
Stomach-turning geo app shamelessly designed to help stalkers prey on "girls" - anuleczka
http://www.cultofmac.com/157641/this-creepy-app-isnt-just-stalking-women-without-their-knowledge-its-a-wake-up-call-about-facebook-privacy/
======
angersock
Nobody is going to take these issues seriously until there is some emotional
sting.

We've known for years about the uses of Big Data (good and bad), and people
still cheerfully fork over mining rights of their life story to third parties
to click cows and exchange pictures.

Frankly, link-bait titles and apps like this are the only way the majority of
folks are ever going to figure out that, hey, maybe this isn't such a hot
idea.

~~~
freshhawk
The majority of folks? I don't think so, an actual majority of people in the
US won't be aware of this kind of stuff until some psycho stalks and kills
someone and they find something like this on his phone.

I mean, it will happen sooner or later, same number of violent psychopaths out
there as always. The media will love the cyber-stalker angle too, just like
Columbine was used to push the Violent Video Games Ruin Children meme.

An app like this makes a better target for public outrage than facebook or
another big player too, so they'll probably take the brunt of the 24 hour news
cycle outrage. Especially since the big players have a prepared coordinated PR
response ready to go already.

~~~
angersock
I am saddened by the fact that I cannot disagree with your assessment.

~~~
freshhawk
If firesheep had made a bigger splash among non-tech people I would have hoped
that these kinds of super creepy examples would have pushed the problem into
the public consciousness.

There was so little awareness raised outside techie circles by such a perfect
demonstration that I've arrived at this particularily depressing opinion of
what it will take.

I hope I'm just being pessimistic and not realistic.

------
kaybe
It's a good article, but the title given here is too emotional and link-baity.

(The original title being 'This Creepy App Isn’t Just Stalking Women Without
Their Knowledge, It’s A Wake-Up Call About Facebook Privacy')

------
robomartin
I disagree with the comments indicating that the title is too emotional. I
think it needs to be whatever it has to be in order to bring eyeballs to this
issue. None-techies have no idea of what is possible when they sign-on to and
use various social networks and tools. Because of this they, almost
invariably, end-up horribly exposed in very public ways. Articles such as this
one need to appeal to emotion and, hopefully, go viral, in order to have non-
tech folks understand, protect themselves and their kids.

It's like folks that apply decals with the names of their kids on the back of
their SUV's. I've never understood why someone would do something that stupid.
In some cases they even go as far as also providing clues as to what they are
into. The most common example of this is having the Christian ichthus (fish)
symbol under their names.

I struck-up a conversation with one such parents at the local school our kids
attend during an open house event. I explained just how much I knew about
their kids by making a number of inferences from the very public access they
were providing through these seemingly innocent little stickers on the back of
the SUV. It wasn't hard at all to demonstrate just how bad an idea this was.
They thanked me and went out to the parking lot to remove the stickers right
away.

I don't like to think ill of people and I generally don't (and have scars to
prove it). This does not mean that one has to provide all the necessary tools
and information to facilitate becoming a victim.

~~~
kaybe
It's not about the original title [1] which is somewhat ok, especially
considering your point, but about the HN title. Regarding the topic, it's
preaching to the choir; and yet the HN title is over-the-top emotional and
accusing of the app's creators 'shamelessly' helping 'stalkers prey', where
the article does no such thing.

[1]This Creepy App Isn’t Just Stalking Women Without Their Knowledge, It’s A
Wake-Up Call About Facebook Privacy

------
duxup
It is a creepy app that exposes folks publicly available data, but I think the
idea that it is designed to help stalkers prey on girls is a stretch.

~~~
anuleczka
It exposes only women's data -- and the app's logo is a naked woman in a
stripper pose with crosshairs on top. To me, that makes me think of assault
and/or rape.

~~~
pacaro
The article is quite clear that it exposes anyone's data that uses facebook
and foursquare, not just women.

~~~
anuleczka
Mmm, missed that, thanks. Doesn't change the aggression against women in the
marketing, though. Though maybe thanks to our culture (violent video games,
for example) we've been de-sensitized to this?

~~~
kiiski
If the logo is the same as the splash screen, there are no crosshairs on the
woman. That's the radar, which seems to imply targeting or finding, rather
than attacking. So I would agree with duxup that it's a bit of a stretch to
say it's designed for stalkers, or that it implies assault/rape.

In fact, I think it's a good thing that such an app exists. The bad thing is
people not knowing what they share, and that needs to be fixed by
Facebook/Google, or through laws. The situation is not that much different
from exposing a security hole in order to get it fixed. Besides, some people
may actually want their data to be available like this, so once it's strictly
opt-in, there's nothing wrong with the app.

------
grandalf
Facebook (and now Google) have adopted the policy of share by default, which
makes it not only easy to share things by mistake, but encourages users to be
naive about what can be seen by whom.

It's like a maze covered in mirrors intended to result in accidental
oversharing... and in dopamine created in the brains of people who have some
minimal curiosity about the individuals whose actions are being revealed and
who might click on an ad.

I think it's just a matter of time before people realize this. Sadly, the
process will leave Facebook and Google mistrusted (if not hated) by users.

Just as an accidental purchase of a song on iTunes earns Apple a dollar of
revenue, the accidental overshare of information (due to confusing privacy
policies and settings) earn Facebook and Google lots of ad clicks.

Imagine users dumb enough to think that the $50 in songs they accidentally
purchased from the iTunes store due to an intentionally confusing link or
button were no big deal, etc. Soon enough users will wise up and realize that
these accidental-overshare business models are ultimately dishonest and abuse
the trust of users.

------
smsm42
Welcome to the brave new world. You can single out this app but it does not
matter - once the data is out there, it's going to be used this way. Most
people do not understand participating in social networks means broadcasting
your private life to the whole green world. This is a very new thing - you
never before had an option to do that even if you wanted. So there are no
common sense rules about it, and mothers can't teach their children to behave
right on Facebook - because nobody has enough experience with that stuff yet.
And unfortunately, I foresee a number of creepy and outright evil things
happening before this common sense emerges and becomes part of the collective
wisdom. It's much bigger than any single app, that app is only a tiny symptom.

------
kennu
In case you didn't read until the end, Foursquare has terminated the app's API
access for violating their venue aggregation policy:
[http://www.cultofmac.com/157793/foursquare-kills-api-
access-...](http://www.cultofmac.com/157793/foursquare-kills-api-access-to-
creepy-stalking-app-girls-around-me-exclusive/)

~~~
DanBC
Haven't they missed the point, which was that users are happy to share too
much information, and part of that is because privacy controls are different
across all networks and are hard to find and change.

EDIT: Sorry, that's an awful sentence.

------
yelongren
Privacy matters will only get worse and worse. At the end of the day, we are
actually buying perfect snooping devices (cam, mic, gps) and wearing them
24/7. With our own money. And for the benefit of others, strangers or
institutions.

------
benihana
So let me see if this makes sense. This article is talking about how stomach
turning and skin crawling Girls Around Me is. To demonstrate this, the author
writes a wordy, boring blog post in the style of a short story and posts
pictures of the same poor girls that show up in the app without their
permission or knowledge, then has the balls to call the creators of the app
villains.

He calls the people who use this app creeps and stalkers, yet he downloads it,
shows it to a table of his friends, then writes about it. Comes off as a
completely hypocritical white knight.

~~~
pacaro
I got a different take from the post.

He does take a long time to get to the point, but I don't think that he is
trying to criticize the app authors, or Apple, he's trying to make a point
about how Facebook and FourSquare make it too easy to over share personal
information.

If the information is available via public APIs then anyone could write the
App, I think the author is trying to point out that people need to be educated
about what the possible consequences of their facebook (et. al.) privacy
settings are.

Using this app as a vivid demonstration is quite likely far more effective
than a technical or ideological rant about privacy.

