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Comment by fleitz | Hacker News Reader

The truth of the matter is all of us are far more risk from the people we know than the people we don't.

If you don't like this app and don't like the people behind it, stop making sure that every person who might be interested in it hears about it so they can add it to their phone. I wonder how much bank the devs are making from all this free press.

Maybe there are muggers and robbers and stalkers looking for me on this app, I'm not going to think about it for more than a half second. You should really fear getting cancer, or getting in a car accident, or even getting the flu, not being accosted by random people from the internet. Random people from the internet is not a statistically significant source of crime or harm to people, and this app isn't going to do anything to change that.

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> If you don't like this app and don't like the people behind it, stop making sure that every person who might be interested in it hears about it so they can add it to their phone.

It's not about free press for the devs as you make of it. I bet this app must have been doing rounds at anonynous image boards, porn sites and the like since the day it was launched. The Girls Around Me coverage is instead actually bringing to light the intense security threats such misuse of data can bring.

Merely 48 hours since these reports surfaced, the app has been yanked from the app store and its access to Foursquare data turned off. That says something about the need to bring these things to light. People who want it will find a way to get it anyway.

I understand the app's Foursquare API access has been withdrawn, so presumably it won't work anymore. On the other hand this kind of app probably looks like a pretty appealing prospect for unscrupulous app developers right now.

The app doesn't even work and people are still talking about it? That's insane.

Yeah, you could probably make one called Gold Digger that finds eligible bachelors. Maybe narrow it down to all the guys in your area with an LLB/MBA?

> The app doesn't even work and people are still talking about it? That's insane.

I disagree.

The app has raised awareness of some serious issues which already existed before the app was created and still exist after it stopped working. We should absolutely be discussing them. The fact that another app just like it can, and probably will, be created tomorrow is exactly why this is getting so much attention.

Rightly so, in my opinion.

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