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Author Topic: Flash Crime  (Read 2261 times)

Aqizzar

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Flash Crime
« on: June 08, 2011, 03:17:29 pm »

I'm going to assume that the general readership of this forum is socially affluent enough to have heard the term "flash mob" before - large groups of people who organize by mass-Internet-communication like Twitter and Facebook walls to all turn up at the same time and place and do something, like dance to cheesy 80s songs or whatever.  Bit of a trend that the news loves to throw into their human-interest segment, and now I'm seeing cell-phone commercials capitalizing on the idea as a metaphor for staying informed with their service.

Well, like autodialers, nitroglycerin, and the Internet itself, it didn't take long for a cute idea to turn into crime.  Some prime cases: In Washington D.C., about twenty people loitered outside an upscale clothing store checking their cells, then in synchronicity, walked inside, grabbed armloads of merch, and ran out the door.  The one security guard on station couldn't stop the Bums' Rush, and they were long gone by the time police arrived.  If you'd like an armchair-Marxists whimsically peabrained call for instating Project Mayhem, and who wouldn't, here's an "editorial".

In California, a perfectly benign mass basketball tourney was planned in one day in a series of Twitter messages, but some gang members started arguing with each other in the responses.  At the big game the next day, about five hundred people turned up, and it didn't take long before someone was shooting.

Three times being a trend, yesterday in Chicago, four people were mugged in a matter of minutes in a part of town not known for muggings (or black teenagers).  In this case, some of the perps were caught, and revealed that Internet communication played some role.  Apparently, it's actually the latest in a series of similar incidents, of spontaneous groups harassing or robbing people and then disappearing.  New Mayor Rahm Emmanuel had some details and a loose plan to deal with the issue, namely by stationing more patrolmen at public transit hubs to look for flash-mobby-type crowds, but that's probably as inane as I'm making it sound.

All these incidents being American, it should be noted that in America, you traditionally have to file with your local police to hold a large gathering.  Sure, your right to "peaceably assemble" cannot be "abridged", but you do have to get a permit that it looks peaceful, so appropriate numbers of police, firefighters, and paramedics can be on station in case something bad happens.  For crime especially, crowds are a headache - peaceful crowds are prime pickpocket territory, and angry crowds can turn into riots.  But a "flash robbery" is basically the worst case scenario for law enforcement.  Large numbers of people, who know each other only by hashtags, who can plan a crime in an afternoon with little visible communication; who then descend on a location, demolish it or rob it blind, and scatter in every direction, all in a few minutes.  You might think I'm making too much of this, but looking at a success like the D.C. robbery, it's really nothing but a miracle and lack of imagination that climes like that don't happen every day.  And short of posting a beat cop at every park and storefront, or science-fiction-scale automated datamining of the entire Internet, it's hard to think of a way to prevent such a crime.

So yeah.  Chalk another entry on the gigantic list of "civic rights and privileges screwed up by a few bad apples" for "spontaneous mass gathering".  How long did flash mobs take to ruin, about a year or two?
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Africa

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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #1 on: June 08, 2011, 03:20:24 pm »

"Flash mobs" already became synonymous with crime in Philly last year, when shitloads of retarded teenagers would use internets to appear at some random subway stop or intersection, run down the street smashing stuff, and then disperse. It's pretty inevitable technology is used for crime, but the question is more, is the ability to easily create a group of random antisocial troublemakers actually going to cause more people to join in just for shits and giggles and mob mentality? I have no clue.
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Levi

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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #2 on: June 08, 2011, 03:22:50 pm »

Interesting.  I wonder how long till we have flash terrorism and such.

Still, it makes a lot of sense from an criminal point of view.  Imagine 200 people suddenly showing up to rob a bank.  Even if quite a few people are caught it would probably be profitable for most of the people involved.
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Criptfeind

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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #3 on: June 08, 2011, 03:23:58 pm »

Both hilarious and sad it is.
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Strife26

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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #4 on: June 08, 2011, 04:01:29 pm »

If you'd like an armchair-Marxists whimsically peabrained call for instating Project Mayhem, and who wouldn't, here's an "editorial".


I highly recommend this article to anyone who likes confirmation that all media sources are either horribley stupid, or horribly satirical.
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RedKing

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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #5 on: June 08, 2011, 04:05:42 pm »

I wouldn't have pegged OU for being such a hotbed of Marxism. And of course by "hotbed", I mean one doofus who's taken like one political science class and thinks he's a revolutionary.

I think even our resident forum Marxists would smack this kid in the head.
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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #6 on: June 08, 2011, 04:07:28 pm »

here's an "editorial".

THIS STUFF TO EXPENSIVE GIVE ME FREE PLX

What an ass.

Anyway, the good thing about the internet is that it's easy to say "HELL YEAH I'LL BLOW UP THAT DEPARTMENT STORE WITH YOU GUYS" but hard to actually put on your ski mask and head out the door.  I imagine a lot of flash crimes will naturally disperse before they start when the perps realize only five people showed up.
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Vector

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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #7 on: June 08, 2011, 04:10:13 pm »

Jegus, that guy is an enormous rectal haberdashery.
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RedKing

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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #8 on: June 08, 2011, 04:14:31 pm »

here's an "editorial".

THIS STUFF TO EXPENSIVE GIVE ME FREE PLX

What an ass.

Anyway, the good thing about the internet is that it's easy to say "HELL YEAH I'LL BLOW UP THAT DEPARTMENT STORE WITH YOU GUYS" but hard to actually put on your ski mask and head out the door.  I imagine a lot of flash crimes will naturally disperse before they start when the perps realize only five people showed up.

I'm wondering when police will turn this to their advantage by tweeting plans for a flash crime and then blanketing the meeting place with hiding cops and surveillance cameras. Of course, you'd have cries of "entrapment" but c'mon....
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Aqizzar

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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #9 on: June 08, 2011, 04:19:12 pm »

While that would certainly sound like the dictionary definition of entrapment, police nab and prosecute people for buying fake crack from undercover cops all the time, so a fake flashcrash would fit right in.  At some point, it does come back to personal familiarity, people follow the local hooligan Twits of people they know.  Even the gang thing would be pretty hard for cops to fake, and even if they did, it's kinda hard to arrest and then sort through five hundred possibly armed people.

If you'd like an armchair-Marxists whimsically peabrained call for instating Project Mayhem, and who wouldn't, here's an "editorial".

I highly recommend this article to anyone who likes confirmation that all media sources are either horribley stupid, or horribly satirical.

Even if I was in Oklahoma, I don't think I'd call the editorial column of the OU Student Newspaper a media source.  But it did come up pretty high in a Google search for the event, so who knows how many people have read it.  What a tool.
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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #10 on: June 08, 2011, 04:26:56 pm »

Police hosting their own flashcrimes would be entrapment.  In order for it to work there'd have to be sufficient reason to believe the perps intended to commit the crime (A cop saying "Hey, want to buy some crack?" is entrapment, but a cop acting cocaine dealer-ish and being approached by the perp is not)
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Darkmere

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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #11 on: June 08, 2011, 04:38:03 pm »

  If you'd like an armchair-Marxists whimsically peabrained call for instating Project Mayhem, and who wouldn't, here's an "editorial".

Hmmm. By his logic he should be thrilled at the initiative of a dozen homeless guys busting into his apartment and taking everything he has. Social experiment time?
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scriver

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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #12 on: June 08, 2011, 04:41:45 pm »

That was my first thought as well. That's what I always ask people who says such naively daft thinga.
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nenjin

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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #13 on: June 08, 2011, 04:50:18 pm »

Call me crazy but, with the cooperation of service providers, isn't this actually easier to prosecute than traditional crime? I don't imagine all these people signed up for Twitter and Facebook with aliases and fake email addresses. If the social networking revolution has taught us anything, it's that people are idiots with their personal information. All these things require registration, and while that doesn't affect saavy users or criminals, I'm sure it would net a few hundred arrests of stupid people.

I don't really see this as the same thing as trying to intercept text messages, but maybe it is. But I'm thinking this over and going..."One officer with a computer reading these things already has a few hundred leads, and possibly photos, to go with them." And they don't even need cooperation for the service providers for that. I dunno, I just don't see this as impossible to identify suspects, I see this as being way easier if their investigators aren't pudgy old men from the 70s.

Then again, police have never had good luck prosecuting mobs, just individuals ripped from the crowd and the devil would be in finding evidence to prove anyone who contributed to the discussion actually showed up for the crime, that a court of law would actually accept.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2011, 04:53:20 pm by nenjin »
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sonerohi

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Re: Flash Crime
« Reply #14 on: June 08, 2011, 06:36:27 pm »

If Facebook groups or personal messages were used then you would have to make at least one arrest, get Facebook to comply with your investigation, and then sift through the whole chain of messages. Then you have to investigate everyone who commented. Not really difficult, but would take lots of time and warrants and manpower. And, inevitably, you will get someone with fake information that eludes capture, gets seized upon by the media, and ends up as a national examination of the flaws of the justice system for not being able to magic up a suspect.
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