logoalt Hacker News

codeflotoday at 11:06 AM2 repliesview on HN

I'm not fully onboard with the logic that we just have to live with a certain type of criminal behavior because the technology that could prevent it can be misused to enable another type of criminal behavior. We should aim to stop any kind of criminal behavior.


Replies

jon-woodtoday at 12:29 PM

We should, but also we should prioritise more harmful behaviour being prevented over less harmful behaviour, and stalking/harassment is in my opinion more harmful than property theft.

show 1 reply
xpetoday at 12:17 PM

> I'm not fully onboard with the logic that we just have to live with a certain type of criminal behavior because the technology that could prevent it can be misused to enable another type of criminal behavior. We should aim to stop any kind of criminal behavior.

I don’t think anyone is making a claim that we should live with this according to first principles. I think people are saying this trade-off currently exists because it doesn’t seem to be economically or technologically feasible to solve both well.

How do you propose making an improvement to tracking technology that reduces theft while at the same time not assisting stalking?

One idea: if you report your AirTag as stolen, then it can continue to track the item, but you lose the ability to see where it is. In so doing you hand off tracking capability to some authority. This could be an improvement to the extent that the authority is trustworthy and well behaved. Unfortunately, such properties are not guaranteed across the globe. This would create more incentives for bribery for example.

show 1 reply