AirDrop cyber-flashing: Commuter sent picture of man's penis

First we had cyberstalking...now we have cyberflashing....lazy style. In the past, the flasher actually had get undressed, leave the comfort of his or her seat, and get out there and seek victims out. Now, with the aid of technology...well read for yourself....

Police are investigating the first “cyber-flashing case”, after a woman was sent a picture of a man’s penis using a feature buried in Apple’s iPhone.

The woman received the picture during her journey on a train in South London, when she was sent it using Apple’s AirDrop feature. The technology is intended to let people easily share pictures between phones — but can be used by anyone in the immediate vicinity to send images to other people. [Source]

Seems Apple's AirDrop technology is having some uninterested consequences. Sure there are ways to avoid this, but when you open the service up for one, it seems it opens you up to all.

AirDrop is an ad-hoc service in Apple Inc.'s OS X and iOS operating systems, introduced in Mac OS X Lion (OS X 10.7) and iOS 7, that enables the transfer of documents among supported Macintosh computers and iOS devices without using mail or a mass storage device.

There have been some similar issues with BlueTooth.

Cyberflashing? How your iPhone might gross you out

Here are some tips if you want to avoid this: How to Prevent Unwanted AirDrops (i.e. Cyberflash) From Strangers

Reverse the process if you don't mind or just want to see what happens. It will be interesting to see if the police find the person and what happens as a result.

a reply to: ~Lucidity

I know this is wrong and all, but I couldn't help laughing when I was picturing the look on the woman's face when she opened the picture.

On a serious note, how messed up in the head do you have to be to think sending complete strangers pics of your genitals is a good thing?

a reply to: mymymy

I'll admit I laughed too, but to some it might not be that funny. Unwanted advances of any type aren't funny as a rule. Accidents will happen, but they are making this sound as if it was intentional, which it may well be. We can't really be sure of that though, can we?

To me this is just another example of how poorly thought out, designed, and tested a lot of this new code is...operating systems and the apps that go on them. In the rush to get things to market, they just don't have the time...that and they just don't care.

This is also a good precautionary tale. If you give your kids Apple phones, make sure this is off and/or blocked.

I never got the flashing thing? WTF?

originally posted by: HUMBLEONE
I never got the flashing thing? WTF?

Exhibitionism

Probably more common than we think.

Exhibitionism, which involves exposing one's genitals or sexual organs to a stranger, falls under the psychiatric sexual disorders category of paraphilias, "abnormal or unnatural attraction" or obsession with unusual sexual practices or with sexual activity involving nonconsenting or inappropriate partners.

a reply to: ~Lucidity

Gotta have more respect for the old flashing bandits, at least they had some form of perverse dedication to the unwanted viewing of there genitals.

The E-Net really is destroying the world, I mean we used to talk in person, we used to look up from our phones, we used to have long relationships forged by trust and interaction.

by golly and when we really needed someone to see us with our clothes off we wore trench coats and flashed arbitrarily and made a quick exit, those days are a thing of the past. Welcome to the digital world.

a reply to: ~Lucidity

I was flashed once. I actually laughed at the guy. That was my first response.

Yes, the old flashers got away, but not after being publicly humiliated by their intended victims.

a reply to: WarminIndy

Yeah...that'd be me too. Laughing. (Along these lines, you might enjoy this read.)

But I know it upsets some people vry much and is technically classified as a crime in most places.

What lengths they're going to have to go through to prove this one way or the other should prove interesting.

ETA: ATS doesn't like the link...just quote and copy. I promise it's not porn...it's from Womens Health Magazine.

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
a reply to: WarminIndy

Yeah...that'd be me too. Laughing. (Along these lines, you might enjoy this read.)

But I know it upsets some people vry much and is technically classified as a crime in most places.

What lengths they're going to have to go through to prove this one way or the other should prove interesting.

ETA: ATS doesn't like the link...just quote and copy. I promise it's not porn...it's from Womens Health Magazine.

Tell me the search keywords, because it is a 404.

I looked at the link but it said not available.

originally posted by: ~Lucidity

originally posted by: HUMBLEONE
I never got the flashing thing? WTF?

Exhibitionism

Probably more common than we think.

Exhibitionism, which involves exposing one's genitals or sexual organs to a stranger, falls under the psychiatric sexual disorders category of paraphilias, "abnormal or unnatural attraction" or obsession with unusual sexual practices or with sexual activity involving nonconsenting or inappropriate partners.

Yeah. No, I mean I know all that stuff intellectually, I just can't understand it. Yo that sh$t is whacked man!

originally posted by: TechniXcality
The E-Net really is destroying the world, I mean we used to talk in person, we used to look up from our phones, we used to have long relationships forged by trust and interaction.

"With the advent of cheap newspapers and superior means of locomotion, the dreamy quiet old days are over. For men now live, think, and work at express speed. They have their Mercury or Post laid on their breakfast table in the early morning, and if they are too hurried to snatch it from the news during that meal, they carry if off to be sulkily read as they travel, leaving them no time to talk with the friend who may share the compartment with them. The hurry and bustle of modern life lacks the quiet and repose of the period when our forefathers, the day's work done, took their ease."

That was from 1886.

"Our modern family gathering, silent around the fire, each individual with his head buried in his favorite magazine is the somewhat natural outcome of the banishment of colloquey from the school."

That's from 1907.

a reply to: Aazadan

Yup, guess the decay of social interaction and community has been long in the works.

a reply to: Aazadan

There's more than a little truth to those.

I, very occasionally, use public transportation. Used it a lot when I was younger.

When I was in high school, the bus was full of chatter, laughing at/with your friends, or discussing the finer attributes of that cutie in the next locker over... Y'know, important stuff.

Now? The bus is virtually silent. ...I find I miss the chatter. The laughter. I mean I seldom hear a snicker about a funny picture...

It's all LOLLOLLOL.

Not sure it's a good thing.

Cyber flashing? Doesn't that take the thrill out of it, the danger? Never flashed a person in my life...but doing something like that is done for the thrill of the danger. Or so I've always surmised, when I thought about it at all.

a reply to: seagull

I believe it's a left wing agenda, to pacify even our less desirable flashing bandits. If you are going to flash someone be a man and put the trench coat on! Stand up let the wind graze you in the nether regions, let your voice be herd!

On a serious note perhaps cyber flashing is a safer form for the victims of these miscreants

originally posted by: [post=19704648]seagull[/post
There's more than a little truth to those.

I, very occasionally, use public transportation. Used it a lot when I was younger.

When I was in high school, the bus was full of chatter, laughing at/with your friends, or discussing the finer attributes of that cutie in the next locker over... Y'know, important stuff.

Now? The bus is virtually silent. ...I find I miss the chatter. The laughter. I mean I seldom hear a snicker about a funny picture...

The way I see it technology has allowed us to progress. Rather than talk to who is next to us, we can talk to whoever we want to talk to.

What's the phrase? Misery breeds company? When several people have to sit and be bored together they'll probably converse to pass the time. But with distractions available such as magazines to read or more recently cell phones and text messaging there's less of a need to speak to the person next to you. In some ways that makes us less connected to each other, but in other ways it makes us more connected to the ones we want to connect with.

a reply to: ~Lucidity

Nothing like racking up the federal felonies by using a communication device.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Not sure what the felony laws are in England. Or the laws on cyberstalking/cyberflashing/cyberetc.