One thing I’m concerned about is recording equipment leaving identifiable information without us knowing about it.

  • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Without some type of visual confirmation, it’s all noise.

    On my way home from work, I grab $600 from the atm, $300 for my wife’s tattoo, $200 for me, and $100 for wife spending money.

    After the appt the tattoos artists wife takes $200 and flys across country that night. I spend my $200 at the peelers, all those go to a dozen different girls and servers. My wife the next day goes shopping at an outlet mall and spends her $100 at 4 stores. The tattoo artist spends his $100 on beer.

    We live on the same block and I pulled the money out across town. Who’s is the original takers purchases….?

    It’s 95% noise, it’s useless unless you’re an investigator and have boots on the ground.

    Again, it’s a fun story to share around the campfire though. Is it possible, yes, can it be done in actual practice, absolutely not. Not without some other information.

    • e8d79@discuss.tchncs.de
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      10 months ago

      Yes that would destroy some data points but we are talking about a statistical approach here. How often do you give other people cash directly in comparison to spending it at stores. Given enough time and collected information local concentrations will show up. Its surveillance through data analysis with a new veneer.

      • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I ONLY give other people cash, all my other purchases are debit/credit. Like MOST people and stores since Covid

        The only time this works, is if it’s targeted, and that means an investigator is doing it. An automated system wouldn’t know what to do with any of the data. You’re severely overestimating how much people spend cash around them, that’s usually when it’s plastic. People use cash in “sketchier” places.

        Again, zero basis on reality, it gets “destroyed” at every step without some manual intervention.

        • e8d79@discuss.tchncs.de
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          10 months ago

          No manual intervention needed just track everything and retain the data for a long time. Then you can query the database for all serial numbers your target has ever taken out of an ATM and where they where returned. Circulation will diffuse these results somewhat but that follows a normal distribution. That means it is much more likely that a bill that was spent at a store by your target which is given out again as change, is more likely to be spent at another store near that original store. Aggregate this information over a couple of weeks or months and you will get a heatmap of locations to check out. You can run this operation automatically on all bank accounts if you want. Threshold the heatmap at some significant value and you get a list of stores visited by each person with X% probability.

          • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Except most people use multiple cards, multiple banks etc. there will absolutely need to some visual verification to be able to ever establish a starting point. It just doesn’t work.

            It’s a neat proof of concept, but in reality, that would never hold up in court.

            Give your head a shake, I’ve got a bridge to sell you if you actually believe this is being used or can be used for what you claim.