It struck me the other day that my use of lifestreaming tools such as Twitter and Brightkite could make me more susceptible to crime. I’m not talking about the types of cyber-crime outlined in this article, but more traditional offline burglary and/or home invasion. If I’m publicly broadcasting my location and plans, how long is it until someone with criminal intent decides to connect the dots?
It’s widely known that burglars search obituaries in the local paper to find targets when they’re not at home. How long will it be before they shift their focus online and begin targeting people when they’re “heading to the Museum of Science with the family” or “driving to NH and skiing this weekend with the wife and kids?”
This may seem a bit paranoid, but I just tried it with someone on Twitter who said they were “heading out for coffee at JP Licks.” Within minutes I had their home address even though it wasn’t listed on any of their social networking accounts. It was easy to figure out that they were in greater Boston through their tweets and finding their exact home address was a snap using White Pages. While going out for coffee might not be enough time for someone to burglarize your home, there are plenty of people who regularly broadcast that they’re heading out for the weekend.
Do you think about this when you broadcast your whereabouts? Does it concern you? What do you do to protect yourself from this sort of crime?
Note: My home is protected with a motion alarm that has a direct line to the local police department. I hope it’s enough.
Cool photo on this post is from Jaxxon’s photostream on Flickr.
February 15, 2009
Jim Storer
Leave a reply
14 responses to “Does Lifestreaming Connect Too Many Dots?”
Scott
February 15th, 2009 at 11:33
You make an excellent point; I’ve considered the same things. The fact that I just found my street address through whitepages.com is a bit disconcerting. Sites like Brightkite that track and broadcast your every move via your mobile device and GPS are intriguing, but certainly raise security concerns.
I wrote my take (although from a less security-focused angle) on “lifecasting” a few months ago.
dwilkinsnh
February 15th, 2009 at 11:37
Great post Jim. I’ve actually been thinking about this myself. But I’ve been considering the whole kids angle — posting about soccer or fun activities with kids tells the world that a) you have kids, b) what activities they do, and c) when they do them. Yikes! Couple that with some of the specific details that a predator could pick up to seem more connected to the kid (“how else would they know I scored 2 goals last week unless they really *do* work with dad?”), and I can imagine all sorts of ugly scenarios. Paranoid? Sure. But I suspect it will become a real issue we’ll need to all think about at some point. Keep up the good work on the blog; I love hearing your thoughts on this stuff.
Tasha
February 15th, 2009 at 14:02
Jim,
Excellent points. I agree we are too often not aware of the security implications of wide personal information dispersal. In most social networking tools, you do have the option of limiting your broadcast range, through invitations or friending. Twitter offers protected updates. Still it does create a catch-22. Do you want to meet or reconnect to people, or do you simply want to stay in touch with an existing specific group? For me it is mostly the latter, but I seem to be in the minority.
Hopefully everyone is or will become more careful about how they share information electronically.
Aaron Strout
February 15th, 2009 at 19:09
Jim – I love your post, especial considering the fact that you and I have gone several rounds on this topic in the past. While I completely see your point, I’m going to play the voice of dissent here:
1) There is a reason why crooks have to steal. Usually (unless they are the big time bank/white collar crooks) there is a reason why they are spending their time doing petty crimes like breaking into houses. As a result, my faith in their ability to figure out Twitter, Friendfeed and the like is not very high. Hell, I have a lot of very smart friends who still have no idea what the hell those things are.
2) On the “I have the luxury” side of things, I have a neighbor across the street that literary is BETTER than your home alarm system. She spends a majority of her day looking out the window and calls us at the drop of anything remotely suspicious.
3) While I would be sad if someone took my new flat panel television, there isn’t a whole lot in our house that I’d put in the “priceless” category. Don’t get me wrong, it would suck but I’m just not that worried. I guess that puts me in the glass 1/2 full camp.
One last thing to consider. While it might someday be possible to track people based on their “life streaming” activities, what if they are wrong. For instance, there are times where I forget to check in at the right place so while it may look like I’m updating Brightkite from Austin, I could just as likely be updating from down the street at Starbucks.
I do see your point and I could probably stand to be a little more cautious but at the end of the day, that’s just not how I roll… ;)
Best,
Aaron | @aaronstrout
Diane Hessan
February 15th, 2009 at 22:06
Jim, this is a really interesting topic, and we all have examples, don’t we? Last summer, I was at the airport with my daughter and we were looking at a family across from us. My daughter remarked that the son looked awfully young to be sitting with his arm around his “girlfriend”. I tried an experiment, and within TWO minutes, I found out the son’s name and determined that although he looked 12, he was actually 18 and a freshman at UCLA. I figured it out via Google and Facebook, just by overhearing one comment, and looking at the sweatshirts the people in the family were wearing — and I just had my blackberry. Even my college sophomore daughter thought it was creepy: that it was easy for me to “stalk” him — and that we are all so public.
Having said that, it didn’t make me change my behavior. Are we too sloppy?
Derek Massey
February 16th, 2009 at 07:40
Great post, Jim, and excellent dissent Aaron. Information is always better when you see both sides.
One mistake I have made is broadcasting (via Twitter) family vacations. Nothing happened, but in hindsight I wish I hadn’t. I too have a hard-wired alarm system, but who needs that hassle while on vacation? In early tweets I may have broadcast my kids’ names, but stopped doing that. Same with pictures of kids.
This is where Facebook comes in handy. I know everyone uses FB a little differently, but I really do not friend just anyone. I need to have met you or trust you on some level. FB is where I want to snap a mobile picture of my kids while I’m out and share with friends and family.
FWIW, I strongly disagree with Aaron’s statement that “my faith in [a crook's] ability to figure out Twitter, Friendfeed and the like is not very high.” I consider it a given, considering the fact that hacking and identity theft are cottage industries.
irusty
February 16th, 2009 at 18:04
hi Jim,
Great post. I recall we had some after-hour discussions about similar subjects. As you know, I fall on the side of being cautious. You raise some valid concerns about someone stealing property while you’re away. I agree this is an issue, but I tend to think about a bit less intrusive but still unwanted results of revealing too much information through lifestreaming. For example:
- revealing information that may be strategic to your company
- inviting people to cross business and personal boundaries when you’re not in the mood (for example a twitter follower who really isn’t your friend showing up in the middle of dinner with your family).
- letting the neighborhood kids know it’s OK to have a party in our basement because we’re on a trip or out enjoying a meal with friends.
Of course you could rewrite the above examples in a positive context — meeting an old friend unexpectedly or making a key business connection just by chance — so I guess it’s just a calculated risk that we all take. Like any relationship, the more reveal the more you could get back but the more you risk as well. With the new realities of electronic communication, the decision you make at any given time can’t be changed so it’s better to err on the side of caution.
A related issue is with whom you choose to share information. The current state of Twitter and FB grouping tools are not very good. It would be a lot better if I could choose to direct my updates or location to specific groups of people (family, co-workers, friends) etc. This will evolve. Right now the fact that Twitter is set up so you know very little about many of your followers is a problem they’ll have to address at some point.
Some related information:
Sunday Globe “Time for a Muzzle”:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/02/15/time_for_a_muzzle/
“Have you seen my boundaries” blog post by Elizabeth Hannan:
http://is.gd/jtGd
As always, good thought-provoking stuff…
Rusty
Mike Langford
February 17th, 2009 at 01:19
It’s funny, I’m not an overly paranoid person but I must admit that I have no desire to let the general public know my exact whereabouts. With few exceptions, going out for lunch or coffee, I only broadcast my location publicly when I think the people seeing the broadcast might actually care where I am (or am going) and thus may want to connect. In those instances I don’t really give potential security threats much thought.
What really creeps me out is seeing where social media listening is headed when it is combined with location broadcasting. I’m just waiting for the first case of a person saying they are heading out for coffee only to find a salesman waiting at Starbucks.
Jim Storer
February 17th, 2009 at 08:12
@scott – thanks for the comment. it’s nice to hear I’m not alone in my concern.
@dave – agree on the kids. i try to keep my kids names out of the streams, but i’m sure someone could find them if they really looked.
@tasha – i think most of us started with our Twitter updates protected, but soon realized that approach isn’t going to open many doors to serendipity. It’s used differently by different people, but we may see more people start to reign in their list of friends.
@aaron – i figured you might end up in that camp based on our discussions and your faith in society is refreshing. I’m with Derek though and think it’s just a matter of time before someone decides to start connecting the dots. Google may promise to “do no evil”, but that doesn’t mean someone else won’t with the info they’re collecting.
@diane – that’s a scary example. wow…just wow! thanks for sharing. i DO think we’re a bit sloppy.
@derek – i like the way you’re using different social networks for different levels of friendship. i’ve heard about more and more people taking that approach.
@irusty – yep – we’ve talked about this in the past, but it seems to be getting to a “tipping point” when it comes to how much information we’re comfortable putting out there… that’s why i wrote the post. if you haven’t taken a look at FB permissions in a while, i think you may be selling them a bit short. they’ve made some really nice changes, including adding custom groups, which would allow you to define specifically who can see your feed (and other things).
@mike – sounds like you’re talking about balance. we all need to strike that balance given what our risk profile looks like.
thanks again folks. are we all just frogs in a pot?
http://allaboutfrogs.org/stories/boiled.html
Rachel Happe
February 17th, 2009 at 21:02
Were you stalking me?!?! :)
I think I am certainly a little sloppy and I don’t think about the potential negative side affects of sharing information some pieces of information.
I must really start lying about my whereabouts…just to confuse over-interested followers.
As I write this, I am sitting on a Costa Rican beach with a Margarita – it’s just lovely here this time of year!
Bryan Person
February 19th, 2009 at 19:40
Jim:
This is actually something I think about, and I’m at least a touch more cautious than Aaron. In particular, I seldom tweet my whereabouts if I’m out and about with my family (i.e. nobody at home).
I’m not paranoid about this (there’s not much in my house that’s irreplaceable, either), but I do try and be smart.
Bryan | @BryanPerson
pbrannigan
March 3rd, 2009 at 13:57
Jim -
This is very timely. As you may know, the cycling community has taken to social networking and Twitter like wild fire. Dave Zabriskie came in 2nd at the recent Tour of California only to come home to less than what he left.
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_11774832
Not only did he lose his cars but they took Olympic memoriblia and bikes that can’t be replaced.
If you are going to be very public about your whereabouts, invest in a good security system or save the update until you are home. It was interesting in Lance Armstrong’s interview he did on social networking he mentioned there was someone at home just in case… Be open doesn’t have to mean being naive.
I have to admit I saw an update from a former colleague of ours announcing on his facebook status he and the family were going away for the weekend. I thought gee that is an open invite to get robbed.
What is the real difference in an update of ‘Going to NH skiing and that of ‘Just got back from skiing in NH’ to the general public?
BTW I have a similiar security system with canine back up and neighbors that are home all day …
Rachel Levy
November 9th, 2009 at 08:46
There have been 2 public cases of robbery because of Twitter in the past year. I don’t have the references, but it’s exactly what you’re scared of. They went out of town for the weekend, and got robbed.
Be careful!!
LilPecan
November 9th, 2009 at 08:52
I’ve always been conscious of this. While there are many who know who I am, they are in the circle of people I have gotten to know over my years in social media. Few know precisely where I live.
YOU could learn who I am and do some digging to determine where I live and go from there but only because our sphere’s overlap. Then you’d have to hope I checked in Foursquare when I reached a location and not as I was leaving it. If I am away from home for any significant period of time I have a house sitter or I arrange for close friends to check in on our property. This is in addition to home security.
I’m little concerned a common criminal will perpetrate a crime against me based on my on line activity. I’m more concerned about the average person driving by and seeing me loading my car with bags but take precautions against that, too.
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