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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.
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.
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…
>So I’m writing about it now. Not because Girls Around Me is an evil app that should be pulled from the iOS App Store, or because the company that makes it — Moscow-based i-Free — is filled with villains. I still don’t believe that there’s anything wrong with what this app is doing, and the guys at i-Free are super nice, and certainly don’t mean for this app to be anything beyond a diversion.
If you have read this, then you misunderstood him completely. He very clearly states that the creators of the app are not villains.
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.
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…
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…
Wow! He downloaded an app and then showed it to people before writing about it. What exactly is hypocritical about that? I agree that the tone of the article is a little strange and posting photos of the women was unnecessary, but I don't see how downloading an application and showing it to people makes him a hypocrite.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The article is quite clear that it exposes anyone's data that uses facebook and foursquare, not just women.
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, hopeful…
[1]This Creepy App Isn’t Just Stalking Women Without Their Knowledge, It’s A Wake-Up Call About Facebook Privacy
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article is quite clear that it exposes anyone's data that uses facebook and foursquare, not just women.
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?
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.
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…
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.