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Official development blog for the PARANOIA roleplaying game. No description is available at your security clearance. The Computer is your friend.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Pepper spray ATMs 

Obviously nothing at all could go wrong by installing pepper spray anti-theft devices on South African cash machines.
The extreme measure is the latest in South Africa's escalating war against armed robbers who target banks and cash delivery vans. The number of cash machines blown up with explosives has risen from 54 in 2006 to 387 in 2007 and nearly 500 last year.

The technology uses cameras to detect people tampering with the card slots. Another machine then ejects pepper spray to stun the culprit while police response teams race to the scene.

But the mechanism backfired in one incident last week when pepper spray was inadvertently inhaled by three technicians who required treatment from paramedics.

Patrick Wadula, spokesman for the Absa bank, which is piloting the scheme, told the Mail & Guardian Online: "During a routine maintenance check at an Absa ATM in Fish Hoek, the pepper spray device was accidentally activated. At the time there were no customers using the ATM. However, the spray spread into the shopping centre where the ATMs are situated."
As the Credit Slips blog presciently comments, "If this idea comes to the United States, I can just see it now on my bank statement: '$20.00 -- Pepper Spray Fee.'"
Posted by: Allen Varney / 10:43 PM

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