Hacker News Reader

Comment by erikpukinskis | Hacker News Reader

This does indeed come off as disrespectful.

These videos weren’t “leaked”, they weren’t found on someone’s old phone.

The people who shot the video LIED to the participants in order to coerce participation. They paid other people to lie to them as well in order to create a more complete deception. Then they posted the videos in exactly the way they said they would not do.

They also provided drugs and alcohol to the participants before offering paperwork.

This is fraud, pure and simple, thus the monetary reward. And your comment here comes across as patronizing at best. You read an article about criminal behavior and then blamed the victims of the crimes.

“Have fun”? These are desperate people desperately trying to negotiate a contract so they can survive. This is not some kids having sexy time.

View on HN

You make many good points, but aren’t being charitable to OP.

No one has disputed this was fraud, and a vile one besides.

And if OP intended to suggest equivalence between i) careless but informedly consenting teens having fun and ii) victims of fraud, that would be incorrect.

Telling people to be careful, however, is not blaming the victim. I don’t have kids, but this is advice I expect to give them.

It's not disrespectful, it's a fact of life.

Any photo, any video that is shared/stored on a device you don't own, will almost certainly end up eventually being shared outside the originally intended circles.

It doesn't even matter if the person or company you're dealing with fully intends to keep their word. The nature of all data is it leaks over time.

My comments were not about the people in this story directly. I am certainly not blaming them for what happened.

My point is, if you don't control the source of the recording (whatever it may be), you can't control what happens to it. With how easy it is to share any data these days, it could go places you don't want it to very quickly.

"Have fun" was a general comment for people. Look at all the political fallout that has happened to various people over pictures from decades ago that have resurfaced, for one example.

Here's another (older) example of what I mean: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Kid

Honestly, I don’t think you need to defend your comment any further to appease anyone who would be potentially offended by reading it. “Do not knowingly film your sexual encounter(s)” period. It’s a general cautionary statement and should be treated as such.

Exactly. Even if what they told the girls was 100% true -- the videos would be on DVDs only distributed in Australia and New Zealand, there is little reason to think those scenes on a DVD wouldn't end up online on a streaming porn site.

The most disturbing part of this is the doxing of the girls after the fact and that they shorted them on payment after doing their scenes. Changing the terms of the shoot once they arrived actually has happened a lot in porn over the years.

There is no free lunch in life -- you don't make $3000-$5000 for filming something that will never see the light of day.

It sucks that the girls fell for their con, but there was an extreme amount of naivety on their part that allowed them to be conned in the first place.

Your comment, however, implies a naivete that we should trust others - to do only what they say they will, with things that are precious to us.

The people shooting the video are frauds, but allowing the video to be shot at all was naive at best and stupid at worst.

> implies a naivete that we should trust others - to do only what they say they will, with things that are precious to us.

We trust strangers all the time. For example when driving, because we expect dangerous people to be sufficiently de-incentived from driving. Or when doing groceries, because we expect companies not to poison us. Or when riding in a stranger's car, even though they could rob and/or harm.

terrible examples, in all instances we have laws in place and people who's jobs it is to ensure the safety.

Your point has some legitimacy, but your examples are severely flawed.

> in all instances we have laws in place and people who's jobs it is to ensure the safety

Yes, and that was exactly my point. We (can) have laws and enforcement for the issue this article is about too.

> when driving

We actually exhibit a low level of trust, given the extreme safety measures we build into our cars and the segregation of our highway corridors. 'Trusting strangers' would look like cars without airbags, and the removal of speed limits in residential areas.

We do not trust food companies not to poison us. We require an accounting of every ingredient that goes into every piece of food we eat, and companies are held accountable to that list. If you think we trust food companies, read about the reaction to Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle)

> Or when riding in a stranger's car, even though they could rob and/or harm. Isn't that the running joke? That harm does happen, and somehow we still roll the dice and use those services.

I'm just surprised that we trust pharma companies as much as we do.

Why the anger? The GP was not blaming the victim but giving a warning. Whether it be through scumbag criminals or a lost device, content recorded and uploaded digitally can often never be deleted.

They were sick individuals that exploited these women. Individuals like that will never go away so we need to be vigilant through enforcement of laws and education of the public.

The best way to avoid fraud is to become smarter oneself. It is not that hard to detect once you learned some survival skills. Sorry, but criticising someone as disrespectful for helping people to learn survival skills sounds damaging. A little like not telling your children about sex and condoms because you don't want them to have sex.

Shit will happen. Better be prepared, and better help others prepare. Stop criticizing people who try to help.

PS: He also didn't say that it isn't fraud. He said that besides fraud there are a lot of other ways a video you made could be used in other ways than you intended.

> They also provided drugs and alcohol to the participants before offering paperwork.

Maybe the participants shouldn't be taking the drugs and alcohol to begin with?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com