Another PSA : Social networking invites crime

For the people in your life who put out way too much personal information on the web.
Who can say 'OPSEC'?
I knew you could..

Sep 4, 2009, 2:32 p.m. EST
Social networking invites crime
Commentary: At some point, court trials will begin over bad events

By John C. Dvorak

BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- If I were a professional thief, the first thing I would do is get a computer, find the folks out there who document everything they do on social-networking sites and go rob them.

The reports of burglaries may be scattered, but I'm still not sure what makes people think it's a good idea to tell the world what they're doing each and every minute of the day. There seem to be more than a few folks who relish the thought, and now they have the social-networking services, namely Twitter and Facebook, to do that.

"I'm bored. I think I'm going to get in the car and go for a long drive." This might be something you'd see on Twitter.
On Dogbook, Everyone Knows You're a Dog

With 68 million pups calling the U.S. home, it's no wonder that Dogbook is getting "tail-wagging" reviews from the canine community. Video courtesy of Fox News.

Of course, this sort of post is fairly innocuous, since you may not know where that user lives. But often those details are revealed on the Twitter site voluntarily.

All you need to do is see what other social-networking sites or blogs the person has, and how much information is revealed there. Often it is a lot.

I have seen appalling blogs and Flickr accounts that essentially reveal where someone lives, the layout of the house, the valuables, what the kids look like, where they go to school and their names. Then the person posts the family's schedule.

I can't tell you how many people have posted elaborate travel itineraries, as if anyone but their spouses really care that they'll be at the Congress of Widget Designers in Buffalo, N.Y. come October.

Luckily, the criminal element has not caught on yet to this bonanza of information: times, dates, places, layouts and schedules of a target. Often much of the target's activities are revealed in real time.

This lax attitude is an epidemic.

The lack of concern for privacy is epitomized by cell-phone rudeness, whereby some blowhard is shouting for all to hear the details about his life or business. I was on a plane once and took down a number of minute details about a big buyout that was under way, as some guy was revealing names, numbers, people on the team, when the deal was supposed to happen, stock-buyout prices and on and on. I was flabbergasted and sent a note to the chief executive.

This happens far too often, and the sociology of it all has never been explained fully to me. There used to be such a thing as phone booths, where you'd lock yourself in a sealed box so nobody could overhear your conversation.

When did the desire for that sort of privacy end, and why?

When blogging first began, I objected to the diarists who felt the need to spill their guts about everything in their lives. It seemed preposterous that anyone would be interested. Then with systems such as Twitter, you can go to the very mundane with real-time commentary such as "I'm eating some delicious French fries at the In-N-Out Burger."

This comment has a time stamp, so everyone can surmise that you are at the In-N-Out Burger on Sept. 4 at 10:03 am.


I've been wrestling with this and have tried to find an association with other cyclical phenomena, whereby a generally naïve public does what will, in hindsight, be considered kind of dumb.

There is an analogy of sorts, and it happened just before and during the economic downturns in the 1960s and 1970s: hitchhiking.

Hitchhiking was very popular for many years before people figured out that it was a good way to get killed, robbed or raped. It ended abruptly, although some Europeans can be seen doing it, thumbs pointing backwards.

With something as institutionalized as social networks, you can be sure that at some point court trials will begin over bad events. Unlike the decline of hitchhiking, where there was no institution to sue, it is not the same with social-networking services.

The risks could come home to haunt any public company such as Google Inc. , who runs Blogger, or Yahoo Inc. with its many groups and organizations. Right now social networking of all stripes is wide open for criminal abuse.

Investors and the rest of us should be leery.

I am with the OP. Keep it Secure... as they say.

I agree, keep as much info as possible of the net. Personal descriptions of the kids, itineraries, layout of the home are all private. I wonder if someone who posts this info is not a bit stupid to begin with.