Althouse: The beautifully over-engineered device to catch those jerks who steal packages from doorsteps.

December 18, 2018

The beautifully over-engineered device to catch those jerks who steal packages from doorsteps.

70 comments:

bsand112 said...: wait until someone sues for getting a piece of glitter in their eye or a heart attack.; 12/18/18, 3:26 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: I'm not finished watching - but this is the kind of stuff that leaves me titillated.

Yay sweet revenge engineer!; 12/18/18, 3:30 PM
MadisonMan said...: I've seen a dozen people watching this video today.; 12/18/18, 3:31 PM
gspencer said...: Suggested insert in said device,

After Skunk makes contact with a person or object, the putrid stench can last for days and can cause nausea and vomiting. The smell is overpowering, similar to a skunk’s spray but worse, smelling as if it has been mixed with raw sewage, sulfur and rotting animal corpses.

“The overpowering odor of the Skunk drives rioters away — and keeps them away — effectively shutting down any escalating situation,” Odortec’s website says.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/10/9/israel-uses-skunk-on-palestinians-but-what-is-it.html; 12/18/18, 3:36 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: LOLOLOL. That warmed my cold cold heart.; 12/18/18, 3:36 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: It's the small touches that make it the feel good film of the season. Catch the perps on camera - check. Glitter bomb destruction, check. Fart Spray - genius.; 12/18/18, 3:38 PM
JPS said...: Love to know how much he spent on that.

I know it's beside the point, it was a labor of love and it's awesome; I'm just curious.; 12/18/18, 3:42 PM
Lucid-Ideas said...: Genius. Also 10x better than any dye-marker...anyone who's tried getting rid of glitter can attest to that.

Are you watching banks? THIS is how you mark your perps.; 12/18/18, 3:43 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: I hope all that footage was given to the cops.

(Is CA so corrupt - law enforcement doesn't care? - even with footage?)
We better go after 3 star generals for lying to the corrupt FBI HIllary hacks.; 12/18/18, 3:45 PM
Charlie said...: I'll take "things you'll never see in a socialist country" for $200 Alex.; 12/18/18, 3:47 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "I hope all that footage was given to the cops."

Also the GPS data.; 12/18/18, 3:48 PM
YoungHegelian said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/18/18, 3:51 PM
YoungHegelian said...: One of my friends was called for jury duty in DC. In one of the grand juries she sat on a witness was called & when asked what she did for a living, she said she stole packages from porches & sold the contents on E-Bay.

To do something like this is one thing. To admit that it's your line of work in front of a court of law (the woman was not the defendant) seems to me to involve a whole nuther level of stupid.; 12/18/18, 3:52 PM
AZ Bob said...: Reminds me of the spring-gun case in torts class.; 12/18/18, 3:55 PM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: That's racist.; 12/18/18, 3:55 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: Yes - GPS

I'm trying to wrap my head around four phones a' filming. That alone is major dollars.
That little box must of cost a fortune.

Totally worth it considering the amount of theft going on.; 12/18/18, 3:58 PM
robother said...: Interesting that he blurred all the faces of the perps ("to protect the innocent" as Joe Friday used to say?). Or is it to protect himself against the SJWs and/or the perps who know where he lives?; 12/18/18, 4:00 PM
gspencer said...: "Reminds me of the spring-gun case in torts class."

I remember the case too,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katko_v._Briney; 12/18/18, 4:03 PM
whitney said...: White people. We are so funny; 12/18/18, 4:06 PM
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...: In our banana republic, the thieves and perps will probably sue and win.; 12/18/18, 4:06 PM
Jim at said...: I hope all that footage was given to the cops.

Why? They won't do anything. And if they do, it'll be ignored by the DA/prosecutor's office.

It's simply another property crime they don't care about.; 12/18/18, 4:07 PM
Chuck said...: Blogger AZ Bob said...
Reminds me of the spring-gun case in torts class.

I was only a minute into this, and my overwhelming thought was, why not a small-sized nail bomb? A nail bomb of appropriate size would have the desired effect; stop the package thief and deter others from similar actions.

And that was what reminded me of the spring gun case from law school.; 12/18/18, 4:08 PM
Jupiter said...: YoungHegelian said...

"To do something like this is one thing. To admit that it's your line of work in front of a court of law (the woman was not the defendant) seems to me to involve a whole nuther level of stupid."

So did she get arrested? Of course not. She could have handed out a flyer to everyone in the courtroom advertising her current bargains.; 12/18/18, 4:15 PM
Tomcc said...: Beautifully executed- God I wish I was that smart! No one gets hurt (even some of the thieves were laughing at the result), and maybe they rein in their inclinations.
There's no sense turning anything over to the police; that was part of what inspired his plan- their lack of interest.; 12/18/18, 4:18 PM
iowan2 said...: I have seem lower tech ones. Very loud noise after it is lifted. Scares them. But I doubt enough to turn them honest.
I do not want to be this guys friend on April 1st; 12/18/18, 4:21 PM
rehajm said...: Great Ghost of Christmas Present! Average number of minutes the box sat on the porch before it was stolen: over/under 180?; 12/18/18, 4:28 PM
Brian said...: I'm surprised by the number of people in the video that bring the stolen package home with them. I expected more like the first one in the parking garage.

I've heard video footage for property crimes like this is limited of use in prosecution though. No authentication of the video evidence/chain of custody.; 12/18/18, 4:28 PM
Kay said...: It’s a very cute trap.; 12/18/18, 4:30 PM
Rusty said...: Instead of glitter I'd use Dykem-look it up. Red, I think.; 12/18/18, 4:38 PM
Paul said...: Simply make a package with a GPS tracker hidden in it. They make them motion sensitive and when picked up the tracker will alert your CELL PHONE!!! Call the cops and show them where the thieves are.. with your package.

Just that simple.

Or....
Have gun will travel, reads the card of a man
A knight without armor in a savage land
His fast gun hire, heeds the calling wind
A soldier of fortune, is a man called --- Pal-a- din; 12/18/18, 4:40 PM
tim in vermont said...: I had a friend who had his credit card info stolen at a foreign hotel. He checked his card and they had purchased a laptop and he knew the address and the day it was going to be shipped. Cops didn't care.; 12/18/18, 4:48 PM
Mark Jones said...: The problem, Paul, is that--as he said in the video--the cops don't care.

They can't be arsed to arrest someone even when the victim has done all the work of tracking down the criminal and calling the cops. This is just another facet of the degradation of the culture. When it gets bad enough, and you can't rely on the cops, people are going to start protecting their property with more dangerous, less entertaining traps.; 12/18/18, 4:50 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: There’s an interesting question as to the legality of recording audio and video with this device. Could be he blurred out the faces to protect himself from prosecution.; 12/18/18, 4:59 PM
ALP said...: I would not be surprised if the glitter flinging thing took off. Raves, Burning Man, little girl's Princess Parties...who doesn't like a nice dose of glitter now and then?; 12/18/18, 4:59 PM
Seeing Red said...: Vigilante justice.; 12/18/18, 4:59 PM
J said...: I’m 31 and asking honestly —did cops actually care about petty property crimes like this in the olden days? We live in the “good school district “ but can’t park in our own driveway without locking doors and removing valuables if we don’t want to get burgled overnight. And we live next door to cops.; 12/18/18, 5:00 PM
California Snow said...: The Home Alone references were the best. :); 12/18/18, 5:22 PM
Original Mike said...: I didn't know package theft was that prevalent. We've never had it happen to us and no one's ever told me it's happened to them.; 12/18/18, 5:29 PM
Harold said...: The explosion in online shopping has led to porch pirates and stoop surfers swiping holiday packages from unsuspecting residents. The police in one New Jersey city are trying to catch the thieves with some trickery of their own.

Police in Jersey City, across the Hudson River from New York, are teaming up with Amazon.com Inc. to install doorbell cameras and plant dummy boxes with GPS tracking devices at homes around the city.

They didn’t have to wait long on Tuesday for someone to take the bait.

“We had a box out on the street for three minutes before it was taken,” said police Captain James Crecco, who is overseeing the mission. “We thought it was a mistake at first.”

The suspect was caught, Capt. Crecco added.; 12/18/18, 5:29 PM
Leslie Graves said...: That was fun.; 12/18/18, 5:31 PM
Harold said...: Original Mike said...

I didn't know package theft was that prevalent. We've never had it happen to us and no one's ever told me it's happened to them.

12/18/18, 5:29 PM

Do a search for porch package thieves (your city) and see what pops up; 12/18/18, 5:31 PM
Leland said...: Simply make a package with a GPS tracker hidden in it. They make them motion sensitive and when picked up the tracker will alert your CELL PHONE!!! Call the cops and show them where the thieves are.. with your package.

I think if you watch the video; you would understand why don't most often wouldn't work. First, the cops didn't seem all that interested with simple evidence. Second, most of the crooks were at least smart enough to open the package while somewhere other than home, and then disposed of the package. By the time you could arose the cops; they would only be able to recover the package you could pick up on your own. Although to be fair to your idea, it seemed like a few were dumb enough to open the package at home.; 12/18/18, 5:35 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: You didn't build that.

unless you are Muslim, in that case, cool clock, bro!; 12/18/18, 5:38 PM
Big Mike said...: At $700 or so per iPhone that’s a pretty expensive trap.; 12/18/18, 5:47 PM
Jupiter said...: Mark Jones said...
"When it gets bad enough, and you can't rely on the cops, people are going to start protecting their property with more dangerous, less entertaining traps."

And the cops will most assuredly be interested in prosecuting them for it.; 12/18/18, 5:53 PM
chuck said...: That's definitely 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Impressive work.; 12/18/18, 5:53 PM
lynn said...: I laughed so hard that I cried. That guy is an awesome engineer, it would take me a thousand years to build that. And it was reusable too !; 12/18/18, 6:06 PM
Mark Jones said...: Jupiter said:

'Mark Jones said...
"When it gets bad enough, and you can't rely on the cops, people are going to start protecting their property with more dangerous, less entertaining traps."

And the cops will most assuredly be interested in prosecuting them for it.'

You better believe it. Someone else asked if in "the good old days" the cops were more interested in petty crimes. No, probably not. But they also didn't feel the need to intervene when J. Random Citizen punched a package thief in the mouth or otherwise took matters into his own hands. (One of the reasons I think ours has become such a litigious society is because every other means of dealing with minor conflicts has been effectively outlawed.); 12/18/18, 6:12 PM
Greg Hlatky said...: Hint to porch thieves: do not steal packages marked "Front Toward Enemy".; 12/18/18, 6:15 PM
Jim Gust said...: Original Mike, I have never been victimized, but folks in my office have, repeatedly. They now have porch cameras and have recorded the thefts, and the cops have zero interest.

Neighborhood vigilante groups are next. People really feel violated by this, and when the cops shrug people wonder why they bother to pay taxes.

This will not end well.; 12/18/18, 6:31 PM
bagoh20 said...: We had a package stolen from our front porch last Christmas, about $400 worth. We placed a similar package full of dog shit out for a week, but no takers. Sad.

I have a door camera that caught the thief on video. A middle aged hispanic woman in a brand new SUV. Couldn't see the license plate, so not much could be done.; 12/18/18, 6:46 PM
Rob said...: Some years back, before America was great again, a friend in Manhattan saw her recently-stolen Range Rover parked on the street. She called the police who'd taken the theft report and told them if they sat on the car, they'd find the car thief. The detective said, why, aren't you insured?; 12/18/18, 6:47 PM
MadisonMan said...: We've never had anything stolen (knock on wood). The key is to have retired neighbors. It also helps that you have to climb a whole lotta steps to get to the front door.; 12/18/18, 7:01 PM
tcrosse said...: The big news here in Sin City is that there was enough crystal-clear doorstep video to identify one porch pirate. The cops caught up with him when he executed an illegal U-turn. Now he's behind bars.; 12/18/18, 7:08 PM
Chuck said...: Greg Hlatky said...
Hint to porch thieves: do not steal packages marked "Front Toward Enemy".

Can I order something like that through the Althouse Amazon portal?; 12/18/18, 7:11 PM
iowan2 said...: Lots of comments about the cops not being interested.

Remember this. You dont need to protect yourself. Just call 911

I think a judge ruled recently, that the school and the cops are not legally liable to protect the students in the Parkland school shooting; 12/18/18, 7:11 PM
Robert Cook said...: That's why the post office invented post office boxes!; 12/18/18, 7:17 PM
Darrell said...: Cops won't do anything. Even if they have an address.
I had my credit card number stolen by a department store employee in the early 1990s. The credit card company called when a number of purchases were made on the same day from stores I did not frequent. They were all to be delivered to the same address. We stopped the purchases and I asked them if they were going to contact the police because they had an address. The credit card company said the police won't bother. The credit card co. gave up trying after always being refused.; 12/18/18, 7:18 PM
Robert Cook said...: I worked in a hotel for 8 years when I first moved to New York. One night, a young couple were checking in and the young lady gave me a credit card. When I tried to get approval, I got a code indicating to call card company. I did so, and was informed the card was reported stolen. They asked if we could stall the couple and call the cops. We did so, the cops came, and they were arrested.; 12/18/18, 7:31 PM
Paco Wové said...: That is hilarious, and really cool! What's even cooler, though, is living in a place (Steve King's district, incidentally) where something like this isn't necessary.; 12/18/18, 7:32 PM
wholelottasplainin said...: My personal fantasy is:

the crooks sit in their cars, open the packages, and ....

ARE IMMEDIATELY blown to bits by the Claymore mines inside them.

Anything that lets criminal fuckers live after engaging these thefts...is itself criminal.

KILL THEM on the spot...to discourage the others.

Make their "friends" scrape their guts, bones, lungs, etc. out of the cars. For the resale value, of course.

A laff riot!!!; 12/18/18, 8:57 PM
Cheryl said...: Depends on where you live. In my small town the cops are all over these crimes and they are pretty rare...but not in the surrounding communities.

There were some kids (late teens) arrested here in town for an armed robbery. The last time this happened the kids got 15 years. Apparently these guys hadn't heard about it because the last armed robbery was 12 years ago, when these morons were in kindergarten.; 12/18/18, 9:19 PM
SweatBee said...: I'm not sure I buy this one. First, IANAE, but how did he keep the glitter inside the cup before the package was opened? What happens if the package is turned on its side during transport?

Second, how did he retrieve the device from the house where the lady threw it in the garbage can? If, as he claimed, it was faster to drive to the device, take it home, connect it to a computer, and then watch the video than to wait for the video to automatically upload, then how long did he have to wait before he knew it was in a garbage can, and then did he go rifle through a stranger's garbage can without getting caught?

Third, how come all of the thieves have clean, tidy cars? Shouldn't at least one of them have some fast food wrappers and children's shoes scattered around?

Fourth, why didn't he contact the police with the gps information once he knew where his device had been taken? You'd think that would have given them enough information to be able to spend time on it. Especially in the house where it was sitting in the garbage can outside with the original address still on it and the house where the guy took the time to vacuum while it was sitting there filming him.

Fifth, how long did it take him to find that many completely different people stealing packages off his porch?; 12/18/18, 10:33 PM
Phil 314 said...: This guy is an engineer and has a whole series of cool, engineered things (rock skipping robot, liquid sand hot tub, dart board that always gets a bullseye)

AND he has advertisers, therefore a YouTube success.; 12/18/18, 11:44 PM
Earnest Prole said...: Simultaneously racist and gay.; 12/19/18, 2:03 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Fifth, how long did it take him to find that many completely different people stealing packages off his porch?

Sixth, Did you watch the video?; 12/19/18, 9:02 AM
Kevin said...: The most ironic thing about it is, that now that this is one of the top most viral things on the entire internet, if any of them had simply kept the device they could have ebay-ed it for thousands. It's now more valuable as a world famous cultural touchstone than it ever could have been as a simple package.; 12/19/18, 9:16 AM
tim in vermont said...: https://m.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2018/12/18/police-burlington-man-stole-packages-with-kid-in-tow; 12/19/18, 9:36 AM
Bill Peschel said...: Needs rotating knives.

A lot of rotating knives.; 12/19/18, 2:02 PM
Bill Peschel said...: SweatBee, I think I can answer your concerns:

First, IANAE, but how did he keep the glitter inside the cup before the package was opened?

He had the box engineered so that the underside fit snugly over the lid. If it was turned on its side, some of it might leak, but not much.

Second, how did he retrieve the device from the house where the lady threw it in the garbage can?

GPS's in phones are accurate to within 16 feet. Since his phones transmit the footage, he could have watched it and knew where to find the package.

Third, how come all of the thieves have clean, tidy cars?

I wonder if you saw the video. The first guy was in the car. There was another thief who opened the package with his bros. You can't see the floorboards in the video so how can you assume they're clean? The other thieves opened the box in their homes.

Fourth, why didn't he contact the police with the gps information once he knew where his device had been taken?

As he explained, the police didn't care. I suspect he lives in California, which is high-density with inefficient policing.

Fifth, how long did it take him to find that many completely different people stealing packages off his porch?

He mentions giving the box to a friend who had trouble with packages disappearing from her porch.

Some areas seem to be more susceptible to theft than others. I've driving past homes in my neck of the woods where packages stay on the porch all day. When I was running my ebay business, I've been instructed to send packages to a person's place of work instead of their home for the same reason.

"Freakanomics" addressed this situation with the anecdote about the guy who made it his business to supply fresh bagels to workplaces in the D.C. area. Depending on where they were placed, he calculated that 20-30 percent of workers would pick up a bagel without paying. The best percentage he got was 20 percent, if they were placed in a public area.

In other words, at least 20 percent of people would rob him. And another 15 percent would rob him if they thought they could get away with it (that is, the bagels were in a break room where people might not observe.; 12/19/18, 2:20 PM