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Video of Glitter Bomb for Package Thieves Exposed as Partial Fake

265 points by mbrubeck 8y ago

lucisferre 8y ago
Well if you believe his explanation then they were still thieves, technically. He offered to pay people who kept the package on their porch if the package was taken. They then asked their friends to take it so they would get paid.
- polartx 8y ago
  I want to believe, buuut...It would make more sense to financially incentivize people to set off a glitter/stink bomb in their house or car. And then there's the other thing about him blurring out the 'thieves' faces, a lot of folks wondered why he would take extra time to do that? Package thieves deserve to be arrested, but the police won't do anything, so instead I'll annoy them with glitter and safeguard their anonymity? Fishy. Not fishy when its people that haven't done anything wrong that are helping you make a video and you don't want them being doxxed/witchhunted.
  - 0xdeadbeefbabe 8y ago
    > It would make more sense to financially incentivize people to set off a glitter/stink bomb in their house or car. No, it wouldn't make sense for at least two reasons: After engineering something for 6 months you really really really want to see if it works in the wild. Rober doesn't have much to gain from youtube stardom compared to other things he could possibly do. Edit: Also, a very careful engineer, as most are, would engineer a careful hoax. Also, involving money and human interest without considering the possibilities is sometimes a stereotypical engineering mistake.
    - polartx 8y ago
      After engineering something for 6 months you really really [don't want to lose that thing you spent 6 months on because there are still many factors beyond your control]. Rober doesn't have much to gain from youtube stardom [except of course--money, and notoriety]
      - 0xdeadbeefbabe 8y ago
        So I didn't convince you?
    - scoot 8y ago
      Except that he didn't engineer it. Someone else did.
- megablast 8y ago
  He also lied about his friend wanting to use it, when he offered her money.
- nathanvanfleet 8y ago
  That sounds like some incredible hair splitting and semantic juggling.
nkurz 8y ago
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 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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo -- (I added the paragraph breaks for better readability; click on "See More" of the description for the original)
- reustle 8y ago
  > I have since removed those reactions from the original video (originally 6:26-7:59). Does YouTube allow video edits now?
  - ndiscussion 8y ago
    No. Perhaps it's a reupload.
pavel_lishin 8y ago
I'm still very surprised that any of this is true. This definitely seems like a booby-trap device situation to me, and I wouldn't risk leaving it out in front of my house.
- recursive 8y ago
  I'm not. I would. It's pretty harmless. The chance of serious injury seems lower than that of crossing a busy street.
  - justtopost 8y ago
    Glitter in the eye is not harmeless, I know someone blind in one eye as a result. There is genuine liability here, even if not super obvious.
    - recursive 8y ago
      Crossing a busy road is not harmless. I know of someone that literally died attempting to do it.
- yourapostasy 8y ago
  Hopefully covered by the same laws that protect banks that use dye packs. Porch bandits are entering private property that is not theirs and not by invitation, then stealing private property. Instead of pot smoking convictions, I'd rather see more prison time for porch bandits caught by dye pack-like bait packages.
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    I'm not shedding tears for people who break their legs trying to jump a fence into someone's backyard so they can steal their TV, but the laws are what they are. I can't exactly put down Home Alone style traps in my house; I'm not sure why this is any different.
    - 8y ago
mudil 8y ago
I commend him for doing this. People are up in arms about everything: this story plus numerous stories how glitter is bad for the environment. But he created a genuine video, complicated device, put time, effort, and best intentions without a hint of impropriety. People need to relax and stop looking for things to criticize in this case. We have an ongoing biggest European journalism scandal in decades at Der Spiegel, and you barely hear about this in the media. Where are our priorities? https://www.politico.eu/article/der-spiegels-first-class-faker/ https://www.politico.eu/article/der-spiegels-first-class-fak... https://spectator.us/der-spiegel-small-town/ https://spectator.us/der-spiegel-small-town/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/germanys-der-spiegel-says-reporter-made-up-facts-11545334314 https://www.wsj.com/articles/germanys-der-spiegel-says-repor...
- monksy 8y ago
  The Der Spiegel story was on the Philip Defranco show.
- seiferteric 8y ago
  Yes I assumed some or all of it was fake, its really no big deal, who cares? He is on youtube trying to monetize his video, he probably wouldn't want to leave it to chance. I am just surprised he found people willing to glitter bomb their own cars! It's no different than most "reality" tv shows.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Yes I assumed some or all of it was fake, its really no big deal, who cares? This is the level of cynicism our society has sunk to? I grew up in a time and place where everybody tried their hardest to tell the truth, always. Years later, I mentioned this idea to my girlfriend at the time's mom, and she laughed out loud. She grew up in a community where everyone lied all the time. This is the difference between a society that works, and a society that's pathological. I'm more shocked by such cynical reactions than by the circumstance reported.
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
Wow, not gonna lie, pretty impressed by the internet sleuths who tracked things down in the video: https://m.imgur.com/a/oxjd8lU https://m.imgur.com/a/oxjd8lU . Also pretty impressed people have that much time on their hands (as I say posting some random comment into the ether).
- inetknght 8y ago
  Impressed is the nice way to put it. Literally doxxing people is very scary.
  - 2z8ej83RyWjg 8y ago
    By those standards, the people were doxed by the original Mark Rober video. The street number of the woman's house was visible on the trashcan, that with the name of the trash vendor (also visible on the trashcan) were enough to find the address. That imgur album was shared by a reporter, Matt Novak from Gizmodo. It is private and was not widely shared until he decided to post it in his reporting. If you want to be mad at anyone for doxing, look to Mark Rober for being sloppy in his editing and Matt Novak for posting a link to that private gallery.
  - thisacctforreal 8y ago
    They redacted the PII, and I wouldn't call this doxxing to begin with.
    - agglomerative 8y ago
      The point being that these would be all of the steps that go into at least one doxxing attempt. Sort of like a murderer outlining a preferred method of stalking as a how-to, but without the murder.
      - samirm 8y ago
        Sounds like you're projecting your own imagination onto an otherwise possible situation that can happen every day. Why do you think privacy is such a big issue? It's not just about companies tracking you and serving you ads, it's about shit like this. If you're not careful/aware about what you put online, don't be surprised when it comes back to bite you in the ass.
etrautmann 8y ago
I think the entertainment value of this video for me doesn’t rely on it being genuine. It’s creative, well engineered, and hilariously executed even if the responses are staged. I’m surprised, but it doesn’t ruin it for me.
- Waterluvian 8y ago
  Kind of like Top Gear or WWE. It's full of fake but we kind of implicitly get that. I think a bit of the issue here is that a lot of people (myself included) assumed there was no staging.
  - mitchtbaum 8y ago
    Kinda makes you wonder about other extraordinary claims.. I mean, what did he really do to prove that it wasn't staged? Other than saying he works for NASA...
- Theodores 8y ago
  I watched the video and I was quite shocked at how many of the 'thieves' spoke to themselves when seemingly alone. I was wondering if people are that stupid in this 'thieving' class of suburban America. We all speak to ourselves from time to time, it is as if we have a clutch going on between our brain and our mouths, in childhood we learn to use this clutch to think before we speak. But there will be occasions when we let this go, I could have an accident, e.g. stubbing my toe, in which case I might speak to myself with expletives without an audience for my words needing to be present. If I had been tricked by this glitter package I might not disengage the 'clutch' due to being surprised and shocked. But I don't think I would have spoke to myself as the people in the video did. So I was wondering if people were that stupid, but now I am thinking the entire video was fake. The other aspect that concerned me in the video was the manner that he went off chasing the parcel in his car to the car park and what not. I would be quite apprehensive of confronting people regarding theft and yet I have had plenty of opportunities from working in retail to be able to do that. NASA engineer types generally don't have that street skill and I expected him to show the fear that is natural when confronting people for theft. I don't think that we have heard the end of how well this video was stage managed and faked, I do not believe a single thief was legit. Why fake some of it and not all of it? Although YouTube this had a sponsor and was a full on TV production, and, in TV you don't have a soap opera where 'some of it is real', everything is scripted and staged or else it isn't. There was no evidence of multiple packages being made, so to create the monetizing ten minutes why risk it going wrong after one genuine thief takes the device and destroys it? The get a friend of a friend to do it approach means the friends of friends know they have been pranked and aren't going to have law enforcement coming down on them. In America a real thief could pull a gun on our NASA engineer chap out of a fear of being sent back to jail for some parole violation. The reaction and blase way our NASA engineer chap went down hunting the perps didn't fit with how it all works. I now wonder how he must feel about future Amazon orders, if I was him I would wonder how many of those will get routinely stolen from now on due to the unscientific rules of 'karma'.
Jerry2 8y ago
I assumed he built the device but it turns out this guy actually engineered the device for Mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI
- cf498 8y ago
  Holy crap that fan at https://youtu.be/IpMxOmUcfOI?t=175 https://youtu.be/IpMxOmUcfOI?t=175 Btw absolutely amazing project. Thanks for posting the link
  - gpm 8y ago
    Does anyone know anything about what sort of fan that is? Seems like it could be pretty interesting to play around with.
    - sgentle 8y ago
      Looks like a standard brushless case fan – most of the PC/ATX ones are 12v and prioritise low noise over power, but I have a few I pulled out of laser printers that are 24v, about palm-sized, and put out silly volumes of air.
    - rasz 8y ago
      standard server chassis fan, they are loud AF and push serious CFM. I have a spare box of Nidec 450s capable of 200CFM, you can hardly hold one in your hand while going full speed.
- jfktrey 8y ago
  Sean’s a cool guy, lots of cool projects on his channel worth a watch.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- scoot 8y ago
  Yeah, pretty shitty how the implication in the video is that Mark Rober designed the device (although he does briefly name-check the real creator), but no link in the description to the guy's channel. Rober is going to have to do three times as much to recovery any credibility.
ourmandave 8y ago
Not as fabulous as we were first led to believe?
ggggtez 8y ago
The racial aspect of paying your black friends to pretend to be thieves is really troubling here. The whole thing stinks.
- utopcell 8y ago
  Someone paid them ?!
  - 64738 8y ago
    That wasn't the way I read it. He said the "thieves" were acquaintances of the friends he paid. He likely doesn't even know the acquaintances.
    - utopcell 8y ago
      That's how I read it as well. Not cool spreading such rumors..
    - ggggtez 8y ago
      Some of the questions are overt: Did the friends chose the actors who looked and sounded more like a "thief" (aka minority stereotype)? Some are less overt: Was he fooled by the actors because of his own preconceptions about what a thief looks and sounds like? He had the full GPS tracking and footage, after all. Did he ignore evidence that might have clued him in that it wasn't real, because of those biases? By setting it up so they get paid if an only if it gets stolen, did he unintentionally incentivise his friends to fake the footage that matched his own preconceptions of what a real thief looks like? After all, we know he was stolen from multiple times. We know he has footage, and knows what they look like. Was he convinced because of his preconceptions? That's what we are talking about here. Once it's revealed it's fake, we suddenly are approached by a whole tangle of messy racial bias in how this made it from conception to production to consumption.
  - ggggtez 8y ago
    Yes, he paid his friends. It's not clear if his friends paid the actors, but presumably they did (or else, they just enjoy spraying glitter all over their car/bed for fun). At the end of the day, the result was that he paid money in exchange for videos of black people pretending to be thieves.
thosakwe 8y ago
I didn’t watch the video, but with a title like that, I thought it was fake. Not in a “haha I’m so smart, I knew it was fake!” way, but an “If this were real, he’d probably be using the video in court rather than on YouTube, besides everyone expects YouTube content to be staged” way. Guess I was wrong...?
- Karunamon 8y ago
  One of the problems he originally called out were the local police being useless at dealing with property crimes. I believe this to be absolutely true. Based on experience.
- mcast 8y ago
  I was more concerned that someone who stole this package from his doorstep would be injured or harmed and sue/threaten the property owner.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Can you sue someone if you steal something from them and it hurts you?
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      Can you sue? Sure. Can you win? Maybe. It might depend on how bad the damage is.
utopcell 8y ago
So what ? This does not make the work any less impressive. There is zero doubt in my mind that this was a genuine effort. Mark, if you're reading this: Awesome hack, keep them coming!
- megablast 8y ago
  Ok, how about the fact that someone else made the device for him? So what did he do, have an idea, and leave it on his porch.
  - spuz 8y ago
    The idea and the execution of it are why people enjoyed the video. He linked to a video by the guy that helped him build it that goes through some of the engineering of the device for those that are interested. He never took credit for doing the entire thing by himself.
  - utopcell 8y ago
    I believe this is OK. He mentions the co-creator in the video and posts a link to their video at the description.
thinkingemote 8y ago
I recall several posts on this forum by users explicitly denying the possibility of it being fake, when the video was first posted. I hope some of our fellow HN users who were so adamant will reflect on their comments, and it would be nice if they would comment on how they were thinking and feeling now.
- decebalus1 8y ago
  Memorable quotes: 'I doubt Mark would be staging things. He works for Nasa and worked on some big projects there and is a pretty smart guy. I can't see him being the kind of person looking to just make some viral fake video. But up to you to make that call if you want to think that. This is one case where I doubt it's staged.' 'Given who made the video, I'd give it about a 0% probably of being staged. That's not Mark's gig.' 'Well one, he's not a prank channel. He's a serious professional that even showed video of people stealing his package that started the whole idea. He then went as far as to machine parts, have a custom pcb manufactured etc. Then he contaminated cars and residences with glitter, yeah good luck talking random friends to let you bomb their cars and houses with glitter. I mean, the dude worked for JPL for almost a decade and has his work on Mars, he already gets tons of views and has a history of deep-diving projects. He's also a tv host. He's also a former TED speaker. Guy has better things to do than stage videos for YouTube.' If I'm not mistaken, this would be a good example of the halo effect.
  - daniel_reetz 8y ago
    Regarding the NASA affiliation, he doesn't work for NASA anymore. I'm shocked his current employer permits this activity.
  - balfirevic 8y ago
    From what I understand, he still maintains that he hasn't staged anything and was duped by his friends. If that is true the text you quoted still stands.
user2426679 8y ago
This was pretty obvious imo, based on a cursory viewing of the original video when it came out. I immediately blocked the dude's Twitter account as I only use it for following fintwits. People wanted to believe it was true for whatever reason; just take a step back, and you'll see how obviously staged the whole thing was. Don't feed the troll.
0xdeadbeefbabe 8y ago
So? Does the glitter not go everywhere? > It’s still an impressive invention, and if you believe Rober, most of the video is still legit. But Rober understands why people may not trust him anymore. He understands incorrectly then. The point of the video was engineering, and not social science.
- freyir 8y ago
  Well, he didn’t even do the engineering so... it’s just entertainment.
potatoman2 8y ago
They really have to get in a dig at the president in every article don't they? Even completely unrelated ones about glitter bomb traps.
root_axis 8y ago
Funny. In the original thread there were quite a few people thoroughly convinced that there was no way this could possibly be staged because come on, why would he do that? After all, he is a famous dude and he worked for NASA! He would never stage a reaction video for views, how would that look? https://i.imgur.com/8tOcpZS.jpg https://i.imgur.com/8tOcpZS.jpg
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- spuz 8y ago
  That logic still holds if you believe his explanation. He didn't know the thieves were fake either. He didn't actually deceive anyone because he was as in the dark as we were.
  - root_axis 8y ago
    I think he's lying and making up excuses because he got caught. He also misrepresented his role in the creation of the device (i.e. he didn't create it, someone else did, you can view their youtube channel here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI). IMO there is no reason to trust anything that guy says.
DonHopkins 8y ago
You mean TacoCopter isn't real, either? ;( http://tacocopter.com/ http://tacocopter.com/
sccxy 8y ago
Same guy made video "FLYING PHONE SCAM EXPOSED (so I built a REAL one)"[1], where he cried that someone made fake video and made money from amazon referrals. At the same time, this fake glitter dude makes a lot of money from his fake video. Nice. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEZCxxKp0hM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEZCxxKp0hM
- hudibras 8y ago
  This video was the first time I heard of Mark Rober, and it was a pretty mean hatchet job towards that Indian kid who was obviously just joking around. Dr. Disillusion had a much more respectfully takedown of the same video where he gave props to the kid and encouraged him to keep at it. Rober takes the "I'm an engineer, so I know what I'm talking about" shtick too far; there's probably 10,000 more-talented engineers in Boeing's SPEEA local alone.
  - verroq 8y ago
    Surely you mean Captain Disillusion.
    - hudibras 8y ago
      oops...
- mcast 8y ago
  Comparing a doctored video with blatantly false engineered hardware (and affiliated links for a DIY) to a video with dishonest reactions is not a fair comparison.
heyjudy 8y ago
It's the first thing I thought: dude isn't going to wait for thieves and chance recovery for $1800 of phones, instead he's going to fake it like a reality show with friends / hired actors. He should've disclosed the fact because that would show integrity. He comes off like a smarmy guy that you can't trust, so it's not a huge suprise either.
- goldenkey 8y ago
  The "I worked for NASA" shpeil is so sweaty when you find out that he didn't even build the device. (Someone in this thread posted the channel of the contracted builder.)
  - throw-far-away 8y ago
    Yeah, even from the way he talks, it feels like he has little-or-no integrity and just cheats/misrepresents his way to get ahead like a used-car salesman.
- kayimbo 8y ago
  when i watched it i said "no thief in the whole world is going to be disappointed and throw away 4 iphones just because of some glitter" fake af, also racist for getting black people to be the thief.
dynjo 8y ago
Who cares if it was fake, it was awesome and it was better entertainment than 99.99% of the crap on the internet. Make more stuff NASA dude!!
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mcv 8y ago
What I'd like to know is what kind of person would volunteer to have their car or home covered in fine glitter that's impossible to remove. No idea how disgusting the fart gas is. So even if Rober was paying people for recovery, I'd expect he'd have to pay them quite a bit more to voluntarily undergo the treatment of his boobytrap.
- talltimtom 8y ago
  Seems weird that you expect him to pay more when you Donny know how much he payed in the first place...
  - mcv 8y ago
    You don't think having to clean up fine glitter everywhere would increase the effort and therefore the cost of participating in this?
rasz 8y ago
>Rober deleted about a minute and a half from his original YouTube video yesterday, and reuploaded it—something YouTube allows you to do without sacrificing the number of hits a user has accumulated wait, what? you can edit YT videos without changing video ID? When did that happen?
manigandham 8y ago
If a package was opened inside his friend/neighbors own house, how did he not recognize that?

265 points by mbrubeck 8y ago

Well if you believe his explanation then they were still thieves, technically. He offered to pay people who kept the package on their porch if the package was taken. They then asked their friends to take it so they would get paid.

polartx 8y ago
I want to believe, buuut...It would make more sense to financially incentivize people to set off a glitter/stink bomb in their house or car. And then there's the other thing about him blurring out the 'thieves' faces, a lot of folks wondered why he would take extra time to do that? Package thieves deserve to be arrested, but the police won't do anything, so instead I'll annoy them with glitter and safeguard their anonymity? Fishy. Not fishy when its people that haven't done anything wrong that are helping you make a video and you don't want them being doxxed/witchhunted.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 8y ago
  > It would make more sense to financially incentivize people to set off a glitter/stink bomb in their house or car. No, it wouldn't make sense for at least two reasons: After engineering something for 6 months you really really really want to see if it works in the wild. Rober doesn't have much to gain from youtube stardom compared to other things he could possibly do. Edit: Also, a very careful engineer, as most are, would engineer a careful hoax. Also, involving money and human interest without considering the possibilities is sometimes a stereotypical engineering mistake.
  - polartx 8y ago
    After engineering something for 6 months you really really [don't want to lose that thing you spent 6 months on because there are still many factors beyond your control]. Rober doesn't have much to gain from youtube stardom [except of course--money, and notoriety]
    - 0xdeadbeefbabe 8y ago
      So I didn't convince you?
  - scoot 8y ago
    Except that he didn't engineer it. Someone else did.
megablast 8y ago
He also lied about his friend wanting to use it, when he offered her money.
nathanvanfleet 8y ago
That sounds like some incredible hair splitting and semantic juggling.

nkurz 8y ago

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 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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo -- (I added the paragraph breaks for better readability; click on "See More" of the description for the original)

reustle 8y ago
> I have since removed those reactions from the original video (originally 6:26-7:59). Does YouTube allow video edits now?
- ndiscussion 8y ago
  No. Perhaps it's a reupload.

pavel_lishin 8y ago

I'm still very surprised that any of this is true. This definitely seems like a booby-trap device situation to me, and I wouldn't risk leaving it out in front of my house.

recursive 8y ago
I'm not. I would. It's pretty harmless. The chance of serious injury seems lower than that of crossing a busy street.
- justtopost 8y ago
  Glitter in the eye is not harmeless, I know someone blind in one eye as a result. There is genuine liability here, even if not super obvious.
  - recursive 8y ago
    Crossing a busy road is not harmless. I know of someone that literally died attempting to do it.
yourapostasy 8y ago
Hopefully covered by the same laws that protect banks that use dye packs. Porch bandits are entering private property that is not theirs and not by invitation, then stealing private property. Instead of pot smoking convictions, I'd rather see more prison time for porch bandits caught by dye pack-like bait packages.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  I'm not shedding tears for people who break their legs trying to jump a fence into someone's backyard so they can steal their TV, but the laws are what they are. I can't exactly put down Home Alone style traps in my house; I'm not sure why this is any different.
  - 8y ago

mudil 8y ago

I commend him for doing this. People are up in arms about everything: this story plus numerous stories how glitter is bad for the environment. But he created a genuine video, complicated device, put time, effort, and best intentions without a hint of impropriety. People need to relax and stop looking for things to criticize in this case. We have an ongoing biggest European journalism scandal in decades at Der Spiegel, and you barely hear about this in the media. Where are our priorities? https://www.politico.eu/article/der-spiegels-first-class-faker/ https://www.politico.eu/article/der-spiegels-first-class-fak... https://spectator.us/der-spiegel-small-town/ https://spectator.us/der-spiegel-small-town/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/germanys-der-spiegel-says-reporter-made-up-facts-11545334314 https://www.wsj.com/articles/germanys-der-spiegel-says-repor...

monksy 8y ago
The Der Spiegel story was on the Philip Defranco show.
seiferteric 8y ago
Yes I assumed some or all of it was fake, its really no big deal, who cares? He is on youtube trying to monetize his video, he probably wouldn't want to leave it to chance. I am just surprised he found people willing to glitter bomb their own cars! It's no different than most "reality" tv shows.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Yes I assumed some or all of it was fake, its really no big deal, who cares? This is the level of cynicism our society has sunk to? I grew up in a time and place where everybody tried their hardest to tell the truth, always. Years later, I mentioned this idea to my girlfriend at the time's mom, and she laughed out loud. She grew up in a community where everyone lied all the time. This is the difference between a society that works, and a society that's pathological. I'm more shocked by such cynical reactions than by the circumstance reported.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

Wow, not gonna lie, pretty impressed by the internet sleuths who tracked things down in the video: https://m.imgur.com/a/oxjd8lU https://m.imgur.com/a/oxjd8lU . Also pretty impressed people have that much time on their hands (as I say posting some random comment into the ether).

inetknght 8y ago
Impressed is the nice way to put it. Literally doxxing people is very scary.
- 2z8ej83RyWjg 8y ago
  By those standards, the people were doxed by the original Mark Rober video. The street number of the woman's house was visible on the trashcan, that with the name of the trash vendor (also visible on the trashcan) were enough to find the address. That imgur album was shared by a reporter, Matt Novak from Gizmodo. It is private and was not widely shared until he decided to post it in his reporting. If you want to be mad at anyone for doxing, look to Mark Rober for being sloppy in his editing and Matt Novak for posting a link to that private gallery.
- thisacctforreal 8y ago
  They redacted the PII, and I wouldn't call this doxxing to begin with.
  - agglomerative 8y ago
    The point being that these would be all of the steps that go into at least one doxxing attempt. Sort of like a murderer outlining a preferred method of stalking as a how-to, but without the murder.
    - samirm 8y ago
      Sounds like you're projecting your own imagination onto an otherwise possible situation that can happen every day. Why do you think privacy is such a big issue? It's not just about companies tracking you and serving you ads, it's about shit like this. If you're not careful/aware about what you put online, don't be surprised when it comes back to bite you in the ass.

etrautmann 8y ago

I think the entertainment value of this video for me doesn’t rely on it being genuine. It’s creative, well engineered, and hilariously executed even if the responses are staged. I’m surprised, but it doesn’t ruin it for me.

Waterluvian 8y ago
Kind of like Top Gear or WWE. It's full of fake but we kind of implicitly get that. I think a bit of the issue here is that a lot of people (myself included) assumed there was no staging.
- mitchtbaum 8y ago
  Kinda makes you wonder about other extraordinary claims.. I mean, what did he really do to prove that it wasn't staged? Other than saying he works for NASA...
Theodores 8y ago
I watched the video and I was quite shocked at how many of the 'thieves' spoke to themselves when seemingly alone. I was wondering if people are that stupid in this 'thieving' class of suburban America. We all speak to ourselves from time to time, it is as if we have a clutch going on between our brain and our mouths, in childhood we learn to use this clutch to think before we speak. But there will be occasions when we let this go, I could have an accident, e.g. stubbing my toe, in which case I might speak to myself with expletives without an audience for my words needing to be present. If I had been tricked by this glitter package I might not disengage the 'clutch' due to being surprised and shocked. But I don't think I would have spoke to myself as the people in the video did. So I was wondering if people were that stupid, but now I am thinking the entire video was fake. The other aspect that concerned me in the video was the manner that he went off chasing the parcel in his car to the car park and what not. I would be quite apprehensive of confronting people regarding theft and yet I have had plenty of opportunities from working in retail to be able to do that. NASA engineer types generally don't have that street skill and I expected him to show the fear that is natural when confronting people for theft. I don't think that we have heard the end of how well this video was stage managed and faked, I do not believe a single thief was legit. Why fake some of it and not all of it? Although YouTube this had a sponsor and was a full on TV production, and, in TV you don't have a soap opera where 'some of it is real', everything is scripted and staged or else it isn't. There was no evidence of multiple packages being made, so to create the monetizing ten minutes why risk it going wrong after one genuine thief takes the device and destroys it? The get a friend of a friend to do it approach means the friends of friends know they have been pranked and aren't going to have law enforcement coming down on them. In America a real thief could pull a gun on our NASA engineer chap out of a fear of being sent back to jail for some parole violation. The reaction and blase way our NASA engineer chap went down hunting the perps didn't fit with how it all works. I now wonder how he must feel about future Amazon orders, if I was him I would wonder how many of those will get routinely stolen from now on due to the unscientific rules of 'karma'.

Jerry2 8y ago

I assumed he built the device but it turns out this guy actually engineered the device for Mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI

cf498 8y ago
Holy crap that fan at https://youtu.be/IpMxOmUcfOI?t=175 https://youtu.be/IpMxOmUcfOI?t=175 Btw absolutely amazing project. Thanks for posting the link
- gpm 8y ago
  Does anyone know anything about what sort of fan that is? Seems like it could be pretty interesting to play around with.
  - sgentle 8y ago
    Looks like a standard brushless case fan – most of the PC/ATX ones are 12v and prioritise low noise over power, but I have a few I pulled out of laser printers that are 24v, about palm-sized, and put out silly volumes of air.
  - rasz 8y ago
    standard server chassis fan, they are loud AF and push serious CFM. I have a spare box of Nidec 450s capable of 200CFM, you can hardly hold one in your hand while going full speed.
jfktrey 8y ago
Sean’s a cool guy, lots of cool projects on his channel worth a watch.
deleted 8y ago
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scoot 8y ago
Yeah, pretty shitty how the implication in the video is that Mark Rober designed the device (although he does briefly name-check the real creator), but no link in the description to the guy's channel. Rober is going to have to do three times as much to recovery any credibility.

ourmandave 8y ago

Not as fabulous as we were first led to believe?

ggggtez 8y ago

The racial aspect of paying your black friends to pretend to be thieves is really troubling here. The whole thing stinks.

utopcell 8y ago
Someone paid them ?!
- 64738 8y ago
  That wasn't the way I read it. He said the "thieves" were acquaintances of the friends he paid. He likely doesn't even know the acquaintances.
  - utopcell 8y ago
    That's how I read it as well. Not cool spreading such rumors..
  - ggggtez 8y ago
    Some of the questions are overt: Did the friends chose the actors who looked and sounded more like a "thief" (aka minority stereotype)? Some are less overt: Was he fooled by the actors because of his own preconceptions about what a thief looks and sounds like? He had the full GPS tracking and footage, after all. Did he ignore evidence that might have clued him in that it wasn't real, because of those biases? By setting it up so they get paid if an only if it gets stolen, did he unintentionally incentivise his friends to fake the footage that matched his own preconceptions of what a real thief looks like? After all, we know he was stolen from multiple times. We know he has footage, and knows what they look like. Was he convinced because of his preconceptions? That's what we are talking about here. Once it's revealed it's fake, we suddenly are approached by a whole tangle of messy racial bias in how this made it from conception to production to consumption.
- ggggtez 8y ago
  Yes, he paid his friends. It's not clear if his friends paid the actors, but presumably they did (or else, they just enjoy spraying glitter all over their car/bed for fun). At the end of the day, the result was that he paid money in exchange for videos of black people pretending to be thieves.

thosakwe 8y ago

I didn’t watch the video, but with a title like that, I thought it was fake. Not in a “haha I’m so smart, I knew it was fake!” way, but an “If this were real, he’d probably be using the video in court rather than on YouTube, besides everyone expects YouTube content to be staged” way. Guess I was wrong...?

Karunamon 8y ago
One of the problems he originally called out were the local police being useless at dealing with property crimes. I believe this to be absolutely true. Based on experience.
mcast 8y ago
I was more concerned that someone who stole this package from his doorstep would be injured or harmed and sue/threaten the property owner.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Can you sue someone if you steal something from them and it hurts you?
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    Can you sue? Sure. Can you win? Maybe. It might depend on how bad the damage is.

utopcell 8y ago

So what ? This does not make the work any less impressive. There is zero doubt in my mind that this was a genuine effort. Mark, if you're reading this: Awesome hack, keep them coming!

megablast 8y ago
Ok, how about the fact that someone else made the device for him? So what did he do, have an idea, and leave it on his porch.
- spuz 8y ago
  The idea and the execution of it are why people enjoyed the video. He linked to a video by the guy that helped him build it that goes through some of the engineering of the device for those that are interested. He never took credit for doing the entire thing by himself.
- utopcell 8y ago
  I believe this is OK. He mentions the co-creator in the video and posts a link to their video at the description.

thinkingemote 8y ago

I recall several posts on this forum by users explicitly denying the possibility of it being fake, when the video was first posted. I hope some of our fellow HN users who were so adamant will reflect on their comments, and it would be nice if they would comment on how they were thinking and feeling now.

decebalus1 8y ago
Memorable quotes: 'I doubt Mark would be staging things. He works for Nasa and worked on some big projects there and is a pretty smart guy. I can't see him being the kind of person looking to just make some viral fake video. But up to you to make that call if you want to think that. This is one case where I doubt it's staged.' 'Given who made the video, I'd give it about a 0% probably of being staged. That's not Mark's gig.' 'Well one, he's not a prank channel. He's a serious professional that even showed video of people stealing his package that started the whole idea. He then went as far as to machine parts, have a custom pcb manufactured etc. Then he contaminated cars and residences with glitter, yeah good luck talking random friends to let you bomb their cars and houses with glitter. I mean, the dude worked for JPL for almost a decade and has his work on Mars, he already gets tons of views and has a history of deep-diving projects. He's also a tv host. He's also a former TED speaker. Guy has better things to do than stage videos for YouTube.' If I'm not mistaken, this would be a good example of the halo effect.
- daniel_reetz 8y ago
  Regarding the NASA affiliation, he doesn't work for NASA anymore. I'm shocked his current employer permits this activity.
- balfirevic 8y ago
  From what I understand, he still maintains that he hasn't staged anything and was duped by his friends. If that is true the text you quoted still stands.

user2426679 8y ago

This was pretty obvious imo, based on a cursory viewing of the original video when it came out. I immediately blocked the dude's Twitter account as I only use it for following fintwits. People wanted to believe it was true for whatever reason; just take a step back, and you'll see how obviously staged the whole thing was. Don't feed the troll.

0xdeadbeefbabe 8y ago

So? Does the glitter not go everywhere? > It’s still an impressive invention, and if you believe Rober, most of the video is still legit. But Rober understands why people may not trust him anymore. He understands incorrectly then. The point of the video was engineering, and not social science.

freyir 8y ago
Well, he didn’t even do the engineering so... it’s just entertainment.

potatoman2 8y ago

They really have to get in a dig at the president in every article don't they? Even completely unrelated ones about glitter bomb traps.

root_axis 8y ago

Funny. In the original thread there were quite a few people thoroughly convinced that there was no way this could possibly be staged because come on, why would he do that? After all, he is a famous dude and he worked for NASA! He would never stage a reaction video for views, how would that look? https://i.imgur.com/8tOcpZS.jpg https://i.imgur.com/8tOcpZS.jpg

deleted 8y ago
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spuz 8y ago
That logic still holds if you believe his explanation. He didn't know the thieves were fake either. He didn't actually deceive anyone because he was as in the dark as we were.
- root_axis 8y ago
  I think he's lying and making up excuses because he got caught. He also misrepresented his role in the creation of the device (i.e. he didn't create it, someone else did, you can view their youtube channel here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpMxOmUcfOI). IMO there is no reason to trust anything that guy says.

DonHopkins 8y ago

You mean TacoCopter isn't real, either? ;( http://tacocopter.com/ http://tacocopter.com/

sccxy 8y ago

Same guy made video "FLYING PHONE SCAM EXPOSED (so I built a REAL one)"[1], where he cried that someone made fake video and made money from amazon referrals. At the same time, this fake glitter dude makes a lot of money from his fake video. Nice. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEZCxxKp0hM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEZCxxKp0hM

hudibras 8y ago
This video was the first time I heard of Mark Rober, and it was a pretty mean hatchet job towards that Indian kid who was obviously just joking around. Dr. Disillusion had a much more respectfully takedown of the same video where he gave props to the kid and encouraged him to keep at it. Rober takes the "I'm an engineer, so I know what I'm talking about" shtick too far; there's probably 10,000 more-talented engineers in Boeing's SPEEA local alone.
- verroq 8y ago
  Surely you mean Captain Disillusion.
  - hudibras 8y ago
    oops...
mcast 8y ago
Comparing a doctored video with blatantly false engineered hardware (and affiliated links for a DIY) to a video with dishonest reactions is not a fair comparison.

heyjudy 8y ago

It's the first thing I thought: dude isn't going to wait for thieves and chance recovery for $1800 of phones, instead he's going to fake it like a reality show with friends / hired actors. He should've disclosed the fact because that would show integrity. He comes off like a smarmy guy that you can't trust, so it's not a huge suprise either.

goldenkey 8y ago
The "I worked for NASA" shpeil is so sweaty when you find out that he didn't even build the device. (Someone in this thread posted the channel of the contracted builder.)
- throw-far-away 8y ago
  Yeah, even from the way he talks, it feels like he has little-or-no integrity and just cheats/misrepresents his way to get ahead like a used-car salesman.
kayimbo 8y ago
when i watched it i said "no thief in the whole world is going to be disappointed and throw away 4 iphones just because of some glitter" fake af, also racist for getting black people to be the thief.

dynjo 8y ago

Who cares if it was fake, it was awesome and it was better entertainment than 99.99% of the crap on the internet. Make more stuff NASA dude!!

deleted 8y ago

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mcv 8y ago

What I'd like to know is what kind of person would volunteer to have their car or home covered in fine glitter that's impossible to remove. No idea how disgusting the fart gas is. So even if Rober was paying people for recovery, I'd expect he'd have to pay them quite a bit more to voluntarily undergo the treatment of his boobytrap.

talltimtom 8y ago
Seems weird that you expect him to pay more when you Donny know how much he payed in the first place...
- mcv 8y ago
  You don't think having to clean up fine glitter everywhere would increase the effort and therefore the cost of participating in this?

rasz 8y ago

>Rober deleted about a minute and a half from his original YouTube video yesterday, and reuploaded it—something YouTube allows you to do without sacrificing the number of hits a user has accumulated wait, what? you can edit YT videos without changing video ID? When did that happen?

manigandham 8y ago

If a package was opened inside his friend/neighbors own house, how did he not recognize that?