Crime and the internet

I am often staggered by the amount of personal information people willingly divulge on the Internet and it seems that the people behind Please Rob Me are too. The Dutch team behind this site have produced a site that monitors the Twitter feeds of people playing the online game Foursquare, which is based on a person's location in the real world and reports those which include a location update.

Thus entries like:

"#
@johnlowerytn left home and checked in 3 minutes ago:

I'm at Pilot Travel Centers Corporate Office (5508 Lonas Drive, Knoxville). http://4sq.com/cHyX9L


@jboxt1 left home and checked in 3 minutes ago:

I'm at Glover Park Group w/ @lazarmichael. http://4sq.com/9L4KYm"

Would people stand in the street outside their office and announce that they weren't at their home and that their home address is xxxx? Of course not, so why do it online?


"Please Rob Me" are keen to explain that "Our intention is not, and never has been, to have people burglarized." and that goes for me too in publicising this site, but people need to be made aware that the information they publish on the web is available far and wide. As "Please Rob Me" explain:

" The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you're definitely not... home. So here we are; on one end we're leaving lights on when we're going on a holiday, and on the other we're telling everybody on the internet we're not home. It gets even worse if you have "friends" who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the internet.. Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That's right, slap them across the face.

The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz etc. Because all this site is, is a dressed up Twitter search page. Everybody can get this information. "