Comment by IncreasePosts

4 days ago

Not really, it is just tracking your bike. Theoretically someone could have thrown the bike in a dumpster, which went in a trash truck and you aren't tracking any body.

3 comments

IncreasePosts

jubilanti 3 days ago

You've missed my point entirely by trying to over literally interpret it as a closed form logical definition and proof. Classic HN.

Any sufficiently advanced theft prevention device is indistinguishable from a stalking device.

You're still stalking the movements of the person who stole your bike, until they ditched it. The fact that the device can no longer stalk them if they threw it in a dumpster does not mean you aren't still tracking their movements from where they stole your bike to the dumpster.

In that moment when you see your cut bike locks on the ground where you parked your bike, and you pull out your phone to track it, your first instinct is that someone stole it and you want to follow their movements after they stole it.

IncreasePosts 3 days ago

I think it's even more classic hn to try to redefine a commonly understood word in an attempt to be pithy, and then get pissy when someone says that's not really right. I probably wouldn't have responded if your post was particularly clever. But it wasn't.
No reasonable person would say trying to get your bike back by seeing it's location and going there is stalking. Stalking has an element of intent and a pattern of behavior which simply isn't present by a property owner attempting to go to the location of their property.
Perhaps you could stalk to get your bike back, but it would be something like "I think Bob stole my bike, I'm going to follow him around and see if I can catch him with my bike".
Perhaps you could stalk your bike thief by NOT retrieving your bike, but instead letting a thief keep your bike, and you continually track and harass them with your knowledge of where they probably are with your bike.