors.

The police are not going to do anything in my experience.

I literally caught someone in the act of stealing a package and the police specifically told me to do nothing and file a report. I submitted clear video of a face and apparently this was a known thief to others in the neighborhood, so I even gave them the person's name. They're still stealing packages 6 months later. The police tell me there are warrants pending.

[nothrabannosir]

If this was staged, this guy is a fantastic actor. The shot of him “being out of his comfort zone” when retrieving the box, in particular, would have my sincere respect if it were not genuine. That is professional grade acting. Something you generally don’t find in YouTube click bait fakes.

[paavoova]

That's exactly what made me think it's staged. Despite stating contrary, he seemed incredibly eager to drive to an unknown location, and hop out of his car without scouting the direct vicinity. How could he have known the thief wasn't still hanging around? Someone willing to steal might also be willing to mug and/or physically retaliate against the person who just glitter bombed them coming to pick up their package.

[mikestew]

(it's easy to say, "police weren't interested" )

It's easy to say, because after a while it kind of just rolls off the tongue. If there's no blood, my experience says police aren't interested. And in some jurisdictions, it better be a lot of blood.

[ams6110]

Yeah it really depends on where petty theft falls in the spectrum of criminal activity in that area.

In a quiet small town it might get a detective assigned. In a lower-class urban neighborhood, well the cops have bigger fish to fry.

[mschaef]

I'd be honestly be concerned about retaliation. The people that got hit with the glitter bomb can probably trace back where they found it, and have already demonstrated a lack of strict attention to the law.

> it's their own car (could be a beater picked up for a few hundred dollars)

At least one of them was a fairly nice looking Lexus.

[VectorLock]

It would be funny if this spawned a bunch of copy cats which then drives down the incidents of package theft because thiefs are paranoid of getting prank packages.

I bet somebody will soon start selling this as a product. And people will just send them to their friends instead of targeting package thiefs. "Pranked you bro!" Then there will be a bunch of backlash.

[dvtrn]

>And people will just send them to their friends instead of targeting package thiefs. "Pranked you bro!"

No need to wait for that, it's already a thing:

https://www.ruindays.com/

Some have sent far...erm...shittier things in the mail:

http://time.com/3634443/cards-against-humanity-poop-black-fr...

[VectorLock]

No camera or motorized glitter-whipper on this though. Being able to see your victim's face and reaction is what really makes it.

[rapind]

Just in time for me to sell my GlitterBombDetector TM.

[astrodust]

You couldn't pay me enough to be an "actor" who had their house or car glitterbombed.

[ionforce]

And get fart sprayed on.

[palotasb]

You're assuming that if it's fake, the spray is still real.

[jackhack]

ace body spray -- still can't pay me enough.

[southerndrift]

Which doesn't happen at all incidents. E.g. the last thief who opens the package in his house doesn't complain about a smell at all. So chances are that this is staged.

[ryanmercer]

>What are people's thoughts on if this is staged?

Well one, he's not a prank channel. He's a serious professional that even showed video of people stealing his package that started the whole idea. He then went as far as to machine parts, have a custom pcb manufactured etc. Then he contaminated cars and residences with glitter, yeah good luck talking random friends to let you bomb their cars and houses with glitter.

I mean, the dude worked for JPL for almost a decade and has his work on Mars, he already gets tons of views and has a history of deep-diving projects. He's also a tv host. He's also a former TED speaker.

Guy has better things to do than stage videos for YouTube.

[root_axis]

Nothing you've listed here precludes fakery.

> good luck talking random friends to let you bomb their cars and houses with glitter.

Right. Typically you pay an actor to do fake things that a real person would not be on board with.

[ryanmercer]

>Nothing you've listed here precludes fakery.

You think he can get a decent engineering job, especially for a government agency, in the future with a viral public hoax on his record?

Yeah, probably not and YouTube isn't going to rake in money forever, not that he uploads often enough to be anywhere near a top earner anyway.

[root_axis]

> You think he can get a decent engineering job, especially for a government agency, in the future with a viral public hoax on his record?

Who cares? Those are arbitrary rationalizations that didn't necessarily factor into the creator's reasoning; you're simply projecting post facto reasoning that supports your preconceived conclusions. People who fall for scams and fakes use this same flawed reasoning all the time: "would he really lie about this? It can't possibly be worth it, I have considered all possibilities and have perfect information, there is no way that someone would do something that is obviously a bad choice from my perspective"...

[ryanmercer]

> you're simply projecting post facto

He literally says it's not a prank video, that he doesn't do that. He has a solid reputation both as an engineer and as a YouTuber for being scientific and factual, 4 videos ago he showed a fake video from another YouTube user and explained how to help yourself determine when a video is fake...

His videos already get millions of views - his top 5 are nearly 1/4 of a billion views at 99 million, 46 million, 32 million, 31 million, 28 million, even his less popular ones easily clear multiple millions.

[cosmotron]

> 4 videos ago he showed a fake video from another YouTube user and explained how to help yourself determine when a video is fake...

Devil's advocate: sounds like someone knowledgeable enough to make a video that's can't be easily dismissed as a prank. :-)

[98codes]

The lack of police response is par for the course in a number of cities these days.

[bufferoverflow]

Which makes no sense. You pretty much have a criminal case ready, there's video evidence. They will likely plead guilty without going to trial.

[dragonwriter]

In California (and some other jurisdictions have similar rules), police cannot, by law make a warrantless arrest for a misdemeanor (with some specific exceptions, none of which is applicable to the pattern of offense at issue) unless the crime occurred in their presence, and prosecutors generally do not pursue misdemeanor warrants except in conjunction with broader investigations.

(If the offense occurs in the presence of a non-police witness, something that a casual observer would describe as a police arrest may occur after the witness reports to police, but that's actually a citizen’s arrest by the witness with police assistance. But a camera isn't a witness, and, as for police misdemeanor arrests, a citizens arrest for a misdemeanor also requires the offense to have occurred in the presence of the arresting party.)

[jboy55]

What's the crime? Stealing something that is less than $1000? They could have stolen that from the front of a store and if they weren't detained by a store cop, the police won't do anything typically.

If they plead guilty, they probably would just get a small fine, not worth the time of a detective to make the case.

[bufferoverflow]

> What's the crime?

That's a ridiculous question. It's theft. Which is illegal.

> If they plead guilty, they probably would just get a small fine

1) That's only if it's their first time.

2) It reduces future crime. With the current attitude (like yours) more criminals are incentivized to steal packages.

[jboy55]

My attitude has no effect on crime.

I'm describing the reality of the world we all live in. Even if its not their first time, they'll be out in a day or two, maybe not even that. Its just packages, most of them under $100, no one in harms way, no drugs, no guns/knives. Even if they broke down your door when you weren't home and went inside to steal your package, there's going to be no APB on their license number, no road blocks, no helicopter sent out to see where they are.

My time in retail quickly taught me that unless you catch and hold a perpetuator, nothing will happen to them.

"We have them on tape! I ran outside and wrote down their license plate?"

"What was stolen?"

"$250 worth of goods!"

"Meh, we know the guy, but if its under a grand the DA won't do anything. Since we know him, we'll tell him to avoid your store, if he does show up again and steals something, we can get him on trespass and stealing, the DA might do something then.

The fact is some people live 100% on small thefts, small odd jobs paid in cash, some begging. They'll be living with their parents at 30-40, with no assets in their name, borrowing cars to get around. There is no down side in swiping a few packages besides the pain in turning that into cash, which is the only disincentive to them stealing.

[axaxs]

Serious question then... what's the deterrent? Sounds like a person could spend all day looking for packages, resell the contents, at the risk of just paying a small fee if one happens to prosecute...

[jboy55]

Welcome to the reality. Typically, the criminals are caught with lots of items, and there's theft and possession of stolen property. Or if they are stopped, they are also carrying drugs and they'll get charged with that.

Edit: Also, its not so easy to sell a bunch of random things for the cash. For every iphone that might get you a 100 or so in one transaction, there's a bunch of random things that you might get you $20 if you spend a day trying sell them.

[anewguy9000]

most people still seem to think of youtube as home movies. they dont understand its ursurped traditional "television", and all the strings attached to that (its media -- it's not reality! it's a "reality show")

there are many comments here that read something like, "mark wouldn't do a fake video..." as if they know mark personally. it's like debating if tom cruise really shoots people in mission impossible.

you can debate this if you want, maybe mark's followers really do "know" what, how, and why he posts to youtube. but please never stop 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 and questioning

[Firebrand]

Mark reportedly lives in California, a two-party state. Wouldn’t he be running afoul of wiretapping laws, regardless if he’s recording criminals?

[ectospheno]

You are allowed to record crimes in progress in two party states.

[otterley]

Wiretapping is the recording of a telephone conversation (or modern equivalent). If it’s not a telephone conversation, it’s not subject to the law’s consent requirements.

[LinuxBender]

How does Amazon and Google get away with it? When you put their listening devices in your home, do you sign a legally binding contract? Honest question, I've never bought one.

If a contract is sufficient, does it have to be signed in writing or witnessed? If not, then could he have a sign at his door stating that acquiring the package provides consent to monitoring?

Is there a lawyer here that could answer those questions, pro bono?

[Edit] Maybe it would be sufficient to put wording on the box that basically says, "by touching or taking this packages.... yada yada..."

[cypherpunks01]

Not a lawyer. Consent to recording does not need to be made by written contract.. Simple transactional agreement, like saying "OK" on the phone, or by purchasing a device intended to record you, is sufficient.

[candiodari]

(not legal advice and so on)

One of the first rules of the legal system is that you don't get to violate the law. This INCLUDES the situation where someone else violates the law first.

In many places this principle is repeated. For instance, you DO NOT get to bump someone's car if they run a red light for instance.

(and no, EVEN the situation where you literally had no choice still isn't an excuse. There is only the small "non-exception" that earlier laws can override later laws. For instance, keeping someone safe takes precedence over obeying traffic lights. If you can avoid an accident by running a red light you MUST do so. There is an explicitly defined order in which laws can override one another, even though I would strongly agree that it's not exactly a clear thing)

So the thief (or whoever) can sue this person for things like willful damage to property, violation of privacy, ... and that the package was stolen won't be a valid defense.

[stale2002]

> So the thief (or whoever) can sue this person

Ah, see, but lack of enforcement from the police goes both ways!

If the police are unwilling to go after petty theft cases, why would they bother with the even smaller crime of "wiretapping" thieves?

Is the opportunist thief likely to have the resources to go after you for this? Almost certainly not.

And even then, it is additionally unlikely that a judge and jury would convict and punish someone. Stories, narratives, and being perceived to be "in the right" go a long way in the criminal justice system, which is enforced by people, not the legal words on a piece of paper.

[candiodari]

Well, it's not that simple. The thief could simply sue under private law (private law = anything that's not criminal law). Privacy violation, for example, is private law. Damage to property, is both criminal and private law. There's certainly options.

Granted, the author of the video cannot be sent to jail in such a case, but it is a near-certainty that he'll have to pay.

Second, I don't think the odds of the police pursuing this are quite as small as you perceive them to be. For one, the thief may BE a police officer. What do you propose happens then ? Do you think criminal police officers just arrest themselves ?

I mean, I sort of understand the "the law is just under all circumstances and the law sees all" train of thought, all nice, safe and secure. In reality, law is an imperfect and sometimes outright malicious system implemented by imperfect and sometimes outright malicious people. So I'd be interested in your opinion of what happens if the thief is an ill-tempered police officer, with the predisposition of Joe Arpaio towards you. You might note that this person was not just any police officer, but a 24-year sheriff (chief) of the police of a 4 million people county, including a large city. Those people are part of the police too, and can be very high up in the police force.

> judge and jury

Jury is only in criminal law. In other words, only if you're sued by the public prosecutor. Otherwise, no jury trial. And good luck convincing the jury if a police officer is testifying against you. I will say, it's not impossible. However, ...

> Stories, narratives, and being perceived to be "in the right" go a long way in the criminal justice system

Can I just say, I pity your lawyer if you ever apply this way of thinking in an actual case. In short: it does not. Police and public prosecutors are evaluated on their conviction rate (just ask a police officer. You should be very surprised that he knows that figure in the first place). There's even bonuses for achieving certain conviction rates (and of course you get fired below ...). Secondly there's a sort of constant "contest" between officers for the highest conviction rate. In the criminal justice system, therefore, the primary driver of who the police pursue is whether they believe they'll get a conviction. Nothing, and I do mean absolutely nothing, else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

(That doesn't mean they don't apply sanity, but realistically, if that happens, it's the officer on the ground and they are under VERY high pressure to do "something", like arrest someone. "This guy is not innocent, let's arrest him" definitely happens regularly. If the officer on site doesn't just let you go, it is utter folly to count on anyone else in the criminal justice system to take stories or narratives into account)

[stale2002]

> The thief could simply sue under private law.... There's certainly options

But they won't, because they are a desperate individual who is going around stealing packages from people. The kind of person who does this is very unlikely to have the money to sue someone.

They will instead just run away as they are probably just afraid of getting arrested themselves. Someone who has stolen one package has probably stolen dozens. Rationally or not, they'd probably just be afraid of getting caught for all their past thefts.

> . In reality, law is an imperfect

Indeed it is imperfect! Which is why someone who "wiretaps" desperate thiefs is almost certainly going to get away with breaking the law.

Lots of people in this thread are talking about how the police just won't care if you bring them irefutable evidence of theft. If police don't care about that, what do you think is the likelihood that they will care about illegal wiretapping of thiefs? I'd guess that the answer is "a very low likelyhood".

> In other words, only if you're sued by the public prosecutor.

But you won't be sued by a public prosecutor or targeted by the police. Because they have better things to do with their time. They aren't even going after the thieves, if you will remember!

> For one, the thief may BE a police officer

This is extremely unlikely. Instead the thief is probably going to be some desperate individual or homeless person with no ability to go after you for "wiretapping".

My whole point is that if nobody is getting arrested for the theft, the chances of the police bothering to go after people for wiretapping is even less likely. And the desperate thief won't have the money, resources, or motivation to pursue you in private court.

If it is so easy to get away with theft, then it is certainly going to be much much easier to get away with wiretapping thieves.

[LinuxBender]

I am not suggesting eye for an eye. My question is regarding: What is legally required to obtain consent to record in this case?

[francislavoie]

Sure, but do you really think the criminals will present him with a lawsuit... when they literally stole from him?

[TallGuyShort]

Dumber lawsuits than that have won.

[EGreg]

What if the DA does?

[gnopgnip]

This all happened in a suburb of Chicago

[mr_tristan]

Unfortunately, it's becoming a pretty common problem. Here in Portland, the police is understaffed, largely because the hiring process is insane. (It can take a full year to complete the background check - so onboarding new officers is a slow process.) Thus, they prioritize responding to violence or possible major damage - given the high number of homeless addicts on Portland streets, it's unfortunately frequent. Even home break ins wont warrant much investigation time, just a report, unless there is a violent act to go along with it.

So, I have no problem believing Mark when he said police weren't interested. It's definitely par for the course here in Portland. I would imagine that in other areas, it's similar.

We have a lot of homeless people in our area just walking around. I see "package stolen" notifications on Nextdoor pretty much every other day.

[t0mbstone]

I seriously doubt that andy sane person would glitter and stink bomb their own car.

[slig]

The stink thing could be fake (we can't tell from the video only) and the glitter on a car, well, maybe there are desperate people out there that will gladly take US X,000 for the trouble.

I don't think the video is fake, though.

[duiker101]

I'm pretty sure I've seen people doing dumber things for little money. That said, I don't think it's staged.

[tomcam]

> Considering the views / subscriptions are the main motivation here

Where is that stated?

[modzu]

it would be cool to see the source for the project, like what triggered the cloud uploads or how the gps data was mapped

[poundtown]

personally i hope its staged. from both a legal and safety stand point id be freekin sweating everyday thinking all those fools would come kill me or file suit of some bogus injury charge for disrespecting them. he put it up on the tubes with his name etc. so dumb if its not staged.

[kaivi]

I've had the same thought when I first saw it. Some suspicious things: thieves talking to themselves, that lady throwing the box into her own garbage bin, zero attempt at disassembly or closer inspection of the box, no police involved.

Also GPS is just not that good for locating anything of that size in given circumstances, and it would not have worked in the parking garage.

Too many things could have gone wrong here, but they did not. The design is subpar in my opinion, for somebody who worked on a Mars rover. Custom printed board plus a bunch of smartphones, seriously?

[dageshi]

> Custom printed board plus a bunch of smartphones, seriously?

Why wouldn't you use this? Seems like if you want to push video data over the cell phone network then using some cheapo android phones with data sims is by far and away the simplest and most robust solution? Anything you build yourself to do that job is gonna be way more prone to error?

[ocdtrekkie]

A lot of people talk to themselves. Most small-time thieves are not known for incredible intelligence. If you look close enough to realize it has cameras, you might realize you are on video and should get rid of it quickly. Consumer products are far more reliable than rolling your own solution nine times out of ten. Had he failed to recover the device, the video still would've been pretty cool.

If it's traceable, throwing it in your own trash isn't much worse than throwing it elsewhere, since it already has the coordinates of your house anyways. GPS works fine on small packages and a lot of businesses/products exist specifically to take advantage of this. Also note that as full-featured smartphones, he's likely got the full power of Google Location Services in play, which can identify what floor of a building (or parking garage) you're on, and of course, even if it failed to get signal in the parking garage would surely show location up to the parking garage. Inside a parking garage, a bright white box is not hard to find. Also, he has four GPS devices facing different directions, so he's got a lot of backup for failure here.

[aqme28]

>Too many things could have gone wrong here, but they did not. The design is subpar in my opinion, for somebody who worked on a Mars rover. Custom printed board plus a bunch of smartphones, seriously?

What would you propose? The best design is often the easiest/cheapest one, and this looks like pretty simple.

[AstralStorm]

Those are very much not cheapest unless he had them lying around.

There are ready made cheap boards with identical functionality to a cellphone, few dollars a pop. And yes, they run Android.

That said, this way he can claim it had something valuable inside in case it is still taken.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

What hardware hacker doesn't? I have at least 2 Android phones and one Windows phone lying around my house in various states of functionality. Hell, I've got $200 Peltier coolers and $400 peristaltic pumps in boxes somewhere sitting unused.

I don't even know what this Mark person did, but going by comments here, if I wanted to build something similar, the only thing I'd have to go out and buy would be the glitter stuff.

Don't discount the stuff us weirdos have in our basements :-)

[ryanmercer]

>I don't even know what this Mark person did, but going by comments here,

Oh man, watch the video on his YouTube. It's pure comedic gold. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo

[raverbashing]

> made cheap boards with identical functionality to a cellphone, few dollars a pop. And yes, they run Android.

With a camera, battery and 3G modem? Got any links?

[derefr]

I guess technically, you only need one cellphone (one camera + battery + 3G modem), and the other three sides could have been implemented as action cams connected to the phone over a USB hub.

One phone (or one phone’s SD card) may not have had the IO bandwidth to receive video from four cameras at once, though.

[t0mbstone]

GPS and phone location (via wifi triangulation) would have easily led him to the parking garage. After that, it's just a matter of driving around in the parking garage until you see the box that got thrown out of the car.

[bsamuels]

> The design is subpar in my opinion

Are you a mechanical/electrical engineer? Not trying to be hostile, but what would you have improved?

[jki275]

GPS works quite well for that kind of location -- even in a parking garage, as long as it's not underground it's not hard to get a signal.

His design is just about right -- it's not overly complex and manages to do what it needs to do for a relatively low cost.

[nandou]

GPS is just there to give an approximation of the location. He has videos of where the box was thrown.. We even see the lady throw it in the garbage..

[jstewartmobile]

That HN is downvoting you this hard is near-conclusive proof that the whole thing will be revealed as a hoax within a few weeks.

[kaivi]

Well shit, I was just writing up a huge post exposing the guy on Reddit, and I've noticed that the scenes and timings in the video did not match with what I have downloaded.

Turns out, Mark himself has already admitted that 2 scenes were staged, supposedly all because of a dishonest "friend" whom he paid to place the box on his porch.

[jstewartmobile]

Vindicated ahead of schedule!

[subcosmos]

Let's be clear, it's most definitely not GPS. Most phones these days use Wi-Fi location tracking for the fine-precision it offers.

[berdon]

It most definitely is GPS _and_ Wi-Fi SSN triangulation.

[visarga]

> and it would not have worked in the parking garage

What if the phones picked up WiFi networks around the garage?

[ryanmercer]

> zero attempt at disassembly

Uh one guy very much starts manipulating the dispenser and trying to take it apart.