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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?"
I can also imagine guys tweeting as if they were on holidays, but being home-entrenched and armed to the teeth, just for the fun of shooting at thieves.
There won't even be bones for their families to bury by the time the lawyers, both prosecutors and trial lawyers, are done with them for aiding and abetting this if the robber used their app. This is so stupid that it would make running a mirror of The Pirate Bay in the middle of Hollywood look slightly intelligent by comparison.
Basically, there's nothing wrong with the technology. The defect comes with the users. People are unreliable and untrustworthy. If people weren't such assholes I wouldn't mind letting everybody know my sexual habits, or even my fantasies. But there are spoilers out there; the type of people who say I have a bad attitude are also the same type of people who steal staple removers at the office and use "private" data for personal gain. The backstabbers are the people who smile a lot and are heavily into "family values" and "morality". I once heard a psychologist say that people in prison are more likely to be Conservative in there beliefs (by being pro-death penalty, pro-capital punishment and anti-crime) then people who are not in prison. Average, normal people tend to be irrational.
Now, you could give someone else your phone or laptop to tweet with, but then you'd have a hard time explaining that.
Why? Is it suddenly illegal to lend someone in another state/country your telephone? Is there a law stating that everything you write on the internet must be "the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth"? You can't invite someone into your house and then bash them over the head in "self defense". However if they force entry, it really doesn't matter WHAT you wrote. IANAL but I assume that the law draws a line at the point where the guy actually takes a crowbar to your front door. "He made me do it" doesn't work. You can't take break into people's houses unless you have a damned good reason that will convince a judge and jury, like a firefighter trying to save someone's life or property.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I make it as difficult as my insurance company wants it to be.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Profit? NRA endorsements, talk-show circuit, book deals ...
1. It needs to be "please burgle me". If you aren't at home, then you are being burgled, not robbed. A robbery is theft with violence or the threat of violence (at least in English law - Theft Act 1958 - it is). If nobody is at home, then nobody can be the victim of violence or the threat of violence. So your home is getting burgled - or, if you are an American, burglarized (what the hell kind of a word is that, right?).
2. PleaseRobMe seems to be built around the premise that one home = one person. If you know where I live, please be assured that I am currently not at my home. But other people live where I live. Families exist. Flat sharing exists. Communal living exists. (Yeah, go and raid the kibbutz - I'm sure it'll be empty!) This may be true for Web 2.0 valleyboys. It's not true of the rest of the planet.
That said, this kind of thing does show why most location-based services are stupidly designed. I have played around with a few of them, and the only one I'm a real big fan of is FireEagle. Sadly, it's been a bit neglected for business reasons - i.e. Yahoo! financial situation. What is great about FireEagle is you share you location with FireEagle, and they then share it with whatever services you want to share it with. So, I have the little iPhone app which updates FireEagle. FireEagle knows exactly where I am. Then there's a Facebook app which connects to FireEagle, but I don't necessarily have to let it broadcast my location if I don't want it to. Or I can only give a vague location - perhaps at a country or city level. I have it wired in to my SSH setup, so if I SSH in to my Linux box from certain places, it updates my location. Because it is a location broker, it can be updated in any way people think of, rather than having to use a specific application (say, for the iPhone) like FourSquare etc. do.
This is useful as I can build applications that sit on top of it. One I have been meaning to build is a "remind me when I'm at X" app. So I could basically dump a string (SMS/tweet length) into a database with a broad location in it. It could check against my location and when they match, I could be reminded of X. Remember to buy ice cream when I'm at the supermarket - well, when I'm at the supermarket, I should get a text message saying to buy ice cream.
Location-based services shouldn't be tied to devices but to people. This is what everyone gets wrong. They need really good granular privacy controls. They need a big "forget me" option. This is something Google Latitude doesn't have. There is no way I have found to tell Google Latitude "Hey, take me off the radar. I'm not anywhere anymore."
When I have some time to build it, I'd love to build something like FireEagle but running on my servers and just for me. Location is too important, useful and fun to trust Google or Yahoo! or some venture-backed Valley startup with. But if you are building location-based services, look at FireEagle and learn.
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
*knock knock*
Housemate opens door. "Hello?"
"Good morning, sir, I'm with $CHARITY, and we're looking for donations. Our truck will be coming through your neighborhood on $DATE, do you have anything to help the $NEEDY_POPULATION?"
Housemate replies appropriately, burglar goes to the next house.
*knock knock*
Silence.
*window smash, goodbye valuables*
*click-clack* BOOM!!
*click-clack* BOOM!!
*dial tone*
*ringing*
"Hello 911. What is your emergency."
"No emergency. Someone forced entry to my home and I shot them to death with a twelve gauge. Just send a meat wagon."
You don't need to buy 'fake' stickers. There are plenty of stickers that don't have a specific companies name on them. This is because security systems are not generally made by the monitoring company. Companies like Brinks probably don't want you to realize that they just buy off the shelf equipment and then sell it at 1000% markup. Anyone interested should check out http://www.smarthome.com./ They sell the same stuff as the monitoring companies. They also have partnered with a monitoring company that will happily work with self installers. It is dramatically cheaper. Obviously, this is only advice for those that are comfortable setting up their own electronics. It isn't hard, but you do have to read the directions.
For those those that just want the sticker, they can buy the stickers there too. There is nothing 'fake' about the stickers. Brinks and their like don't have a patent on putting a sticker on your window to say that you have a security system.
That being said. Actual as I said, you are right, actual burglars have told me that 90% of an alarm's effectiveness is in the stickers.