Watch the latest Glitter Bomb dish out sweet revenge on package thieves

midian182

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Staff member
What just happened? Mark Rober has once again shown that crime doesn’t pay. The ex-NASA engineer known for his amazing creations just updated the famous glitter bomb to version 3.0, making porch thieves regret their life choices after being covered in fine glitter and fart spray.

Back in 2018, Rober, who spent seven of his nine years at NASA working on the Curiosity Rover, created the first glitter bomb, following it up with a new and improved version—and a cameo from Macaulay Culkin—a year later.

Rober has now returned with the Glitter Bomb 3.0. It comes with a more futuristic outer shell and a handle covered in extra sticky glue. The battery-bowered Arduino-based microcontroller and custom PCB remain, controlling the four smartphones that record everything, but it’s upgraded with a SIM card for triggering sounds on command. There are also four fart spray cans, now with added skunk essence, that keep pumping out a stink every thirty seconds.

The new design also comes with a couple of rods that pop out when the lid slides off, preventing panicking thieves from covering the bomb, which is most people's first instinct. And the phone batteries are kept juiced using a charging doormat. Clever.

While it’s always nice to see criminals get their comeuppance, it’s also refreshing to know that ninety percent of people left the parcel. Seven percent of passers by called the number on the package hoping to return it to the rightful owner, for which they received a couple of hundred dollars.

It’s worth watching the full video to see what appears to be some thieves shoot the box.

One of Rober’s other clips, Building the Perfect Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder, was YouTube’s second top-trending video of the year, sitting behind only Dave Chappelle’s 8:46. He also created the recent World’s Largest Nerf Gun.

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This may be funny to some, but on the whole, it is a waste of time, because it won't change people. Proper solution is to start adding GPS labels to all packages, possibly inside the actual products even.
 
Proper solution is to start adding GPS labels to all packages, possibly inside the actual products even.

Putting trackers into products would be a dystopian privacy nightmare. Although I'm sure producers would love to know the geo-demographical distribution of their products so they could market them better.

GPS is one-way. Trackers work by recording their position and transmitting it over the local cell network. Adding GPS trackers to all parcels would effectively DDOS the cell grid in cities and add huge amounts of noise. It would be a nice option for high-value packages though. But then, it's still difficult to get cops to bust phone thieves even when you have their address from tracking your stolen phone.
 
Putting trackers into products would be a dystopian privacy nightmare. Although I'm sure producers would love to know the geo-demographical distribution of their products so they could market them better.

GPS is one-way. Trackers work by recording their position and transmitting it over the local cell network. Adding GPS trackers to all parcels would effectively DDOS the cell grid in cities and add huge amounts of noise. It would be a nice option for high-value packages though. But then, it's still difficult to get cops to bust phone thieves even when you have their address from tracking your stolen phone.
I don't see any truth to this...

For one thing, GPS labels cannot create any traffic, as they send a very small notification package, like once a minute, some even once in 5 minutes. They also can be programmable, to use just one phone number per shipment company, to SMS package code to the company. So nothing would happen to the cell grid.

And for another, this technology is already dirt-cheap, and would cost shipment companies about $1 per package. I'm sure most people would be happy to pay extra $1 to have their package tracked.
 
Man, if you haven't received a seriously high six figure offer from Elon Musk to work at Space X he is missing the boat. What better way to greet those little green men on Mars than to cover them with glitter and fart spray, although you will probably need the whole bottle of skunk spray because of the thin atmosphere ..... go for it!
 
I don't see any truth to this...

For one thing, GPS labels cannot create any traffic, as they send a very small notification package, like once a minute, some even once in 5 minutes. They also can be programmable, to use just one phone number per shipment company, to SMS package code to the company. So nothing would happen to the cell grid.

And for another, this technology is already dirt-cheap, and would cost shipment companies about $1 per package. I'm sure most people would be happy to pay extra $1 to have their package tracked.
It wouldn't matter because of 2 things:

1) Most thieves will ditch the tracker when they can (the cheaper, the easier). People will quickly catch on.
2) Police have better things to do than track down a "cheap" package. Which means that at best you'll have people trying to retrieve it themselves (which won't always end well) if they even can.
 
This may be funny to some, but on the whole, it is a waste of time, because it won't change people. Proper solution is to start adding GPS labels to all packages, possibly inside the actual products even.

In Europe courier will deliver package directly into your hands (ask signature) or if they can't reach you drop at post office/box.
 
In Europe courier will deliver package directly into your hands (ask signature) or if they can't reach you drop at post office/box.

Except for Yodel whereby you need a ladder to retrieve the packaging from your roof, or Hermes who will deny any knowledge of there ever being a package, or them being a courier.
 
I don't see any truth to this...

For one thing, GPS labels cannot create any traffic, as they send a very small notification package, like once a minute, some even once in 5 minutes. They also can be programmable, to use just one phone number per shipment company, to SMS package code to the company. So nothing would happen to the cell grid.

And for another, this technology is already dirt-cheap, and would cost shipment companies about $1 per package. I'm sure most people would be happy to pay extra $1 to have their package tracked.

Considering the hardware cost to do this is closer to $15-$20 even at >1 million units purchased, I don't see this being added for less than $20 per package. Also if shipping companies don't get their trackers back, probably closer to $50-$100 per package in extra cost for the feature. Commercial GPS trackers for shipping exist now and they are often well north of $100 in hardware alone.
 
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