Comment by cr0sh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cr0sh | Hacker News Reader

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Not that it would have helped in your case, but we've had porch pirates in my neighborhood. We had a recent one steal some packages.

I found out about it on Nextdoor. I wasn't affected by it (I have my packages delivered to my work), but I watched the thread with interest.

The neighbors had cameras - they got good pictures of the vehicle, the woman who stole the packages, etc. Multiple neighbors did this, coordinating via Nextdoor.

Our community resource officer of our local PD station was also notified about this.

One even saw the car, followed her in her own vehicle, and got a license plate number, and called the police. The woman was arrested and everyone who had packages stolen by her gave the police their pictures or videos to help.

The case is still on-going; this only happened last week.

I have no doubt that if something like you describe doesn't exist, that someone can or will make it. What would be nice would be if the site also added similar "glitter bomb" kits (maybe simplified in some manner to make them less expensive) to upload for entertainment, and to help catch the thieves.

These people have no shame, and seemingly no sense or care that they are being watched. Everyone with a camera had signs saying they were filming 24/7 with security cams, but that didn't seem to matter.

Criminals are often not the brightest sparks.

My car was stolen last Friday night. It's on a car-share platform so the thief took the lockbox that's normally fitted to the window, bashed it open to get the key, and came back later for the vehicle. There is a very conspicuous warning on the lockbox that the car is fitted with two GPS units.

When I first reported the theft, police said all they can do is wait for the car to show up and provide a report for insurance purposes.

Then I checked the location via the car-share site. GPS updates were still working. When I called the police back to let them know I had a current location and could keep them updated in (almost) real time, it changed everything. Suddenly multiple cars were sent out while I kept reporting updates, and they managed to make an arrest within maybe 20 minutes.

It's great to see how a little technology can give victims a taste of vigilantism without endangerment.

They sell vehicle trackers that can be hidden anywhere, the only expensive part is the data plan really

That’s fantastic. My very rough ideas are definitely more along the lines of identification and not vigilanteeism...However I am with you 100% and am pro glitter bomb.

I think even just the sink bomb part that instantly emptied as soon as it was opened would have the same effect. It's probably easier to build and could all be done mechanically. You can get some pretty foul stink bombs, then triple it.

If it made their car unsellable out their house miserable I'd call that a success and no one got hurt.

They have artificial cadaver scent for training police dogs. It might work well. https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/analytical-chromatography/analy...

There's a line that might open you up to being sued over it. Ridiculous as that would be, I wouldn't really be surprised if the right lawyer in the right court could pull it off.

There's already the precedent from Katko v. Briney[1] that establishes a person can't use deadly force to defend property. Since courts prioritize the avoidance of bodily injury over property it's definitely not much of a leap for a lawyer to argue that a thief who suffered any bodily injury at all from a boobytrapped package has a case.

Whether a prosecutor and/or a jury would be interested in that argument is another story.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katko_v._Briney

Sure. It's all hypothetical, of course. Though, hypothetically, I might also thank them for intercepting a booby-trapped package that was meant for me.

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