LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 186

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

This week our hosts discuss some of the newest and latest trends, technology, and LPRC news! In this episode, our hosts discuss new LPRC Members in the Labs, the Donald Trump Trial deliberations begin, a look at clicking unknown links, and a look at a new batch of cyber security threats. Listen in to stay updated on hot topics in the industry and more!

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. I'm joined by Tom Meehan, as well as our producer, Diego Rodriguez. And we're going to take a quick spin around the world of loss prevention and asset protection. We've got distinguished visitors in our labs this week, as per normal. Columbia Sportswear, a new LPRC member, our 97th retail corporate member of the LPRC is exciting. We continue to grow and add quality teams and individuals.

O'Reilly was another recent one. Bass Pro Shop, new examples of amazing teams joining the LPRC to work together with us and their partners and our partners on reducing crime and loss, theft, fraud, and violence, leveraging the research and the collaborations that come with a year-round engagement like LPRC. We also have a meeting with the Alachua County Sheriff's Office here to get them engaged in the local Gainesville initiatives, the Safer Places Labs, in the same way that we've got the Gainesville Police Department, University of Florida Police Department, the Gainesville Fire Rescue. Now we also, in addition to Alachua County Sheriff's Office,

we'll have the Alachua County Fire Rescue. So we've taken the labs from inside to the four square blocks of Innovation Square at UF, where we're situated, to Gainesville Eastside, all of Gainesville, and now coming up all of the county. So it's exciting. Again, the law enforcement agencies, what they do is work with our team to leverage Python code and a Google Cloud platform. In this case, we've got some encryption and protection, but they upload all of their calls for service data in depth, their report systems, their RMSs. They'll upload those for the cases as well as arrests. And so leveraging that information as well as code enforcement

information uh fire rescue calls for service information um and so much more bus stop locations bus routes um abandoned buildings and and so forth the this comp you know very complete or much more complete anyway picture of what's going on in the area and be able to separate and use it to analyze locations and times and other correlations. It's just simply amazing. We've also got the sensor locations. In other words, all license plate recognition systems, traffic cams, other camera systems, and so forth, to get an idea of what's needed, where, how can all the players, the retailers, and the law enforcement partners, as well as, of course, fire rescue, code enforcement, and other entities, work together and be much more precise and use pinpoint technologies to do just that.

More technologies have gone in our labs. One thing we're doing is we're creating different integrated systems here that you might see in a retail enterprise and in a place, and it could be other enterprises as well. Fusis is one of our active members here. We've got one of their server cores, it's called a core, and we've been integrating every University of Florida camera, LVT mobile platform, mobile protective unit, excuse me, MPU sensors into that, as well as other MPUs

sensors into that as well as other MPUs that we've got on board here. So we've got indoor, outdoor cameras and other sensors going into and registered into the system, as well as body-worn cameras we've got from Motorola, from Axon, from Axis, from Reveal Media. Those are all being integrated in our Skydio drone as well um so you can imagine again every sensor that's available to us in the four square block area that's simulating community uh we're also putting in arlo and blink ring cameras as well registering those in that we're putting into that environment to simulate resonances or private businesses that might have closed-loop systems as opposed to open-loop to allow us to conduct simulated events like you've seen with our last two integrate programs and test and understand how to instantaneously create

that common operating picture as is Atlanta Police Department's one place. We saw the other day in the news, and our team has been coordinating with New York City and New York City NYPD as well, where multiple precincts are rolling out that process. But we've also set up a flock network, and we're building that out a Motorola system building that out working with milestone with sure view and others to build out those systems so that we've got multiple integrated systems to do simulations to do demonstrations to do research and development with will later expand those into Gainesville Eastside and Westside and so on. Also, eventually patch in what's going on potentially with in New York City, in Atlanta, in Albuquerque and other research areas that we're working in or being asked to come work in Detroit, for example, is another potential.

Our team's small. Our team is heavily, heavily tasked, always working on at least 60 projects, putting on six events, participating in others' organizations' events, constant visitors, VIPs coming through. We're excited to do each and everything that we do, but we're trying to be very reasonable and understand that there's just only so much research, so much demonstration, so much teaching and education that we can be involved in. But very, very exciting. We're looking forward to participating in the upcoming NRF Protect Conference, the RELA Asset Protection Conference. NRF Protect Conference, the RILA Asset Protection Conference, according to our team, I was not able to make it due to another conflict that I had with something, my duties at UF, but very excited about also in this case, hopefully getting to participate in NRF Protect. So we will see you all out there. We want to again extend an invitation to come into the labs, spend some time with our team brainstorming. We have rooms available or, or other really cool spaces available for your team to break off and go in there. Um, so always, always on the

table. Um, so what I'm going to do with no further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Tom Meehan. If you would, take it away. Well, thank you, Reid. And I believe we are all out about traveling. I know that Tony's overseas in Europe. I'm actually in India today taping. So I apologize for any background noise. But wanted to start off with the criminal trial on President Trump is wrapping up today. Both the prosecution and the defense are working on closing arguments as I tape. Several hours in the making. I would say for our audience and our group to just be mindful and aware that there is a potential for civil unrest if and when there is a verdict. And when I say if, there's an opportunity here for this trial to continue on for several days, depending on how the jury looks at everything.

But I'm not sure that it has a lot to do with the verdict. There's a lot of chatter on either side that if something occurs, pardon me, that if something occurs that one of two sides will react. So this is just, again, we talk about civil unrest often on the podcast. It's just reminding everyone to stay mindful, be aware of what potentially could create a challenge for you based on where you are located. Certainly in New York City around the courthouse specifically, they have it fairly locked down, have had it for some time. So I'm not sure that that's going to be as much as a point as other areas, but we'll continue to monitor it here. And if necessary, we will absolutely set up the Fusion Center and communicate with the group. I encourage

any listeners, if they are hearing anything from local or federal law enforcement, to share it with the greater Loss Prevention Research Council community so that we can work together and get information out to the larger group. Next week is NRF Protect in Long Beach. I will be there. I know Reed will be there as well. I think Tony, unfortunately, will not be. So we'll be taping live there. But really excited to be there and see each and every one of you and talk about some of the trends and things that are going on inside the loss prevention and asset protection space as well as the cyber security space. I'll be speaking on Thursday about artificial intelligence and some of the risks and concerns around privacy and legal issues. So I'm really excited about that and I'm super excited

to see everyone there. Earlier this week, North Korea launched a spy satellite into space. Obviously, it was a spy satellite, so they did not let anybody know. And it created serious warnings for Japan as it looked like a ballistic missile on radar, which had folks in Japan shelter in place. That rocket detonated or exploded in midair, and there's a lot of video about this. The North Korean government, while they don't make very many statements, did in fact acknowledge that it was a satellite, that it failed satellite launch. There was a lot of news internationally about this. Not as much in the U.S., but it's a pretty miraculous video of watching this occur.

The explosion could be seen, and there's a lot of video on there. This continues to kind of talk about the, continues to show the geopolitical state and continues to speak to the tensions globally. We are in a very, very challenging geopolitical state with 61 countries with elections this year. So we'll continue to monitor that. So we'll continue to monitor that. I'm not going to talk about some of the things that came of it because I think it's information that hasn't been validated yet. But I'm going to switch gears and kind of give my weekly AI update. So OpenAI, who is the parent company of ChatGBT, has established a safety and security committee for new AI model training.

They've formed a safety and security meeting led by the CEO, Sam Altman, to oversee the training of its next artificial model. So there was an announcement yesterday, and actually yesterday, that they were already training a new model, so newer than for Chow-2BD4 Omni. So this is very, very interesting, exciting, also somewhat concerning that is the pace of this model creation moving too quickly to ensure that it's actually safe. One of the things about AI is AI hinges on trusts

in order to fully be utilized by the greater public and businesses. There was a couple of really good articles related to the committee, but then there was one that actually talks about AI, engineering trust, and Google and Microsoft OpenAI showcased many developments in their AI systems and highlighted the rapid evolution of the technology in the last couple of weeks. Specifically, one that came up in a lot of news features like recall for Microsoft Copilot, which is the ability locally on your machine to basically go back in time and find a document with very little information, cause privacy concerns as being

questioned by the EU. Google's real-time spam detection also came up and, okay, so this has to look at the emails. Mind you that this is something that's been going on for many, many years for advertising purposes. And then advances with chatbot. It's like GPT-4.0 are consistently being challenged in the media and by governments. In order to really harness the full ability, there has to be garner trust in the technology. So I think I'm definitely talking about this at the NRF, but the key factor here is that tech companies have to, while they're emphasizing their commitment to responsible AI development, they need to engender trust and actually share freely with what they're doing. And there needs to be government regulation. We talk about this all the time. I think we're in this pivotal moment of the technologies

outpacing the understanding and both the understanding from the human side and also from the legal side. First America, which is the second largest, I believe the second largest insurance company, let me look at my notes here, was affected by a cyber incident, which was a data breach.

The company said that they're disclosing that there was a cyber attack to compromise personal information. Right now, they're only saying about 44,000 people, still a big number, but not compared to some of the other ones, and that they'll be notifying members that have been impacted over the next couple of weeks, providing monitoring. This is kind of a normal thing that we're seeing a lot of now. I think we have a data breach or cyber incident fatigue. There is pretty significant ransomware attacks and cyber instances regularly, so I'm not sure that people

have the same impact Christie's confirmed of their data breach or Christie's the prominent auction house confirmed that there was a cyber security incident the ransom hub extortion group claimed responsibility and actually said that they were going to release the information. They have about a half a million records for Christie's clients. And this was something that, according to their, the Ransom Hub's listing, that Christie's was not going to report it until they were threatened with the release of the data. So I think it's super, super, back to the other thing, important to understand that sometimes the basics help here. Ransomware and data breaches are not going away.

I often say forget the term breach or ransomware and use the term cyber incident because they generally mold into each other. use the term cyber incident because they generally mold into each other. But some of the largest and most sophisticated companies in the world are having cyber incidents. Still roughly about 80% of them come from some sort of human error. So this isn't like movies and TV where, you know, there's a masterful hacking machine behind it. While that does happen, the reality is it's often a bad password or a vulnerability that hasn't been patched. That's why I always say patch often and early. Although I think the stigma for patching is sometimes it messes things up. Trust me when I tell you that you do not want to be a part of a breach or a cyber instance. indian national admits to stealing 37 million in crypto through a fake

coinbase website so this is a kind of an older scam but basically was able to fish people into what looks like um a real coinbase a real coinbase uh website and get get people to put money in so 37 million dollars this person faces 20 years in in jail and this is one of those things that we talk about social engineering that will i don't think will ever go away you know the modern day con is how do you take care take advantage of someone and manipulate them using electronics? Always, always, always double, triple check anything before you click on a link. When you do click on a link, if you weren't requesting that link, it makes more sense to go back to the original place. And while I'm in India, I thought it was interesting.

I read in Indian Retailer, which is, as you probably can tell by the name, a website or a publication specific to retail. One of the things that I read about was innovation and the changes for malls. So retailers are undergoing significant transformation globally with malls adapting to changing consumer demands and technology advancements. This article really was heavy around technology advances like augmented reality, virtual reality, enhanced customer engagement. And in India, they're seeing a reduction of returns because of that enhanced engagement. Malls evolving to lifestyle destinations, offering a mix of shopping and entertainment to be more of a destination versus just a shopping area.

Retailers getting personalized experiences through technology, providing customized recommendations and seamless online to offline experience that unified commerce approach, whether you want to call it omni-channel or unified commerce, but when your customer is shopping, they're shopping with you regardless of their method or use case. And then the other big, big thing that was a part of this article is sustainability is becoming a key priority within malls, adopting eco-friendly practices and energy efficient designs. So I thought it'd be interesting to talk about this because I am here in India, but I also thought it was interesting that when talk about this because I am here in India, but I also thought it was interesting that when we think about some of the things that we're seeing throughout the U.S. and the greater North American market, they're not much different outside of

the U.S. or North America. You see the same trends throughout the world. While there are certainly some differences, consumer behaviors from country to country, albeit culturally different, have the same fundamentals. So I encourage each and every one of the listeners to continue listening, but also see what's happening in other countries. You might be surprised that in some cases, countries have tried things that you're thinking about trying, In some cases, countries have tried things that you're thinking about trying or potentially have had success or failed in things that you were thinking of trying. saw this mass, mass adoption of curbside pickup because we had to. And lo and behold, that that was something that stayed after COVID because of the convenience factor for customers. Well, that's it for me. I'm going to turn it back over to Reid.

All right. Thanks so much, Tom, for all the great insights. Always exciting. And the perspective you could bring from your travels, as well as your long experience and expertise, really help. I think also the forward looking thinking and a few years of tech savvy. I think that helps a ton with our team and with others. So I want to wish everybody out there a safe and happy post-memorial day. with us LP research org we're always available at operations at LP research org and so I want to thank you Diego and I want to thank you all for listening stay safe and stay in touch. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Thank you. 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.