How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#261

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #204

JacKTrocinskI wrote: post #6

Or just go to a hotel! I have a condo in a building where most of the units are listed on Airbnb or Booking.com, quality of life for residents like me has been drastically reduced by noisy tourists that come for a weekend trip and have no regard for keeping it quiet or keeping the shared spaces clean. I hope more cities begin to ban Airbnb. Tourists belong in hotels not in buildings where families try to live their d…

AirBnBs could have some form of noise monitoring and have the system overcharge you when you make too much noise.

Could. But that would mean AirBnB would have to stop playing the "we're only brokering" game.

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#262

Post by ulfw » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

gibagger wrote: post #91

ulfw wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that enforced?

The owner of the property must get a permit number from the municipality. Airbnb and other similar sites are obliged to require that permit number and limits the amount of nights per year for Amsterdam properties.

That's a cool way of doing it. I wonder if there is a central database for those number of stays. Otherwise you could feasibly rent it out 30 days on AirBnB and then 30 more days on booking.com and then 30 on other platforms etc

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#263

Post by aembleton » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #140

mbel wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience in Europe: hostels imply a bunk bed in shared room here too. I just made a quick search on booking.com for a hostel in Warsaw and nearly all of the offers were shared dormitories.

Interesting. Could be that booking.com uses the US meaning of the term? I must have stayed in something like 30 different hostels in Poland over the course of last decade; it was always in single bed or two-bed rooms, with the whole room rented for me. I never used booking.com, though, but always did a Google search for "hostele w $city", and reserved room via phone or web form.

hostelworld.com is based out of Ireland and they specialise in allowing you to search for shared dorm type hostels.

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#264

Post by dec0dedab0de » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

JacKTrocinskI wrote: post #6

Or just go to a hotel! I have a condo in a building where most of the units are listed on Airbnb or Booking.com, quality of life for residents like me has been drastically reduced by noisy tourists that come for a weekend trip and have no regard for keeping it quiet or keeping the shared spaces clean. I hope more cities begin to ban Airbnb. Tourists belong in hotels not in buildings where families try to live their d…

I think buildings and certain communities should definitely ban Airbnb, at least for instances when the host is not staying there with you.

Having the city ban it entirely is extreme. There are plenty of locations in (almost?) every city where a B&B could operate without bothering anyone. Why ban something everywhere when it is only a problem in certain places?

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#265

Post by tempsy » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

JacKTrocinskI wrote: post #6

Or just go to a hotel! I have a condo in a building where most of the units are listed on Airbnb or Booking.com, quality of life for residents like me has been drastically reduced by noisy tourists that come for a weekend trip and have no regard for keeping it quiet or keeping the shared spaces clean. I hope more cities begin to ban Airbnb. Tourists belong in hotels not in buildings where families try to live their d…

I feel like AirBnB has largely escaped the public uproar that Uber/Lyft have experienced, perhaps because workers rights are more tangible/relatable than the second order effects of crowding out housing stock for full-time Airbnbs despite the more serious socioeconomic consequences Airbnb can have on housing prices/available rental stock as well as safety and quality of life for anyone that has to live near one.

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#266

Post by ryanmarsh » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #230

ryanmarsh wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't stay in airbnbs - the system breaks the social contract. I didn't know I was party to this contract, and I couldn't tell you what the terms are. I travel a lot for work and I stay almost exclusively in AirBnb because I like having my money and a nice home-like experience. I still don't understand how society would benefit from AirBnb not existing and us being where we started with the hotel cabal.

> the hotel cabal. "Hotel cabal" is bullshit. Slightly less bullshit than Uber's "taxi mafia", but still a steaming pile of bovine excrement. AirBnB is a multinational corporation. It's displacing not just large hotel chains, but also all the local legal forms of short-term accommodation - small hotels, hostels, motels, BnBs, etc. It really bewilders me that people have fallen for the same reality-inverting marketing…

If you can’t see the harm in a few companies owning the vast majority of hotel rooms (under many brands) then I don’t know how we can have a productive discussion about this.

Having personally made “status” in the various hotel cabal loyalty programs, and having used AirBnb/VRBO/HomeAway/etc... many many times as well. I say with confidence that the hotel chains have negative externalities that exceed those of the various short term rental sites. I’ll go so far as saying the hotel cabal is a net negative.

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#267

Post by sitkack » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #225

voidwtf wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that ‘people’ break the social contract. These people know where they are, what time it is, and mostly what’s expected of their surroundings. I think they just don’t care. I’m guessing it’s similar to anonymity on the Internet, where people behave differently because they don’t expect to have to face those they harm.

Yes, it's people who break social contract. The sin of AirBnB isn't that they create those people where they didn't exist before. The sin of AirBnB is that they organize those people on a massive scale and put them in a position where breaking the social contract is the default behavior. Tourists are noisy and careless. That's to some extent forgivable - tourism is a leisure activity. Hotels and other legit tourism-o…

A lot of startup culture is about breaking the social contract for profit. "Value" is locked up in norms, but you can show up to a place, throw those norms away and make lots of money. Cutting down apple orchards to put in tract housing. Making employees contractors and gaming the system so they compete rather than cooperate. This pattern causes others to seek out norms that can bent for profit, so it has spread like a meme.

In Germany, one can openly drink any sort of alcohol one wants. But the social norms as such that jackassery by those consuming alcohol is greatly reduced. The people there are under a stronger social contract.

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#268

Post by mrguyorama » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

jkoudys wrote: post #226

Symbiote wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In at least some cases the tourist tax is only for tourists. Business visitors don't need to pay the tax, if they show some evidence that it's a business trip. An example is Cologne's "Culture tax": https://www.stadt-koeln.de/politik-und-verwaltung/steuern-ge...

Interesting -- I'll look into that for NYC. I'm CTO at a startup based in Toronto, but we have a tiny space in Manhattan so it's pretty easy for me to schedule some business there and have my family tag along.

>business there and have my family tag along

So you think you should be able to violate the spirit of the law? Why shouldn't you pay that tax as a tourist?

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#269

Post by PeterStuer » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

JacKTrocinskI wrote: post #6

Or just go to a hotel! I have a condo in a building where most of the units are listed on Airbnb or Booking.com, quality of life for residents like me has been drastically reduced by noisy tourists that come for a weekend trip and have no regard for keeping it quiet or keeping the shared spaces clean. I hope more cities begin to ban Airbnb. Tourists belong in hotels not in buildings where families try to live their d…

I have boycotted al these regulation dodge businesses from the start. This is a race to the bottom. And yes, I do consider the customers accomplices.

Re: How to Find Hidden Cameras in Your Airbnb

#270

Post by jakejarvis » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:52 PM UTC

known wrote: post #20

Fascinating & Frightening Shodan Search Queries https://jarv.is/notes/shodan-search-queries/

Thanks for posting my weird collection!

A personal spy cam in a rental home is bad enough, but the fact that there are so many open to the world (and therefore indexed on Shodan) makes it infinitely worse.