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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?"
Thank you Please Rob Me! My new LED TV is awesome!
I sense some legal trouble for these guys in the near future..
This isn't news. People's houses are cleared out regularly due to their Facebook status.
welcome our new squatter neighbors.
Yes, physical security, you're away from your home. So are a vast majority of people from between the hours of 9AM to 3PM every day. There's been a lot of backlash over this site, including Twitter suspending their account, which is just silly. It's the same level of surveillance that someone can do by just parking in front of your home. It's just that now they can see you over FourSquare (speaking of silly...). It's the same as posting on Twitter that you're stuck in traffic, or sending an email from a work-only address. Just another in a very, very long list of ways to see where you're currently at.
Criminals will still just sit out in front of your house and wait for the cars the leave.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
oh, ghod, no, please, not "twobbery" . It's enough to make one give up the English language.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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.
He wanks as high as any in Wome !!!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I just wish the bait cars were full of explosives.
Honestly, Blow up a few car jackers or car thieves and make it REALLY public and suddenly car thefts will go way down.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I hear insurance companies quietly whispering about new schemes to monitor their customer's twitterfeeds and deny claims based on homeowner liability.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Profit? NRA endorsements, talk-show circuit, book deals ...
Please try my ex-wife's house. That's where you'll find my stuff.
10am, hibernating.
11am, hibernating.
12am, hibernating.
1pm, hibernating.
2pm, hibernating.
3pm, hibernating.
4pm, hibernating.
5pm, hibernating.
6pm, hibernating.
7pm, ate hitchhiker.
8pm, hibernating.
9pm, hibernating.
Mind you, considering the average tweeter, this is actually pretty riveting stuff.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Unless you live in a state that has a castle doctrine...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
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."); }
Not only did you completely miss the joke, but at least to moderators did as well. It's a honeypot, you don't want a deterrent like a dog post.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
TWO
Augh
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Anyone mash this up with googlemaps and streetview yet? That would really drive the point home.
At last a little payback for all this unfettered twitter narcisism. It's probably not very nice, but I can't help feeling more than my share of shadenfreude...
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
...and that's why a lot of us are glad US law doesn't quite rule the whole world just yet.... sueing somebody else for emotional damage because you posted on the public internet that you're not at home, because this causes you "a great deal of emotional unrest". Presumably the same people will be sueing Google and every other search engine that's archiving these posts as they scrape the internet?
Grow up, take responsibility for your own actions. If having the world knowing that you're not at home causes you "emotional unrest", well then don't tell the world. Seems to me that some folk are incredibly child-like, unable to take responsibility for their own actions. Not sure who to blame for this. But I sure hope these people don't have any influence or authority in the wider world, seems like they should be kept in some sort of kindergarten.
Worry not! Free dictionaries around the world are blurring the definition as we speak. Another pair of words that used to mean different things, but now mean the same thing, thanks to good old fashioned honest-to-god ignorance. See also "literally" vs. "figuratively"
Insightful is the new Funny.
I don't know who this Rob guy is or what he has in mind but I don't like the sound of it.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning