Burglary Ring Used Facebook Places To Find Targets

Kilrah_il writes "A burglary ring was caught in Nashua, NH due to the vigilance of an off-duty police officer. The group is credited with 50 acts of burglary, the targets chosen because they posted their absence from home on the Internet. '"Be careful of what you post on these social networking sites," said Capt. Ron Dickerson. "We know for a fact that some of these players, some of these criminals, were looking on these sites and identifying their targets through these social networking sites."' Well, I guess the prophecies came true."

Comments

Re:practicalities

[Anonymous Coward]

For the street address, if people use their full name in facebook and list their town, there's a good chance that you can get a correct address from the white pages. As for whether other people will be home, if they say "family vacation", that gives a good probability that every one in the house will be gone. As to the other things you pointed out (alarm, neighborhood watch, whether they have stuff worth stealing), you're correct. They probably have to case the joint in person to get that info. But at least they know they're casing a place that will be vacant on a particular day. Someone might case my house and determine I'm an excellent prospect, but if I don't go on vacation for a year then they haven't got anything.

Re:Nothing new

[NotQuiteReal]

Funeral notices are the classic... what close family members don't go to the funeral?