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‘It scared them off’, Kansas City shoppers report less crime thanks to security robot patrolling strip mall (www.kctv5.com)

submitted 1 month ago by FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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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.”

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[–] femtech@midwest.social 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Depends on what your cell or watch is broadcasting publicly and if you are connected to the store wifi.

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Yea, no, the most likely route is to pickup a MAC address and associate it with an existing assigned IP address (If that device is connected to the public WiFi, but who even does that these days lol), but modern day Android and iOS randomize MAC addresses on every connection these days by default.

And then you'd still need to correlate that to the physical world, most likely route would be detecting Bluetooth hostname, but it's by no means guaranteed that the device hostname in the public WiFi DHCP table matches the BT one (phones can have different names for each). And again is dependent on the person being connected to store WiFi to begin with. Would also be entirely thwarted of a person's BT is off which is highly likely

It's possible, but would be a useless feature to develop and maintain as it would probably actually work out in the real world like maybe 30% of the time.

Unless they shoved a full stingray unit in it or something (extremely unlikely), this is just a statement from someone parroting a sales brochure that they didn't entirely understand

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I suspect it works a lot ore than 30%

As you mentioned, cell ID is there too. Pretty easy to simply capture IMSI data (don't even have to do anything, phones are alway broadcasting their ID).

Combine IMSI, BT, MAC, date/time, and boy you've got one helluva surveillance device.

Add in BT headphones, watches, etc, and you have even more data points to associate.

I wouldn't be shopping there just because of that.

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Actually, no. Phones don't always broadcast their IMSI. Most of the time they broadcast a Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity (TMSI) and only on a location update (For power conservation). Your cell provider knows your IMSI already and uses a TMSI for updates for the express purpose of privacy and security for these exact scenarios

It is part of the initial work flow of a Stingray device to attempt to force your device to disconnect from the network and get it to rebroadcast its actual IMSI. But it is not floating around in the air all the time and it certainly isn't trivial to grab.

BT is really the only viable option, and even that can vary wildly depending on manufacturer.