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posted by takyon on Tuesday December 18 2018, @06:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the glitter-lining dept.

Hackaday:

[Mark Rober] was fed up with packages going missing. He kept receiving notifications that his shipments had been delivered, but when checking his porch he found nothing there. Reviewing the CCTV footage revealed random passers-by sidling up to his porch and stealing his parcels. It was time to strike back. Over six months, [Mark] and his friends painstakingly designed, prototyped and iterated the perfect trap for package thieves, resulting in a small unit disguised as an Apple HomePod. The whole scheme is wonderfully over-engineered and we love it.

The main feature of the device is a spinning cup on the top which contains a large amount of glitter. When activated, it ejects glitter in every directions. You could say it's harmless, as it's just glitter. But then again, glitter has a way of staying with you for the rest of your life — turning up at the least expected times. It certainly leaves an emotional impression.

The trap uses an accelerometer to detect movement, geo-fencing to determine when the package has left the property, glitter and a fart spray to make the thief regret it, and smartphones to capture the thief's reaction for the enjoyment of the hacker.

Also at BBC.

See also: Jersey City PD, Amazon work together to catch package thieves
Jersey City PD nabs 12 this week in porch package sting


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @03:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 19 2018, @03:39AM (#776163)

    His booby trap was pretty mild, unlike the ones I set.

    Mind you, this all took place back in 1985-86. I drove a convertible and got tired of people stealing my coat out of it. They'd get it unlocked somehow -- I don't exactly know how, maybe a hangar wire stuck between the ragtop and the door window? Anyway, I had a friend in Texas who was in the business of catching rattlesnakes. That's right, you probably guessed. I put a rattlesnake in a box, wrapped it with a bow and left it in the back seat of my car. The next day, it was gone. I didn't lose another coat that year.

    The next year when my coat got stolen, I repeated the gag. What fun! I did make sure to watch the news and read the papers for a few days but I never heard anything about a snake-bite victim. They get pretty sluggish in the cold anyway, and the rattle gives it away, so...

    Stealing packages. It's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

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