3 HN users recommended this demo3 months2018–2024score 3.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Linked as the funny, famous porch-pirate revenge video whenever package theft comes up, with the faked-reactions caveat noted.
Mark Rober builds a glitter-bomb booby-trapped package to take revenge on porch pirates, filming the thieves' reactions. Some reactions were later acknowledged as partially staged.
“watch the video on his YouTube. It's pure comedic gold.” (HN, 2018)
Obligatory links to YouTuber Mark Rober's quest for vengeance against porch pirates: * Glitter Bomb 1.0 vs Porch Pirates: [this video] * Glitter Bomb 2.0 vs Porch Pirates: [link] * Glitter Bomb 3.0 vs Porch Pirates: [link] * Exploding Glitter Bomb 4.0 vs Package Thieves: [link] * Car Thieves vs the Final Glitter Bomb 5.0: [link]
First of a glitter bomb series against porch pirates.
If you haven't seen the exact video he's referencing it's here [1]. It certainly was nothing like just "fuzzy phone video". He had 360 degree video with fine detail clearly showing the thieves' faces up close, vehicles, and so on. His bait package also had GPS and several of the thieves took the packages home to open them. You can't have more condemning evidence. But this all begs the question. I expect that those thieves were indeed arrested, unlike the ones he caught on his home surveillance system stealing packages where indeed it was just some video snippets of the thieves taken from cameras several meters away. [1] - [this video]
Shows GPS bait package with 360 video capturing thieves.
You are being over-dramatic. He clearly mentions Sean and even includes a couple of frames in the video of Sean working on the device's PCB. Start here: [this video]
Shows the creator crediting Sean for the device electronics.
Is an unconfirmed sense of schadenfreude really worth losing more money for a theft? Maybe it's worth it if the device is also streaming video so you can share the experience with the world, e.g. [this video] Also, it's probably more likely that the device gets triggered accidentally than it is likely to get stolen.
Example of a streaming trap device shared with the world.
There is a youtube video out where someone created a decoy package and left it on their porch until someone stole it. The theif opened the package only for it to explode glitter everywhere. [this video]
As seen in the glitter bomb experiment [0], many package thieves simply drive a few blocks, open the package and then toss whatever isn't valuable. Not that likely it will give you much useful to go on. [0] [this video]
Shows thieves drive a few blocks, open and discard packages.
Rober's full statement is here: -- Note about 2 missing the reactions in the video- I was presented with information that caused me to doubt the veracity of 2 of the 5 reactions in the video. These were reactions that were captured during a two week period while the device was at house 2 hours away from where I live. I put a feeler out for people willing to put a package on their porch and this person (who is a friend of a friend) volunteered to help. To compensate them for their time and willingness to risk putting a package on their porch I offered financial compensation for any successful recoveries of the package. It appears (and I've since confirmed) in these two cases, the “thieves" were actually acquaintances of the person helping me. From the footage I received from the phones which intentionally only record at specific times, this wasn’t clear to me. I have since removed those reactions from the original video (originally 6:26-7:59). I’m really sorry about this. Ultimately, I am responsible for the content that goes on my channel and I should have done more here. I can vouch for that the reactions were genuine when the package was taken from my house. Having said that, I know my credibly is sort of shot but I encourage you to look at the types of videos I’ve been making for the past 7 years. This is my first ever video with some kind of “prank" and like I mentioned in the video it’s pretty removed from my comfort zone and I should have done more. I’m especially gutte
Ugh, that's disappointing. My son really likes Mark, we've been watching his videos and even got this Build Boxes things to build every month. Sean got 300K views and Mark Robers video 91M. Mark claims he built it [this video] , he had the sketch done first and the CAD drawings, the he "hit up his buddy Sean, who is good with this type of small electronic stuff". So Mark claims Sean did just the electronics.
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