Category Crime

Jan 20 2018

StopThief Mini Trackers Stop Crooks in Their Tracks

Telephone Card 1

This is a simulation, not a real thief!

There’s a new kid in town in the location based tracking business and they are taking on retail store thieves, guiding Police straight to their location with miniature trackers hidden in cartons of cigarettes and banking bags and it’s had a dramatic impact on crime reduction in the retail industry.

New Zealand Country Manager of StopThief Ltd, Mr Marshall Troops said today that he was thrilled with the number of convictions that had been obtained in the 6 months since this product was released into the retail sector, saying “Retailers in some areas were at their wits end. So many have been robbed multiple times, injured, afraid for their safety and their livelihood and really felt powerless. Now they can hide very small tracking devices into cartons of cigarettes and other articles thieves commonly demand from them and those are off course the ones they hand over when their store is invaded.”

He went on to explain that these new devices not only provided accurate tracking of the stolen items, but they were able to emit a high pitched signal that can only be stopped by the StopThief Software as a Service application. The devices are very difficult to damage. This has given Police the confidence that they can enter premises where the devices have been tracked to, with a breadcrumb map right from the retail store, viewable from their mobile or tablet.

Troops went on to say that StopThief is having very positive discussions, not only with retailers such as convenience, liquor, grocery stores and gas stations, but there is also support from manufacturers and distributors such as tobacco and insurance companies. One major retail insurance provider is offering discounts on insurance premiums for companies who invest in these solutions.

Senior Sergeant Benson Hedges of the Waikato CIB said that there had been a large number of arrests in the area over the last few months and in over half of the cases, these resulted in the recovery of many other stolen items including mobile phones, jewellery and even cars. The collaboration between StopThief, retail groups and Police meant that the court cases were straight forward and many criminals had been taken off the streets.

Previously whilst there were strong grounds for suspicion, they did not have sufficient evidence that would be admissible in court to enter and search a property, so many robbers were able to get away with their crimes.

Whilst they didn’t want their names used, a number of retailers told us that they were sleeping better at night knowing that the risk of burglary was dramatically reduced and felt safer in their businesses, where previously a number of their friends had gone as far as closing down their stores for fear of the safety of their staff and families.

 

 

 

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Feb 13 2016

TV Companies Invite Police Investigators Into Living Rooms

Back in 2016, no one realized the implications of Smart TV’s using voice control for people who didn’t want to bother with a remote control or mobile to manage their TV’s.

cloudThere was some small print in the announcement of the new technology from Samsung, that the microphones would be recording and sending everything they heard the cloud for interpretation, in order to be able to change channels, increase volume or look for programming on the Internet.

In order to use it, you accept the terms and conditions (as we blindly do with any new software or technology), which include that in some countries, for security reasons, like an Internet Service Provider, Police and security services have the right under various terrorism and serious crimes Acts to commandeer these recordings, from the manufacturers’ servers.

This has resulted in thousands of arrests for crimes ranging from drug and gang related offenses through to roundups of suspected terrorists.

Graver concerns have been expressed in some countries where freedom of speech and political or religious beliefs are ‘discouraged’. In countries in the Middle East and parts of Asia, many people known to espouse strong opinions have ‘disappeared’ and according to reports from the website http://www.JournalismTruth.com (which was recently removed from the Internet) large numbers of these people were known to have recent models of smart TV’s featuring voice control.

Apr 19 2013

Boy Racers Make Sport With Driverless Cars

Driverless Car photo by Steve Jurvetson

Driverless Car photo by Steve Jurvetson

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A dangerous new sport has started with boy racers trying to run driverless cars off the road. Car manufacturers fight back by capturing video and emailing to police services.

Whilst the concept of driverless cars has been well accepted and offered mobility and new levels of freedom to many users including blind and disabled people, a new challenge has arisen. Boy racers growing bored with illegal street racing have found new antics to amuse themselves and endanger others.

Driverless cars have been designed to deal with a wide range of conditions, able to monitor the speed of vehicles around them and deal with weather and other hazardous conditions. One thing that was never anticipated was dealing with deliberate erratic driving behaviour from other motorists.

Several incidents have occurred where drivers have deliberately swerved into the path of these vehicles which in several cases have resulted in hit and run accidents.

Following meetings between car manufacturers and law enforcement agencies, an emergency feature has now been installed into the car computers. These cars already have several external facing cameras mounted on them and are connected to the cloud anywhere that cellular mobile services are available. The camera software has been enhanced and is currently being tested with a number of new software features including car make and model, color and number plate recognition.

A 911 feature is also being tested,  so that if an incident occurs, the occupant can transmit video combined with the data collected to the nearest emergency call centre, complete with their GPS coordinates and the direction they are driving in. The boy racers may very soon find themselves racing to find themselves behind bars and not the kind that serve alcohol.

Nov 10 2012

Crime Stats Are Tracking Way Down with GPS Anklets

Philip K Dick would be shouting warnings from the rooftops if he was still in the matrix, but you can’t argue with the numbers. Since GPS anklets became mandatory for all parolees national crime statistics in almost all sectors have reduced by over 25% and growing. Sure people tried covering the anklets in aluminium foil and other tricks, but as soon as the location signals stopped, the alarms were raised and the penalties for tampering are high.

Prison populations are decreasing and levels of offending from domestic violence to gang related crimes have reduced dramatically. Call centers have been established all over the country and as soon as it appears that people are not adhering to their parole conditions, action is taken.

If someone doesn’t turn up to their job in the morning, they will get a friendly call asking if they are ok. If people come within proximity of someone they have a non consorting order against, or someone are not allowed to be near, an alarm goes off on their anklet as a warning. Initially it is just a vibration, which also sends an alert to the call center and the CRM database monitoring them in case it is an accidental situation. If they do not back off, it becomes an audible alarm and security or emergency services are called in.

In addition to many success stories where parolees have been able to start a new life through the restrictions imposed on them, those that have tried to go back to old habits have inadvertently guided police to gang locations, meth labs, car theft enterprises and other places where crimes were being committed. The criminal landscape is being mapped in such a way that police are able to predict where criminal activity is about to take place and shut it down.

Some activists are saying that the GPS anklets deprive people of their civil rights, but most people are just happy that the streets are safer to walk on. I just wish I had invested in the company that developed the anklets and the knowledge based software behind them. Now if only I could go back in time to around 2014.