[angersock]

Nobody is going to take these issues seriously until there is some emotional sting.

We've known for years about the uses of Big Data (good and bad), and people still cheerfully fork over mining rights of their life story to third parties to click cows and exchange pictures.

Frankly, link-bait titles and apps like this are the only way the majority of folks are ever going to figure out that, hey, maybe this isn't such a hot idea.

[freshhawk]

The majority of folks? I don't think so, an actual majority of people in the US won't be aware of this kind of stuff until some psycho stalks and kills someone and they find something like this on his phone.

I mean, it will happen sooner or later, same number of violent psychopaths out there as always. The media will love the cyber-stalker angle too, just like Columbine was used to push the Violent Video Games Ruin Children meme.

An app like this makes a better target for public outrage than facebook or another big player too, so they'll probably take the brunt of the 24 hour news cycle outrage. Especially since the big players have a prepared coordinated PR response ready to go already.

[angersock]

I am saddened by the fact that I cannot disagree with your assessment.

[freshhawk]

If firesheep had made a bigger splash among non-tech people I would have hoped that these kinds of super creepy examples would have pushed the problem into the public consciousness.

There was so little awareness raised outside techie circles by such a perfect demonstration that I've arrived at this particularily depressing opinion of what it will take.

I hope I'm just being pessimistic and not realistic.