Comment by codeflo
6 hours ago
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.
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.
Not on Earth, no.
It would be if stalking happened at the same frequency as property theft, but the rates are ridiculously lopsided.
So much property theft happens that we don't bother reporting almost any of it.
Frequency isn't really an issue here. I don't care that much if someone steals my luggage. I'd be a little mad if someone took my bike, but I have redundant protection for it, along with other things of more importance, or I keep them on me.
But I'd really, really not like to find out someone was following me around.
1 reply →
> 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.
Even in most first world countries the police won't help for the theft of an item of small value like a bag or even a bike.