The Unsettling Rise of the Urban Narc App | Hacker News Reader

The Unsettling Rise of the Urban Narc App

citylab.com

27 pointscienega13 comments

Looking at this from another perspective.

Having worked in the DC city government for several years and for several nonprofits doing public policy analysis and advocacy, I somewhat understand the challenges on both sides. On the public side, people want systems to work better. On the government side, staff are doing what their director/mayor/governor/grantor wants while the public is saying yes or (hell!) no.

But the fact is that there is not unlimited time or money. So while it's good that people report bike lane violations and illegal dumping to 311, I would venture to say that not all are treated equally. And as an insider and outsider, I understand that this is the case.

In my mind, gathering and reporting (the apps) is as important as working with (educating, lobbying) government officials so both parties understand the situation and work towards some resolution.

All of this to say that the apps are cool and make people feel like they are doing something. And in some ways they are. But real change usually requires much more intensive work than reporting a bike lane violation. (Don't get me wrong. I wanted to drive tow trucks to move cars out of curb lanes during rush hour on my vacation days! Learn a new skill! Help others!)

As it finally says in the last paragraph: "In other words, it’s government inaction, not the technology itself, that’s conscripted this militia into surveilling their fellow citizens through their doorbells and their smartphones."

If bike lanes aren’t protected sufficiently by law-enforcement leading to examples of cyclists dying, what else are people expected to do other than harness legitimate routes to try to effect a change? It's not indiscriminate snooping - it's citizen activism.

Build better public transit? Modern society seems to have switched from a society that enables people to a society that punishes people to solve problems.

I always feared of a blockchain-backed "narc app" similar to LinkedIn, but with a less positive outlook.

Got fired from your last job for being an asshat? Better hope your team + manager don't get together and write a permanent, decentralized, forever record on all of the things you did wrong.

Spin it to the dating app sector:

Cheated on your last 5 girlfriends rampantly? If they all submit records on it, your 6th would-be-girlfriend can look it up and save herself the heartache.

Driving like a dick in traffic? Better hope your insurance company doesn't check. Being rude in your previous apartment complex? Would-be landlord will found out.

Complaints, backed by blockchain. Kind of like the whole publicized outlook on "if you see a citizen in China wearing luxury name brand clothing but they are in debt, you should scorn them".

The worst is the reality that people could (and would) use it for libelous purposes; such as vindictive exes (no matter the sex), or people with stability problems, or the like.

I don't disagree. I wonder what "verification" purposes can be done though.

I think eventually we'll have some online security mechanism where you only get one identity and it is backed/authed all the way down to your SSN.

One report wouldn't be enough, but 3-4 decentralized + SSN-backed reports... big enough trend that it might be true.

Nah, it’s not that you “don’t disagree” - it’s just that many of those crypto-anarchist ideas get destroyed when meeting the actually real life.

In this case the easiness of writing fake reviews is what makes it unusable. That’s actually the same reason why decentralised social networks aren’t yet a commodity.

This problem is very well known and is an incredibly popular reason why those ideas don’t work in the first place.

> In this case the easiness of writing fake reviews is what makes it unusable.

If it is authed all the way down to your SSN, how is it fake?

If it's authed all the way down to your SSN, it means that government owns the identities used in the system.

What exactly do you need a blockchain for in such a scenario? Ah right - the unchangeability.

Well, then it means that in all scenarios with the stolen identities we would need to provide for a mechanism to delete the reviews, based on the government-provided data on distrusted SSNs.

In a scenario where we don't allow the reviews to be post-deleted, we are rampantly increasing the value of stealing an identity, which means that the motivation for that goes up a lot.

Now, it means that the only entity that is actually responsible for the correctness of the data in our database is the government.

Now, why do you need a blockchain for that if you could simply have a database backed by the government in the first place?

> Cheated on your last 5 girlfriends rampantly? If they all submit records on it, your 6th would-be-girlfriend can look it up and save herself the heartache.

This actually existed for a while. I think it was called Lulu.

Why does it no longer exist?

Anonymous, unsubstantiated character assassination tends to be misused and/or become highly unpopular with certain sectors.

Even if that's only a small percentage of the use.

Not everyone participates in good faith.