Hacker News Reader

Comment by patrickmclaren | Hacker News Reader

"You can use a Burner for dating, Craigslist, short-term projects, side businesses, bands, and other times when you need to be in touch but want to maintain a little privacy." -- Such as when I want to be a royal pain in the ass towards ex-girlfriends, and people that I generally dislike. How have you planned to reduce angst caused by the misuse of your app?

View on HN

This explains why they are ex girlfriends! Why on earth would the app get involved in how the app is used, that's th responsibility of the user, just like when you buy a kitchen knife, the designer wasn't giving much consideration to reducing angst caused by its misuse.

Please let's stop with the nanny state nonsense. As others have pointed out its no different to pay phones.

You have access to infinite payphones just outside your door?

More seriously: what's wrong with asking developers to think about what their creations are enabling?

Nothing wrong with asking developers to think about what their creations are enabling. Let's not confuse the root cause though. The technology brings our shadow side out into the open. That same shadow side may itself allow for positive changes in society.

I would think that the majority of the overall usage of kitchen knives would be true to the designer's intention. Given that this app is available on the iPhone App Store, which every immoral spur-of-the-moment teenager has access to, and will likely abuse, it is definitely something that the developers should have considered.

Easily faking your phone number has been around long before this app.

http://www.spoofcard.com/

-- "Display a different number to protect yourself or pull a prank on a friend. It’s easy to use and works on any phone!"

Just because we can do things, and others do, means we shouldn't discuss the different use-cases and implications? I gather that most people are here to make a quick buck using their technical prowess, but to look away from possible misuse seems very shortsighted.

How did we ever live with payphones?

Running around in public, repeatedly using different payphones is a little different to sitting in your bedroom creating "temporary phone numbers at the touch of a button."

True enough. I can see this becoming something to do at college / teenager parties. Create a temp number and start crank calling. If you had to take an entire group of people out to a payphone to do the same thing, it's a bit of a barrier to doing it.

If phone numbers are as easy to create as email addresses, won't they be used for spam - and become useless for "are you human?" authentication?

They're already used for spam. For a while there I was getting two spam calls a day inviting me to lower my credit card bill or something.

I'm thinking Craigslist scams will be one of the major use cases. You've got my cellphone number, I'm legit! Wanna buy a bicycle? Pay no attention to this snipped chain hanging off the handlebars.

do you honestly think people view cellphone number ownership as a sign of trustworthiness? cellphones are cheap.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com