

Why you & your girlfriends should stop checking in - skennedy
http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/30/i-hate-all-apps-bah-humbug/

======
codesuela
This whole "Girls Around Me" thing has been blow way out of proportion. Every
site seems to imply that this is the go to app for rapists. However, to play
devils advocate, I would argue that you are actually SAFER with this app than
without. There are three scenarios that can play out:

1\. Someone opens up this app, looks for girls nearby and pics one from this
app. In this case it would stupid for the rapist to go for the girl because
her whereabouts are known so the police would know the area where she was
abducted and therefore it would be easier to identify the rapist/murderer as
they can check nearby security cameras and know where to look around. The
conclusion would be that if the rapist/murderer/whatever was following logic
he would avoid people listed in this app.

This leads us to the second possible scenario:

The rapist/murderer does not follow any logic and just commits his crime based
on primitive instincts (ever heard of rapists who have intercourse with sheep
and kettle?) In that case you loose any way because that person strikes at
random and thus the chances are not increased because you checked in
somewhere.

and then there is the final and third scenario:

Someone is trying to murder or rape YOU specifically after picking you out
from this app. But lets be reasonable the chances of that happening are
ABYSMAL because guess what most people don't want to rape you.

Also relevant: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Oww4Ap3YZA>

------
skennedy
How clever can people get with a set of API's, do something questionable
and/or scary, and not get publicized? That's what scares me. So many open
API's out there and clever people will keep their mash-ups confined to a
closed circle audience. Makes me wonder when companies that offer open API's
will be more discerning.

------
stfu
The greatest benefit of these overblown stranger-danger stories seems to be
the fact, that it creates more awareness of privacy issues outside of our
typical EFF friend circles.

~~~
Bud
I only partially agree. Overblown stories like this can also cause the issues
in question to be taken less seriously, because the stories are inaccurate
and, well, overblown.

For instance, the author complains: "But did any of those apps get shut down
by a barrage of vitriol from concerned citizens? Did young women stop checking
in and sharing their location with anyone with a 3G connection? Hardly."

But the fact is, creepy apps like this are shut down all the time, including
the Girls Around Me app referenced in the article. Already gone.

I also think it's hilarious to see any kind of threat in an app which
supposedly tells you the age and gender of people you are in a bar with, using
face recognition. Um, I can usually tell the age and gender of people I am
looking at by, uh, LOOKING AT THEM. So I fail to see the heinous threat here.

~~~
evincarofautumn
If SceneTap is “an absolute sewer of an application”, then anyone with eyes, a
brain, and the ability to count is an absolute sewer of a person.

Then again, the URL is “i-hate-all-apps-bah-humbug”, so this might be
somebody’s strange idea of an April Fool’s prank. I thought it was satire at
first.

------
mvkel
Foursquare has already revoked their access.

Still, this kind of writing is pure sensationalism. It's virtually the same
"concern" publications were having over robbers monitoring your Foursquare
account to break into your house when you're not home.

------
tonylemesmer
Not just a danger for girls. Anyone sharing this kind of info inherently has
some kind of smartphone and therefore is a target for mugging / robbery

------
georgieporgie
I wonder if the author also refuses to go to bars, because there have been
people beaten at or abducted from them, or drive a car, because there have
been cases of road rage, or avoid churches because they have been boarded and
burned, or schools because there have been shootings, or...

People shouldn't base their lives and decisions around imagined scenarios that
involve sociopaths. This is just more shoddy, fear-based 'journalism' piggy-
backing on a scare wave. It does nothing to improve people's understanding of
their privacy settings and options, and does everything to exploit a trend for
more page views.

~~~
tesseractive
> People shouldn't base their lives and decisions around imagined scenarios
> that involve sociopaths.

Women are constantly trying to figure out how much risk is attached to
behaviors that men take for granted, and alter their behavior accordingly.
It's all fine and well to say not to worry about "imagined scenarios"
involving sociopaths, but there are many real life stories of women who have
been stalked and received persistent death threats just for having a blog
online and being only moderately well known. And in the case of something like
check ins, any stalker wouldn't just have your email to send threats to, they
would have your physical location.

Unless you are a woman, I would suggest that you may not have the best
perspective from which to tell other women what they should and should not be
afraid of.

~~~
georgieporgie
_but there are many real life stories of women who have been stalked_

You're referencing scary anecdotes to refute my claim that you shouldn't base
decisions on scary anecdotes.

 _Unless you are a woman, I would suggest that you may not have the best
perspective from which to tell other women what they should and should not be
afraid of._

Wow, that's sexist. One cannot assess risk unless one is within the target
category? I bet you wouldn't be saying that to me if I took the more sexist
and popular view that women need to be coddled and sheltered from the cruel,
strange men on the streets.

Here's a random tidbit from a web search: "Females are generally murdered by
people they know. In 64% of female homicide cases in 2007, females were killed
by a family member or intimate partner".

I'm guessing that, as usual, women should be most wary of those to whom
they're closest.

~~~
tesseractive
1\. Yes, I am. The normal response to trying to figure out whether or not to
walk down a particular dark street or across a particular campus at night is
not to pull up police records and perform a cluster analysis, it's to make a
gut decision based on the cases of which you are aware.

2\. Actually, I wasn't trying to say "men can't possibly know that", I was try
to say that people who happen to have the firsthand experience of being a
woman probably have more knowledge of the risks that women typically have to
navigate than you do if you are male, unless you have had some reason to
accumulate an unusual amount of information on the topic from firsthand
sources.

3\. Taking the condescending position that women need to to be coddled by men
is very different from allowing that each woman needs to assess for herself
what kinds and degrees of risks to her person that she is willing to accept
and act accordingly. Whether you tell me that I am incapable of handling x
situation myself and offer to shield me or you tell me that I should dismiss
my worries about situation x because you know better, you are operating under
the assumption that I cannot be trusted to assess the situation and act
accordingly myself. I don't expect this is what you meant to say?

~~~
georgieporgie
1) I don't understand why you're agreeing that you're using scary anecdotes to
refute scary anecdotes and acting as if that is a defensible or valuable
position. Decisions based upon fiction are not wise. See: Patriot Act, Iraq
war, etc.

2) Being susceptible to or targeted by fear-based anecdotes does not make one
more able to objectively evaluate them. Quite the opposite, in fact.

3) I don't know what you're talking about here. I was pointing out that your
position is, in my opinion, fundamentally sexist, and that you likely wouldn't
have batted an eye had I taken the more popular, sexist view.

