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How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

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171–180 of 225 posts

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#171
post #5

Truly, what compels a person to do such a thing? I too have struggled heavily with depression in the past, but I've never once felt the urge to repeatedly vandalize anyone's property. Like, I just don't understand what's to gain.

Unfortunately, I can offer some insight. In the past I have been obsessive. Had I not got help I could have ended up like the stalker in the story. It starts out innocent enough. Dating involves lots of subtle signals and cues. I remember calling someone many many times in one day, thinking "There's a possibility I'm being strange, but there's also a chance that she's just not home. If I don't call and call again I c…

thank you for the insight.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#173

Firstly there’s zero chance this was the guy’s first rodeo. Second, without a custodial sentence it wont be his last. When these stories end in tragedy there’s always the part of the story that goes something like “…X had previously been reported on no fewer than Y occasions for similar behaviour.”

There's always a first, and there's always a first report.

All of this requires someone making the report.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#174
post #162
post #72

> Side note for Bumble — this is what we would call an “entity resolution” problem, leading to safety problems for your platform. When someone installs your app, you need to detect whether they have already installed it previously. If they have, then their activity (including blocks and people who have already declined them) should be linked to this new account. What is Bumble supposed to do if the user asks them to…

Replying just because we had a basic GDPR training just yesterday. You can't do that and you are right about the deletion of data to a point, but once there are legal reasons (like in this case) you don't have to comply to the request to delete the data. But I would guess it would be too complicated to manage all this, considering the size of Bumble and where the incident happened and where Bumble is located.

exactly - under GDPR it would be fine to retain specific data for a limited period of time to prevent fraud (which is what this is, really).

Also, this type of user is not making deletion requests - they are deleting and then immediately reinstalling the app to appear "fresh".

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could have also ended horribly for the stalker too if the brothers weren't so meek either. Three adults, a couple of them working in construction? Anywhere else, we wouldn't be reading this story. It'd just be a note in the local paper about a random assault one night. If that.

Considering modern laws governing construction sites do not allow workers to carry anything over 20lb and that also in strict limited time, I would rather say an average gym member exercising 3 times a week would be a tougher mate. Not to mention criminals and crazy people do carry guns. The whole thing might as well ended with "three 6 feet-tall construction workers with black belts in jujitsu ended up dead shot by…

> stalker with semi-automatic gun

In Scotland?

(Knives, OK that's more likely; we're no longer the stabbing capital of the world but it's still a problem. But not guns. Even airguns are now restricted.)

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#176
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replying just because we had a basic GDPR training just yesterday. You can't do that and you are right about the deletion of data to a point, but once there are legal reasons (like in this case) you don't have to comply to the request to delete the data. But I would guess it would be too complicated to manage all this, considering the size of Bumble and where the incident happened and where Bumble is located.

exactly - under GDPR it would be fine to retain specific data for a limited period of time to prevent fraud (which is what this is, really). Also, this type of user is not making deletion requests - they are deleting and then immediately reinstalling the app to appear "fresh".

> What is Bumble supposed to do if the user asks them to delete all the data that is connected to them?

I was talking about this part raised above.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#177
post #5

Truly, what compels a person to do such a thing? I too have struggled heavily with depression in the past, but I've never once felt the urge to repeatedly vandalize anyone's property. Like, I just don't understand what's to gain.

Unfortunately, I can offer some insight. In the past I have been obsessive. Had I not got help I could have ended up like the stalker in the story. It starts out innocent enough. Dating involves lots of subtle signals and cues. I remember calling someone many many times in one day, thinking "There's a possibility I'm being strange, but there's also a chance that she's just not home. If I don't call and call again I c…

thanks for posting this insight, I would add that there are positive feedback loops from some parts of your behavior and would also counter the brother's conclusion that "sending an additional message never works"

in these kinds of threads, everyone is already primed to the worst case toxic scenario, or some other uncollaborative toxic scenario, specifically from the idea of the lowest denominator man harassing women

the reality is never so rigid

many dating profiles advertise their instagram, many times that is just a vanity project to gain followers, many times sending a message on Instagram or some other way to get noticed on Instagram can lead to agreed upon in person interaction such as dates and hookups, many times sending a message is fruitless because that person gets so much attention and their inbox is not useful, or because that person just hasn't checked their messages yet

I have absolutely had one night stands with someone I saw on a dating app, never attempted to match with, messaged them on Instagram and told them I saw them on the dating app, and went out the same day.

I've done that with women that I never even mentioned that I saw them on a dating app first. Beautiful people. The proverbial "thirst traps".

Sometimes we never even follow each other on the social media site. Just all DMs.

I've had flings and relationships with people that only reply sporadically. Or who give one word responses but are completely talkative in person. Or who apologize about not responding often because they are actually busy people who aren't trying to send a hint at all.

and the most important part of this? I have dozens of these low effort threads out there. For every one where its supposed to be interpreted as "a woman changing her behavior to be offstandish because they can't tell which man is a creep" there is "a woman thats not trying to send a hint at all collaboratively communicating like everyone else, good thing you tried again"

I would wager that most people do not keep track of whether they sent one girl 4+ unreplied messages in a row over any time period and its freaking her out, versus the conversation that will be replied to eventually. I try to be cognizant of "how it looks" no different than trying to be cognizant of how walking past a playground on the walking trail on the way to the grocery store looks. But changing my behavior because people can't tell which guys are going to go full stalker mode and assault people? Unlikely.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#178
post #18
post #3

Maybe obvious, but uh: don’t fucking do this! I get it, I'm an older brother, I would wanna go ballistic too. But the fact that these guys skipped over "notify the police" and went straight to "seek out in-person confrontation" is insane! Stalkers are not people in their right mind. Staking out and planning to “citizen’s arrest”(???) someone who has repeatedly visited late at night to threaten and harass is NOT SAFE…

Hi, Where I live the police won't get seriously involved unless someone is injured or dead. I prefer not to wait that long.

That's about the same almost anywhere in the world, the above user probably has no experience being stalked, despite the assertive phrasing. Also not to turn this into an identity debate but if HN had significantly more female users one of the highest upvoted comments wouldn't be just call the police bro.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#179

> When someone installs your app, you need to detect whether they have already installed it previously. If they have, then their activity (including blocks and people who have already declined them) should be linked to this new account Quite the contrary, every user has a right to be totally forgotten and their data deleted permanently. [Un?]fortunately.

Exactly. I get where the author is coming from but if you allow tech companies to perpentually save your data and try to cross link it to new accounts, it sets a bad precedent.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#180

> When someone installs your app, you need to detect whether they have already installed it previously. If they have, then their activity (including blocks and people who have already declined them) should be linked to this new account Quite the contrary, every user has a right to be totally forgotten and their data deleted permanently. [Un?]fortunately.

Not necessarily. If it is for fraud prevention, then you would be within your rights (at least under GDPR), to retain certain data for a reasonable amount of time.

In my opinion, fraud prevention is, of all reasons to retain data, the least important. This example of dating app behaviour is easily detected with simple heuristics, and leads to far more important information than fraud could ever be.
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