The guy visited Zuck's place in SF and Palo Alto. He only found the neighbors bins (empty) on the trip to SF. The site in Palo Alto is under construction. That was it - one trip to each house and he gave up.
I really wished I had looked In here to see your comment before reading more than half the article. Would have been a much more interesting article had things turned out a little differently.
The point of this article is the metaphor about privacy, how it primarily exists for the rich, and Zuck's hypocrisy. These all stand regardless of the effort taken by the author to literally comb through his trash, which was a bit of a stunt but shouldn't detract from the larger point and conversation
>I’d drive to his Mission District pied-à-terre on trash collection day, snatch a few bags of whatever, and dig through it. I could learn more about Mark Zuckerberg’s habits and interests, creating my own ad profile of him. Then I could sell this information to brands looking to target that coveted "male, 18-34, billionaire” demographic. Think of it as a physical version of Facebook’s business model.
>Every circuit considering the issue has concluded that no reasonable expectation of privacy exists once trash has been placed in a public area for collection
There are particularly scary implications to this, such as cases where police have taken trash and seized discarded feminine products to test for drug use and DNA. There needs to be some stronger protections there.
But there's a reasonable expectation that people won't dig through your garbage to find one of your hairs and find your DNA info. It doesn't seem fair to expect someone to make sure their garbage is DNA-free.
You only have to do that if you don’t want your DNA to be in there. It doesn’t make sense to me to say that police can’t examine literal trash left in the street.
I suspect there is some nuance here that needs to be considered and was probably brought up in the numerous court cases regarding dumpster diving.
While it's okay to be nervous about cops stealing your DNA from your trash, it's fine for someone to pick up my unwanted microwave that I put on the curb. The hard part is where to draw the line in between these cases, and it seems like right now the courts have decided it's just easier not to draw a line at all.
The classic "think about the children" case: What if we find kiddy porn in someone's trash? Should we convict that person or should they be allowed to go free because the courts decided that personal pictures are protected?
Another mitigating factor is that the cops are going through someone's trash because they suspect the person of a crime. The cops aren't going through people's trash on whims. There is a possibility that corrupt cops are going through someone's trash to ruin their life, but this is pretty uncommon. And if they find something, then the outcome is a dirty person taken down by dirty cops.
For citizens and generic criminals going through someone's trash, how much is the original owner's fault if their identity gets stolen because they didn't shred their paper info? Sure, it's still illegal to steal my identity even if I don't shred, but now I bear some of the responsibility myself. This is similar to if my house gets robbed because I left my front door open. The criminals are still at fault but now I bear some responsibility by leaving my door open.
It’s also not particularly relevant. The reasonable expectation of privacy question has to do with whether law enforcement can dig through your trash without a warrant. It has nothing to do with whether there’s a law criminalizing private trash diving.
A better option is to just own up to being a dumpster diver and look in everybody's trash cans on the street. There's a plausible cover story that you want to maybe get some valuable rich-people trash (maybe a Juicero) and it's not illegal. Looking through everybody's trash makes you a wierdo and not somebody targeting Zuck, which makes the bodyguards less likely to do anything. Also, do it before pickup time.
If Zuck's bodyguards actually stop you then you might have a story. But right now the story is made of completely imagined things. Those bodyguards won't touch you until you try something stupid, like climbing Zuck's fence.
I'm a little disappointed that I wasted seven minutes reading the story as written. More follow-up would have been nice. He could have tried the next Wednesday since his first trip was over two weeks ago.
> Those bodyguards won't touch you until you try something stupid, like climbing Zuck's fence.
Bodyguards including ex-cops with records for excessive use of force. I certainly wouldn't rule it out that they fall back into old habits - and I'm certain the "blue codex" (aka cops stick together and cover each other, no matter how big the dumpster fire) would protect them.
For an extra $20/month, my building gives Sunset Scavenger a key to the alleyway where our trash and recycling bins are, and they come in and get them instead of us having to move them out to the street. It also reduces the risk of someone stealing trash, and keeps people from rummaging around in the recycling for bottles and cans (which is much more common). I'd be shocked if Zuck didn't do the same.
Wow: love this quote: “Here was a guy who created one of the biggest mass surveillance operations in human history: A digital Oppenheimer, too naive or narcissistic to own the horrific consequences of his invention, who instead apparently sees the spread of global fascism and the unraveling of democracy as a mere engineering and PR problem.”
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[ 13.0 ms ] story [ 65.7 ms ] threadI’ll admit, I chuckled after reading this.
There are particularly scary implications to this, such as cases where police have taken trash and seized discarded feminine products to test for drug use and DNA. There needs to be some stronger protections there.
While it's okay to be nervous about cops stealing your DNA from your trash, it's fine for someone to pick up my unwanted microwave that I put on the curb. The hard part is where to draw the line in between these cases, and it seems like right now the courts have decided it's just easier not to draw a line at all.
The classic "think about the children" case: What if we find kiddy porn in someone's trash? Should we convict that person or should they be allowed to go free because the courts decided that personal pictures are protected?
Another mitigating factor is that the cops are going through someone's trash because they suspect the person of a crime. The cops aren't going through people's trash on whims. There is a possibility that corrupt cops are going through someone's trash to ruin their life, but this is pretty uncommon. And if they find something, then the outcome is a dirty person taken down by dirty cops.
For citizens and generic criminals going through someone's trash, how much is the original owner's fault if their identity gets stolen because they didn't shred their paper info? Sure, it's still illegal to steal my identity even if I don't shred, but now I bear some of the responsibility myself. This is similar to if my house gets robbed because I left my front door open. The criminals are still at fault but now I bear some responsibility by leaving my door open.
If Zuck's bodyguards actually stop you then you might have a story. But right now the story is made of completely imagined things. Those bodyguards won't touch you until you try something stupid, like climbing Zuck's fence.
I'm a little disappointed that I wasted seven minutes reading the story as written. More follow-up would have been nice. He could have tried the next Wednesday since his first trip was over two weeks ago.
Bodyguards including ex-cops with records for excessive use of force. I certainly wouldn't rule it out that they fall back into old habits - and I'm certain the "blue codex" (aka cops stick together and cover each other, no matter how big the dumpster fire) would protect them.
> But right now the story is made of completely imagined things.
You conjecture many things. That doesn't mean you have to publish all of them. Do they not edit/vet these articles anymore?
Is there a "trick" I'm missing here? I really miss the days of plain webpages.