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Could someone please help explain the threat? Are people being blackmailed with footage obtained of them? Is this occurring en masse?
by ngneer 5y ago
Could someone please help explain the threat? Are people being blackmailed with footage obtained of them? Is this occurring en masse?
- Enginerrrd 5y agoEver stay in an airbnb?
- ngneer 5y agoOf course, frequently. I must still be missing something. I have had zero extortion requests. My footage might be captured for private consumption by some perv, but where is the harm to me?
- mensetmanusman 5y agoExtortion is generally geared towards women. Violence towards women like this is a general negative externality/tax on society because everyone interacts with women.
- ngneer 5y agoI am inclined to agree, and you are correct if you assume that I am male. But I would prefer to see the data. Without it, the first sentence of the abstract is unsubstantiated. "Tiny hidden spy cameras concealed in sensitive locations including hotels and bathrooms are becoming a significant threat worldwide." The paper cites no evidence for "significant threat worldwide". Academic fancy?
- trickstra 5y agoWould you argue that voyeurism should stop being a crime then?
- ngneer 5y agoThat is a good question, and thanks for helping me to test the limits of my argument. I would say that voyeurism, like all crime, can be expected to follow a spatiotemporal probability cloud. Society does not accept folks peering into your home and as an individual you have recourse. I think it is fuzzier as soon as you step out into public. I would definitely consider an airbnb or most other spaces that are outside my control to be public spaces. But the question of voyeurism is sort of distinct from my main question, which is how big is the risk? Do we have data on how many people are hurt by this issue?
- quantified 5y agoNo more threat than my installing a couple in your living room, dining room and kitchen. Carry on…
- ngneer 5y agoThat is not the best analogy, because I assume less risk at home than elsewhere. My question was about the threat, and since adversaries are not installing cameras in people's home your comment does not answer my question.
- dexwiz 5y agoIssues are with AirBNB and shady landlords. Sometimes people being pervs, but also just extortion. You can create an AirBNB listing wither hyper restrictive rules, spy on your tenants, and then charge them fines after the fact.
- ngneer 5y agoI see. Makes sense. Are such airbnb experiences common, though? Given other controls such as reviews, are they expected to be long lived? I could maybe see the harm caused to a few individuals, which is deplorable, but once a single extortion event happens the expectancy of income is reduced.
- dexwiz 5y agoAnecdotal, but my partner recently went to a lake house for an engagement party. The lake house is a touristy location, and obviously meant to be a vacation home. However, the renters would only list the property as a "meditation retreat." Meaning no alcohol, no noise, no day guests, no fun. They had beach chairs in an unlocked area, and after the weekend sent a $900 bill to the guests. Apparently even though the chairs were freely accessible, using them constituted rental, so they charged $50 per chair per day. How else did they the host know they used the chairs that many times if they were not spying on them somehow? I imagine if they actually did anything, that bill would have been higher.
- terryf 5y agoWonder if some rules and ... oh, regulations? would create a situation where the renter would not have to worry about issues like this. Perhaps similar to rules and regulations that ... hotels have?