2d ago

'Uber for Armed Guards' Rushes to Market Following the Assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO | Are you scared to walk down the streets of NYC and also have too much money? There's an app for that

gizmodo.com 'Uber for Armed Guards' Rushes to Market Following the Assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO

Are you scared to walk down the streets of NYC and also have too much money? There's an app for that.

Protector, an app that lets you book armed goons the same way you’d call for an Uber, is having a viral moment.

Protector lets the user book armed guards on demand. Right now it’s only available in NYC and LA. According to its marketing, every guard is either “active duty or retired law enforcement and military.” Every booking comes with a motorcade and users get to select the number of Escalades that’ll be joining them as well as the uniforms their hired goons will wear.

Protector is currently “#7 in Travel” on Apple’s App Store. It’s not available for people who use Android devices. Sorry Google phone fans, if you want your own armed goons you’ll have to resort to more traditional methods of goon employment.

The marketing for Protector, which lives on its X account, is surreal. A series of robust and barrel-chested men in ill-fitting black suits deliver their credentials to the camera while sitting in front of a black background. They’re all operators. They describe careers in SWAT teams and being deployed to war zones. They show vanity shots of themselves kitted out in operator gear. All of them have a red lapel pin bearing the symbol of Protector.

Who is this for, you might ask? A video posted on January 6, 2025, that runs just over two minutes gives the game away. It opens with a photo of assassinated UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. “We’re going to run through a scenario to demonstrate, where if a Protector had been present, crisis could have been averted,” the Protector says in the video. He then runs through several fantasy versions of the assassination where a Protector is on hand to prevent the assassin from killing the CEO.

60 comments

These people have enough money to hire private protection already, it's not the lack of an app that has stopped them from doing so up until this point. It's simply that they didn't actually believe they were in any danger from the peons.

Imagine how funny it will be when someone red teams the endpoints and get all their client's active locations in a JSON
- Buy a few drones and you could automate the assassination process for maximum efficiency.

Interested in seeing how well the armed guard equivalent of "the Uber Eats driver who eats your food instead of delivering it" works out for them.
- Background checks can't catch everyone.
  
  Look at G4S' track record, for example

Going for a shadow run to the grocery store. Don't forget to pick up a decker to bypass the ice.

First of all, I hate this.
But also, this is cyberpunk as fuck.

The modern aristocracy must be hunted in their native habitats. They are commonly found in walled communities, exclusive islands (i.e. Martha's Vineyard), exclusive neighborhoods (i.e. Santa Monica, Beverly Hills), luxury stores (i.e. Hermes) and trendy nightclubs. Set up your hunting blind in or just outside of their habitat. Make sure to camouflage it well using native materials like designer labels, advertisements and invitations to political contribution dinners. Use a call to attract them. One that works well is "Annual bonus! Annual bonus!", "Union forming! Union forming!" or waving a golden parachute. Bait traps also work well such as a pile of designer handbags and the keys to a Bentley.

I think I saw this season of Westworld.

Sounds like admitting guilt. Those who hire the goons know they are shitty people. Living with self hate must be a bitch.
- Eh, I don't think everyone interested in this service are necessarily bad people. There are a lot of internet celebrities that would really rather not deal with crazy fans that this would be perfect for, as in, not rich enough to have their own chauffeurs, but famous enough to make going out on your own a real pain.

Venture brothers ass nonsense. 1-888-HENCH.

Ah. So civilian mercs can be bought by corpos for a raid at a moments notice. Great. What's the patchnotes for the resistance movement again? Oh yeah. Removed the ability to communicate cryptographically. Our only tool. Thanks devs
- Removed the ability to communicate cryptographically. Our only tool.
  Not entirely. The old methods still work. I'm talking about old fashioned pen and paper. OTP ciphers and dead drops. Messages, hidden where only the intended recipient knows it's there. The problem is, there's no dead drops in cyberspace. There's no place one can leave a hidden message that can't be seen by others in cyberspace. And while quantum computing might break OTP, it's too expensive to use for that purpose.
  There's a certain artistry to the old ways. Invisible inks, dead drops, One-Time-Pads, and the like. Cryptography existed long before computers. Those who would be our rulers have bent so much of their energies towards preventing our communicating in cyberspace that they've neglected those of us who studied the pre-Information Age methods. And we can still use them. A guy walks by a trash can, and throws away a seemingly innocuous food wrapper, and a couple hours later another guy goes and collects it, knowing that there is a message written on it in ink that can be revealed with the use of heat and lemon juice. If their intent is to return the USA to the "good ole days", then let's use the spy tricks from the "good ole days".
  
  I've always been a fan of book ciphers, but they're probably really annoying to actually use.
  
  What's old is new again

In my coping with the horrors of the world, I like to think this is run by a hidden AGI to wack its ideological opponents.
- Lol

It's all fun and games until the database gets leaked and guards start getting offers to off a particular client.
- Auction mode would be a nice feature
- Found a good use for crowdfunding.
- Exactly, if $ will get you a thug defense…$$ will get you a thug offense.
- ...Or one of the guards has a family member kidnapped and held unless they oopsie, looked the wrong way.
  
  Easier way is just to signup. Maybe they vet some of the bodyguards...
- It happens
  
  ¯(ツ)_/¯

There's no way this could backfire
- ToS says the app accepts zero liability so the legal person is safe here
  
  Sounds like they thought of everything
- Gang for hire.

Seems like an easy way to get close to a target.
- "Yes hello I am your security detail, don't worry I brought exactly enough bullets."

This is some cyberpunk shit.
Luigi save us
- Luigi could’ve passed the screening check to become the guy’s bodyguard. Maybe he even would’ve had a better opportunity to escape.
  Many, many ruthless tyrants and other nasty people have been killed by their own bodyguards over the years. And these are often guards who have been properly vetted.
  How vetted are these Uber rentacops gonna be? No criminal record doesn’t mean you can trust the person if you’re some ruthless bastard with a lot of enemies.
- Their response wasn't to fix the problem, it was to find a better way to subjugate people. Clearly his methods aren't the solution. They're just an easy way to pass the problem off to someone else without you having to put in the effort to help fix it yourself.
  
  Then they haven't had enough.

Lmao they mimic the camera footage of the CEO murder for their promotional image.
- Brian would be proud to know he's still bringing market value to someone.
- How to start a security business.
  Get someone killed
  Create a business that addresses #1
  How's THAT for conspiracy thinking!? :D
  
  It's called a viral marketing

For what they're charging, you're not going to get elite private security, you're going to get mall cops on their day off.
This is not for the actual rich, it's for tiktok influencers to show off.

Oh, is this the invitation of DRAMA?
Like from cyberpunk?

Gig economy security guards. What the utter fuck. Doesn't sound at all like brownshirts in the making.
- Gig economy does not inspire loyalty lmao

You’ve got no choice but to give them 5 stars or your cruisin for a bruisin
- That was my thought, nobody in their right mind (least of all paranoid rich people) would use a third party service that requires them to announce they're someone of value.
  
  This is only going to be used by poseurs.

Ha ha ha, another quality zinger from The Onion!
........wait, this shit's real???

Are you worried people with guns might try to take your money? Why take chances? You should hire these people with guns who will for sure take your money.

What a dystopian nightmare we live in right now. Remember when politicians told us we have choices in our healthcare? I guess it says something that insurance CEOs are so hated that they need armed body guards and we're so happy about "all our choices".

They’re afraid. 🤭

Trauma team

Isn't this the world plot of John Wick?

60 comments