13 ms·

This problem isn't one born with the internet. Think about all those "WE BUY HOUSES 4 CASH" signs you see at stop lights. Why can't the city simply look up the

This problem isn't one born with the internet. Think about all those "WE BUY HOUSES 4 CASH" signs you see at stop lights. Why can't the city simply look up the phone number on them and convict the business owner for breaking advertisement laws? Because there is no proof he put the sign there. It could be the competition trying to frame him! Thus, the signs are simply thrown out... and he can put new ones out tomorrow.

munk-a 7y ago
At the same time, if that sign pops up four weeks in a row and is taken down four times - I should hope the city allocates a bit of labour to actually figure out who is doing it. And that's the answer that GR doesn't want to hear - clear patterns of abuse are apparent and they need to allocate more manual labour into moderation - automatic moderation can get pretty decent accuracy, but there's always a grey zone where you need some manual review - as much as we shrink that zone I don't think we'll ever make it disappear.
- r_singh 7y ago
  This is where phone verification comes to use, because a user can be tracked back to their phone number which can be tracked back to a real person.
burundi_coffee 7y ago
"Hello, I saw a sign that says you buy houses for cash, can I set up a meeting?" "Yes, when are you available?" > Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Surely can't be that hard to find out if the business owner set up that sign, right?
- microcolonel 7y ago
  INB4 people complain that this is "entrapment"
- drharby 7y ago
  Circumstantial. Go watch Zodiac to get an idea of how circumstantial evidence is insufficient
  - tzs 7y ago
    That's a common misconception. See [1] for more. [1] https://www.dummies.com/education/science/forensics/direct-versus-circumstantial-evidence/ https://www.dummies.com/education/science/forensics/direct-v...
    - drharby 7y ago
      Huh - TIL
- agrajag 7y ago
  A valid defense would just be that there was at least one legitimate advertisement that they saw. Just because one sign is illegal doesn’t mean they all are.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Let's say you buy houses for cash and I put up a sign with your number on it. The police call you and find out that you do, indeed, buy houses for cash. They throw you in jail and I snicker, knowing that by breaking the advertising law myself but with your name I have put you out of business. While I'm at it, I leave your business card at the scene of a heist.
  - throwno 7y ago
    I was thinking this could be a good way to get lame blogs banned off HN. Just order some upvotes for it from one of those banned upvoting services. No one is going to believe someone else ordered it.
    - SamReidHughes 7y ago
      They can remove the voters' voting power instead of banning the website. (This has happened with at least company's blog/employees, that I'm aware of, when I got asked as a contractor to help upvote.)
  - catalogia 7y ago
    >"Let's say you buy houses for cash and I put up a sign with your number on it. The police call you and find out that you do, indeed, buy houses for cash." Suppose I were operating such a business with legal advertisements only and the detective asked me "Hey I saw a sign on a telephone pole saying you buy houses for cash, is that right?" why would I answer in the affirmative? > "No, it's weird that you saw that. I don't post signs on any telephone poles, this is a highly reputable business. They'd only say that if they're smart. Many of them probably aren't, and their guard will be down if the detective can do a passable "desperate alcoholic" impression over the phone. But regardless, I agree that false negatives are more likely than false positives.
    - dvtrn 7y ago
      Because of the inherent and blatantly obvious disparity in the power dynamic that exists between the two parties in your hypothetical? https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/06/psychologist-explains-why-people-confess-crimes-they-didn-t-commit https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/06/psychologist-explain...
- thenewnewguy 7y ago
  Whoever answers the phone is likely not going to know or care about how the business advertises. Like seriously, do you expect an employee to go "oh I don't know of any signs we advertise on, so I guess we can't buy your house"? Even if they know for a fact that the company doesn't have any sign-based advertising they're still not going to turn away the customer.
baxtr 7y ago
This reminds me of a related point: Almost always when I find of the "We will buy your car" cards on my car's windshield I wonder what to do with the card. I don't want to litter the streets, at the same time I never asked for the stupid card. To this day, I am still not clear what is -from a morale standpoint- the right thing to do.
- 9dev 7y ago
  You just put it in the nearest trash can.
- therealx 7y ago
  I think the answer is obvious: a trash can or recycle bin. It's clear this could turn into a DDoS by them, but thankfully they havent thought like that. I'd prob backfire advertising wise anyway.
  - narag 7y ago
    Less obvious since I found out that my city's council taxes those cards. When the rain turns the usual dozen of flyers into a plaster that harden later with the sun, it takes a few minutes to clean at best.
    - velosol 7y ago
      File a police report for vandalism by the company?
      - narag 7y ago
        Vandalism? So illegal activities are now taxed instead of fined? Not that I find more logical that the council rents my car to those companies as an advertisement medium. But there's zero chance that report would be taken seriously.
        velosol 7y ago
        I understood your previous comment that you're already in a situation where it's taxed; I was thinking of someway to have it cost the advertising company money even if it only serves to have them put out the flyers on sunny days. I was thinking more as tool for insurance and/or attempting to force the company to pay for the cost of an exterior detailing of your car since they plastered something to it (with the help of the weather). In many US areas there are online police reports for minor incidents and the purpose of the report is almost solely so that you have a record for insurance. It may also help if you call up the company (or publicly shame them with a tweet) to ask for reimbursement for the cost of a car detailer to remove their litter from your car without damage. Having a police report means you could put it all in the hands of your insurance company who have lawyers on staff or use it as part of the negotiation with the company. Maybe enough police reports about a given company and you could petition the council to revoke that company's ability to flyer any longer? I know I'm probably dreaming that it would make a difference. The only time I've had an experience with this a friend used twitter and got a public apology from the company along with some monetary compensation around the removal of the ink residue from the windshield.
CommieBobDole 7y ago
I always assumed that the companies behind "we buy houses 4 cash" ads did exactly that - bought houses quickly and on cash terms at far below the market value from people who are in some sort of bad situation and would agree to a lousy deal in exchange for money now. Is that not what they do? Do they do something illegal instead?
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  The advertising signs placed on public property are illegal.
  - CommieBobDole 7y ago
    Well, yeah, but the parent post talks about the police calling the number on the sign and using that to get a conviction, so I assumed that some sort of other crime was being committed, like maybe they steal the caller's bank info or sign them up for some scam service. The reason the police don't do what the parent says is not because of difficulties with attribution of the act, it's because they care so little about the offense that they're not going to expend even the slightest effort to prosecute it. If they saw someone putting out signs, they might tell them to stop. Maybe.
sb057 7y ago
Similarly, a person can't be held (directly) legally responsible for receiving illicit material via postal service (at least in the United States). Otherwise, you could simply ship drugs to their home address and get them charged with any number of crimes.
- int_19h 7y ago
  However, a person can be legally raided for the purposes of recovering said drugs, even if they have no idea that they possess them after picking the package up. Furthermore, even if the police has advance knowledge of the package and could have intercepted it earlier, they can still allow delivery and follow up with the raid, just so that they can take the recipient into custody. One prominent example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor%27s_residence_drug_raid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor...

munk-a 7y ago

At the same time, if that sign pops up four weeks in a row and is taken down four times - I should hope the city allocates a bit of labour to actually figure out who is doing it. And that's the answer that GR doesn't want to hear - clear patterns of abuse are apparent and they need to allocate more manual labour into moderation - automatic moderation can get pretty decent accuracy, but there's always a grey zone where you need some manual review - as much as we shrink that zone I don't think we'll ever make it disappear.

r_singh 7y ago
This is where phone verification comes to use, because a user can be tracked back to their phone number which can be tracked back to a real person.

burundi_coffee 7y ago

"Hello, I saw a sign that says you buy houses for cash, can I set up a meeting?" "Yes, when are you available?" > Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Surely can't be that hard to find out if the business owner set up that sign, right?

microcolonel 7y ago
INB4 people complain that this is "entrapment"
drharby 7y ago
Circumstantial. Go watch Zodiac to get an idea of how circumstantial evidence is insufficient
- tzs 7y ago
  That's a common misconception. See [1] for more. [1] https://www.dummies.com/education/science/forensics/direct-versus-circumstantial-evidence/ https://www.dummies.com/education/science/forensics/direct-v...
  - drharby 7y ago
    Huh - TIL
agrajag 7y ago
A valid defense would just be that there was at least one legitimate advertisement that they saw. Just because one sign is illegal doesn’t mean they all are.
whatshisface 7y ago
Let's say you buy houses for cash and I put up a sign with your number on it. The police call you and find out that you do, indeed, buy houses for cash. They throw you in jail and I snicker, knowing that by breaking the advertising law myself but with your name I have put you out of business. While I'm at it, I leave your business card at the scene of a heist.
- throwno 7y ago
  I was thinking this could be a good way to get lame blogs banned off HN. Just order some upvotes for it from one of those banned upvoting services. No one is going to believe someone else ordered it.
  - SamReidHughes 7y ago
    They can remove the voters' voting power instead of banning the website. (This has happened with at least company's blog/employees, that I'm aware of, when I got asked as a contractor to help upvote.)
- catalogia 7y ago
  >"Let's say you buy houses for cash and I put up a sign with your number on it. The police call you and find out that you do, indeed, buy houses for cash." Suppose I were operating such a business with legal advertisements only and the detective asked me "Hey I saw a sign on a telephone pole saying you buy houses for cash, is that right?" why would I answer in the affirmative? > "No, it's weird that you saw that. I don't post signs on any telephone poles, this is a highly reputable business. They'd only say that if they're smart. Many of them probably aren't, and their guard will be down if the detective can do a passable "desperate alcoholic" impression over the phone. But regardless, I agree that false negatives are more likely than false positives.
  - dvtrn 7y ago
    Because of the inherent and blatantly obvious disparity in the power dynamic that exists between the two parties in your hypothetical? https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/06/psychologist-explains-why-people-confess-crimes-they-didn-t-commit https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/06/psychologist-explain...
thenewnewguy 7y ago
Whoever answers the phone is likely not going to know or care about how the business advertises. Like seriously, do you expect an employee to go "oh I don't know of any signs we advertise on, so I guess we can't buy your house"? Even if they know for a fact that the company doesn't have any sign-based advertising they're still not going to turn away the customer.

baxtr 7y ago

This reminds me of a related point: Almost always when I find of the "We will buy your car" cards on my car's windshield I wonder what to do with the card. I don't want to litter the streets, at the same time I never asked for the stupid card. To this day, I am still not clear what is -from a morale standpoint- the right thing to do.

9dev 7y ago
You just put it in the nearest trash can.
therealx 7y ago
I think the answer is obvious: a trash can or recycle bin. It's clear this could turn into a DDoS by them, but thankfully they havent thought like that. I'd prob backfire advertising wise anyway.
- narag 7y ago
  Less obvious since I found out that my city's council taxes those cards. When the rain turns the usual dozen of flyers into a plaster that harden later with the sun, it takes a few minutes to clean at best.
  - velosol 7y ago
    File a police report for vandalism by the company?
    - narag 7y ago
      Vandalism? So illegal activities are now taxed instead of fined? Not that I find more logical that the council rents my car to those companies as an advertisement medium. But there's zero chance that report would be taken seriously.
      - velosol 7y ago
        I understood your previous comment that you're already in a situation where it's taxed; I was thinking of someway to have it cost the advertising company money even if it only serves to have them put out the flyers on sunny days. I was thinking more as tool for insurance and/or attempting to force the company to pay for the cost of an exterior detailing of your car since they plastered something to it (with the help of the weather). In many US areas there are online police reports for minor incidents and the purpose of the report is almost solely so that you have a record for insurance. It may also help if you call up the company (or publicly shame them with a tweet) to ask for reimbursement for the cost of a car detailer to remove their litter from your car without damage. Having a police report means you could put it all in the hands of your insurance company who have lawyers on staff or use it as part of the negotiation with the company. Maybe enough police reports about a given company and you could petition the council to revoke that company's ability to flyer any longer? I know I'm probably dreaming that it would make a difference. The only time I've had an experience with this a friend used twitter and got a public apology from the company along with some monetary compensation around the removal of the ink residue from the windshield.

CommieBobDole 7y ago

I always assumed that the companies behind "we buy houses 4 cash" ads did exactly that - bought houses quickly and on cash terms at far below the market value from people who are in some sort of bad situation and would agree to a lousy deal in exchange for money now. Is that not what they do? Do they do something illegal instead?

lotsofpulp 7y ago
The advertising signs placed on public property are illegal.
- CommieBobDole 7y ago
  Well, yeah, but the parent post talks about the police calling the number on the sign and using that to get a conviction, so I assumed that some sort of other crime was being committed, like maybe they steal the caller's bank info or sign them up for some scam service. The reason the police don't do what the parent says is not because of difficulties with attribution of the act, it's because they care so little about the offense that they're not going to expend even the slightest effort to prosecute it. If they saw someone putting out signs, they might tell them to stop. Maybe.

sb057 7y ago

Similarly, a person can't be held (directly) legally responsible for receiving illicit material via postal service (at least in the United States). Otherwise, you could simply ship drugs to their home address and get them charged with any number of crimes.

int_19h 7y ago
However, a person can be legally raided for the purposes of recovering said drugs, even if they have no idea that they possess them after picking the package up. Furthermore, even if the police has advance knowledge of the package and could have intercepted it earlier, they can still allow delivery and follow up with the raid, just so that they can take the recipient into custody. One prominent example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor%27s_residence_drug_raid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor...