cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19944734
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - A sight previously thought to be science fiction is very real at a southeast Kansas City shopping center. Instead of a police officer, a security robot has been patrolling sidewalks and shoppers are taking notice.
Since Marshall the robot has been on the job, shoppers say the experiences have completely changed when they come to these stores. The robot can spend 23 hours a day monitoring the parking lot from all angles which gives people a new sense of protection and ease they don’t always have when out.
Marshall took over security at Brywood Centre in April. Before that, Karen White noticed a lot of trouble outside the shopping center.
“Sometimes it’d be concerning for your car like someone could take it or something,” White said.
Knowing now that Marshall is always watching, the risk of crime does not worry her or others as much.
“It made it very better, like you can’t be in the parking lot without seeing the robot,” White continued. “So, I think it scared them off.”
It's good that you're concerned about the data your phone may be revealing to other nearby devices. It's generally a good idea to have bluetooth/wifi/nfc turned off if you're not actively using them. Even without the robot, you have no idea what data companies might be collecting when you're physically on their property.
Why WiFi? They can't get much data from WiFi. If you use a VPN, all they'll see is a bunch of encrypted data going to a VPN server.
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/62124/phones-broadcast-the-ssids-of-all-networks-they-have-ever-connected-to-how-can
I think the lady said they know the IP address of every phone but that doesnt make much sense. anyway, the point was that theyre using the signals from your phone to uniquely identify you. you can simply turn those radios in your phone off when youre not using them.
Interesting, but this question is 10 years old. are you sure android didn't fix this? They released Mac address randomization since then