Shocked.

It sounds like the false positives on this one suck. I can’t find the countervailing statistic of how many crimes are prevented. Is it too new?

@Takuan: Yep, the air filter problem would be a big one (respirator/goggle combinations don’t cost that much when your goal is whatever cash in the ATM survives the explosion). Let’s not even think about criminals willing to spray themselves with pepper spray to become resistant.

@Cicada: I get the impression they’re more worried about people blowing the ATMs up than installing card skimmers, although apparently the pepper spray triggers from tampering near the card slot, which is claimed to be common to both activities.

One of the problems we have in South Africa is that there are several thousand (at least) ex-guerilla fighers/terrorists from the late 80s/early 90s who never got integrated into the defence forces. These guys make great footsoldiers for organised crime, and tend to use pretty extreme methods to commit theft/robbery (involving the use of assault rifles and/or explosives). However, these kinds of crimes (e.g. cash in transit heists involving mass militant attacks on cash vans) are relatively rare, with only a few hundred happening anywhere in the country in any given year.

And all that being said, this is just a pilot project by one of the banks (Absa). Hopefully they’ll realise what a stupid idea it is and scrap it shortly.

Some South African news coverage here.

Anyway, in a global economy racing to the drain it only makes sense to pay some poor schmuck minimum wage to sit beside every ATM with a cellphone and the local cop’s number. They don’t even have to be visible.

– MrJM

Nawwww, I almost always go for the most abstract reading of what others say so when I read:

“innumeracy seems to be basic to a lot of current anticrime/antiterrorism policy”

I respond to the general ideas and not so much to the particulars. I can’t help it, it’s what I do. So to me, the whole point of authority is to BE authority, to be phallus. That’s why we call them dicks. Preventing crime is just a useful side effect.

I like the idea of electrocuting the vendees. I can imagine a vending machine that dispenses lethal electrical shocks. How much fun would that be? Or iron dust through an explosive charge — right into your properly positioned face, guaranteeing the most optimal face-full of hot burning metal particles. Meanbot bukkake.

Shit, I can’t find the person presenting at dorkbotpgh, who had a vending machine which dispensed anthrax and other fun biological agents. It looked kinda fun, and I think the observation is that people used the vending machine, and watched the dispensing process, not paying attention to what was being dispensed. People will buy anything, even their own demise.

Pepper spray for entering the wrong PIN three times and video of the event automatically posted on Youtube.