When Grown-Ups Get Caught in Teens’ AirDrop Crossfire
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204144
I’ve never had AirDrop work reliably much farther than about 10-15 feet.
At about the peak of its popularity—right before smartphones became truly prevalent among kids my age—I was doing middle school science fairs. This involved lots of standing around waiting in front of your trifold posterboard while judges slowly worked their way along the rows and rows of other projects. We weren't supposed to leave our own stations in the meantime, and they were spaced out enough to make talking with your neighbors inconvenient. Instead, the whole room was on PictoChat, filling up all four channels with streams of chatter and doodles and mutual commiseration on our anxieties over presenting to the judges.
(Apparently Bluetooth has some valiant defenders, but I stand by my assertion on security grounds.)
And my car starts music over my Bluetooth when I turn on the radio. I can answer calls hands-free by pushing a button on the dash. I don't have to touch my phone at all for these things to happen, just to keep it in my pocket or bag.
Both of these highly useful functions mean that my Bluetooth is on perpetually. Enabling it only when I wanted to use these features would be a major reduction in functionality for me.
Different people do different things, of course.
Phones these days aren't visible by default so it's rarely possibly anymore.
A usual citing on my network list was "Yell Penis for Password".
I've also had people, more deviously change their network name to "Galaxy Note 7" while in the airport or in-flight to stir frenzy after they were banned at airports.
I used to attempt Bluetooth pairing around the office with my phone set to "TURN OFF YOUR DAMN BLUETOOTH". The number of visible devices did decrease after a while!
In the early days of coffee-shop wifi, I used to browse around Network Neighborhood looking for people's shared MP3 folders. If they had stuff I liked, and their share was writable, I'd leave 'em something in return, along with a little thanks.txt :)
I wonder what reaction you'd get making your ESSID a penis 𓂸
https://boingboing.net/2018/10/31/can-you-see-the-penis-char...
It was harmless fun sending funny memes back and forth with strangers who were all trapped in an airline terminal. The hardest part was trying to keep a straight face when you saw some teenagers reaction when you sent them a sloth meme about leaving their airdrop open.
I would find random shares open on people's machines, then fill their entire hard drive with cat pictures. I usually left a few GB so they could save documents or whatever because I wasn't that much of an asshole.
I recall this being something that came up as SnapChat being valuable for, letting stuff be ephemeral.
The good part of this is kids being kids, they find ways, but I am curious if anyone else have found different examples of this type of behavior?
The only other equivalent I have seen is the large “group texts” movement for connectivity (with associated Bitmoji/memes etc)
Edit: Replaced WhatsApp with SnapChat, thanks for the correction! (Shows how out of touch I am on this stuff)
I still see the majority of college-aged and younger using it consistently.
That is older adults, 22+.
Their userbase is getting older.
Also, children are not good critical thinkers, and will be dragged along through a series of supposed disruptive media introductions that are mostly just different veneers on exploiting them in familiar ways.
First time I ever got a random AirDrop was a dick pic while I riding the subway in NYC. Somebody just sending dick pics to strangers on the subway.
I hadn't realized Apple had created a whole new avenue for sexual harassment. Great. Apparently at some point in the past I'd changed from the default "contacts only" to "everyone" without realizing what it would open me up to.
Obviously it seems like technologically there ought to be a way to identify the sending phone and pass it to the police to find the perp and charge them with a hefty fine at a minimum... but I'd already deleted it (of course) and didn't have the time.
Still, seems like Apple ought to provide a kind of "report abuse" mechanism that would disable it from your Apple ID, or something.
Also, maybe when an image is from someone not in your contacts... don't show a preview??? Or make it super-super blurry, so you can reject it without being subjected to it?
How is it any different whether it's in person or in pixels?
Do you honestly think you should be able to go up to anyone in public and wave your genitals in their face, that that should be legal? Because I don't see a big difference.
I believe that it's right and proper to maintain a certain level of public decency and enforce that by criminal law. And today in 2019 in New York City (where I live), that means being topless or dressing risque in public is OK... but that exposing yourself or having sex in public is not. That seems like a pretty reasonable line.
A dick pic is just that, a picture of a penis. I'm not sure what we're enforcing when we ban other people from exposing themselves to others is 'showing genitals to others' but rather 'behaving very sexually aggressive towards someone else'. And you can't really argue that with an anonymous dick pic.
Of course dick pics are rude, but arguing they are just the same as exposing yourself in public seems ingenuous
A knife?
A baseball bat?
... carried by a little leaguer in his team photo?
Where is that line drawn?
</rhetorical>
Those people have no realistic fear that he could get into the train or get in anyones face at that point.
Saying there's no difference reads like an anthropological report of a visit to an isolated tribe which is amazed by the people living in the little TV box.
You start wondering which passenger sent you the picture.
"Is this person looking for a reaction in order to identify me?"
"Will they follow me outside?"
"Should I be worried about being attacked"?
"Is it me? Should I not wear this shirt anymore? Do I look like I'm asking for it?"
"Perhaps I should call the police just in case? What if the police laugh at me?"
"Should I skip my station in case I'm followed and that person wants to find out where I live?"
"Is it that person who sent it? I commute with them daily. Should I be worried? Should I change my commute schedule?"
Overall, not an experience that you want forced upon you.
That does not mean that it's a light situation. In Canada, that is a criminal offence.
Indecent acts
173. (1) Everyone who wilfully does an indecent act in a public place in the presence of one or more persons, or in any place with intent to insult or offend any person,
(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years; or
(b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction and is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than six months.Maybe not even use messaging or E-Mail and stay at home just in case.
It's one thing to send empty death threats online. It's another to push your genitals on someone who's within 30 feet of you (AirDrop's range). This is the last thing that I'd want to receive at night while commuting in a dirty bus or while walking back home in the dark alone.
Yes, disabling the feature is a solution. However, I'll bet that most people are not aware that they have it on or don't suspect that it can be a vector of attack.
The problem here is people abusing of the system. Don't blame the victim for it. If anything, blame Apple for not explaining the feature better or for a not allowing to keep the feature to "everyone" and disable image previews.
The likely scenario is trolling by sending pictures, not a rapist mentally torturing their next victim before pouncing on her.
Criminalizing this will stop neither trolls nor rapists. The former because it's almost impossible to tell who did it, the latter because they're rapists.
Apple likely assumes that adults don't need a nanny. Parents can disable AirDrop for children.
If you didn't have the time, the police certainly don't either.
For the police it literally is their job. By definition they should have the time. Enforcing the law is certainly what the police have time for.
What do the two have to do with each other at all?
If the recipient is a child that is covered by the law, at least in some European countries, if not all.
Because this was a thing even during the Nokia times.
Technical writing in print-form is a lost art today.
Still, its a serious social handicap. At least the emojis ALMOST translate to the same things on a lot of non-Apple devices now
Nobody:
Android users: BUT ACTUALLY there's this convoluted way to do it for a whole decade that never works, and look at all this control I have over my device
At least that's how I presume Airdrop works.
I'm surprised they mention getting lots of requests can crash or slow down the phone.
I've had friends AirDrop me stuff. I was pretty sure it was contacts only by default. Had to search in settings to find it though, sure enough, contacts only.