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It's okay to be critical of proposed ideas. The problem with hand held signals such as this is that they're self-defeating. To be effective they must be widely

It's okay to be critical of proposed ideas. The problem with hand held signals such as this is that they're self-defeating. To be effective they must be widely understood and conspicuous. If they are well understood and conspicuous, then the attacker will punish the victim for attempting to make them. Attackers will surely see articles like this and will prevent victims from putting their hands anywhere near the glass in future.

sam0x17 5y ago
That said, when it's generational you get interesting and good effects -- a hand signal the young people know might be enough to save a young person from an old person abducting them.
dada78641 5y ago
I don't think this signal becomes useless the moment an attacker knows about it. It's one thing to prevent your victim from speaking to anyone unattended, but it's hard to imagine there never being a moment for them to make a quick hand gesture to the outside world. At some point an attacker has to take their eyes off their victim even if for just a moment. It's true that attackers can take precautions against this, but that also makes their attack harder to carry out.
NoahRoseWood 5y ago
The hand signal just needs to be silent, so it can be flashed secretly at strangers. In this case, it worked. The teenager was able to flash the signal at a driver without alerting her captor
- scoopertrooper 5y ago
  That might work if the driver happens to be blind. But as I said, an attacker with knowledge of the use of hand signals to seek help would be alert to their passenger holding their hand up to window. So, they'd either restrain their passenger or threaten them to keep their hands away from the window. It worked this time because we're in a local optimum of sorts where enough community members understand the signals to help and enough attackers don't know about the signal to prevent it from being made. However, as community consciousness of these signals grows (through articles such as this) attackers will get wise to the practice. Hence, they're self-defeating.
  - darkerside 5y ago
    It seems like you're approaching this like a spherical cow, instead of a real world problem. It's easier to discreetly hand signal than to say something.
    - scoopertrooper 5y ago
      There is nothing wrong with simplifying a problem to get at its essence, but yes it is important to accept real-life is messy. I'm sure in a restricted set of circumstance this may help people (as it did in this story), but I sincerely doubt it'd lead to a material increase in kidnapped people being liberated. It'd certainly be less effective than other interventions such as cracking down on people trafficking networks or poverty reduction programmes. The expressiveness of hand gestures (in general) is quite limited and any gesture used for covert communication must make a tradeoff between conspicuousness to the public and conspicuousness to the attacker. This limitation restricts the situations in which they can be made and results in gestures that could be easily dismissed or otherwise misunderstood and thus limit their utility.
      - pferde 5y ago
        I can't believe this needs to be pointed out, but it's not an either-or proposal. We can have signals such as this one, as well as efforts to curtail human trafficking.
      - kortex 5y ago
        > The expressiveness of hand gestures (in general) is quite limited Clearly you've not met many sign language speakers. Or Italians. This is a perfectly cromulent covert hand gesture. It has high coding entropy - I've literally never once seen someone make this gesture (outside of videos demonstrating it). Fingerspelling is not remotely similar since it's a sequence of codes in rapid succession.
      - darkerside 5y ago
        > I sincerely doubt it'd lead to a material increase in kidnapped people being liberated. Sure was material to this chick
stolen_biscuit 5y ago
Calling 911 by that logic is self defeating because it's easily recognizable and can easily be preventable, but it's not, because these things aren't about being fool-proof, but giving people a means to communicate if the opportunity arises to do so. A silent hand gesture is perfect, can be easily made when someone turns their back, or is distracted and if recognized, can potentially save your life. But yes, it depends on IF the opportunity arises to do so, even if the attacker knows the hand signal. And a silent hand signal is incredibly easy to pull off in a situation like what occurred to this poor girl.
- scoopertrooper 5y ago
  Yes, the first thing a kidnapper will do is remove your phone from you because they're aware it can be used to call 911. So 911 is self-defeating in certain situations because attackers are aware of it and will target people in such a way as to avoid 911 being called. However, it still has utility because there are a range of situations where attackers take some time to subdue their victims (such as a home invasion) or in cases where there is a witness unseen by the attacker. These hand signals only make sense in cases where the attacker already has physical (though not mental) control over the victim and the crime is not immediately obvious to witnesses. I think this case would actually be one of the easiest for the attacker to prevent with prior knowledge of the hand signal. Most people hardly ever look at the occupants of passing cars and only subset of them would have the knowledge and presence of mind to interpret the signal and not dismiss it anyway. So, a victim would have to have their fist pressed up against the glass for an extended period of time. The attacker, sitting right next to the victim, would catch that in their peripheral vision pretty quickly.
  - stolen_biscuit 5y ago
    Yes, nobody is saying it's completely impervious to being prevented. It's a discrete way of alerting people to you being in danger, I don't know why you think it's a bad thing when it has literally been proven to be effective and potentially saved a young womans life. I do not understand the hostility to the idea.
dkersten 5y ago
The video in the article has an example where it can be effective: as a silent non verbal signal. Sure, writing it may be more effective but if for some reason you can’t, then a signal may be helpful.
kortex 5y ago
The symbol appears (to me) to be deliberately designed to be easy to disguise with a wave or other subtle hand gesture, particularly on some sort of video call. It's very obvious from the front, but not very obvious from other perspectives. It's this information differential that makes it effective. If you are at the point where you cannot even get your hands near where other people can see them, your signal bandwidth to the outside world is likely already severely curtailed. As in, you are probably locked in a basement. I don't think this is meant to address that severe of a human trafficking/abuse situation.

sam0x17 5y ago

That said, when it's generational you get interesting and good effects -- a hand signal the young people know might be enough to save a young person from an old person abducting them.

dada78641 5y ago

I don't think this signal becomes useless the moment an attacker knows about it. It's one thing to prevent your victim from speaking to anyone unattended, but it's hard to imagine there never being a moment for them to make a quick hand gesture to the outside world. At some point an attacker has to take their eyes off their victim even if for just a moment. It's true that attackers can take precautions against this, but that also makes their attack harder to carry out.

NoahRoseWood 5y ago

The hand signal just needs to be silent, so it can be flashed secretly at strangers. In this case, it worked. The teenager was able to flash the signal at a driver without alerting her captor

scoopertrooper 5y ago
That might work if the driver happens to be blind. But as I said, an attacker with knowledge of the use of hand signals to seek help would be alert to their passenger holding their hand up to window. So, they'd either restrain their passenger or threaten them to keep their hands away from the window. It worked this time because we're in a local optimum of sorts where enough community members understand the signals to help and enough attackers don't know about the signal to prevent it from being made. However, as community consciousness of these signals grows (through articles such as this) attackers will get wise to the practice. Hence, they're self-defeating.
- darkerside 5y ago
  It seems like you're approaching this like a spherical cow, instead of a real world problem. It's easier to discreetly hand signal than to say something.
  - scoopertrooper 5y ago
    There is nothing wrong with simplifying a problem to get at its essence, but yes it is important to accept real-life is messy. I'm sure in a restricted set of circumstance this may help people (as it did in this story), but I sincerely doubt it'd lead to a material increase in kidnapped people being liberated. It'd certainly be less effective than other interventions such as cracking down on people trafficking networks or poverty reduction programmes. The expressiveness of hand gestures (in general) is quite limited and any gesture used for covert communication must make a tradeoff between conspicuousness to the public and conspicuousness to the attacker. This limitation restricts the situations in which they can be made and results in gestures that could be easily dismissed or otherwise misunderstood and thus limit their utility.
    - pferde 5y ago
      I can't believe this needs to be pointed out, but it's not an either-or proposal. We can have signals such as this one, as well as efforts to curtail human trafficking.
    - kortex 5y ago
      > The expressiveness of hand gestures (in general) is quite limited Clearly you've not met many sign language speakers. Or Italians. This is a perfectly cromulent covert hand gesture. It has high coding entropy - I've literally never once seen someone make this gesture (outside of videos demonstrating it). Fingerspelling is not remotely similar since it's a sequence of codes in rapid succession.
    - darkerside 5y ago
      > I sincerely doubt it'd lead to a material increase in kidnapped people being liberated. Sure was material to this chick

stolen_biscuit 5y ago

Calling 911 by that logic is self defeating because it's easily recognizable and can easily be preventable, but it's not, because these things aren't about being fool-proof, but giving people a means to communicate if the opportunity arises to do so. A silent hand gesture is perfect, can be easily made when someone turns their back, or is distracted and if recognized, can potentially save your life. But yes, it depends on IF the opportunity arises to do so, even if the attacker knows the hand signal. And a silent hand signal is incredibly easy to pull off in a situation like what occurred to this poor girl.

scoopertrooper 5y ago
Yes, the first thing a kidnapper will do is remove your phone from you because they're aware it can be used to call 911. So 911 is self-defeating in certain situations because attackers are aware of it and will target people in such a way as to avoid 911 being called. However, it still has utility because there are a range of situations where attackers take some time to subdue their victims (such as a home invasion) or in cases where there is a witness unseen by the attacker. These hand signals only make sense in cases where the attacker already has physical (though not mental) control over the victim and the crime is not immediately obvious to witnesses. I think this case would actually be one of the easiest for the attacker to prevent with prior knowledge of the hand signal. Most people hardly ever look at the occupants of passing cars and only subset of them would have the knowledge and presence of mind to interpret the signal and not dismiss it anyway. So, a victim would have to have their fist pressed up against the glass for an extended period of time. The attacker, sitting right next to the victim, would catch that in their peripheral vision pretty quickly.
- stolen_biscuit 5y ago
  Yes, nobody is saying it's completely impervious to being prevented. It's a discrete way of alerting people to you being in danger, I don't know why you think it's a bad thing when it has literally been proven to be effective and potentially saved a young womans life. I do not understand the hostility to the idea.

dkersten 5y ago

The video in the article has an example where it can be effective: as a silent non verbal signal. Sure, writing it may be more effective but if for some reason you can’t, then a signal may be helpful.

kortex 5y ago

The symbol appears (to me) to be deliberately designed to be easy to disguise with a wave or other subtle hand gesture, particularly on some sort of video call. It's very obvious from the front, but not very obvious from other perspectives. It's this information differential that makes it effective. If you are at the point where you cannot even get your hands near where other people can see them, your signal bandwidth to the outside world is likely already severely curtailed. As in, you are probably locked in a basement. I don't think this is meant to address that severe of a human trafficking/abuse situation.