I Use Twitter, Please Rob Me

nk497 writes "Developers looking to prove a point about the information people are sharing on social networking sites have unveiled a new tool called Please Rob Me. It hunts out tweets from people who are also using location-based services telling the world that they're out of town, and then directs the world to go rob their house. The creators of the site said: 'Don't get us wrong, we love the whole location-aware thing. The information is very interesting and can be used to create some pretty awesome applications. However, the way in which people are stimulated to participate in sharing this information is less awesome.' How long until the first actual robbery takes place?"

Comments

Release the lawyers..

[pak9rabid]

I sense some legal trouble for these guys in the near future..

Re:Release the lawyers..

[Idaho]

Their names look very Dutch to me (I'm Dutch myself), so I'm guessing the Netherlands (or perhaps Belgium).

You're probably right that "encouraging people to rob a specific person's house is actionable in every first world country". However, that's clearly not their stated intention - to the contrary, in fact.

In the Netherlands, if someone would start a lawsuit about this (could happen, sure), I'm guessing chances are pretty good that the judge will buy the argument of the website authors, especially since burglars can already trivially find the exact same information if they have two half-working brain cells, and their stated purpose is to actually make people aware of this obvious problem. In addition, whoever starts the lawsuit would probably first have to prove actual damages (e.g. being robbed), and that this was caused by this website, and even then there's the obvious counterpoint that they put this information online themselves in the first place, and it might have been trivially found without that website. The apparent intention (of the website authors) matters as well, probably more so than in the USA (this is just a feeling, I may be wrong).

So, it's hard to prove that a robbery was "caused" or "encouraged" by this website, even then it involved your own stupidity in putting that information publicly on the internet in the first place, therefore the chances of winning (as the person who got robbed) seem not that great. In addition to that, mostly everyone here has insurance covering their household effects, meaning they'd get (most of) the money back from an insurance company anyway, so why bother with the lawsuit.

Finally, if you lose, you typically have to pay the legal costs of the defending side - so starting the lawsuit is not without financial risk in the first place.

Much of this is probably also true in the USA, but the legal costs involved would be higher, and I somehow have a feeling, also the chances of losing. (IANAL, so I may be wrong about that.)

"How long until the first actual robbery"

[TheMeuge]

This isn't news. People's houses are cleared out regularly due to their Facebook status.

Re:"How long until the first actual robbery"

[Arimus]

Or just forgetting to cancel the milk or the pile of post just inside the front door, or news papers you forgot to cancel etc etc etc.

Just because you can...

[2obvious4u]

doesn't mean you should.

It is one thing for unscrupulous behavior to happen, it is another to encourage it. Their motives may be "pure" in that they are trying to bring awareness about what people know about you and what "could" happen. That doesn't mean it should happen. Not everyone is a crook and we should all strive to not be crooks, it is better for everyone. There used to be a time when everyone left there doors unlocked and trusted the community to not rob them. Now the community is encouraging people to rob people. The issue isn't people sharing their information, its people like these guys who are just being ass holes. We shouldn't have to hide our information, people should just respect each other enough not to steal their stuff.

I don't understand the value of this to robbers

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

The site doesn't tell you whether everyone in the household is gone, only if one person in the household is gone. A robber would still have to peek in the windows and do whatever it is robbers do to make sure the house is empty. But they could do that just by walking around some random neighbourhood and peeking in random windows; they don't need Twitter to tell them to peek into someone's windows.

You can question their methods...

[Ltap]

But if this raises awareness, full steam ahead. People need to figure out that if they have minute-by-minute updates of where they are and what they are doing, all of which is publically available, they will sooner or later have consequences.

Moreso than robberies: I'm surprised we don't have rapes because of this, i.e. a girl tweeting while drunk.

Re:Hmmm...listen closely...

[natehoy]

I hear insurance companies quietly whispering about new schemes to monitor their customer's twitterfeeds and deny claims based on homeowner liability.

Re:Everyone leaves their homes

[Rary]

This is exactly the point. Computers didn't enter the workplace so that people could suddenly do things that they couldn't do before. Computers simply made those work activities more efficient and effective. The same is true for other uses of computers. Using computers in crime doesn't mean crimes occur where they couldn't before, just that the criminals are more efficient and effective.

Besides, someone using old-fashioned casing techniques would assume that my house is empty right now because I normally leave for work at 6:45. However, someone using modern casing techniques (if I were a Twitter/Facebook/Foursquare user) would know that I'm working from home today.

This kind of technology takes much of the risk out of burglarizing homes.

Re:Sweet! Free Stuff!

[Exitar]

Yes, thank you "Please Rob Me", your wife is really hot! Now I will never have to meet her in a motel again thank to this wonderful service!