Just came across an interesting site that may be relevant to our last class.
The authors of Please Rob Me dot com try to raise awareness on potential drawbacks of over-sharing personal information. Indeed, when people inform the whole world that they are in a restaurant/cinema/club/went on vacation/etc. via Foursquare, most likely they are at those places and not at home. Guess who can take advantage of this!?
I do believe that high profile thieves would be okay without the location hints. They do their homework well and, most likely, know the schedule of the victim better than the victim himself. However, for a young thief, someone who is just at the begging of his career, Foursquare can be a priceless source of information.
One way to avoid unexpected guests when you are not at home, just put something like this... Went on vacation to Mallorca BUT left my angry super dangerous pitbull at home.
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I agree. Before the FB era there were still thieves...professional but also young ones...
ReplyDeleteYou don't need to have foursquare to see if somebody is at home or not, you just wait and see him leave his home...
so, as you say, it may be a new channel for thieves to look at, but if this social network have many many million users, then the chance to get robed is as low as in real life! =) (depending where you live!)
So, this is definitively not an excuse to not use Facebook or Foursquare! by the way, you share your location within Facebook and Foursquare only with your friends!! if some of your friends rob you, this is not to social networks to blame...but to your friends!!! =)