News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flail... by TheMagicHorsey on Thursday July 24, 2014 @08:26PM (#8083169)
Exactly wrong. Stasi files are held closely by the state.

This network would be public, and everyone would be able to see what the scum are up to.

Re:Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flail... by HarryHirsch on Thursday July 24, 2014 @08:59PM (#8083272)
Say again how many Yelp reviews are genuine and how many are planted by SEO outfits?

I doubt that 20 % of Stasi informers were double agents, if you led the Stasi on there were consequences.

Re:Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flail... by enoch_r on Thursday July 24, 2014 @09:19PM (#8083346)
It may be irrelevant to your analogy (it'd be more difficult to identify "personal bias" in reviews of people, after all), but the "20% of Yelp reviews are fake" meme is highly misleading. The study in question looked at what percentage of Yelp reviews were hidden, by Yelp, for looking "fake."[1] This provides us with little additional information on the percentage of visible Yelp reviews (which is what most people will assume you're talking about when you say "Yelp reviews") that are fake.

It's a bit like noting that 96% of Harvard applicants are rejected and concluding that "96% of Harvard students didn't deserve to get in," with the caveat that by "Harvard student" you mean "a student that applied to Harvard."

[1] http://people.hbs.edu/mluca/FakeItTillYouMakeIt.pdf

Re:Notorious Airbnb squatter may be the dev behind two flail... by sp332 on Thursday July 24, 2014 @08:56PM (#8083262)
If everyone had Stasi files, it wouldn't really be better.