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> “It’s hard to tell you a specific reason as to why we did this,” [Mobilewalla CEO Anindya] Datta said. “But over time, a bunch of us in the company were watch

> “It’s hard to tell you a specific reason as to why we did this,” [Mobilewalla CEO Anindya] Datta said. “But over time, a bunch of us in the company were watching with curiosity and some degree of alarm as to what’s going on.” He defined those sources of alarm as what he called "antisocial behavior," including vandalism, looting, and actions like "breaking the glass of an Apple store.” He added that they were attempting to test if protests were being driven by outside agitators. Probably not the best defense to be made when people are concerned that this technology is being used to suppress and monitor protestors...

throwaway29639 6y ago
The people breaking glass in an Apple store are violent criminals. Peaceful protestors exercising their first amendment right to assembly should applaud the ability to remove violent members from their ranks. Your pull quote describes a company concerned about criminals. The actions they are concerned with are not constitutionally protected. Probably not the best attack to lump together rioters and protestors. And I thought all the rioters at the protests were white supremacists trying to start shit anyway; don't you want to track them?
- burkaman 6y ago
  Only speaking for myself, but no, I don't think tracking all citizens to determine which ones are white supremacists is a good idea.
  - smitty1e 6y ago
    This information is Checkov's Gun[1]. Stipulate that the current crop of businesses and customers are ethical. There are zero (0) guarantees regarding what happens in the next act. So more thought is needed about the who/what/where/when/why about collecting data. The newest and shiniest technology is not automatically optimal in the long term. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov's_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov's_gun
  - throwaway20394 6y ago
    Wow that's a complete misrepresentation of what I said, but the post was flagged so now nobody will ever know. I'm not going to repeat my original point, even though it was valid, on topic, and not abusive. HN censors absolutely everything that doesn't fall in line with the narrative.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > Probably not the best attack to lump together rioters and protestors. And I thought all the rioters at the protests were white supremacists trying to start shit anyway; don't you want to track them? What exactly are you going to do with information about who is starting the riots, turn it over to the police? Are they going to arrest the white supremacists who are more or less on their side in this debate?
  - aerostable_slug 6y ago
    > Are they going to arrest the white supremacists who are more or less on their side in this debate? Please don't talk out of your rear end. There are plenty of good cops out there: I know and have worked with a bunch. In fact, some of them go after white supremacists.
    - dang 6y ago
      Please don't break the site guidelines like this. It's against the rules, it helps nothing, and it detracts from your point. Your comment would be fine without the first sentence. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      > There are plenty of good cops out there: I know and have worked with a bunch. In fact, some of them go after white supremacists. There are, I'm not a "All Cops Are Bad" kind of guy. But there are absolutely bad cops, and since cops get punished severely if they report other cops bad behaviors, it's impossible for outsiders to separate the bad from the good. Cops need to fix their own shit or this will continue.
      - aerostable_slug 6y ago
        My friends try to. The broad paint-roller treatment the very folks that can prosecute civil rights violations get here on Reddit disturbs me. There are exceeding decent people working in law enforcement. I have worked with more than one, to say the least. The people I've met who expressed openly racist sentiments were gone relatively quickly. I can't speak for everyone, but I can say there are actually a whole bunch of people who aren't like what you posit. Perhaps together everyone can center in and eliminate the malcontents instead of this insane "All cops bad" narrative. I can't say this about everyone I know in law enforcement, but for some (real, not racist) justice is one of their missions in life. There are those who care out there.
jagged-chisel 6y ago
Not sure "defense" is a good characterization. Doesn't sound to me like they felt accused or guilty. Sounds like an explanation. They felt some amount of civic duty in publishing their findings, or they'd have kept this to themselves.
- giardini 6y ago
  They're examining the data to determine how to market it. Just a normal internet business trying to get by and expand their market. This article is excellent advertising. Look on their web pages: "Why Partner with Mobilewalla? Our partners are always looking for rich, comprehensive data and profiles to provide to their clients. Likewise, Mobilewalla is always looking to increase the quality of our data through partnerships with companies like Oracle Data Cloud. Mobilewalla provides brands from any vertical or industry with the insights and long-term needs to personalize, target, and scale their marketing initiatives - from basic demographics like gender, location, and device type, to highly nuanced and detailed profiles...Mobilewalla provides insights into customer behaviors as they exist in the real world, all based on mobile-app usage and location-based intelligence."
deleted 6y ago
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throwaway29639 6y ago

The people breaking glass in an Apple store are violent criminals. Peaceful protestors exercising their first amendment right to assembly should applaud the ability to remove violent members from their ranks. Your pull quote describes a company concerned about criminals. The actions they are concerned with are not constitutionally protected. Probably not the best attack to lump together rioters and protestors. And I thought all the rioters at the protests were white supremacists trying to start shit anyway; don't you want to track them?

burkaman 6y ago
Only speaking for myself, but no, I don't think tracking all citizens to determine which ones are white supremacists is a good idea.
- smitty1e 6y ago
  This information is Checkov's Gun[1]. Stipulate that the current crop of businesses and customers are ethical. There are zero (0) guarantees regarding what happens in the next act. So more thought is needed about the who/what/where/when/why about collecting data. The newest and shiniest technology is not automatically optimal in the long term. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov's_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov's_gun
- throwaway20394 6y ago
  Wow that's a complete misrepresentation of what I said, but the post was flagged so now nobody will ever know. I'm not going to repeat my original point, even though it was valid, on topic, and not abusive. HN censors absolutely everything that doesn't fall in line with the narrative.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> Probably not the best attack to lump together rioters and protestors. And I thought all the rioters at the protests were white supremacists trying to start shit anyway; don't you want to track them? What exactly are you going to do with information about who is starting the riots, turn it over to the police? Are they going to arrest the white supremacists who are more or less on their side in this debate?
- aerostable_slug 6y ago
  > Are they going to arrest the white supremacists who are more or less on their side in this debate? Please don't talk out of your rear end. There are plenty of good cops out there: I know and have worked with a bunch. In fact, some of them go after white supremacists.
  - dang 6y ago
    Please don't break the site guidelines like this. It's against the rules, it helps nothing, and it detracts from your point. Your comment would be fine without the first sentence. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > There are plenty of good cops out there: I know and have worked with a bunch. In fact, some of them go after white supremacists. There are, I'm not a "All Cops Are Bad" kind of guy. But there are absolutely bad cops, and since cops get punished severely if they report other cops bad behaviors, it's impossible for outsiders to separate the bad from the good. Cops need to fix their own shit or this will continue.
    - aerostable_slug 6y ago
      My friends try to. The broad paint-roller treatment the very folks that can prosecute civil rights violations get here on Reddit disturbs me. There are exceeding decent people working in law enforcement. I have worked with more than one, to say the least. The people I've met who expressed openly racist sentiments were gone relatively quickly. I can't speak for everyone, but I can say there are actually a whole bunch of people who aren't like what you posit. Perhaps together everyone can center in and eliminate the malcontents instead of this insane "All cops bad" narrative. I can't say this about everyone I know in law enforcement, but for some (real, not racist) justice is one of their missions in life. There are those who care out there.

jagged-chisel 6y ago

Not sure "defense" is a good characterization. Doesn't sound to me like they felt accused or guilty. Sounds like an explanation. They felt some amount of civic duty in publishing their findings, or they'd have kept this to themselves.

giardini 6y ago
They're examining the data to determine how to market it. Just a normal internet business trying to get by and expand their market. This article is excellent advertising. Look on their web pages: "Why Partner with Mobilewalla? Our partners are always looking for rich, comprehensive data and profiles to provide to their clients. Likewise, Mobilewalla is always looking to increase the quality of our data through partnerships with companies like Oracle Data Cloud. Mobilewalla provides brands from any vertical or industry with the insights and long-term needs to personalize, target, and scale their marketing initiatives - from basic demographics like gender, location, and device type, to highly nuanced and detailed profiles...Mobilewalla provides insights into customer behaviors as they exist in the real world, all based on mobile-app usage and location-based intelligence."

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]