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How I Lost My Google Glass (and Regained Some Faith In Humanity) 124

Nerval's Lobster writes "The winter weather made my hands numb. I was distracted, rushed, running late to a meeting. Put those two things together, and it's a recipe for disaster,' Boonsri Dickinson writes in her account of how she lost her Google Glass unit. 'The cab had already gone two blocks before I realized my Google Glass was no longer in my hand. I asked the driver to swing back around to where he picked me up; I retraced my steps along the snowy street to my apartment, looking for my $1,500 device. No luck. Total panic.' The device featured photos, video, email, and other data that, in the wrong hands, could seriously upend her life. Fortunately, the person who found the Glass unit was a.) more interested in returning the device than wrecking her existence, and b.) engaged in quite a bit of digital detective work to track her down (with some help from Google). 'The device holds more than enough data to make me nervous about the possible voyeuristic invasion of my privacy, and the fear of the thought that the media connected to my Glass would possibly end up online, somewhere, cached forever in a Google search,' she concluded. But the saga also reset some of her faith in humanity."
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How I Lost My Google Glass (and Regained Some Faith In Humanity)

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @09:54AM (#46228461)

    I see dice is hiring the same 'writers' that work at those new bastions of internet journalism.

    This article has not restored my faith in Slashdot

    • "The device featured photos, video, email, and other data that, in the wrong hands, could seriously upend her life."

      IOW Selfie Porn.

      • by shadowrat ( 1069614 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @03:25PM (#46231849)
        yeah. she writes as though she has the impression that the guy was so altruistic returning her glass. Really, he probably saw it belonged to some cute chick and probably thought he might get some action for helping her.
      • by Askmum ( 1038780 )
        If you have to seriously worry about how data on a device could upend your life, you should a) not keep that data on something you can loose so easily or b) keep it protected so that losing the device has no impact.

        *Error* Faith in humanity not restored. Cancel, Retry or Ignore.
    • This article has not restored my faith in Slashdot

      It's beta than eva!

  • by StripedCow ( 776465 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @10:00AM (#46228521)

    Would you bring somebody else's camera into your own house?

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I don't take peoples phones off them when they enter. Do you?

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Do they take their phone out and capture video while there?

      • If they pull it out and start taking video without permission, they leave quickly.
        • by Anonymous Coward

          I just don't get this concern.

          If this is someone you know - why are your friends such an assholes to photo what they shouldn't, or why are you such an asshole to kick your friends out when they don't photo anything of importance?

          If this is someone you don't know - why the hell would they want to photo your shitty apartments? (only plausible version I heard is "But what if they want to rob me!" - but it doesn't hold water, unless you also blindfold them so they won't see your valuables)

          Seriously, most of Gla

    • by Lumpy ( 12016 )

      You do it all the time. your cellphone's camera is not yours.
      Nither is your laptops.

      • true but it's not pointed at you all the time. don't you get it? if a person came to my home and was pointing his cell phone at me all the time and refused to stop I would escort him to the door.

    • Yes. Constantly. And why the hell not may I ask?

  • Privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @10:01AM (#46228525)

    ...The device holds more than enough data to make me nervous about the possible voyeuristic invasion of my privacy...

    Funny how your only worried about your privacy here...

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Jhon ( 241832 )

      What she sees is her privacy. If she sees you, that's not your privacy.

      You may consider your anonymity at stake, but not your privacy.

      • Re:Privacy? (Score:5, Funny)

        by StripedCow ( 776465 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @10:06AM (#46228581)

        She saw me naked and tied to the bed, you insensitive clod.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          And then I'm sure she abruptly left the room cursing the incompetent hotel desk staff.

      • by zazzel ( 98233 )

        If she sees me and she (or the thief) shares it online, it *is* an invasion of my privacy. And that's why I am opposed to Google Glass. If I sit in a restaurant, that is a private venue, not a public place. So turn off your f*cking Google Glass, or I will. There is a fundamental difference between seeing me somewhere, and saving imagery of seeing me somewhere.

        You might find that if you used GG here in Germany, you might find yourself confronted with a lawsuit.

        • by swv3752 ( 187722 )

          No, it is not. Unless the restaurant is closed for a private gathering it is a public place.

        • by Jhon ( 241832 )

          "If she sees me and she (or the thief) shares it online, it *is* an invasion of my privacy. "

          It is not intrinsically an invasion of your privacy. If it were in a place where you can ASSUME privacy (such as a restroom), then yes. But if it's an open, public place it is NOT an invasion of your PRIVACY.

          In the US, we are allowed to videotape or photograph anything or anyone in public space. Private properties may prohibit it -- and if it "leaked" out due to a theft of photos or device you STILL wouldn't have

        • by rioki ( 1328185 )

          You might find that if you used GG here in Germany, you might find yourself confronted with a lawsuit.

          I am not sure about this. German privacy laws strongly hinge on expectation of privacy and publication. For example, if I am in a bar that does not explicitly forbade the taking pictures and somebody takes a picture of someone else and I am in the background. I can not prevent this or force the deletion/destruction. Yet if the picture gets published I can demand that my face is obfuscated.

          As long as someone uses Glass in publicly accessible area where taking pictures is not something out of the common and t

    • Re:Privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @10:12AM (#46228637)

      This tastes like an advert, but maybe it's just a way of currying favour with Google. Anyway, I've also found expensive stuff lying on the ground, including significant sums of money, and I've always found the owner (if contactable) or reported to the police. Maybe it's because I'm not in the US, but here this just seems like the right thing to do. It's actually been profitable, too, since some things aren't claimed, so end up being legally mine.

      This person is worried about their privacy YET access to their life's data to one company. They're worried about their privacy YET filming everyone around them. The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one. But most humans, no matter how much logic they're capable of, are excellent at putting logic aside when it suits their drives (this would have to be so: there is not even a reason to live beyond, "I feel like it.")

      • Exactly. This is the part that made me laugh out loud:

        and the fear of the thought that the media connected to my Glass would possibly end up online, somewhere, cached forever in a Google search

        Yet you trust them in the first place to the point where you actually use Glass? Priceless.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          it's also showing a serious misunderstanding of how glass works.. it gets connected via bluetooth (for data) or wifi (for data). the images/searches/whatever go to google first.. then get dropped back to your phone via the magic of "the cloud".

          they are already cached forever in google search, and available online.. blocked only by your privacy settings on g+

          I suppose if you only ever used it as a bad go pro, you could in theory get away with not having the uploading "feature" there and just pull everything

      • Re:Privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by LoRdTAW ( 99712 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @11:47AM (#46229557)

        "Maybe it's because I'm not in the US, but here this just seems like the right thing to do. It's actually been profitable, too, since some things aren't claimed, so end up being legally mine."

        Oh come on. Its not like everyone in the US are a bunch of selfish, thieving jerks. There are people who are low-life jerks and there are people who are good people. I have had my phone returned to me, twice. The first time it was a goy in brooklyn who honestly looked like a gangbanger thug. He didn't ask for a dime and refused the 20 bucks i was giving him as a thankyou. The second time I dropped it in a cab in Atlantic City. I called my phone, he picked up and arranged to ship it back to me. A few days later the phone came in a padded envelope and he didn't ask for any money. I mailed back 40 bucks and a note telling him to treat himself to a nice lunch or whatever.

        Of course there are crappy people all over, shockingly, outside of the US as well. I used to go to a bar where the bartender kept every thing he found someone had left behind. He was a piece of shit so that goes hand in hand with being a lousy thief.

        • > The first time it was a goy in brooklyn

          You were doing well until the racial slur. Oh, my. Please be more sensitive in the future. You people are NOT the chosen ones, no matter how often you say it to yourselves.

    • Her credit card information, e-mail, address, and various other bits are probably on glass. If you walked by her, your face is on glass, that's it. Apples and oranges. Very tiny oranges. I know it's fun to hate on google and glass, but lets keep criticisms fair and not get distracted from bigger privacy concerns such as the NSA or law enforcement cams everywhere.
  • Me Too! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Akratist ( 1080775 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @10:04AM (#46228559)
    I misplaced my cell phone the other day. It also upended my existence. Then, I found it and restored faith in myself. In other news, some bears crapped in the woods.
    • We often get too jaded from the news about the worst of humanity. Sure they are more then their fare share of bad people. However most people if given the opportunity will do the right thing, or at least something neutral.

      Now if you found a pair of Google Glasses, would the first thing on your mind would be messing with the guys personal information, I mean he just lost an expensive device, messing with him will just add insult to injury. Secondly Google loves to track. How long do you think it will take

      • You actually do make some good points, and I've found that the majority of people really aren't douches. My issue with the original post/story was that it seemed like this piece probably belonged somewhere else besides Slashdot. After all, most readers here live/breathe/eat tech on an insider level, to where we have a tech life, as opposed to a tech "lifestyle." We generally engineer the hardware and software that other people write about and use. The psychological dependence on tech, in that losing an
    • No, we must get a grant to study reusable cloth diapers for wild bears. They might resist at first, but with sufficient resources and some principles from attachment parenting, we could find a method to get this to work. Then all we would need is a grant to study the proper brand/supplier of these reusable diapers only to give the contract no bid to a company that dumps them in an illegal landfill in the woods.

  • If you have data that may incriminate, embarrass or cause financial loss, then the proper place for said data is probably not on a device which is easily lost. If one of the primary purposes of an easily lost device is to collect and store data that may incriminate, embarrass or cause financial loss, than that device probably shouldn't exist.
    • You would think that a device you're supposed to wear as a pair of spectacles would be less loseable than a phone. If they're so inconvenient that you wind up carrying them around by hand instead of head and lose them, what's the point exactly?

      • by jrumney ( 197329 )

        Sunglasses are probably the one item I have lost more often than all others combined. My phone stays in my pocket when I'm not actively using it. Sunglasses (and I guess Google Glass would be more similar to sunglasses than anything else) often get put on a table or other places because they don't fit in many pockets or will get scratched if they're thrown in a bigger pocket with keys etc.

    • ...Devices such as smartphones, laptops, memory sticks and portable HDDs, to name a few. Also wallets.

  • is that as soon as you lose a device, not only are you $200-$2000 out of pocket, but your life could easily be ruined by a nefarious passer-by who happened to find your lost gadget. No technology is private, stop deluding yourself.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    >The device holds more than enough data to make me nervous about the possible voyeuristic invasion of my privacy

    With Goolge in charge you can bet that this invasion of her privacy is nothing but possible.

  • Google Glass or not (Score:4, Informative)

    by Lucas123 ( 935744 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @10:17AM (#46228689) Homepage
    "The device featured photos, video, email, and other data that, in the wrong hands, could seriously upend her life." She's carrying data around on a mobile device that could seriously upend her life? I don't even store that kind of data on my home laptop in the clear. It never ceases to amaze me that people store sensitive information unencrypted on small mobile device. One word: TrueCrypt.
  • by jmd ( 14060 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @10:19AM (#46228707)

    Then there would be no worry about your oh so precious life ending up online.

  • by duckgod ( 2664193 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @10:30AM (#46228793)
    Got an invite to purchase Google Glass last week. I was excited and had almost made the purchase before my coworker made the observation that if I wear them anywhere in downtown Rochester NY there is a good chance I will be mugged. I guess the moral of the story is until they make it not obvious that I am wearing $1500 on my head that this is probably an impractical accessory for anyone living where crime is at all prevalent.
    • Hello racism? Wasn't Google Maps rightly flamed for exactly what you're talking about? What the fuck...how do educated people even spew this crap? Self-awareness, anyone?
  • This is News? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CanHasDIY ( 1672858 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @10:34AM (#46228825) Homepage Journal

    "Stupid Git Loses Thing, Good Samaritan Returns It" isn't really what I'd call front-page headline material... if it is, society is far more fucked than I previously believed.

    OH, the 'thing' was Google Glass? Well, that changes everything, doesn't it?

    Side note: If the person who found them "engaged in quite a bit of digital detective work to track [the stupid git] down," What gives her the impression they didn't clone everything on the device before handing it back over?

    • The "news" is that glassholes' data is safe, because regular people look up to them and worship them and wouldn't dream of depriving them of their glass.

      • The "news" is that glassholes' data is safe,

        So she thinks. But there's no guarantee that the finder didn't plug it into his laptop and download a copy of all her data before beginning his search for the rightful owner.

        • The "news" is that glassholes' data is safe,

          So she thinks. But there's no guarantee that the finder didn't plug it into his laptop and download a copy of all her data before beginning his search for the rightful owner.

          More than likely the finder did just that - at least it's what I'd do for the simple reason that browsing media on my hard disk is so much faster than browsing it over a slow USB link from a slow SD-card or similar media. The real question would be, did he delete the data afterwards?

          And indeed it'd probably best for the rest of us if some of these people losing their Google Glass would indeed end up having all their embarrassing recordings on YouTube and other public Google services. Let them burn their han

          • The "news" is that glassholes' data is safe,

            So she thinks. But there's no guarantee that the finder didn't plug it into his laptop and download a copy of all her data before beginning his search for the rightful owner.

            More than likely the finder did just that - at least it's what I'd do for the simple reason that browsing media on my hard disk is so much faster than browsing it over a slow USB link from a slow SD-card or similar media. The real question would be, did he delete the data afterwards?

            For me it depends on the data. I do electronic cleaning for a local pawn shop chain, and although most of the time I don't find anything worth saving, occasionally I find stuff on old laptops and cameras is worth keeping, like when I found a treasure trove of Iraq combat videos on a broken laptop someone just gave to the store. Other times, I've found evidence of serious criminal activity, and had to save the data so I could turn it over to law enforcement.

            As an aside, if you're going to pawn your laptop, t

      • it's also a DICE article, so it's double plus one news.

    • Have to get out of your wealthy tech cocoon and see the real world.
      • Have to get out of your wealthy tech cocoon and see the real world.

        Come again? Not sure what point you're trying to make here...

    • He had some Bitcoin stored on his glass. That's the real story.

      • He had some Bitcoin stored on his glass. That's the real story.

        Wasn't mentioned in TFA, although if that were the case I would consider it a cautionary tale against keeping important and unique data on easily lost/stolen devices.

  • ... are probably more reliable than humanity, as a general rule.
  • Irony (Score:4, Funny)

    by GT66 ( 2574287 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @11:15AM (#46229229)
    "'The device holds more than enough data to make me nervous about the possible voyeuristic invasion of my privacy, and the fear of the thought that the media connected to my Glass would possibly end up online, somewhere, cached forever in a Google search,' she concluded. "

    So she has a device that can essentially record, upload, index and publicize the activity of others without their consent and she's worried about her privacy. Oh, sweet irony, how have thee forsaken the narcissist hipster Glassholes?
    • by Anonymous Coward

      If you are in public where she can see you, then you have no privacy to be violated (unless Google Glass has xray vision).

    • A typical Google Glass wearer will not know more than they would have known without those glasses. It is not the act of recording, instead it's dispatch of such recordings to third parties that's the (possible) invasion of privacy.

      If you don't want someone to know something about you, don't tell them, no matter whether they're wearing a pair of spectacles with built-in video camera or not.

    • Actually this say more about you and the rest of the self important Slashdot crowd who assume the every glass user is interested exclusively in invading your privacy. Guess what turns out glass users use the technology for their own purposes and aren't as interested in you or your life as much you think. In other news I have a mobile phone with a camera on it I carry everywhere. I'm sure you'll be pleased to know I haven't tried to hunt you down and take pictures of you either. Does not having an interest i

  • It seems like this would be something she'd be able to track down from the internet using her Google account, but I wasn't able to find anything doing a quick search. After all, even Apple provides one for the iPhone [apple.com].
    • Which can be disabled without having to unlock the phone...

    • by Triv ( 181010 )
      Glass doesn't have an internet connection or GPS chip of its own. I would assume it disappeared from the 'net as soon as she and her phone moved out of bluetooth range.
  • Maaaaaaaaaybe you shouldn't create not-so-public-friendly media of any kind of a portable device...or any computer anywhere ever. It's like the rule of don't put it on the internet if you don't want everyone in the world to see it. Don't store personal photos and data and logins and videos and files on a portable, steal-able, lose-able device. That's just stupid.

    I somehow manage to get through every day without constantly taking pictures, checking feeds and updates, etc with a device strapped to my hea
    • Kind of takes away most of the utility of modern smartphones, though. Not everybody is an asshole like all the posters on /. - some of return things that aren't ours.

  • "possible voyeuristic invasion of my privacy", self porn or worse? What a lousy piece of report is this? I sort of lost my faith on /. ;)
  • It was repeated several times in the article; she was worried about 'media' on the device being posted to the internet. That it would be a 'voyeuristic invasion of privacy.'

    You all realize what's being said here right? I don't think I'm speculating too much here; she took naughty photos and/or video with her glass. That's why she was so worried. Not the cost, nor her email (which she changed the password on after the fact), nor much of anything really, aside from the 'media on the device'. This wasn't

  • Lassie: Woof!
    Peggy: Timmy fell down the well!?
    Lassie: Woof! Growl!
    Peggy: Timmy lost his Google glasses?!?
    Lassie: Woof! Woof!
    Peggy: Timmy found his Google glasses!?
    Lassie runs off crapping on the carpet as he heads towards the door.
    Peggy: Oh, Lassie wanted to go outside.

  • The device holds more than enough data to make me nervous about the possible voyeuristic invasion of my privacy,

    Sort of absurd you didn't consider that you might lose them or have them stolen.
    That said how about the invasion of "relative" privacy for everyone around you with your Glass and soon to be available (or already available) facial recognition apps?

  • >> and the fear of the thought that the media connected to my Glass would possibly end up online, somewhere, cached forever in a Google search, ...and of course it doesn't even occur to the dumb bitch that Google themselves would already be doing pretty much exactly that too.

  • I would think Google Glasses could transmit their location.

    Wouldn't it be a matter of calling Google who could then tell you where the glasses are?

  • The actual story is "Person loses wallet, nice person gives it back PLUS ON THE INTERNETZ LOL"

    Why is this a story anywhere, let alone on /fb. ?

    • The story here is that every slashdot reader would have (a) looked for porn on the device (b) downloaded any personal information and then put it up on the internet just to be an asshole and point out how "insecure" the device is and then (c) sold it on ebay.

      As it was, a real human found her device and got it back to her. The sad part - everyone posting here pretty much confirms that they would have done the above three instead of being a good human and giving it back.

  • On tonight's episode of "First World Problems": Bunny lost her Google Glass! Oh noes!!!

Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. - Oscar Wilde

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