News - PleaseRobMe.com highlights the pitfalls of location-based social networking

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Think twice before you tweet: a seemingly light-hearted website exposes the risks associated with geolocational social networking services.

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Read more.

That does of course assume that two people don't live at the same address, I believe its quite common infact for more than one person to live in a home. Still, I don't understand why everyone wants to leave so much of there private lives for everyone to see on the web. Perhaps it makes them feel "interesting".

Now for the tweets... "I just arrived home".... "not going out today"... "bought a shootgun" etc.

Hehe sorry but in the Uk, shouldn't it be PleaseSquatMe.co.uk :mad:

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Originally Posted by oolon

That does of course assume that two people don't live at the same address, I believe its quite common infact for more than one person to live in a home. Still, I don't understand why everyone wants to leave so much of there private lives for everyone to see on the web. Perhaps it makes them feel "interesting".

Now for the tweets... "I just arrived home".... "not going out today"... "bought a shootgun" etc.

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Lol, I get the feeling a lot of people use social networking sites to show others that they have a life, but to me thats proving you really dont have a life. I dont hate social networking, I mean they have their uses but God knows why people spend so much damn time on them. A mate of mine recently got an iphone and he is never off facebook. Keeps on updating his profile, sees a nice car, first thing its on up on facebook, goes somewhere, puts it up on facebook, sleeps, puts it up on facebook. MI5 agents have it easy nowadays, just look at peoples facebook accounts. :D

I almost feel wrong for not doing it. I go out somewhere, come back, and don't update facebook with photos or status updates or anything. It feels as if somebody out there is watching thinking "Wow, he never updates facebook. He probably spends all day at home in front of his computer and has no life, or he'd have something to say."

Irony.

While it's obvious to anyone with brains that this info is out there, I think that does overstate the IQ and resourcefulness of the some burglars...

On a similar theme, I was flicking through the tv channels and paused on some naff police show, explaining in detail how the smart robbers these days all used motorbikes rather than getaway cars. Then it proceeded to show an entire jewellery raid lasting only about 2 mins or so (with nice, instructional commentary for good effect), explained that they had got away with £1m+ worth of stuff and finished with random copper saying that they really had absolutely zero chance of catching these guys once they legged it (wheeled it?) away on the bikes. It really did come across as a "how to" educational film.

now you'll have to excuse me, I've got a bike lesson to go to :mrgreen:

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Originally Posted by GaryRW

While it's obvious to anyone with brains that this info is out there, I think that does overstate the IQ and resourcefulness of the some burglars...

On a similar theme, I was flicking through the tv channels and paused on some naff police show, explaining in detail how the smart robbers these days all used motorbikes rather than getaway cars. Then it proceeded to show an entire jewellery raid lasting only about 2 mins or so (with nice, instructional commentary for good effect), explained that they had got away with £1m+ worth of stuff and finished with random copper saying that they really had absolutely zero chance of catching these guys once they legged it (wheeled it?) away on the bikes. It really did come across as a "how to" educational film.

now you'll have to excuse me, I've got a bike lesson to go to :mrgreen:

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I seen that on BBC 1, ridiculous, but it's common sense anyway tbh.

Good idea for the site tbh, should make some people realise what they are doing.

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Originally Posted by GaryRW

now you'll have to excuse me, I've got a bike lesson to go to :mrgreen:

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Quick! Everyone burgle him while he's out learning how to burgle.

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Originally Posted by Steve

Quick! Everyone burgle him while he's out learning how to burgle.

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Can you look after my house while I'm out burgling him then?

I don't use these social networking sites and this is one reason. Mind you, the other reason is that they bore me rigid.

But if I did use them, I wouldn't be putting this type of data on them, partly for this reason,and partly because I choose not to publish such data. Anyone that needs to know where I am and what I'm doing right now (other than typing this ;)) already does, or can find out by ringing me. And if you don't know and can't ring me .... it's a safe assumption I think whatever I'm doing is none of your business and that even in the unlikely event that you want to know, I don't want you knowing.

And I extend the principle further. We are all at risk of ID theft, but why make it easier? You'll notice my Date of birth field in my profile is blank .... or you will if you look. Why? While not exactly impossible to find out, I'm not making it any easier for anyone to find one piece of data that's useful for ID theft purposes. I might not be able to prevent being a victim, but I can sure do all I can to reduce the odds. I NEVER put that on a forum, and if they insist on a date as a mandatory field, you'll get a false date.

For instance, there was an item I wanted to buy on eBay, and from a guy close enough that I'd have collected rather than having a (fairly delicate) item couriered. But he said that e wanted to photocopy proof of identity, and stipulated passport or driving licence) as proof that the item had indeed been collected. There is NO WAY I'm letting some individual private stranger get a photocopy of either my passport or driving licence, and certainly not to buy a lens. He may have good reason for his caution, but so do I. He lost a buyer right there and then.

Years ago, I put photos of a car of mine on a forum,, and people thought I was daft for obscuring the number plate. Only a couple of days ago I was watching a program about someone that had spent months disputing London congestion zone charges after someone else saw a "for sale" ad that snowed number plates and duplicated the plates. Again, you can't entirely prevent that happening, but you don't have to make it easy for people by putting the image on the web.

Absolute privacy and control over personal info not possible in a modern world, if it ever (in recent history) was .... but you can take steps to minimise exposure, rather than putting it all out there on social networking sites.

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Is PleaseRobMe.com likely to change the way in which you use social networking services?

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Personally, no .... because I wouldn't be putting the info on these sites in the first place.

This is why I've said GPS locations on images taken by certain cameras was a nightmare when it was announced.

Nice idea, but it's a fairly prattish way of publicising it.

Instead of just saying - "look, we can search for people who are out of their houses" and demo it to a news company or make it into a journal article (even a website would be fine), but: why make it usable?

Sure privacy is at risk, yes this is a jarring statement that you can lose out on privacy, but why the hell would you make something like this publicly searchable by location and even by username?

People say "oh well if you were doing it seriously wouldn't you 'case the joint'?" and no doubt if you were planning on robbing a house you'd probably do a bit more than look on someone's profile. But, if you had been watching someone's movements, you know how to break into their house, etc, this site makes it incredibly easy to just sit on that information until they tweet "going on holiday for a week" and save sitting in the cold.

Whilst it probably won't drastically increase the number of robberies, it will certainly facilitate some. Part of me thinks that if you put your contact details on facebook so that they're publicly visible you're asking for trouble, but speaking from experience, i wouldn't wish a break in on anyone.


Them saying it's just a rebadged twitter search is sort of akin to a site that would let you search google for potentially illegal stuff under the mask of saying "we're just letting you search google with some added strings".

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Originally Posted by Saracen

I don't use these social networking sites and this is one reason. Mind you, the other reason is that they bore me rigid.

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1. Anyone using Twitter and tweeting their heads off about what they do all day are mentally insane.
2. I use FaceBook but restrict all my privacy settings and only add friends that I want to talk to. I know some people with 1,000+ friends and I know that there's no way they talk to all of these people. That just inviting trouble.

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Originally Posted by Lee @ SCAN

This is why I've said GPS locations on images taken by certain cameras was a nightmare when it was announced.

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Which ones?

GPS is useful on cameras especially on hols so you know where you were ... but on an SNS site its a disaster.

Things like the iPhone which auto-tag are quite bad apparently, because the users are all smug n stupid.

A mate of mine who does some type of forensic work for the civil service and the like was telling me his team where involved in some analysis of a case (I don't think it was british) where some young nieve thing had posted pictures of herself online. Someone used the geo-tag which her iPhone automatically put on, without her understanding, and a fun time was not had by all.

But the thing with this site, people seldom like been told their been VERY stupid. If they did, a lot more people would come to my birthday party.

Personally I do not do it because it just annoys me when a friend is tweeting where they are every 5 minutes. Now I have a proper excuse for if anyone asks ;)