

Fitbit users are unwittingly sharing details of their sex lives with the world - bond
http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/07/03/fitbit-users-are-inadvertently-sharing-details-of-their-sex-lives-with-the-world/

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abeppu
I think it's crazy that they by default share when you have sex, for how long,
and how hard, but that they decided that weight and bmi information should be
private.

~~~
tommi
Weight and bmi are information about you. Sex and other activies are
information of your activies. It's simply grouped as it should be.

~~~
msy
And that comment right there is why programmers shouldn't design social
networks.

~~~
omouse
Indeed, it's why they should grow an ethical/moral portion in their brain as
well -_-'

Being a professional doesn't mean you should ignore ethical or moral concerns.

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wastedbrains
To be fair, the only reason this info is public is the person is 'tagging' the
activity. By default all tagged links in delicious are public and that makes
sense. If you tag an activity like this on fitbit, you should mark it private.

I have a fitbit and I can't for the life of me figure out why people would
start tagging every activity they do and start and end times... but if they
are adding tags, comments, and other personal details they should mark it all
private.

~~~
frobozz
When I saw the headline, I wondered how the machine determined that you were
having sex, rather than just doing (for example) pressups, squat thrusts and
crunches (possibly in close proximity to another user doing similar exercise).
It would have to be an exceptionally subtle piece of accelerometer/resistance
meter interpretation to distinguish the difference.

wastedbrains' reply told me exactly what I needed to know. Fitbit users are
not "unwittingly sharing details of their sex lives", but deliberately marking
their exercise sessions with their very personal trainer as games of hide-the-
sausage; using a tool that is designed to publicly share information about
ones exercise sessions.

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yaix
Seriously: who cares?

If I'd had the exhibitionist inclination to publish my jogging and TV watching
habits, I would not mind having the duration of my sexual activity published
as well. Who cares? It's not like having sex is something top secret nobody
else does.

But since I would not want to publish all my questionable efforts to stay in
shape, it would probably be a good idea to make the public/private setting a
little more obvious.

~~~
yaix
Really, again? When I have an own opinion here that does not follow the
mainstream, I just get downvoted without any arguments. Why is it so bad to
have your sex duration published but its okay that your jogging performance
visible to the world?

~~~
nametoremember
"Why is it so bad to have your sex duration published but its okay that your
jogging performance visible to the world?"

They are completely different. Maybe not to you but if you can't see how it
would bother some people then you're not thinking very hard.

~~~
frobozz
They are completely different to me as well, which is why I don't record
rumpy-pumpy on runkeeper, or wear my HRM/Cadence/GPS watch for it.

They are evidently not completely different to the users of fitbit who are
telling the world about it, because otherwise they wouldn't be overtly and
deliberately stating (on a website whose purpose is to share activity details
with the world) that any particular 2m52s of increased activity was due to
squelching.

Please let me know if I've missed some crucial point regarding fitbit usage,
because I really can't see how this is "unwitting".

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qdot76367
It's pretty easy to just inject activity and other data for other people too.
Fitbit doesn't really seem to give a damn about any sort of privacy or
authentication.

[http://www.openyou.org/2011/04/18/fitbit-and-security-or-
lac...](http://www.openyou.org/2011/04/18/fitbit-and-security-or-lack-
thereof/)

------
ddw
On a public account on Daytum.com I once came across a chart in which a couple
seemed to be logging their sexual positions, including "what what in the
butt."

Daytum is pretty much anonymous are far as the end user goes, there's no name
or "social" information to an account, but it was pretty funny and doubt they
knew other people could see that data.

~~~
matthewsimon
Ripe for data-driven visualization.

<http://daytum.com/robynt/categories/191024>

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endian
Since they will probably block this soon and get Google to flush its public
cache, here's are some examples (with user tokens redacted):

Google results:
[https://img.skitch.com/20110703-r79t4swrjt3e2akwh3xdfbcrsg.p...](https://img.skitch.com/20110703-r79t4swrjt3e2akwh3xdfbcrsg.png)

Part of a profile:
[https://img.skitch.com/20110703-cwmhwiicewy6hh5xw67ctwrq7m.p...](https://img.skitch.com/20110703-cwmhwiicewy6hh5xw67ctwrq7m.png)

~~~
muzz
Appears to be blocked now

~~~
ruby_on_rails
Though still available in google's cached pages. Still for the dozen or so I
have looked at, most of the users who chose to share their sex lives only did
so under an alias with no picture or a pictures that you could not see the
face. You really have to give these users a little more credit.

------
inportb
The real question is: what can we do with the data?

~~~
raheemm
Collect dataset of low sexual activity people, connect with Facebook, analyze
users Like and Commenting patterns and then build a Facebook dating app that
suggests local deals, and activities with other low sexual activity folks.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Or: collect dataset of short sexual duration people, spam with virility
supplements.

~~~
jmaygarden
Instead of the normal find any email address and spam with virility
supplements?

------
droob
I don't think users think their data is secret. I think they assume nobody
will care enough, or be malicious enough, to seek it out and exploit it.
There's an expectation of courtesy that (mistakenly, sadly) gets ported over
from meatspace.

I mean, I leave my shades up all day, with the assumption that the neighbors
won't have their faces up to the glass to track my movements around the house.

------
Mz
I will note that a lot of people aren't all that savvy/don't really think
about the consequences. People have been fired for posting remarks on their
Facebook account that their employer then read. People seem to routinely
underestimate just how public stuff on the internet is and both users of a
site and administrators commit big errors in that regard. In online forums, I
have seen someone post a thread that from the get go was obvious to me was
trouble and would likely attract negative attention from the folks it was
trashing. Did any of the moderators step in up front and do something about
it? Nope. They stepped in only after trouble had come to their door to crab at
the person who started the thread. I think the person who started the thread
genuinely did not expect the outcome that resulted -- they posted as if among
friends/talking with a group of friends, apparently oblivious to the fact that
anyone with an internet connection could find these public remarks, join the
forum, and reply.

I'm aware of this issue and still sometimes run into friction over it. The
internet allows us to belong to many more social groupings than in the past
and it gets complicated trying to determine what info and how much to share
where/with whom...etc.

------
extension
It can tell that you're hugging and kissing with just an accelerometer? And it
doesn't matter where it's attached to you?

~~~
delinka
I don't know if the author intended to imply that, but I don't read that any
place in the article. It does mention entering data for times when wearing
your device is inappropriate.

That said, I don't think the thing could possibly tell the difference between
jostling around on a ladder and hugs-n-kisses.

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taylorbuley
Sort of reminds me of Blippy sharing credit card numbers, except that was by
accident not design

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/apr/26/blippy-
credi...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/apr/26/blippy-creditcard-
socialnetworking)

~~~
martey
I think it was the intention of the author to remind you of Blippy, since they
_specifically mentioned them in the next to last paragraph_ by linking to an
article about them.

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aj700
Is it only Americans that see this as a problem? Let me be the first European
to redundantly point out that sex is natural and nothing to be ashamed of. So
what's the big deal? How many more years will it take the moral (majority?) to
get over the way our bodies work.

~~~
exit
sex has more social implications than other body functions.

e.g., someone notices their partner logs sexual activity shortly after
"meeting with friends from work" every thursday.

there are less dramatic examples any adult should be able to imagine.

actually, i suspect you just jumped at the opportunity to parade how
"progressive" you are.

~~~
tommi
I don't see the problem of this. It's something you decided to share.

Your example is pretty odd. Why would you log entries of your sexual
activities which are not considered ok in your relationship?

Sure, it can have social implications but I don't feel going overprotective on
this. You should know where you log stuff which you consider sensitive.

