Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

eyetap.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 470 posts

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#141

Post by DanBC »

saboot wrote: post #21

Can someone illuminate why a recording device would illicit such a harsh reaction? I can understand businesses wanting to avoid someone stand there with a video camera, but does France take this more seriously?

Try it sometime - just take a video camera and point it at someone and see what their reaction is.

Now do this for everyone you ever meet, all day every day, in a strange country, and you see that although violence is rare you've increased the number of opportunities for violence to happen.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#142

Post by ben0x539 »

robomartin wrote: post #126

> but I could use some help and advice as to how to resolve this matter This is bound to not be popular on HN, but, so be it. First bit of advice: Don't be such a dork. Respect others, their space and privacy. People don't want cameras pointed at them all the time. You might. I certainly don't. You can't just walk-up to people wearing a bunch of hardware and not expect a variety of reactions. If someone asks you to t…

Christ, that's some quick victim-blaming.

There's no justification for trying to take away someone's property, even if it's a camera in your business. Physically assaulting someone over a camera is even worse. All attempts to excuse this sort of behavior immediately fall flat given that "possible witness 1" was given documentation of the device and apparently accepted it, and the perpetrator was also given the documentation.

At the point where you willfully destroy someone else's documents, you can't really hide behind cultural differences.

I'm speaking as a European if not a French citizen, but I cannnot read your post as anything but flamebait, given the prejudice and total lack of empathy.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#143

Post by rdl »

jaggederest wrote: post #115
AlexMuir wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without further information I find this very hard to believe. Laundering money through a fast food restaurant with a supply chain outside your control is a terrible idea. Franchises are required to purchase food centrally. Q How much cash are you banking this week? A 1,000,000 EUR Q So you have sold 500,000 Big Macs. A Yes Q Can I see your invoices for 500,000 buns please? The profit margin is not high enough for it…

So far as I am aware, turning illicit money into legitimate money at 30 cents on the dollar would be an excellent deal. There are stories of people in the drug trade in Mexico having rooms in their houses full of cash that they cannot otherwise dispose of.

Laundering is more often 15 percent. It might go up or down based on the local market, but ex-USA has the highest price I've heard of. Once the money was in France, I'd predict more like 5-10 percent, since the hardest step (initial; moving bulk cash out in the USA thanks to effective AML controls these days) is a lot easier in Europe (fly, boat to North Africa, or drive over relative open or at least "friendly" land borders in the East and Southeast.)

Usually for businesses you use nail salons, tanning, etc which have high labor and service components to price, vs. materials.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#144

Post by mrtimo »

pyoung wrote: post #52
pg wrote: post #26

No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras. Why would a McDonald's have security people looking for cameras? Possibly because it was a mafia front. If you wanted to launder money, a fast food restaurant in a popular location would be a good place to do it. The way the employees behaved is consistent with…

But why would the Mafia care if you took photos? Money laundering would happen behind the scenes, in the accountants office. Definitely agree that something is shady though. Not sure what, but this reminds me of a recent article on 'The Big Mac' index, which is used as an alternative measure of inflation. Perhaps McDonald's is under orders by the French government to prevent people from taking photos of their menus (…

> why the hell are you eating at McD's?

Kids.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#146

Post by rpedroso »

robomartin wrote: post #126

> but I could use some help and advice as to how to resolve this matter This is bound to not be popular on HN, but, so be it. First bit of advice: Don't be such a dork. Respect others, their space and privacy. People don't want cameras pointed at them all the time. You might. I certainly don't. You can't just walk-up to people wearing a bunch of hardware and not expect a variety of reactions. If someone asks you to t…

> People don't want cameras pointed at them all the time.

As he explains in the article, the camera does not (when functioning properly) store anything permanently. His photos were only possible when the computer stopped overwriting the buffered images.

I don't think that's an invasion of privacy. Not being familiar with the device, they might not have known that, but that's hardly justification to assault someone. And he certainly wasn't disrespecting anyone's space/privacy.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#147

Post by waffle_ss »

AsylumWarden wrote: post #12

Wow, sorry to hear about the assault and damage to your property. That is quite a way to wreck an otherwise pleasant vacation. I will say that I am glad to hear that I am not the only one to have been treated in a rather hostile manner at a McDonald's in Paris. My wife and I went there on vacation a few years back. My wife was filming my clumsy handling of the french language as she made me order (she is actually qui…

There must be something in the water there because we had eggs thrown at us from an upper floor apartment walking down some sidewalk in Paris (I guess our speaking English to one another was offensive?). We always spoke French when interacting with francophones. Visiting the more rural places in France was pleasant though, and the people were more friendly.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#148

Post by jholman »

rdl wrote: post #104
pg wrote: post #26

No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras. Why would a McDonald's have security people looking for cameras? Possibly because it was a mafia front. If you wanted to launder money, a fast food restaurant in a popular location would be a good place to do it. The way the employees behaved is consistent with…

I think that fails Ockham's razor. I worked for Steve Mann about 15 years ago. Calling him the father of wearable computing is an understatement -- he was the father before it was even possible to create, and yet managed to make it happen essentially on his own a decade or more before it should have existed -- the JFK Apollo of wearables out of his own pocket. However, he is probably not the least suspicious person w…

Tearing up someone's documentation is never an "honest ignorant understanding by some worried people".

Dr Mann also says P1 "angrily grabbed my eyeglass, and tried to pull it off my head", which is also not consistent with an honest mistake.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#149

Post by SilasX »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #125
SilasX wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most sensible explanation so far. It accounts for why they would be worried about hidden, automatic cameras much more than the ones regular tourists have, where you can see when they're taking a picture or getting a good video angle. Also, most tourists don't take pictures of what's going on behind the counter, so you can catch someone trying to overtly do that, but a hidden camera would make that harder to spot, lea…

What does strike me as odd is that it seems pretty likely that a McDonald's at tourist central would have to have a lot of pictures taken of it and in it and around it. It seems like that wouldn't even come close to being unusual. Granted, not usually by someone with the camera literally attached to his head.

I thought I was saying the same thing: that yes, tourists are expected to be everywhere at the McDonald's, taking pictures, but if they start to do it in a strange way (i.e., target the "boring" stuff in the kitchen), or have stuff that looks like a hidden camera, then management may freak out.

Re: Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass

#150

Post by SilasX »

arandomJohn wrote: post #138
pg wrote: post #26

No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras. Why would a McDonald's have security people looking for cameras? Possibly because it was a mafia front. If you wanted to launder money, a fast food restaurant in a popular location would be a good place to do it. The way the employees behaved is consistent with…

Nonsense. I took a camera phone photo at a McD's in Hong Kong earlier this year and several employees freaked out and they all came over to ask me to delete it. Are ALL the stores with no-photo policies mafia fronts?

Well, did this Hong Kong McD's have a large aquarium?
Post reply on HN