Category Archives: Crime

Drone drug delivery

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Illicit drugs are physical and require delivery, so al sorts of means have been deployed over the years. Most recently tunnels, submarines and drones.

Getting 1kg across the border in a retail drone is quite easy, and presumably it is done a lot.

But what about the last mile? How long before the end user gets their delivery by drone? We all know that drugs are often sold by the ounce, and a drone that can carry an ounce might be too small to notice.

A network of such drones could network drug delivery across a city. The transfer of the payload is what is needed, automation, no humans.

And less likely to get caught by the feds, if you start each drone journey and end it at a random place.

Ponzi Scheme Squared

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We all know what a Ponzi scheme is..

Not even really a scheme: promise people riches, and more riches if they don’t withdraw. Those who do withdraw, pay them from the new punters. It is so simple and easy that it prints money. No need for anything more complex?

What if the new players for your scheme were all fictitious people from another scheme?

Here’s how it could work:

Invent something so stupid it kinda makes sense if people buy it – like pet rocks
People don’t buy it but you falsify sales records
(everybody in the business is in on this…)
Based on amazing online sales you open some flagstaff physical stores, which also perform “brilliantly”.
(also, you own all the land immediately around the new stores)

Because the business, and the stores, are all so amazing, people build homes there. At prices suited to the amazingness.

So fake people pay fake rent to shop at fake stores paying fake rent because they are next to the amazing business that everyone apparently loves but nobody actually does. They lied.

Each on their own don’t appear to be overly valued, because its like 10% different to normal. But when you multiply a 10% gain by 10 and then by 10, you are making 10X as much.

So then you sell. For 10x more (maybe more like 5x) than you paid. Sell everything, quietly, unannounced, the same day.

You walk away. All the companies that owned the layers of the scam, go bankrupt and the principals were not real people.

OK I guess I got carried away, but the principle is sound. Multi-level ponzi. The shape will depend on the industry.

 

 

 

CCTV Density

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Government CCTV cameras are seen as many to be an intrusion and open to misuse.

Yet private CCTV, because it is so decentralised, is of a benefit to society. Whether it is stationed at a business or home, such footage is often used for solving crimes.

In theory less crime happens when people know they could be filmed. Yet for street crimes, is is not obvious to the perpetrator that they are being watched.

We should resurrect Neighbourhood Watch for the digital age. There are many ways to do this, but my focus here is the safety of women walking home alone at night. While actual crimes towards these people tend to be low in many advanced nations, the fear is especially harmful.

IDEA: Signs on lampposts (spray painted with a recognisable, repeated style) that indicate the street has a medium or high density of CCTV cameras. 

That’s all. Individual cameras aren’t acknowledged. For it to work, the information needs to be honest – marking every street, regardless of impact, loses impact.

My belief is that a perp who is trailing a woman cannot help but notice the signs and reconsider their intentions.

While hoods can hide facial features, technology will soon be able to spot other recognisable features, like height and gait.

Restraining Order Attack Support Team

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Restraining Order Attack Support Team (ROAST)

  • Neighbourhood Watch is a very generalised community effort to deter crime
  • Restraining Orders don’t work very well went the bad guy decides to break the rules. They are typically gone or have done harm before the police are informed or arrive.
  • There are too many people who are fearing for their lives for the police to actively protect

We can combine the above to create a community-based response to potential violations of restraining orders. A hyper-focused mission to protect those who are scared of a particular individual, and vulnerable.

Here’s how it works:

Only for people where a restraining order is in place, and there is an indication things could turn bad. So not when the bad guy is living in another state and has made no contact.

Community members who live nearby have an app. The frightened person can trigger an alarm and everyone gets the alert.

Temporary, borrowed security measures can be put in place – cameras and door/window alarms. These could also be connected to the app.

The community would be supplied with photos and car details of the bad guy. Where legal, license plate readers could be set up on that street.

The bad guy is informed that the frightened person is protected, and where legal could even show a photo of community members with their weapons.

Conspiracies and Protests will be Controlled

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It should be obvious to anyone that misinformation, and civil disobedience are on the rise. We have store employees being murdered for asking someone to wear a mask, and 5G towers set on fire, for example. We also have had some large public protests and rebellious gatherings during a pandemic when people should be social distancing.

We also have an epidemic of falsehoods and half-truths on social media, even from world leaders (well, mostly Trump).

I think the reason for this is reasonably easy to explain… Never before have we had a combination of people with meaningless existences, media highlighting the “successes” of others, and platforms where anybody can be seen and heard globally. Given the opportunity to have a contrary viewpoint, on topics that could affect personal freedoms and/or health, makes these people feel empowered and special. So blame society, generally, for having members who need that.

There is nothing to suggest that this trend will go any way except for worse. More misinformation, spread more widely, believed by more people, and leading to greater levels of rebellion.

For the social media side, the answer is already happening – greater moderation. However another response will also happen before long – no more anonymity on certain channels. Expect Facebook to require account verification, so they know who you are. Maybe requiring an ID check.

For public rebellion in real life, unfortunately I think that on some issues, governments are going to outlaw any actions derived from misinformation. For example, the government will declare that 5G is safe, and anybody committing a crime in reaction to untruths about 5G will be penalised harshly.

That means vandalising, unlawful assembly, being arrested at a protest, selling products – anything besides simple freedom of speech – will be punished more heavily than normal if associated with a banned topic.

For own good, I think the governments will choose to be more authoritarian, or else face anarchy from sectors of the public.

Cute Park Wardens

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Could apply to other public spaces…

Going forward, social distancing in parks might be something we feel should be policed.

What if it could be done in a cute and friendly manner?

Maybe tell people off for smoking, drinking or not picking up dog poop…

A robot animal that is Hello Kitty level cute. If social groups are too close to each other, it trundles over and gently nudges them in the direction of away from each other.

When it sees an infraction, it comes over and just shakes its head and softly says nuh-ah!

Simply being targeted by the cure creature will be enough for most people to conform. Otherwise, of course, community cops will turn up sooner or later.

It would work in tandem with overhead cameras and AI.

Bedroom Cams for Rape Evidence

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blurry

Rape is a serious issue, around the world. Rapes are under-reported because of beliefs that justice won’t be served, and having to relive the ordeal in public testimony. And that stems from the difficulty of proving a crime when it is one person’s word against the other’s.

Video footage would solve that issue. And any other forms of domestic violence.

I presume most rapes occur in private residences. We could force people to have “rape cams” in every room of their home. A black box type device that uploads data to the cloud and cannot be turned off. Data is stored for 1 week only, and is impossible to access without a court order.

Furthermore, and this is the key, the footage is not of a good resolution. It is not of a good enough resolution to make out faces or private parts clearly. It will be of no interest to voyeurs or perverts or sex sites. The sound will be of good quality, and a high res camera at all property entrances will show who arrived, and left, and when.

A basic video monitor can be provided to give reassurance to occupants that the video is indeed blurry.

I would like to think that blurry video, and good sound, are enough to reasonably determine if anything that occurs is consensual or not, and violent or not.