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Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

Creepers have been creeping for years and years and years.

They peer through curtains; they make spyholes in cubicle walls, and with digital cameras they hide cameras in ceilings and books and showers and shoes.

Voyeuristic porn is a category. Upskirt is word popular enough to have an understood meaning.

I'm a bloke. I'm not worried by those creepers.

But I am uneasy about some users of Google Glass. I'd be really uncomfortable if I was standing at a urinal and someone was next to me still wearing Google Glass.

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I have a feeling that when/if Glass becomes popular enough it will become a social faux pas to be wearing Glass while looking at a woman. Can you imagine some guy wearing Glass staring at a pretty girl across the way? It's creepy enough without Glass; it's super creepy with. As such, I'm betting it will be considered polite to prop Glass up on your head when interacting with people.

It is only a social faux pas for certain people to look at a woman while wearing Glass.

Or just take it off. Remember when people kept their bluetooth earpiece in their ear all the time?

except for those people who need glasses to see

Yeah, that's a good point. Maybe Glass will be like prescription sunglasses, and people will have a separate pair? Maybe there will be a way to overtly disable the computer part or remove it entirely?

I think it's really unlikely that, aside from early adopters, people will have Glass "in place" when they're not using it, though.

Or a pedophile.

Note that the term "upskirt" came to prominence after cellphones became widely available. Who knows what the new violation term would be.

> I'm a bloke. I'm not worried by those creepers.

> But I am uneasy about some users of Google Glass. I'd be really uncomfortable if I was standing at a urinal and someone was next to me still wearing Google Glass.

Now you know exactly how people who aren't blokes feel about creepers.

"I'd be really uncomfortable if I was standing at a urinal and someone was next to me still wearing Google Glass."

What if that person is deaf, and Glass is doing speech-to-text for them, helping them get through their day? What if they are a foreigner, and Glass is translating signs, instructions, and spoken language for them?

There are a lot of good uses for Google Glass that should not be ignored just because it has a camera and a microphone. Privacy concerns are no greater for Glass than for any smartphone -- significant, sure, but nothing new. It's just a smartphone in a different form factor.

And none of those things prevents them from taking it off and hanging it on a pocket or in their collar while using a urinal.

The only excuse for this that I can come up with is if, like someone I recall being posted about around here, it was actually mounted to their head in a way that makes it impossible or impractical to remove.

Maybe they just forgot to take them off? Why should a person using an assistive device constantly think about where it is appropriate to use?

I'd still feel uncomfortable.

I'm not saying glass is evil and everyone using it is evil at all times.

I'm expressing mild dis-comfort.

Some people experience 'bladder-lock' when standing at a urinal if there's someone next to them. I predict Google Glass is going to cause more cases of bladder-lock.

I'd feel the same level of discomfort if I was at a urinal and someone was standing next to me holding their smartphone, even if it wasn't pointed at me.

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