Please Rob Me
When Dutch web developers created a website called Please Rob Me, were they being irresponsible, or were they showing people the dangers of social networking?
Website developers Boy Van Amstel and Frank Groeneveld along with Barry Borsboom, a first year media student, set up a website showing how easy it was to pull together information about people from social networking sites which would be valuable to burglars. Sites like Twitter encourage people to tell the world about the minutiae of their lives, and Twitter feeds frequently contain nuggets such as "I've just left for work", "I am on the tube", "I am working late", and "I've just arrived at the hotel for the start of my two weeks holiday,... yippee". There is also an increasing number of applications, such as Four Square, which display the current positions of people on maps.
The dutch trio created a website called www.pleaserobme.com to show how easy it would be for criminals to pull this information together and identify when people are away from home, leaving houses empty. They were well-intentioned, attracted a lot of publicity, but the point they were trying to make was poorly presented and the response to the site was largely negative. Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said the website was "completely and totally irresponsible" and described it as providing a one-stop-shop for burglars.
Hopefully, the exercise has raised people's awareness. Most people know to cancel the milk when they go away and not advertise the fact that the house is empty, but they are quite happy to advertise the same facts on the internet for the world and its dog to read. Still, if they leave a light on at home, that should fool the burglars.
26th February 2010