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from the If-you-are-reading-this-message... dept.
Natalie Matthews writes that a year ago, a friend of hers left her two roommates at a bar to walk the three blocks home to their apartment in a yuppie Boston neighborhood. "She wanted decent sleep before a Saturday morning exercise class; her friends wanted late night food. Instead, she was jumped by a stranger on the curb of her apartment building, brutally raped, and beaten in her living room while her roommates ate burritos, none the wiser," writes Matthews. " If she'd done something, anything, differently, would it have changed the outcome of her night? It's an unproductive exercise, both she and I know. And yet when I heard about Kitestring, she was the first thought that flashed in my mind, because maybe Kitestring would have helped her, had it existed then."
Kitestring is a new service that aims to make sure people get from point A to point B safely, notifying their emergency contacts if they don't. You tell Kitestring that you're in a dangerous place or situation, and give it a time frame of when to check in on you. If you don't reply back when it checks your status, it'll alert your emergency contacts with a custom message you set up. "Perfect for blind or online meet-up dates, walking home at night, or feeling safe in any dangerous situation, Kitestring is like the virtual mom I've always needed," writes Mary Rockcastle, "especially if your mom is like mine and is never awake past 8:30pm."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by gringer on Monday April 28 2014, @10:08AM
A three block walk back to your home is unlikely to be considered a dangerous excursion, so no need to activate kitestring. I'm not convinced people would have enough foresight to know when they're going to be in a dangerous situation 10 minutes from now.
At least there's a custom check-in word option that stops attackers from correctly responding, and a custom duress word option so a "type in the right word" command doesn't work.
Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by ls671 on Monday April 28 2014, @10:25AM
So you end up with something similar to a watchdog in IT. Report every 5 minutes or an alarm is raised to sysadmin ;-)
Everything I write is lies, including this sentence.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Monday April 28 2014, @10:42AM
(Score: 2) by tathra on Monday April 28 2014, @04:16PM
no, that would be terrible. all fathers would have that on their daughters until they left for college*, and many cheating and/or possessive husbands/boyfriends would keep those on their wives/girlfriends. it'd just be another way to terrorize women.
* fathers are hypocrites since nearly all of them were fine when they were out screwing other people's daughters at age 14+.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday April 28 2014, @07:09PM
on top of that, they are all motherfuckers.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Tuesday April 29 2014, @12:02AM
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday April 28 2014, @11:25AM
Also, the user is very likely to misjudge when they are really at risk: For women, the highest risk of rape is when she's alone with a man, particularly on a first date, and the person who is by far the most likely to murder her is a husband, boyfriend, or ex. There are many women who would be safer out on the streets at night than in their own homes - that's not to say that street crime doesn't happen or is insignificant, but domestic violence is a much bigger problem than most people care to admit.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.