Crime

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Spacehead

Lifer
Jun 2, 2002
13,067
9,858
136
Come to small town America. There's at least 3 or 4 bank robberies that are unsolved around here & 1 murder that i know of. Plus the rash of smaller robberies that went one for about a year & a half, ranging from small items, to larger items like 4 wheelers, to guns.

Some one stole the ATM machine from the local VFW & another was stolen from another American Legion not too far from here. They never did release how much cash those involved.




I don't think i could/would make a very good criminal. I blame my parents.
 

Alienwho

Diamond Member
Apr 22, 2001
6,766
0
76
Honestly I don't think it would take much to take any reasonably intelligent person and train them to be pretty darn good thieves/serial killers/scoff laws. I have watched a boat load of documentaries on serial killers and thieves(documentaries of the "how did they pull this off? variety) and most of the time they end up getting caught for making a stupid decision because they get overconfident, cocky and lazy. If anybody is seriously interested in living a life of crime and not getting caught all they have to do is watch these documentaries, toss in a little CIS and "It takes a Thief" on TLC and you're well on your way to becoming among the best. If you are Machiavellian in nature, very patient, mildly OCD and highly ambitious you are golden.

Obviously you would want to choose your crime based on your strengths.

Petty crime/murder is generally performed by idiots.
Serial killers tend to be highly educated/intelligent.
White Collar/Political corruption caters to those of medium intelligence with high Machiavellian tendencies.

If you consider crime as a career and art form, something to be studied and taken seriously, you could probably do quite well as a criminal and never get caught unless, as stated above, something completely out of your control happens (like the getaway car's battery dying).
 

nanette1985

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 2005
4,209
2
0
Nope. I'm one of those people who gets caught. If 5000 people have just driven through a yellow light, I'm the one who gets stopped. If every single car in the Garden State Mall parking lot is parked crooked, I'm the one who gets a ticket for improper parking. Etc.

So no, it's not worth it. For me, anyway.

 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
20
81
To be a good criminal, I think you also need to be selfless, or rather, you can't be an attention whore. You can't have any kind of desire for recognition for your feats, you just have to do them for the self-satisfaction of a job well done. Otherwise you might start leaving behind calling-cards, or do stupid things like taunt the police and media. Stuff like that is also referred to as "evidence."


 

Locut0s

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
22,205
44
91
If you can't do the time don't do the crime as they say. Sure lots of white collar and blue collar people could be great criminals, as you say they are smarter than the average criminal. But luckily most don't want to spend the time in the slammer. You see the thing that the criminals have that you and I don't are street smarts that have been honed from years of being in and out of prisons and doing illegal things. You need these street smarts to pull off a lot of crimes in addition to the smarts you mention.
 

TridenT

Lifer
Sep 4, 2006
16,800
45
91
It depends on the crime. I believe many crimes are impossible to do alone. If you want to rob a bank then I think you need more than one man. Also, robbing a bank is never smart. They just hit a button and the police come. Something smaller like robbery of an electronics store is far more plausible without being caught.

Idk why you would want to be a serial killer. I don't understand the point of it unless you are killing people who wronged you and are bad people still... I suppose then I could sympathize, but otherwise... It seems pointless... You gain nothing.

I don't know. Give me a crime...
 

Evadman

Administrator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Feb 18, 2001
30,990
5
81
Posting in this thread rules out being smart enough to get away with it.
 

TridenT

Lifer
Sep 4, 2006
16,800
45
91
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...
 

Evadman

Administrator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Feb 18, 2001
30,990
5
81
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Have you ever read 1984?
 

Locut0s

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
22,205
44
91
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Three words. Price and Computing Resources. That and all the cameras would have to be at least hooked up to the Internet. The city that's closest to doing this is London I suppose as they have almost every street corner on CCTV. But again the computing resources needed for facial recognition and archival would be WAY to expensive.
 

irishScott

Lifer
Oct 10, 2006
21,562
3
0
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Oh, so if I rob a gas station in Massachusettes and then shop at Sears in California, tracking me is simply a matter of running unreliable facial recognition software over millions of net hours on the tapes recorded by hundreds of thousands of closed circuit cameras, each with it's own format and specs, assuming I faced the right direction for the cameras in the first place.
 

TridenT

Lifer
Sep 4, 2006
16,800
45
91
Originally posted by: Evadman
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Have you ever read 1984?

Nope. I hear 1984 was a good year though... :p

Originally posted by: Locut0s
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Three words. Price and Computing Resources. That and all the cameras would have to be at least hooked up to the Internet. The city that's closest to doing this is London I suppose as they have almost every street corner on CCTV. But again the computing resources needed for facial recognition and archival would be WAY to expensive.

Why not have a person do it? It could be done pretty easy and fast. You just say, "Ok, so this guy was here at this time... Ok, this video camera.. Ah-ha, there he is... Ok, let's follow him..." Then you just keep going through the cameras in real-time or faster if you need to.

You just kinda watch him as he drives home.. or whatever the fuck. idk really how that would do anything.. I guess. You could just kinda prove that the guy was there at this time or not... I guess it could be like fact-checking alibis.
 

TridenT

Lifer
Sep 4, 2006
16,800
45
91
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Oh, so if I rob a gas station in Massachusettes and then shop at Sears in California, tracking me is simply a matter of running unreliable facial recognition software over millions of net hours on the tapes recorded by hundreds of thousands of closed circuit cameras, each with it's own format and specs, assuming I faced the right direction for the cameras in the first place.

Why would you be looking at millions of hours instead of maybe hundreds if that? You just follow the guy... "He turns left a 162nd... Ok, cameras are following his car.. Ok now he is turning right at 12th NE... Camera 12 on 12TH ne.." I don't really get how you are going through MILLIONS...
 

irishScott

Lifer
Oct 10, 2006
21,562
3
0
Originally posted by: TridenT
Originally posted by: Evadman
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Have you ever read 1984?

Nope. I hear 1984 was a good year though... :p

Originally posted by: Locut0s
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Three words. Price and Computing Resources. That and all the cameras would have to be at least hooked up to the Internet. The city that's closest to doing this is London I suppose as they have almost every street corner on CCTV. But again the computing resources needed for facial recognition and archival would be WAY to expensive.

Why not have a person do it? It could be done pretty easy and fast. You just say, "Ok, so this guy was here at this time... Ok, this video camera.. Ah-ha, there he is... Ok, let's follow him..." Then you just keep going through the cameras in real-time or faster if you need to.

You just kinda watch him as he drives home.. or whatever the fuck. idk really how that would do anything.. I guess. You could just kinda prove that the guy was there at this time or not... I guess it could be like fact-checking alibis.

This is all assuming you can make a positive ID off the camera. Main reason most criminals wear masks.
 

TridenT

Lifer
Sep 4, 2006
16,800
45
91
Originally posted by: irishScott
This is all assuming you can make a positive ID off the camera. Main reason most criminals wear masks.

I'm assuming that you are fact checking people alibis and you are possibly even catching the criminal in the act. You just watch the guy in the fucking mask get in his car and watch his car go wherever the fuck it does then you fact-check those areas it was in. "Did you see a man with a 1996 Red Ford Taurus here around 4:34PM yesterday? What did he look like?" Maybe if you watched long enough you could eventually watch him take off the mask, maybe he does it in the car. Maybe a camera finally gets a good shot of him at a traffic light now that he has the mask off... I don't really think it would be so hard to catch a guy with enough video.
 

irishScott

Lifer
Oct 10, 2006
21,562
3
0
Originally posted by: TridenT
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Oh, so if I rob a gas station in Massachusettes and then shop at Sears in California, tracking me is simply a matter of running unreliable facial recognition software over millions of net hours on the tapes recorded by hundreds of thousands of closed circuit cameras, each with it's own format and specs, assuming I faced the right direction for the cameras in the first place.

Why would you be looking at millions of hours instead of maybe hundreds if that? You just follow the guy... "He turns left a 162nd... Ok, cameras are following his car.. Ok now he is turning right at 12th NE... Camera 12 on 12TH ne.." I don't really get how you are going through MILLIONS...

In a city that might be doable, barely, but in the suburbs it'd be ridiculously hard, and in rural areas next to impossible. I live in Fairfax County VA, with a population of well over 1 million. I know plenty of back-roads without lights. Even assuming that every light has a camera, you'd have to check every intersection within a several light radius to pick me up again, and by the time you got there I could easily be at least a county away in good traffic.
 

Locut0s

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
22,205
44
91
Originally posted by: TridenT
Originally posted by: Evadman
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Have you ever read 1984?

Nope. I hear 1984 was a good year though... :p

Originally posted by: Locut0s
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Three words. Price and Computing Resources. That and all the cameras would have to be at least hooked up to the Internet. The city that's closest to doing this is London I suppose as they have almost every street corner on CCTV. But again the computing resources needed for facial recognition and archival would be WAY to expensive.

Why not have a person do it? It could be done pretty easy and fast. You just say, "Ok, so this guy was here at this time... Ok, this video camera.. Ah-ha, there he is... Ok, let's follow him..." Then you just keep going through the cameras in real-time or faster if you need to.

You just kinda watch him as he drives home.. or whatever the fuck. idk really how that would do anything.. I guess. You could just kinda prove that the guy was there at this time or not... I guess it could be like fact-checking alibis.

Well again to do that effectively you need all the "tape" from all the cameras in the entire city available in one place i.e. you need them all connected to the Internet at least. And because the crime could have happened two months ago you need to be archiving it all. That's a lot of storage space!

They actually DO do this kind of thing for high priority cases light terrorist suspects, murders and band robberies. Like I said cities like London have almost every street corner wired so the police CAN go to all the shops and the like and get the tapes if they really need them.
 

Locut0s

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
22,205
44
91
Originally posted by: TridenT
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Oh, so if I rob a gas station in Massachusettes and then shop at Sears in California, tracking me is simply a matter of running unreliable facial recognition software over millions of net hours on the tapes recorded by hundreds of thousands of closed circuit cameras, each with it's own format and specs, assuming I faced the right direction for the cameras in the first place.

Why would you be looking at millions of hours instead of maybe hundreds if that? You just follow the guy... "He turns left a 162nd... Ok, cameras are following his car.. Ok now he is turning right at 12th NE... Camera 12 on 12TH ne.." I don't really get how you are going through MILLIONS...

Because it's rarely that simple.
 

PlasmaBomb

Lifer
Nov 19, 2004
11,636
2
81
Originally posted by: zoiks
What is my perfect crime? I break into Tiffany's at midnight. Do I go for the vault? No. I go for the chandelier; it's priceless. As I'm taking it down, a woman catches me. She tells me to stop. It's her father's business. She's Tiffany. I say no. We make love all night. In the morning the cops come and I escape in one of their uniforms. I tell her to meet me in Mexico but I go to Canada. I don't trust her. Besides, I love the cold. Thirty years later I get a postcard. I have a son. And he's the Chief of Police. This is where the story gets interesting: I tell Tiffany to meet me in Paris by the Trocadero. She's been waiting for me all these years. She's never taken another lover. I don't care. I don't show up. I go to Berlin. That's where I stashed the chandelier.

How did the postcard get to you?
 

PlasmaBomb

Lifer
Nov 19, 2004
11,636
2
81
Originally posted by: Jeff7
To be a good criminal, I think you also need to be selfless, or rather, you can't be an attention whore. You can't have any kind of desire for recognition for your feats, you just have to do them for the self-satisfaction of a job well done. Otherwise you might start leaving behind calling-cards, or do stupid things like taunt the police and media. Stuff like that is also referred to as "evidence."

The wet bandits?
 

TridenT

Lifer
Sep 4, 2006
16,800
45
91
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: TridenT
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Oh, so if I rob a gas station in Massachusettes and then shop at Sears in California, tracking me is simply a matter of running unreliable facial recognition software over millions of net hours on the tapes recorded by hundreds of thousands of closed circuit cameras, each with it's own format and specs, assuming I faced the right direction for the cameras in the first place.

Why would you be looking at millions of hours instead of maybe hundreds if that? You just follow the guy... "He turns left a 162nd... Ok, cameras are following his car.. Ok now he is turning right at 12th NE... Camera 12 on 12TH ne.." I don't really get how you are going through MILLIONS...

In a city that might be doable, but in the suburbs it'd be ridiculously hard, and in rural areas next to impossible. I live in Fairfax County VA, with a population of well over 1 million. I know plenty of back-roads without lights. Even assuming that every light has a camera, you'd have to check every intersection within a several light radius to pick me up again, and by the time you got there I could easily be at least a country away.

Yes. I am talking a city, but I am also assuming that maybe you resource all the video from gas-stations, mini-marts, etc. Like it all is recorded and you can access it.

I am assuming that these are all digital recordings... All in easy formats like .avi or something. Assuming this, there is no need for billions of dollars in new hardware and shit. You just tell the corporations you need just a few bits of info from them about their recordings and where they are located... Then you build some software that gathers all that video into a nice stream for the end-user and you just process it.

I imagine a database where it is kind of like google-maps, and maybe even streetview, but on steroids. You can easily just follow the cameras as you progress through the map, maybe even live(I mean like.. instant, not as in.. you have to constantly start-stop videos and shit to do stuff.. Like, "Live" as if it were the time of the day. Tons of videos playing all at once for you... You just put in the time you want to start the show) with enough bandwidth and processor power. You just kind of do it that way.
 

Locut0s

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
22,205
44
91
Originally posted by: TridenT
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: TridenT
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Oh, so if I rob a gas station in Massachusettes and then shop at Sears in California, tracking me is simply a matter of running unreliable facial recognition software over millions of net hours on the tapes recorded by hundreds of thousands of closed circuit cameras, each with it's own format and specs, assuming I faced the right direction for the cameras in the first place.

Why would you be looking at millions of hours instead of maybe hundreds if that? You just follow the guy... "He turns left a 162nd... Ok, cameras are following his car.. Ok now he is turning right at 12th NE... Camera 12 on 12TH ne.." I don't really get how you are going through MILLIONS...

In a city that might be doable, but in the suburbs it'd be ridiculously hard, and in rural areas next to impossible. I live in Fairfax County VA, with a population of well over 1 million. I know plenty of back-roads without lights. Even assuming that every light has a camera, you'd have to check every intersection within a several light radius to pick me up again, and by the time you got there I could easily be at least a country away.

Yes. I am talking a city, but I am also assuming that maybe you resource all the video from gas-stations, mini-marts, etc. Like it all is recorded and you can access it.

I am assuming that these are all digital recordings... All in easy formats like .avi or something. Assuming this, there is no need for billions of dollars in new hardware and shit. You just tell the corporations you need just a few bits of info from them about their recordings and where they are located... Then you build some software that gathers all that video into a nice stream for the end-user and you just process it.

I imagine a database where it is kind of like google-maps, and maybe even streetview, but on steroids. You can easily just follow the cameras as you progress through the map, maybe even live with enough bandwidth and processor power. You just kind of do it that way.

All those "I'm assuming..." is why it's not done :)
 

irishScott

Lifer
Oct 10, 2006
21,562
3
0
Originally posted by: TridenT
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: TridenT
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: TridenT
I have always wondered... What if the police used ALL the video from everywhere? Why don't they now? I mean really.. You could basically track anyone almost anywhere and solve tons of crimes if they resourced all that video...

Oh, so if I rob a gas station in Massachusettes and then shop at Sears in California, tracking me is simply a matter of running unreliable facial recognition software over millions of net hours on the tapes recorded by hundreds of thousands of closed circuit cameras, each with it's own format and specs, assuming I faced the right direction for the cameras in the first place.

Why would you be looking at millions of hours instead of maybe hundreds if that? You just follow the guy... "He turns left a 162nd... Ok, cameras are following his car.. Ok now he is turning right at 12th NE... Camera 12 on 12TH ne.." I don't really get how you are going through MILLIONS...

In a city that might be doable, but in the suburbs it'd be ridiculously hard, and in rural areas next to impossible. I live in Fairfax County VA, with a population of well over 1 million. I know plenty of back-roads without lights. Even assuming that every light has a camera, you'd have to check every intersection within a several light radius to pick me up again, and by the time you got there I could easily be at least a country away.

Yes. I am talking a city, but I am also assuming that maybe you resource all the video from gas-stations, mini-marts, etc. Like it all is recorded and you can access it.

I am assuming that these are all digital recordings... All in easy formats like .avi or something. Assuming this, there is no need for billions of dollars in new hardware and shit. You just tell the corporations you need just a few bits of info from them about their recordings and where they are located... Then you build some software that gathers all that video into a nice stream for the end-user and you just process it.

I imagine a database where it is kind of like google-maps, and maybe even streetview, but on steroids. You can easily just follow the cameras as you progress through the map, maybe even live with enough bandwidth and processor power. You just kind of do it that way.

Well then you basically take the problem out of the problem. From what I can tell you just asked "if we have the system, could we use it?"

The problem is creating a system like that in the first place. The political outrage alone would make it impossible. Remember how pissed people were when they found out about Bush's international phone tapping? Imagine that x eleventybillion.