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YouTuber Admits Aspects of Viral HomePod Glitter Bomb Video Were Faked (appleinsider.com) 187

Posted by BeauHD from the A-for-effort dept.
New submitter ArchieBunker writes: A viral video featuring a booby-trapped HomePod box that pranked package thieves with a glitter bomb has been criticized for faking some of the reactions of the would-be "thieves," who were in fact acquaintances of friends of the video's creator. The video, "Package Thief vs. Glitter Bomb Trap" by former NASA engineer Mark Rober, featured the creation of a device constructed inside a HomePod box that spread out glitter once the HomePod box was opened, with four smartphones used to film the event and subsequent reactions from all angles. Clips were shown of people claimed to be package thieves, opening the box and being covered with glitter, before throwing the contraption away.

One thief's vehicle was found to have a number of similar features to one parked near to the house of a friend of Rober, used to film some of the illicit acquisitions, suggesting it was acquired by someone who lived nearby. Another person used Google Street View and Zillow to analyze the third thief's video from inside her home, and determined the side yard and outdoor area bore a striking resemblance to the home next door to the friend's house. Posted to Imgur, the thread of evidence led to others questioning Rober on some of his later edits to the published video, including deletion of small sections and blurring out details. According to Rober, he offered to provide the box to people who were willing to place it on their doorstep, with the offer of financial compensation for successful recoveries of the package, and one "friend of a friend" volunteered to help. Rober has since confirmed that two of the five reactions used in the video were suspicious, and were subsequently removed, but insists the reactions for times when the box was stolen from his doorstep were genuine. "I'm especially gutted because so much thought, time, money, and effort went into building the device and I hope this doesn't just taint the entire effort as 'fake,'" writes Rober in text placed underneath the video. "It genuinely works (like all the other things I've built on my channel) and we've made all the code and build info public."
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YouTuber Admits Aspects of Viral HomePod Glitter Bomb Video Were Faked More

YouTuber Admits Aspects of Viral HomePod Glitter Bomb Video Were Faked

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  • Its about the tech (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    not about the 'reality TV' aspect of it.

    Don't really care if the reactions were fake or real.

    • Re:Its about the tech (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Presence Eternal ( 56763 ) on Friday December 21, 2018 @06:47PM (#57844080)

      In this era of sensationalist news and politicians being pilloried for stuff that was actually said on SNL...I can't agree. And this WAS in the 'real' news. It's unacceptable. I mean, the video is kind of irresponsible to begin with. What if people copy the idea, and an actual thief who knows where their victim lives realizes they're holding something that can land them in jail? Package thieves aren't exactly career astronaut types.

      And it turns out it fabricated people and reactions. What if people look at the ethnicity of most of the "thieves" and they have some very unfortunate beliefs reinforced? I know that might sound like a hysterical example, but it's not particularly my point. This video was thoughtless AND a lie. What respect do his ideas deserve? I wish the guy absolutely no harm, but he deserves to be a pariah and ignored from now on.

      • He deserves some kind of prize for the fart gas dispenser.

    • I agree, some very neat tech. Pretty much everything on YouTube is fake, so I expected that.

  • Well, maybe you shouldn't have faked some of it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21, 2018 @05:55PM (#57843810)

    Once a cheater, always a cheater. Sure, you feel gutted. You got caught.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • It's a really cool project, though. Apparently it's more difficult than you'd expect to find package thieves.

    • Monetizing Youtube has caused a lot of sensationalist garbage to be posted.

      I liked it better when it was home movies.

    • Once a cheater, always a cheater. Sure, you feel gutted. You got caught.

      Except he didn't cheat.

      He was cheated. Or scammed.

      Basically he lent the unit to a friend of a friend. And being someone who would be compensated for the video, he offered that person some of the compensation because it's the fair thing to do.

      Turned out that person was greedy and had their neighbour "steal" it, and probably didn't offer them compensation. Just to get that money.

      And to his credit, he edited out the part that was faked once he found out and re-posted it. Anyone who knows YouTube means when you do this, you LOSE all those views - you cannot edit a video and retain the comments/likes/views. You delete that video and re-post it, which means the comments/likes/views starts from scratch. It's one of the most requested features especially now you can't add annotations afterwards so if you make an error, it's there forever unless you want to scrap it all.

      Of course, there are reasons for and against YouTube allowing re-posting of videos and retaining the comments/likes/views.

    • If you've NEVER cheated, not even once in your life, you're a liar.

  • Say it ain't so! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rednip ( 186217 ) on Friday December 21, 2018 @05:58PM (#57843830) Journal

    The thing that struck me the most was the number of 'thieves'. While 'porch pirates' are a real thing, they aren't so common that one guy or even a couple of them could in short order have so many packages lost to them.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ngc5194 ( 847747 )

      True, but we don't know over what time interval the "stolen package" videos were made. After all, Rober stated that the build occurred over six months or so. Given that, leaving the package out for a month or two in some neighborhoods resulting in a handful of thefts seems plausible to me.

    • Re:Say it ain't so! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Friday December 21, 2018 @06:11PM (#57843896) Homepage Journal
      What struck me was the fact that he used about $2000 worth of phones to do each package. Ridiculous. No one one do that because you probably wouldn't get them back.

      • Ridiculous. No one one do that because you probably wouldn't get them back.

        A) They were GPS tracked the whole time.

        B) That was the point of the incredibly stinky "Fart Spray", to ensure once the glitter had dispersed the thief would want to toss the package super quickly. If you didn't have that, yeah you were out $1k in phones or so (I don't think they were very high end phones).

        It was probably enough value in phones to raise the theft to felony level...

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Cito ( 1725214 )

          A real criminal would not toss it, they'd destroy it out of spite.

          If thst was a package I had nabbed when it wasn't what I wanted I'd destroy it.

          Most thieves would do so, if it's not valuable to the thief you destroy that thing. Stomp, crush, burn, etc

          Noone tosses it out the window with fingerprints on it

          • Re:That aspect was thought out (Score:5, Informative)

            by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Friday December 21, 2018 @08:59PM (#57844472)

            A real criminal would not toss it, they'd destroy it out of spite.

            A package is stinking up your car or home. Why on earth would you spend a second long than you had to with it? Remember this is a REALLY powerful smell. You say "real criminal" as if it was some determined noble warrior, not some lazy looser who does the easiest possible thing - which includes tossing a stinky package instead of actively seeking to destroy it.

            Stomp, crush, burn, etc

            Yeah that's a genius move for sure, to stomp on something you already know smells horrific, and was trapped enough to spread glitter all over you...

            Noone tosses it out the window with fingerprints on it

            You have watched WAY TOO MUCH CSI Mr McGruff. What "no-one" does is care at all about package thieves or fingerprints unless some truly serious crime is in play. Have you ever TRIED reporting package theft? Even with video the police just laugh. A package by the side of the road will mix with all the other trash and just be ignored.

          • The fart sprayis what makes you want to chuck it. That stuff is strong. It's like a skunk. You'd just want it out of there and there's no way you'd try to inflict more damage and make it smell worse.

            • Yep, definitely; smash it with a hammer in the back yard, not in the living room. You're from the neighborhood, I can tell.

        • Who cares if they were GPS tracked? You wouldn't get them back. They would get destroyed by the thief or thrown out. Plus they would smell like "fart spray" (right)? Complete baloney.

      • LG (Score:2)

        by JBMcB ( 73720 )

        LG makes $200 smartphones. They could have been used phones, as well.

        • Yes they do make $200 smartphones. The LG G5 is not one of them.
          However the second hand option could be likely, as is the possibility that LG donated them for the video.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by hawk ( 1151 )

            >However the second hand option could be likely, as is the possibility that LG donated them for the video.

            See, poor design.

            They could have reduced parts count by using a Samsung smart phone to blow out the glitter. It's even easy to choose the appropriate model ever since they started rating batteries in milli-tons . . . :)

            hawk

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Those were LG G5 models, they are available very cheap, because they were built very cheaply. They are renown for being universally of poor build quality and unreliable. Used copies generally go for less than $100, and are easy to find for less than $50 even, depending on what level of wear you're okay with. Since they were only desired for their cameras, it would probably be okay if they had shattered displays, so they could have been very cheap indeed.

        Regardless, that was not a big investment. Unlikely to

      • Re:Say it ain't so! (Score:4)

        by dcw3 ( 649211 ) on Saturday December 22, 2018 @01:44AM (#57845014) Journal

        If you had watched the video you'd know that the thief was sprayed with glitter and repeated squirts of fart gas, causing them to ditch the package. They had no idea there were any phones inside because they never kept the box long enough to open it. Why do people find this crap insightful?

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by 110010001000 ( 697113 )
          Oh and then the YT guy went and retrieved the package, right? Even though the package was squirted with "fart gas", right. But the thief wouldn't do that. He would just leave it. But the YT guy would go and get it. I mean really, how dumb are you?

      • No one one do that because you probably wouldn't get them back.

        Unless it is you have GPS tracking and a sure fire way to ensure that the would be thief would get rid of the package as quickly as possible without investigating further, e.g. smells like a devils arsehole.

        Unless you're doing it to make a video which is expected to bring in revenue, or especially in this case: recognition and new viewers too.

        Also it may surprise you that Youtubers actually get products donated for free in exchange for advertising, such as holding up a phone with a prominent LG logo and tal

        • Right, the thief would just throw the package away, but the YT "star" would go and get the package. Because that is what people do. How naive are people?

          • but the YT "star" would go and get the package

            No. Anyone who knew there were $2000 of phones in it would get the package. Something quite obvious really based on your own surprise that he used something expensive.

            Also why the quotation marks around star? You're talking about a person with enough followers to almost have a Diamond play button, who by estimates likely earned somewhere upwards of $80k (general estimates for a video of 45m views) for his video with his "expensive" phones. Are you jealous? Also see that word expensive? That is correct use o

      • What struck me was the fact that he used about $2000 worth of phones to do each package. Ridiculous. No one one do that because you probably wouldn't get them back.

        Yeah, but he's not providing a realistic project suggesting that people do this, it's an engineering challenge / attempt to make some entertainment for some sweet Youtube dollars.

        Apart from anything the 10s of hours of skilled custom work to make it would probably dwarf the hardware costs, if you're totting up. It sucks that he pushed the 'entertainment' so far as to make the engineering aspect questionable, because it's a neat little build.

    • The thing that struck me the most was the clever design and forethought that went into the design of the glitter bomb... including five servings of fart spray to encourage the Pirates of the Porch to launch the package from the car before discovering the four smart phones inside.

      Did they "NBC the test results like the package theft was a GM vehicle explosion?" Almost certainly, and to the discredit of the thing they hoped to elevate, but they were not maladroit with the build.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      What struck me is that someone basically doxed the guy, posting details of his home from Google Maps and some house data site on Imgur, and then lots of other sites amplified the doxing and no-one seems to have stopped to think about it.

      Also kinda sad that people even thought this was real in the first place. Does it not look like something professionally shot and edited on commercial grade equipment by professionals? Did the fact that his channel has 5.6 million subscribers and revenue to match not tip peo

      • Re: Say it ain't so! (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21, 2018 @06:37PM (#57844028)

        Get Famous, people will track you down. What you called doxxing is just a Millennial buzzword for what paparazzi have done forever. The internet gives anyone a chance to be Famous, and also gives anyone a chance to be paparazzi.

        Status Quo, nothing to see here.

      • That's what the internet is like. I watched a k-pop video on youtube, that was filmed in Guam, and then I went on google maps and found all the locations that the scenes were filmed.

        It took a couple hours. But it is fun looking around at different places on the computer.

        He didn't get doxed. He published a video. With background data.

        Some terrorist did that and somebody called in the location of the cave based on the background.

        If you really want a challenge, try to read Anabasis and recreate the route of th

    • UPS and FedEx will stop leaving them. I've had this happen to buddies in bad neighborhoods and it sucks. Everytime you get a packge you've got to drive on down to the main depot to pick it up, and that's usually out in the middle of nowhere.
      • You can have fedex deliver to your closest Walgreens or other similar location. I did that recently when I ordered a new computer and it would have been delivered when no one was home.

      • Everytime you get a packge you've got to drive on down to the main depot to pick it up

        If that is considered acceptable service, I think I should start a package "delivery" service where packages are all stored in a warehouse where you have to come pick up yourself.

    • You've never been to my neck of the woods.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Machtyn ( 759119 )
      RE: porch pirates aren't so common. While I don't have empirical data, I've never had a package stolen from off my porch until this year. In my neighborhood, we've had a rash of car break-ins and missing deliveries. The thing is, I live in a relatively nice neighborhood. And I've heard of more porch pirates this year than in years past. It was bound to happen with more online shopping occurring. And it is common enough that USPS, UPS, and Amazon all provide temporary boxes for concerned customers to come

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      You know what they say in the real estate business, location, location, location. In some locations yep, stuff will be stolen real fast and in other locations, it can stand out there for years and of course in 'Gated Communities' you get fined if it is out there too long.

    • The thing that struck me the most was the number of 'thieves'. While 'porch pirates' are a real thing, they aren't so common that one guy or even a couple of them could in short order have so many packages lost to them.

      I'm sure this depends where you live. I used to live on a busy road and even though the house was a little far back from the road I had three packages stolen over the course of a summer. That was probably a high proportion of the packages that were left on the doorstep, as few were left there in total: the post office in the UK is not supposed to do that at all. I don't find his video so surprising.

  • Future in Politics? (Score:4, Funny)

    by hduff ( 570443 ) <hoytduff@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Friday December 21, 2018 @06:03PM (#57843862) Homepage Journal

    Someone has a future in politics . . .

    • Someone has a future in politics . . .

      Delivering something that works while not fully disclosing the campaign contributions? Then admitting fault?
      Nope, he's way too good for politics.

  • Dead giveaway (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Friday December 21, 2018 @06:06PM (#57843876)

    I suspected as much when the thief stopped, swept back his cape with one arm, stuffed the package into his top hat, and looked straight into the camera with an evil smile while twirling the end of his mustache between his fingers.

  • At first I had to think "How much of an attention whore do you have to be, before you spend thousands of dollars designing and building a device like that, which just as likely as not will be smashed to pieces by an angry thief, just to get views on YouTube?", but then I read this, and I have to conclude: this so-called 'ex-NASA engineer' has brain problems. What was he fired from NASA for? Behavioral problems?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      He's the real deal. Real qualifications, his channel has a fair bit of science on it (and 5.4 million subscribers) and he does appear to be engineering quite a bit of stuff.

      And like most big YouTube channels he has set up a production company to do professional editing and scripting and yes like everything on TV some of it is faked. Hopefully you didn't think everything you saw on TV/YouTube was real...

      So basically people are upset that big YouTube channels are exactly like TV shows.

    • Yeah brain problems all around. Like the people who don't understand that there are people making a living of designing funky things on Youtube, and then declare not only that the person has brain problems but also decide they know about their worklife in detail.

      Speaking of attention whore... Where do you fit in on the grand scheme of things? "Never done Jack and two thumbs Bob, and sidekick don't say Dick, will laugh at other's failures though they have not done shit."

  • He should have used only genuine un-staged video (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ITRambo ( 1467509 ) on Friday December 21, 2018 @06:12PM (#57843902)
    What a stupid thing to do. Pad a reaction video with some fake reactions. Damn, that cost him all his credibility. In today's fake news world there is no room for phonying up any video, news item, or posts. Stay pure and stay believed. Cheaters are losers.
  • 1) figure out what people want to see on YouTube
    2) script and film it
    3) make up a story that could be true
    4) ???
    5) profit
    • See also: Fargo (where the coen bros lied about the "true story" bit until the movie "went viral")
      https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_56de2c53e4b0ffe6f8ea78c4?ec_carp=4175626833478598919

  • Of course it was fake (Score:4, Insightful)

    by theCat ( 36907 ) on Friday December 21, 2018 @06:15PM (#57843920) Journal

    You knew it was fake when the first "thief" didn't stomp the glitter-bot into the ground in frustration and anger.

    • You knew it was fake when the first "thief" didn't stomp the glitter-bot into the ground in frustration and anger.

      Remember it smells like shit. I'll be you a dollar your first reaction would not be to use your foot to determine where the smell came from.

    • You knew it was fake when the first "thief" didn't stomp the glitter-bot into the ground in frustration and anger.

      I disagree. Theives, like other people, aren't a stereotype.

  • Faked data (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Scutter ( 18425 ) on Friday December 21, 2018 @06:16PM (#57843922) Journal

    "I'm especially gutted because so much thought, time, money, and effort went into building the device and I hope this doesn't just taint the entire effort as 'fake,'"

    But...it was fake. You faked all of your test data and presented it as real results, therefore your entire research project is, at best, suspect. You deliberately mislead your viewers and now you're shocked at the result.

  • NASA dit it (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    He likes to mention that he worked for NASA, which to me tells thats where he learned to fake it!

  • But of course an engineer wouldn't be stupid enough to commit a crime and then post it online for all to see. In case anyone was wondering, rigging up a bomb you expect to be stolen is illegal and will get you thrown in jail. Who are his poor friends who are now cleaning out glitter from their cars and rooms for the rest of their lives?

    Does anyone know how common stealing packages off of door stops actually is?

    • You have a strange definition of bomb. It was a bowl of glitter that was spun with a motor to fling the glory out radially. It's pretty obvious from the video.

      • Although people stealing things is a heck of a problem, glitter is an environmental pollutant. I don't know how much in comparison to waste caused by duplicate online orders, but even so, is there something better than glitter that could be used here?

        • That is definitely a valid point. I suppose you could go with iron or aluminium filings, but that could cause electrical issues in a car and open you to liabilities. Very fine sand could be very annoying as it gets into everything.

  • I have two takeaways from this.

    First, it's scary the amount of imagery a person can find with a little googling, including the inside of a residence and inside of specific vehicles.

    Second, an outdated looking, run-down, smallish three bedroom house costs $450k there??? I just don't get it. Do you really get paid three times more there than in the "normal" parts of the country? Maybe I'm just a country hick when it comes down to it.

  • I was suspicious that too many edges had been sanded off the narrative: no data on how long it sat on the porch, no data on its final recovery after the last segment (what happened to the fart spray?), no data on anyone facing charges from police (there was way too much identifying data in these clips to prevent friends and relatives from recognizing the locations), and after the first segment, no data on who went out to collect the device.

    Additionally, his tone leans slightly to the smug and away from the

  • Both are obvious. It's a gamble between cost of hardware, liability and if the thief is prepared to out themselves as a thief to explore the possibility of liability.

    That liability is only limited to worst possible iterations of this trap so I can't imagine the inventor being dumb enough to expose himself to any liability. At least he made a good joke out of why he covered up his address.

  • Go READ His Comment People (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21, 2018 @10:46PM (#57844722)

    I love all the condemnation by people who apparently didn't bother to actually READ what he added to the video. He solicited 3rd parties who would be willing to place the package on their porch. He offered to compensate them for it. It was those third parties who had friends fake stealing the package. When he found out that these alleged thieves were fake, he edited them out of the video and disclosed the issue.

  • He did put a full response (Score:5, Informative)

    by shellster_dude ( 1261444 ) on Saturday December 22, 2018 @01:00AM (#57844964)
    He posted this under the video. I believe him, as I've been watching his channel for years and he produces a lot of great content.
    Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    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 gutted because so much thought, time, money and effort went into building the device and I hope this doesn’t just taint the entire effort as “fake". It genuinely works (like all the other things I’ve built on my channel) and we’ve made all the code and build info public. Again, I’m sorry for putting something up on my channel that was misleading. That is totally on me and I will take all necessary steps to make sure it won’t happen again.

    • Re:He did put a full response (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tom ( 822 ) on Saturday December 22, 2018 @02:10AM (#57845054) Homepage Journal

      Don't have mod points today, but mod parent up.

      What we seem to have lost in this age is the ability of differentiated, graded responses. Everyone is either "omg, my hero!" or "that fraud, he's so evil!". There is no inbetween. Not in politics, not in economics and not in YouTubers.

      • Don't have mod points today, but mod parent up.

        What we seem to have lost in this age is the ability of differentiated, graded responses. Everyone is either "omg, my hero!" or "that fraud, he's so evil!". There is no inbetween. Not in politics, not in economics and not in YouTubers.

        Mod parent up?? He paid people to put this on their porch, but only if he got the package back. What did he think was going to happen? The ex-NASA guy is either a real idiot when it comes to people, or he knew that some or all of the reactions would be fake. Only the most naive person in the world would not expect this result.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Tom ( 822 )

          He didn't pay random people, he paid friends. I don't know about your friends, but I generally trust mine to not pull a fast one on me over some change.

          • He didn't pay random people, he paid friends. I don't know about your friends, but I generally trust mine to not pull a fast one on me over some change.

            He said he paid friends of friends. And that he "put the feelers out" on who would be willing to do this for money. So... no. He got exactly what he should have, or most likely, did expect.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Tom ( 822 )

              Hell yes, friends of friends - but still not "random people". Acquaintances, distant friends, whatever. Again, I don't know about your social circles, but my friends of friends I might not trust with my car, but I'd be surprised if they pulled a fast one on me over something like that. What did he pay them? $50 maybe?

              • Hell yes, friends of friends - but still not "random people". Acquaintances, distant friends, whatever. Again, I don't know about your social circles, but my friends of friends I might not trust with my car, but I'd be surprised if they pulled a fast one on me over something like that. What did he pay them? $50 maybe?

                What kind of person do you suppose would be willing to go through the time and effort to deal with this for $50? Especially when they supposedly lived hours away from him. The kind of person who is desperate for money and did not think that having the reaction be from a fake thief would hurt in any way. I am not saying that they're bad people. They are just in desperate circumstances or they would not be doing this for $50. Which is exactly why this guy should have known better than to offer money for t

    • Re:He did put a full response (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Usefull Idiot ( 202445 ) on Saturday December 22, 2018 @10:51AM (#57845838)

      Outrage is all the rage right now. If it wasn't clear in this video, this is just a guy doing some youtube videos on the side, trying to coordinate things with friends and volunteers. If you watched several of his videos, this is entirely obvious, and he does not try to hide it. He is not an investigative journalist or detective, so you have to take that into account, as he may not be as rigorous in some of his methods. I was obviously skeptical when he lent the device to other people, as anyone should be. Based on the evidence, you could possibly blame him for being naive or gullible, but that is about it. If you have a problem with it going forward, just don't watch his videos, and simply question the credibility of any information where he is the source. Although, I suspect people will take it further though (harassment, etc), and I hope he doesn't suffer undue consequences.

  • No difference in lying vs being lied to? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Saturday December 22, 2018 @09:00AM (#57845636) Journal

    There are a lot of rage filled comments here about him being a liar, when it seems to me his main crime was gullibility?

    I've occasionally watched his videos for years, and he seems to be a fairly decent, very smart guy. He did formerly work for NASA as an actual engineer - his interactions with current NASA personnel are proof of that.

    His story is that obviously he couldn't get that many thief interactions on his own doorstep, so he loaned the build out to friends, and friends of friends with a cash reward for interactions with recoveries...I think that was his mistake. Once you bring money or fame into it, people are assholes; with both involved it's almost guaranteed. So some of them staged the reactions, ostensibly for the cash, but imo more for the internet fame...and now that's screwed him over.

    His "crime" if anything isn't lying, it's being gullible and trusting.

    • There are a lot of rage filled comments here about him being a liar, when it seems to me his main crime was gullibility?

      I've occasionally watched his videos for years, and he seems to be a fairly decent, very smart guy. He did formerly work for NASA as an actual engineer - his interactions with current NASA personnel are proof of that.

      His story is that obviously he couldn't get that many thief interactions on his own doorstep, so he loaned the build out to friends, and friends of friends with a cash reward for interactions with recoveries...I think that was his mistake. Once you bring money or fame into it, people are assholes; with both involved it's almost guaranteed. So some of them staged the reactions, ostensibly for the cash, but imo more for the internet fame...and now that's screwed him over.

      His "crime" if anything isn't lying, it's being gullible and trusting.

      Is anyone so naive to expect that if they pay someone to have a package stolen AND returned that the person is going to actually let any random person steal the package? Come on. I'd expect 9 out of 10 elementary school kids to know better than that. And what internet fame did the people who put the packages out receive? I don't recall seeing any of their names or faces in the video, though I admittedly watched it days ago and do not remember. I think the people being gullible are the ones that are givin

  • No shit, Sherlock. The guy used 4 expensive phones to take the video and then left them for strangers to take, but everyone tossed them away. If the guy was a decent engineer he could have made something with a couple raspberry pi's and some camera sensors.

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