Hacker News Reader

Comment by jzwinck | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone here remember those huge catalogs of everyone's home address? I recall they were full of yellow and white pages.

I'm not sure what the point is here...if someone knows your name they can often simply look up your home address online (or in an anachronism).

Even social security numbers are available online for people who have died: http://ssdmf.info/

I can sympathize with the idea that people should be able to live private lives, but what Instagram is doing doesn't seem particularly notable.

View on HN

The argument isn't "Instagram is publishing people's locations," it's "People are allowing lots of services, Instagram among them, to publish their location, and it's harder to participate in modern society while reliably opting out of all of them."

It used to be the case that you could call up the phone company and say, please leave me out of the phone book. It still is. But there are so many more ways to learn your address today, and as always with security, it only takes one oversight to be compromised.

There's nothing unique about what Instagram is doing. They're one of several services other than the phone company that can leak your location if you're not being constantly vigilant. They're not notable, and that's the real story.

actually, it's really easy to avoid publishing your location. Turn off GPS.

This precludes Google Maps usage, though, which is frustrating to say the least.

I share frustrations with Facebook pinging for my location on my phone when I'm not doing anything linked to my location. But here, on Instagram, there's a very obvious "Add to Photo Map" button (which is off by default!), so these people opted in to this.

This precludes Google Maps usage, though, which is frustrating to say the least.

You can use Google Maps and its GPS feature without a Google account. Then Google knows where your phone is, and you know where you are, but Google doesn't know who you are.

By this logic, 'The argument isn't "Instagram is publishing people's locations," it's "People are allowing lots of services, Instagram among them, to publish their location, and it's harder to participate in modern society while reliably opting out of all of them."'

shouldn't only people who would opt-out of a phonebook listing be concerned? I would definitely not be in that group, but am concerned with the modern situation. I see the automated and large scale compilation and cross-referencing of these data as the dangerous part.

I think what's missing here is that generally a phonebook requires that I know your first and last name, that you be the person listed in the phone book (and not, say, their kid or even their spouse), and that I can choose you from all the other Michael Smiths in the book.

Lastly, even then, your address is not updated by the second. It could be out of date. And I certainly wouldn't know what your living room looked like.

Instagram et.al provides your actual location. Often, at that very moment. Not the same at all.

Also, as I recall, the white pages usually only published names and numbers. Some people had addresses included. Yellow Pages was only business listings, which included addresses obviously, but I think that's a feature not a bug. Anyone know what % of white pages listings had addresses?

You're totally right. But I think it's interesting to pick a bunch of random Instagram users in your area whose address you now know who start posting photos that are geotagged out of town. Now you know where they live and that they're not in their house right now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com