LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 147 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan & Tony D’Onofrio

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

This week on CrimeScience, Dr. Hayes discusses the upcoming Violence Crime Summit and its increasing relevance, as well as the upcoming NRSS and its value as a tool for practitioners. Our hosts also discuss the top 5 grocery chains in the US in 2023, top 10 jobs that will be lost and top 10 gained due to AI innovations, and Department of Justice and FBI crackdown on hackers and trackers. Listen in to stay updated on hot topics in the industry and more! The post CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 147 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, the podcast. This is the latest in our weekly update series, and I'm joined today by Tony D'Onofrio and Tom Meehan, our producers Diego Rodriguez and Wilson Gavirino. And we're just going to go around the horn a little bit, talk with you all. And we're preparing two more special guests coming up on upcoming episodes and then starting to develop some others as well. So I'm excited about it. We'll talk a little bit about LPRC real quickly. Again, we've got our

Violent Crime Working Group Summit coming up in Houston, Texas. We're excited about the summit, and we're going to have some hands-on exercises talking about active assailant, talking about armed robbery. We're going to talk about other types of aggression, particularly in store, and of course, particularly relevant and tragic given what happened this past weekend in an area north of Dallas, Texas, in the mall. And so some of this will be talked about, highly relevant. And we're really looking forward to you all getting in there and participating with us and helping us come up with better ways to work together, particularly through research and development. So go on to the

lpresearch.org website, go to events. The LPRC Violent Crime Summit is May 22nd, 23rd. It is coming up. It is right around the corner. And what you'll be seeing is it will be hosted by the AXIS team at their Experience Center in Houston. That's on Town and Country Boulevard. And then right next door, there's some other things going on at the Queensberry Theater there. There'll be a walk and talk terrain and observation exercise as well there. So we're looking forward to seeing everybody there. Another special note, the LPRC team continues to carry on for the University of Florida team in working on the NRSS, the National Retail Security Survey. Again, a survey that Dr. Bart Weitz, that I worked on, Dr. Richard Hollinger, and going back, in this case,

to the early 90s. And the study continues. Dr. Corey Lowe, our research team leader, senior research scientist here at the LPRC, is spearheading the effort. He's also working with James Martin, another research scientist on our team. But what we're going to do is encourage each and every retailer that may tune in or mall owner operator that may be tuning in or those that you know in your organization, please, when you get the NRSS completely and accurately filled out, we need all of us, the industry, everybody needs good and better data even on what the problems are, how they're occurring, what you're doing about it, what you need, and so forth. So the NRSS allows all of us in the industry to better and better assess what the issues are, where they're clustered by type, as well as place and time via the ARCS project as well. So the NRSS, look for it. If you don't get it, you're a retailer, then please, again, reach out to us. In this case, Corey, C-O-R-Y, Corey at lpresearch.org,

and he can link you up and get you the right documents. So we look forward to talking about that with you and getting with you on the results later when we have all those, and that will be, of course, several months. We also want to, again, bring up the progress that's being made in the University of Florida's Safer Places Lab Eastside Initiative. Again, there are a cluster of stores. We're going to be working with five to ten of those. We pretty much have a solid lineup here of different types of retailers.

These stores are co-located within one mile of each other in this cluster. It's a relatively high crime area for property and crimes against person types of fences, fairly heavily victimized area. We're going to do deep dives. I've mentioned before a lot of imagery from satellite high-resolution imagery to drone imagery at the different altitudes and day and night, as well as using our Matterport and 3D video camera and so on to really create 3D models to go with our very intense interactive mapping that we're doing for the area, getting cap index scores and beyond. So I'm really excited. We've got our guiding document, our framework, a tentative schedule, the memorandum of understanding draft, and all the things are

in line and ready to go. It's a matter of now of getting the individual retailers on board, having a group call with the retailers, our research team, and the Gainesville Police Department to go through what we want to do. We'll then do a terrain walk after we've done a dive into the data that have been collected from law enforcement and from the retailers involved, as well as some anecdotal and survey information. Then we'll go to the site and walk and talk there and then commence our action. So stay tuned for the Safer Places Lab Eastside initiative coming soon to a town near you. One thing that we'll be working on is, I mentioned before, the concentration of effort, the clustering of what we need, the resources, the commitment, the effort.

We call it mass. And we'll just extend that talk just a little bit here and just for a minute or two and talk about the idea of focus. What we're going to do will be highly focused. The ways that we're going to be looking at these things are going to be in three major, we're going to do will be highly focused. The ways that we're going to be looking at these things are going to be in three major, we're going to call them domains, right? One is what interventions and intervention or solution packages, treatments can we put singularly and collectively along, again, the offender journey to crime, that as they move in place and time toward a specific location to victimize somebody or that place or both, what can we put at each step and stage

they need to take to be successful in their mind before, during, and after they go kinetic or commit that crime, create that harm. So that will be job one, is looking at what an individual retailer can do. We've got drugstore, convenience store, auto parts, in other words, small box specialty. We've got big box and Walmart in this case, and so on. So we've got different types of retailers that are co-located. There are hard roads that connect them. There are also wooded paths that connect them. So we're going to be leveraging what we know about the terrain, the connected places that are involved and are not involved in the study. We're going to be leveraging that operational framework,

that design, that strategy to affect that. The second part, earlier warning, right, we talk a lot about that and better definition. So again, what sensors, aural, digital, and visual, including online sensors, do we need to align along that journey to crime while they're left of bang or pre-event, while they're moving toward, while they're kinetic at bang, and then as they leave and it's post-event or right of bang. What sensors can we align along there? How do we integrate those within a retailer, within that area in between retailers? And then finally, with, of course, law enforcement.

So we're working a lot on that. And then the last part is going to be sharing protocols and technologies. How can we connect those places better with the mothership of each chain, that store that's involved? How do we better connect them between stores in this connected area, this study area, if you will? between stores in this connected area, this study area, if you will, how do we better connect those places with each other at the store employee, at the store manager, at that district or market area, asset protection or loss prevention, security, those players, as well as with their corporate offices. And then, of course, again, with law enforcement so that there's a sharing of intelligence and information, sharing of ideas and concepts and feedback on what we're doing and so forth, sharing of threats,

of risks, of events or problems, incidents that they're experiencing, again, between and within and so forth. So very, very ambitious project, but we are serious. This is our number one project that the LPRC and the University of Florida Safe for Places Lab will be working on in 23, 24, and 25. You will, as we've mentioned before, you'll see us also start to include an enclosed mall area, to work on individual places as well as collaborative and collective place or co-located place protection and then you'll see us with an open retail center environment so retailers are within centers and retailers that are not but are co-located will be the three research areas in addition to our uh suite of six interior labs and our four square blocks, safer places

lab. So you'll see that kind of translational science happening and including the real world people that need to be involved, the technologies, integrations, compute, sharing protocols, and so on. But it's going to give us a somewhat secure, protected way, a scientific way to gather data, protect the data, share the information, have protocols that will better safeguard, physically safeguard people as well as from others that might try and tap into that information. So stay tuned for the LPRC Safer Places Lab Eastside. So I want to go ahead, if I may, and turn this over to Tony D'Onofrio, who has been traveling the world. Tony, take it away.

Thank you, Reid. Let me start this week with a summary from RIS News on what are the top five U.S. grocery chains in 2023. Number one, number one is Walmart. Walmart claimed the number one spot overall within their survey of a top 100 retailers with nearly a 17% share of the market, equating to $611 billion in sales. It also comes on top of the grocery market. Number two is Amazon. comes on top of the grocery market. Number two is Amazon. Amazon ranked second on the overall list as well as the grocery ranking. The company makes just over 14% share of the retail market totaling an amazing 514 billion dollars in sales and this is a significant bump compared to last year

resulting in almost 45 million dollar difference in sales and this is a significant bump compared to last year resulting in almost 45 million dollar difference in sales from where the company claimed that just over 10 percent of the market in 2022. Number three is Costco. Costco ranked number four in overall retail ranking and third in grocery. He owns roughly six and a half percent of the market, totaling $234 billion in sales, which is up slightly from last year's $210 billion in sales. Number four is Kroger. Kroger ranked number six in the overall list but made up made in the top five of the grocery ranking the company has managed several significant enterprise-wide investments of the past year including uh heavy workforce well-being lift and middle mile transformation overall celebrating 148 billion dollars in sales and 14% just over 14% at just over 4% share of the market and number five is target target ranked number eight in the

overall retail ranking but it just cracked into the top five they make up just over three percent of the retail market total totaling $109 billion in sales. The company has also made several strides over the past year. For example, it recently launched a nationwide drive-up return that is planning for several enterprise-wide upgrades. Really interesting news in terms of how the mix between some of the different segments, including Amazon and Walmart, which is more of a discounter, and Target, which is, again, a different type of a retailer,

making up the top five highest grocery sales in the United States. Switching topics, let me go to the Sun and this is actually an article that was published in the US Sun and it's about the the US retailer Giant Foods which recently talked more about some of the challenges that they're having with theft and what they are doing about it and this is what's really interesting to me. Giant is now limiting self-checkout kiosks to just 20 items per customer. In addition, Giant food stores now will close at 10 and both rules are in response to an increase in shoplifting and crime. And in one location they're even

adding security guards. A note from the president of Giant Foods in one of the stores says, quote, due to a significant increase in crime and theft that we and many other retailers are experiencing across our market, we have made several changes to our operating procedures to mitigate the impact of theft to our business. We know that these changes may cause some inconvenience and be disruptive to the experience you have used to. I assure you we are making these changes out of necessity to prioritize safety of our associates and customers." Very interesting moves, especially limiting the number of items in self-checkout and response

to retail crime and finally this week we've been talking a lot about AI and chat GPT and what exactly is AI going to do to us so switching topics again to this final topic this week and I'm going to go to the World Economic Forum, which reported on the top jobs that will be lost and those that will be gained because of artificial intelligence. Around 40% of all working hours could be impacted by the AI large language model such as CHET, GPT-4, according to a report from Accenture. Many clerical and secretary roles seem to be likely to decline quickly because of AI, according to the World Economic Future of Jobs Report 2023. And in fact, the top 10 fastest declining jobs because of AI are number one, bank tellers and

related clerks, number two, post of service clerks. Number three, this one was interesting, cashiers and ticket clerks. Number four, data entry clerks. Number five, administrative and executive secretaries. Number six, material recording and stuff keeping clerks. Number seven, accounting, bookkeeping and payroll clerks. Number seven, accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll clerks. Number eight, legislators and officials. That one was interesting too. Number nine, statistical finance and insurance clerks. And number 10, door-to-door sales workers, news and street vendors,

and related workers. Interesting that clerks is all over that so that's the area that again according to the research is going to be the most impacted from AI but here are the top 10 jobs that will be gained because of AI and they are number one AI and machine learning specialist, number two sustainability specialist, number two, Sustainability Specialist, number three, Business Intelligence Analyst, number four, Information Security Analyst, number five, ThinkTech Engineers, number six, Data Analyst and Scientist,

number seven, Robotics Engineers, number eight, Electro Technology Engineers, number nine, Agric technology engineers, number nine, agricultural equipment operators, and number 10, digital transformation specialists. In summary, artificial intelligence is expected to be adopted by nearly 75% of surveyed companies and lead to a high churn with 50% of organizations, believe me, will result in job growth and 25% said it will create job losses. So in a lot of ways, it's actually good news in terms of the types of jobs and also what it's going to do in terms of artificial intelligence going forward. So stay tuned to this podcast for more. And with that, let me turn it over to Tom. Well, thank you, Tony. And thank you, Reid.

Lots to cover today, but I'm going to be brief as I think we're all traveling out and about at trade shows. But I'm going to start just with some Department of Justice and FBI information related to cyber risk and cyber threat. The FBI sees 13 more domains linked to DDoS attacks for hire. So there is this subset of groups of folks both on the dark web and the open web that are basically hackers for hire, and they're offering services for hacking. And one of the things that was commonly happening is DDoS for hire. So you have these groups that would be paid to do denial of service attacks, which to oversimplify is just overloading a website with traffic to basically seize it up and

stop it. There are a lot of companies out there today that work on stopping that and slowing that down. If you ever see a Cloudflare message pop up, it's probably because there's some sort of event occurring. Cloudflare is trying to slow the traffic down and identify what, in fact, is good or bad. This is a little bit of a change. This is a little bit of a change. We're starting to see the FBI and Department of Justice in general and or deviant behavior is often driven by a lower perceived perception of risk. This, in fact,

increases that perception of risk and minimizes the financial value for the bad actor. So this is something that I think we'll continue to see. In addition to that, in the news, the FBI also was able, with intelligence agencies, to take down some infrastructure used by the Snake Cyber Espionage Malware Group, which is operated by the Russian Federal Security Services, another example of where the federal government is actually taking action against some of these bad actors. So I think we continue to see this trend. I think for all of us here listening, it's good, whether it be behind the scenes or out in the front, things that you know that we're seeing an actual activity that is potentially limiting the financial gain for some of these bad actors as well as increasing the risk, which in turn should – we should see a benefit in it. So I think definitely something to be mindful of and keep an eye on.

I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I think we've been talking about it every week and I probably, probably won't see it going away anytime soon is the conversation about chat GPT or generative AI because chat GPT is, is open AI as a version of a generative AI. And what, what, what we're starting to see is this is just almost every day in the news cycle. And as with all things, we're starting to actually see nefarious actors take advantage of some of the things that are occurring.

For one, we are seeing both on the Android and the iOS store. I think there are more reports in the Android store of chat GPT apps that aren't really chat GPT. So people are going in and they're either subscribing or they're allowing access to their devices and they're losing information for what sometimes is a pseudo chat GPT engine that looks like a chat bot or is just not at all and that the app is trying to solicit you to give information or get access to information on your phone what this is really in important to kind of state is that as this continues to grow in popularity we need to be mindful of that you know that the latest and greatest apps might need to,

you might need to take a second glance at it. Right now, if you search the App Store for ChatGPT, you're going to see, you know, a plethora of results. And you need to really understand what they do and what the benefit is of them. I think that ChatGPT is a part of our life these days, and I think we'll continue to see it. But much like we always say, take a little bit of an extra second to read the description and understand who it is, how many people have downloaded it, what are the reviews that are being said. And when in doubt, don't download it. Don't click on it. Just go ahead and take some time to research it a little bit more.

We're also seeing on the App Store a continuous approach of apps that are asking for access to things they don't necessarily need. So if you're on Android or Apple and you get that pop-up of this app wants access to this, take a second guess. Why does this app wants access to this, take a second guess. Why does an app need access to your contacts? Why does an app need access to your file subsystem? Why does it need access to a camera or microphone? If those are not things that are being used, then deny it

and you really probably want to dig a little deeper and see what, in fact, it is using. I think the other thing we're starting to see is that as app makers understand the privacy challenges that are being faced and how the phones and apps are being developed and some of the security protocols that are putting in place app developers are becoming more crafty explaining why they want or need access

to things. So just be very, very mindful of it. I know we touched on it a little bit in the past few weeks, but this made attention in the news once again. Timu, which is the number one app on iOS, really almost intentionally

by the looks of it and all the reporting, kind of disguised its parent company from being a Chinese company with government ties. As I've said many, many times before on here, that any app that provides you with anything for free, you are the monetization of these apps. So I think one of the things to keep in mind is if it is free, someone is monetizing your data in some way if you're getting a benefit. And to keep aware of it, I'm not necessarily suggesting that people stop using apps, but I think it's important to recognize what the potential challenges will be.

We're also starting to see a slew of states that are trying to ban particular apps as illegal to download in the state. I think where the verdict is out, I know that Montana just recently placed a bill and it has not been into law to ban TikTok. I think that it's important to note that this is just a bill. It hasn't been put into law. But what that would mean is it would ban it and then not allow it to be downloaded there. I think there are a host of countries, governments, and agencies all going down this path today.

But I think we all have to be very mindful of what that means. So understanding what is the Belgium, the country of Belgium was the most recent to ban TikTok throughout the country. So I think the other thing to note here is the more attention these apps get, the more intrigued folks are and looking into them and seeing what it is. My recommendation is to just be very, very aware of what you're doing. I use social media every day. We do this podcast every week. So, you know, understanding what the risk is, understanding why there is a risk and then making an educated decision based on your current situation. I think if you have children, it's important to note that they're educated in what they can and can't do, what the risk is for them. And then I think it's more about just keeping that education

and awareness open. Another, just, and this will probably be the last thing I end with, is there has been, at the beginning of May, the very, very first week of May, there was a group of companies that got together with Washington to talk about the potential of stalking by using an Android tag, an AirTag, or even a Tile device. And so what's basically happening now is that all the makers have come together and they're looking at, this is still in the earlier stages, an approach to standardize an anti-stalking

approach. Today, if you're using an AirTag to track a device and it is not in contact with your device in a certain amount of time, it starts to beep. Additionally, both Android and Apple, Apple has a much more native approach here, identify you when there's a tracker in your area that isn't yours and there's a tracker in your area that isn't yours,

and there's a privacy message basically unknown in the area. There are also apps here to identify this. So what I suspect is over the next several weeks, we will see things change to not only make these devices less likely to be used for people tracking, because that was not the original intention, but also we will detect unwanted trackers is what you'll start to see, where there will be a lot more information out there. And once this becomes standardized, whether it's regulatory driven or not, I think we're going to definitely see a difference in how these devices work. So

it's something to keep in mind with. It's front of mind because I often get asked, could I use this to track potentially solar merchandise or even displays in stores? And the answer is you could. However, this is becoming more and more challenging because these devices were used for nefarious action, which in turn has the developers changing the way they approach the situation. And with that, I will turn it back over to Reid. All right. Well, thanks so much, Tom, for an amazing array of good information, actionable information.

Tom and I, by the way, have been talking about better and better ways to leverage different types of GPS and other tracking, crowdsource tracking of actual assets for the betterment of their protection. And so thank you for all that sharing there. And I want to thank Tony for some amazing information as well. I want to thank Diego and, of course, Wilson for their production, Wilson for your editing, your guidance as well. And I want to, of course, thank each and every one of you all. Please spread the word. Like us. And you hear all this on other podcasts.

Repost, spread the word about Crime Science, the podcast. Everybody stay safe, stay connected. 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. 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.