

Facebook Places In New Hampshire Turns Into A Real-Life PleaseRobMe.com - bond
http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/10/facebook-places-please-rob-me/

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sspencer
Invest some of that ad money into actual editors, Techcrunch. My old state is
spelled with a "p"!

In response to the content, I used to live in Nashua. It's a fairly sleepy
little town without much crime in general, though some areas are becoming a
little rough around the edges. A lot of people left their doors unlocked. I'd
say broadcasting your current whereabouts to the world instead of merely your
friends is a 21st century way of leaving your doors unlocked: it only works
when everyone plays nicely.

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simonsarris
I live in Nashua. I think we're still ranked 27th safest city in the US.

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houseabsolute
I wonder if this will eventually become a clause in insurance contracts: "If
you broadcast publicly the fact that you aren't home, any subsequent robbery
will not be covered." Hard to believe, but possible.

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younata
uh. no.

Because, if I so wished, I could post on FB places that I'm "at the movies
with <whoever>".

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houseabsolute
I don't understand how this objection would defeat the clause in question?

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younata
the idea is, you can't effectively stop what other people post about you.
Sure, you can elect to not post anything showing your location, but other
people can also elect to post stuff showing their location, as well as
information indicating that you are with them.

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houseabsolute
That's why the clause would be, "If _you_ broadcast publicly . . ." Obviously
there'd be no way to enforce this if someone else broadcasted your location.

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timmaah
Techcrunch robbed New Hampshire of its p.

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presidentender
New Hampshire shouldn't have posted on Facebook that it was out partying with
Maine and Delaware at Vermont's place.

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wrs
Do you suppose someone's working on a system that recognizes valuable objects
in geo-tagged photos, correlates that with Facebook/4sq checkins to figure out
who lives with those objects and when they're not home, and produces a live
feed of where the fleet of home burglary vans should go next? Kinda like the
FedEx logistics system, but for evil.

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natrius
This doesn't describe how they got the addresses of people to rob. Presumably,
they robbed their Facebook friends. Regardless, there are easier ways to find
out when people aren't home. Most people are at work during the day. Maybe you
should randomize your work schedule to feel more secure.

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Symmetry
Actually, I suspect that the victims just shared their addresses with
everyone.

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natrius
You have to go out of your way to do that on Facebook. I doubt many people
have addresses shared with everyone.

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sp332
It's trivially easy to burgle a house. It's not so easy to get away with it.
LBS seems like it would make things easier for burglars, but by Amdahl's Law,
it's not much different from before.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law>

