Google+ invite lands man in jail • Hacker News Board

Re: Google+ invite lands man in jail

#91

Post by nitrogen » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 2:03 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #89

atmosx wrote: post #85

Do we know if Google+ invites are sent deliberately? I think on Facebook you can prove who sent a friend request. That said, being arrested for a friend-request is silly. She could just block/ban/reject the request and no harm done. I would like to know the name of judge or prosecutor(?) who accepted a Google+ friend request as breach of restraining order . I get the very strong feeling that judges/prosecutors and la…

A restraining order means no contact, period. Life isn't kindergarten. Just because it's "online" doesn't mean that kindergarten rules apply. "No touching" doesn't mean "let's see if I can get away with just touching you with one pinky." A friend request, even if easily rejected, is definitely contact, as much as a text message or a phone call (which can also be blocked). The issue isn't how easy it is to block, it's…

Does this case clarify whether the Google+ invite was sent individually and deliberately, or as part of a mass "find friends" style feature and thus inadvertently?

Re: Google+ invite lands man in jail

#92

Post by adekok » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 2:04 PM UTC

king_jester wrote: post #86

pervycreeper wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(IANAL) Restraining orders are usually granted without requiring any evidence, aside from the testimony of the person requesting it. I believe it is a common strategy for (especially) women to exploit this in order to gain some sort of advantage over their partners following a breakup.

> I believe it is a common strategy for (especially) women to exploit this in order to gain some sort of advantage over their partners following a breakup. Perhaps the reason why women seek TROs and ROs is because they are much more likely then men to be the victim of physical assault, stalking, harassment, or murder from their partners or former partners.

> they are much more likely then men to be the victim

That's the common belief. How do we know it's true, and not a "just so" story?

My investigations into this led me to CDC reports (and others) showing that DV / IPV was largely 50/50. Harm was more often done to the smaller partner (i.e. women). But women also tended to use more weapons in their attacks.

These reports aren't hard to find. Most people don't look.

Re: Google+ invite lands man in jail

#93

Post by rayiner » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 2:06 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #91

rayiner wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A restraining order means no contact, period. Life isn't kindergarten. Just because it's "online" doesn't mean that kindergarten rules apply. "No touching" doesn't mean "let's see if I can get away with just touching you with one pinky." A friend request, even if easily rejected, is definitely contact, as much as a text message or a phone call (which can also be blocked). The issue isn't how easy it is to block, it's…

Does this case clarify whether the Google+ invite was sent individually and deliberately, or as part of a mass "find friends" style feature and thus inadvertently?

I actually know jack-shit about Google+. I assumed what the article was talking about was like a Facebook friend request where you have to individually invite a specific person. Will Google+ really just randomly spam people you've had e-mail conversations with?

Re: Google+ invite lands man in jail

#94

Post by xtirpation » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 2:11 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #89

atmosx wrote: post #85

Do we know if Google+ invites are sent deliberately? I think on Facebook you can prove who sent a friend request. That said, being arrested for a friend-request is silly. She could just block/ban/reject the request and no harm done. I would like to know the name of judge or prosecutor(?) who accepted a Google+ friend request as breach of restraining order . I get the very strong feeling that judges/prosecutors and la…

A restraining order means no contact, period. Life isn't kindergarten. Just because it's "online" doesn't mean that kindergarten rules apply. "No touching" doesn't mean "let's see if I can get away with just touching you with one pinky." A friend request, even if easily rejected, is definitely contact, as much as a text message or a phone call (which can also be blocked). The issue isn't how easy it is to block, it's…

You're right of course, but I struggle to view the world in such a black-and-white manner to be honest especially when there are black boxes like in play, Google+'s source code in this case.

How much proof would have to be provided that the Google+ invitation was sent deliberately by the user? Sworn testimony from a Google employee? There can of course exist bugs that send invites erroneously that nobody knows about. Revealing of the source code and analysis by experts? Unknown bugs can still exist, especially in systems as large as Google's.

Stepping back from this particular case, what about apps that scan your contact list and automatically send invites and/or messages?

These situations aside, it's far too easy to accidentally send an invitation. Hell, I don't doubt that many people reflexively agree to prompts on websites they think they're familiar with. Of course the argument can be made that people with restraining orders must be more careful, but it just doesn't seem sane to me that people can get jail time for clicking a button on a prompt that most people wouldn't think twice about.

Re: Google+ invite lands man in jail

#95

Post by cbhl » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 2:11 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #93

nitrogen wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this case clarify whether the Google+ invite was sent individually and deliberately, or as part of a mass "find friends" style feature and thus inadvertently?

I actually know jack-shit about Google+. I assumed what the article was talking about was like a Facebook friend request where you have to individually invite a specific person. Will Google+ really just randomly spam people you've had e-mail conversations with?

Facebook can and does "randomly spam" people you've had e-mail conversations with if you let them at your address book.

Re: Google+ invite lands man in jail

#96

Post by jessaustin » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 2:12 PM UTC

Jgrubb wrote: post #25

blueskin_ wrote: post #15

Moral of the story: Don't use google+.

The story was that the "perp" claims he didn't even send the invite, that Google must've generated it for him. The moral of the story is that you might be a user of G+ and not even know it. Read the article before boiling it down for us.

From TFA, a perfect example of how joining G+ could lead to this predicament:

And by default, when someone joins Google+ and that person is in your Gmail contacts, Google will automatically send you a notification, along with an invitation suggesting that you "add him [or her] to your Circles to stay connected."

In such a scenario, the alleged unrestrained person could be held responsible for the fact that his alleged target had received emails from him at any time in the past, such as before the order was requested or before they even "broke up".

It may well be that there are other scenarios that require even less interaction.

Re: Google+ invite lands man in jail

#97

Post by timje1 » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 2:13 PM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #73

Joeboy wrote: post #54

It seems reasonable to me that courts should be able to issue temporary restraining orders without requiring much evidence, as long as it's generally understood that that's what happened. The problem here seems to be that the man was held accountable for a breach of such an order that was both minimal and unintentional. I would guess that the law takes this possibility into account, and the police involved probably s…

In some states the order will curtail your right to purchase a firearm or, possibly, to exercise other 2nd amendment rights. Depending on your circumstances, this might endanger your life. That the courts can eliminate some of a citizen's rights based on an unsupported complaint with no due process might not be considered reasonable by everybody.

Haha, I can imagine the argument.

"I've just broken up with my girlfriend, it was a pretty messy event and now she's got a temporary restraining order on me... And this really pissed me off. So as an obvious next step, I went to go exercise my rights via purchasing a handgun... only to find my 2nd amendment rights had been taken away! What's become of blessed 'merica?"

Re: Google+ invite lands man in jail

#98

Post by fuzzix » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 2:16 PM UTC

sedha wrote: post #66

philbarr wrote: post #50

I have a friend who works the emergency telephone line and is getting increasingly frustrated with calls regarding Facebook. A typical call will have the caller complain that, "[person x] has written something horrible on my wall!" So he says, "hang on? They've written on your wall ? So you're friends with them?! Just un-friend them!" In fact in a recent review he was told off for groaning loudly on the telephone whe…

G+ did nothing out of the ordinary here (if indeed it did anything, there is plenty of guess work in that post) Facebook friending and Twitter following have landed many a person in jail, none of these services got this sort of blame for it. When adding someone to your circle they get an email notification, same as when you follow someone on Twitter they get an email telling them that, But suddenly in G+ it's 'aggres…

> "And for the record G+ doesn't bulk send invites to all your contacts that just misinformation and FUD spreading"

Does it ever send individual invites without explicit and clear consent or without explicit action by the user?

Re: Google+ invite lands man in jail

#99

Post by jessaustin » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 2:16 PM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #85

Do we know if Google+ invites are sent deliberately? I think on Facebook you can prove who sent a friend request. That said, being arrested for a friend-request is silly. She could just block/ban/reject the request and no harm done. I would like to know the name of judge or prosecutor(?) who accepted a Google+ friend request as breach of restraining order . I get the very strong feeling that judges/prosecutors and la…

...judges/prosecutors... [lose] common sense the minute they start practicing.

The system actually selects for the most vindictive, Procrustean, authoritarian candidates for these positions. So if you're an attorney with an ounce of decency or common sense, you don't even get the chance to "lose" that as a judge or prosecutor, because you never become one of those.

Re: Google+ invite lands man in jail

#100

Post by DanBC » Thu, Jan 09, 2014, 2:17 PM UTC

A similar case happened in uk where a man sent facebook friend requests to everyone in his email list, which included his ex wife who had a restraining order againts him.

On mobil so links in a while.