LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 133 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan & Tony D’Onofrio

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

2023 LPRC Kickoff is just around the corner! In this week’s episode, our co-hosts discuss the continued planning of LPRC Integrate, the future – a look at 2023 predictions in the retail world, the NRF Big Show, and a look at the newest data breaches and cybersecurity threats! Listen in to stay updated on hot topics in the industry and more! The post CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 133 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan & Tony D’Onofrio appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we explore the science of crime and the practical application of this science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners as well as other professionals. Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Crime Science Podcast. This is the latest in our weekly update series. I'm joined by Tony D'Onofrio and Tom Ian, our producer Diego Rodriguez, and our production team leader, we've got also Wilson Gaborino. And we want to go through around the horn and get some input, insights from our world-class subject matter experts that we've got here. I'm going to be just kind of doing an intro and outro as we're preparing a scenario working on about 36

projects and preparing to go to New York City for the NRF's annual big show, as well as the LPRC upcoming kickoff meeting that'll be a January 18th hosted by Bloomingdale's. And we've got a full house and overflowing actually waiting list. So we're excited about the energy and the participation level. We're honored for that. But again, we're preparing, heavily preparing right now for LPRC's inaugural integrate program. This will be just a planning session, this one.

So it'll be retailer only. We'll have between 30 and 90 retailers here in Gainesville, depending on travel conditions out there. But we're excited. We'll have a red, white, and blue teams, three of them, that will go through a total scenario, as we've mentioned before, left of bang or pre-event at bang, which is the event, and then right of bang post-event. So it's going to be action-packed.

We'll go through and learn how to create better scenarios. There'll be some embedded tabletops for the retailers to make decisions. We'll also be working with the tech team as we integrate just about 50 technologies together, sensors, connectors, analytics, communications, and dissemination tools, as well as some of the protective devices that are laid out there for a two-person crew. Those LPRC members, just be advised out there that we will do a 90-minute recap and interactive session, a debrief, a download on what we learned to all of our members, a date and time to be announced. There will be, of course, recorded for those who can't join, but you will have the

opportunity to integrate with us, engage with us live. But we're very, very excited about this. This is an unprecedented event. In fact, we just had some people that are academics and faculty at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, or FLETC, as well as the North Florida equivalent here in Gainesville that we've got here. The Santa Fe College has what they operate, the Kirkpatrick Public Safety Training Center, their institute. So we're working with all the right people to put together the right scenarios. We've got seven retail chains. Their experts have been helping us plan this in very detail, much detail. LPRC's Innovate Advisory Panel made up of 11 solution partners and experts from 30 major retailers have been the overarching sponsors and helping us develop it as well as the tech people from, again, about 45 to 50 technologies in their organization. scenarios in Gainesville at our six indoor labs and outside in our four-square-block operating

area, our Safer Places Lab, where we'll do some live scenario tabletop exercises that'll continue, hopefully, to take us all to the next level at better safeguarding vulnerable people and places. With no further ado, let me turn it over to Tony D'Onofrio, and then we'll go to Tom Meehan. Another thing I want to let everybody know is we'll be recording from the NRF Big Show next week, our next episode after this one. So, Tony, if you'll take it away. Thank you, Reid, for all those great updates. This week, I want to summarize some 2023 predictions from various sources as we begin the new year. And let me start with Visual Capitalist.

And I'm going to read you an entire list that they published, a really interesting list, which I think covers a whole bunch of trends from economy to technology to risks that are coming potentially in 2023. And here they are. Regulators will clamp down on TikTok and other tech companies. Energy will remain expensive in 2023. Broad equity indices will rise, but a rising tide will not lift all boats.

Google's stronghold on search will loosen. This one was very interesting to me. European unity will be tested as individual economies face headwinds. Value will trump hyper growth, which is going to be a challenge for Silicon Valley, in my view. China will maintain an aggressive stance, but no Taiwan invasion. Artificial intelligence will pop up everywhere. China's economy will bounce back after reopening. The U.S. dollar search has come to an end. The outlook is positive for emerging markets and their currencies, especially commodity exporters. Bonds are back, baby.

Bonds are back, baby. Global recession risk is high, but the USA may narrowly miss it. The Russia-Ukraine war, unfortunately, will not end in 2023. The crypto winter will continue. War culture will continue to bend towards flexibility. Tensions will grow between citizens and governments, especially in authoritarian countries. Following Elon Musk, Silicon Valley will thrash headcount and cost.

Education will face disruption from various angles. Real GDP growth will be in the 1.5% to 2% range with a high variance between nations. This is something that I wrote about. They used to be much, much higher, 6% plus in 21 and so on, and it's really dramatically dropping. Interest rates will peak in 23. India will have a strong year. Inflation will begin to cool off but will remain well above target levels. More retail brands will launch recycling programs and more manufacturing will shift away from China.

I fully agree with many of these. Switching sources, here are some retail trends to watch from RIS News. Retail media networks will expand. Frictionless trends in retail will accelerate. More immersive commerce is coming. Customer 360 views or customer data platforms are on the horizon. Supply chains will level up. Expect an acceleration of the journey to cloud applications in 2023. Also some very

interesting analysis and again switching sources from the Harvard Business Review on what to expect in technology in 2023. As they open, 2023 will likely be a sober year in tech. Geopolitical and economic uncertainties are injecting more caution into the next phase of tech's evolution. Leaders will have to search for ways to do more with less, find value where innovations overlap, and strategically invest in technology that are hitting a tipping point. Lots of discussion in their analysis on combinational trends and combinational technology, which I agree with. In fact, that's a trend that's been discussed even at the loss prevention council in terms of doing a lot more

integration and combination technology versus silo technology and I think that's coming. They also expanded the Harvard Business Review on game changing technology such as 5G, AI and cloud hitting tipping points for mass adoptions. The research that they publish shows that companies are looking to move up about 60% of their IT estate to cloud by 2025, and more than 50% of companies report they've adopted AI or artificial intelligence in at least one function's other business. And finally, ending on an important list because this relates to the big show where I'm hoping to see many of you next week. From the NRF, from the Retail National Federation, here are their 10 predictions for retail in 2023. And a lot of these again were very interesting. Investments in the

metaverse will be best described as, can you guess? It's gonna be hot, it's gonna be accelerated. No, according to the prediction from the NRF article it's a hard maybe. So the metaverse only a hard maybe. Progress in Web3 is advancing especially blockchain technologies but overall acceptance is still in the early stages. Look for more retailers to jump on the retail media network bandwagon. The channel casts a wide net when it comes to new possibilities for increased revenue. In 2023, artificial intelligence shifts from singles to doubles and to home runs. Smaller footprint stores will flourish as retailers experiment with new formats. as retailers experiment with new formats. Generation Alpha, better known as Gen A, which will succeed Gen Z, is poised to be the largest and most technologically connected

demographic in history, and they will test retailers like none before. Sustainability becomes the thread that weaves through every business process. Greenwashing is tantamount to brand sabotage. 2023 marks a new normal for supply chains. Expect less chaos, a greater focus on projects that enable visibility, and a spotlight on emerging third-party logistics platforms. Retailers have been sounding the alarm on theft for years. 2023 could generate a collective response on the federal and state level. On this one, it's way overdue.

I've written multiple articles on this one. We really got to get our handle on theft. It is our hand, and we got to do a much better job at it. And the 10 trend, which is an interesting way to compromise, consumer shopping behavior were ultimately determined in 2023, whether it's going to be a good year or a bad year. So it's up to the consumers and what they do in 2023. So there is a list from multiple sources

in terms of what 2023 could look like from multiple perspectives. I do think retail is a robust industry and will do well. There will be challenges, but a lot of those challenges will be in places that we're having challenges before we get into these tougher economic times. Some will recover and some, unfortunately, may not.

So I'm looking forward again to seeing many of you at the NRAF Big Show. Don't hesitate to look me up and potentially us getting together. And with that, let me turn it over to Tom. Well, thank you, Tony, and thank you, Reid. And today I'm recording on January 11th, a Wednesday. Normally we do our recordings on a Tuesday. And why did I bring that up? Well, because this morning, for the first time since 9-11, we had all air travel grounded

by the FAA in the United States. This is a major big deal. I think that last report, it was only grounded for about 24 minutes. I think when we get it all said and done, it'll be somewhere between 22 and 34 minutes based on some of the reporting. But as of just a few minutes ago,

there were just about 5,000 flights and expected to be up to 8,000 flights delayed and about 800 canceled. And interestingly enough, we talk a lot of times about, I think in even the last podcast, the risk of legacy and outdated systems. And Southwest experienced an outage because an older scheduling system that was 30 years old. And with the air traffic controlling system, this is one of those systems that is outdated, that the FAA recognizes that every five or six years they talk about upgrading it. And some of it is older than 20 years old. And that allows for not only security risks, but the challenges like we're facing today with ground stops.

And this will be, by the time you're listening to this podcast, this will be all over the news. I expect if we publish on Thursday like we always do, that the cover of every public newspaper in the United States and globally will have something about this based on what is occurring. So stay tuned to that. And I think one of the things I would say is we continuously talk about the risk of outdated systems. I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and some of this may sound repetitive, but this is all new news,

just things that are continuing throughout the chain of kind of cybersecurity and risk. continuing throughout the chain of kind of cybersecurity and risk. The state of New Jersey this week announced that they were going to ban TikTok on all state devices. And we've talked about other towns, states, federal governments doing that. I think this is a trend that's not going to go away. I think this is a trend that will continue. And eventually you'll probably see a rebranding of TikTok or TikTok just dissolving, even though it's as large as it is. When you have multiple state and federal governments banning it, it becomes the next run will be probably some commercial establishments. And then it becomes a very tough challenge for a company like TikTok. and then it becomes a very tough challenge for a company like TikTok.

I think one of the things to say is that while the Chinese government having ownership of TikTok poses risks or perceived risks that other social media platforms don't have, there's no doubt that some of the other things with TikTok are very similar to what you would experience with Facebook or Twitter. So I think it's just something to keep an eye on. I wanted to talk a little bit about a different type of attack or thing that's occurring throughout social media. Before I get to the attack, I want to talk about a term called shadow banning where an algorithm essentially bans or doesn't show what it would normally show based on a certain subject or personality where there's an algorithm that doesn't eliminate it but basically slows down. I think it's stealth banning or ghost banning of comments or posted posts on social media.

We're starting to hear more about this. And sometimes this is unintentional and sometimes I can't confirm that it's intentional, but we do know that there were some reports specific to Twitter about government agencies working with Twitter to have accounts not show up on people's feeds and move things. cyber incident or attack related to social media where somebody can take an influencer or a person of popularity and buy fake followers, which in turn causes an algorithm to sometimes inadvertently ban or lower that person's ability to be seen by other folks. So I noticed on my Twitter account an extremely large amount of followers. And my Twitter account has stayed in the 2,000 to 4,000 follower range for literally years. And then all of a sudden, at once, I did. And what I had looked at is the bulk of them were fake. And then I started doing some research and emailing. And apparently this is a thing that occurs pretty regularly. And what it caused me to do is to research deeper. And this is one of the inherent risks with social media that it's somewhat

uncontrollable and folks can go out and artificially manipulate, either look a lot larger than they are or vice versa, be inadvertently pushed down. So when you start to really dig into this, there are a whole host of folks that are in the public spotlight that have been shadow banned. Basically, this is one of those things that occurred around some of the political turmoil and some of the censorship and some of the things that way that we've been talking about for a while. Unfortunately, this has turned into a method of folks being able to artificially manipulate the way social media works. Why do we always talk about social media? Because we know that the listeners here, if you're listening to a podcast, there's a high likelihood that you are active on social media. Additionally, we know that most, if not all, of the organizations that are here use social media and active intelligence intelligence some fashion to see what's going on, certainly for event-driven data.

So I think this is all, you know, things that we need to be aware of. I would certainly say that this is, there's no, no, this isn't new news, but it's certainly something to be out there. Next week is the NRF Big Show. but it's certainly something to be out there. Next week is the NREF Big Show. Myself, Tony, and Reid will be taping live at the Big Show, so excited for that. It's always fun to be together,

so we'll tape this podcast live together in person, so look out for that. If you're going to be attending the Big Show, go ahead and reach out to any three of us. We'd love to say hello. go ahead and reach out to any three of us. We'd love to say hello. Also next week on Wednesday is the LPRC's kickoff meeting at Bloomingdale's. So for those that are attending, look forward to seeing you. And with that, I will turn it back over to Reid. Thanks so much, Tom, for all that information. Thank you, Tony, as well. And most of all, thank you all, Diego and Wilson as well. Stay safe and stay in touch.

Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more crime science episodes and valuable information at lpresearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Loss Prevention Research Council.