Lifecasting may well lead us to Crime 2.0
May 22nd, 2008 by Jeremy ToemanThis is something that’s been bothering me for a while: with all the push toward lifecasting, should we worry that criminals are going to get a little smarter? I saw a tweet today that really got me over the edge to write this post.
I first got antsy about TMI online when I was reading Scoble’s blog. He wrote a post a few years back divulging his home address (at the time), and I for one thought he was a bit nutso to do it (that nutso quality is probably a part of why he’s so likeable). I see tweets from him (and others) constantly revealing two important pieces of information:
- The fact that they are not at home.
- An easy tie-in to a specific location/event they have recently attended.
Both are better bait to criminals than personal injury videos on YouTube are to drunk college kids. They are basically open invitations for bad people to do bad things. Break-ins. Thievery. Identity theft. etc. I totally understand the desire to lifecast private details, and I occasionally slip myself. It’s easy, and I think the more in a rhythm you get of publicizing your information, they more you get “sucked into” doing it.
Examples:
- Robert Scoble in NYC yesterday
- Tom Raftery in Barcelona right now
- Me a couple of weeks ago
- Alec Saunders just as I began to write this post
My recommendations to anyone and everyone who tweets, pounces, jaiks, friendfeeds, blog posts, facebook statuses, and any other form of lifecasting is to think twice before you write. Recognize that your message is going into the public, in a permanent and very findable manner.
I believe it’s only a matter of time before we see tweets like “just got home, where the F is my plasma?!?” It sucks to think this way, but it’s giving me a little wakeup call myself. Guess we may all need crowdsourced home security one day.
Now signing off from an undisclosed location. I hear there’s a car nobody’s watching at SFO…
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Jeremy – absolutely agree. Loic’s post is a perfect example of something that he had no need and probably no intention of broadcasting. At kwiry, we enable global and per message privacy settings (private, friends only, public). Loic could have used kwiry to send that to the cloud privately or he could have even used kwiry’s direct message integration with Twitter (“d kwiry p I parked my car…”) The ability to use one platform to lifecast and send private reminders is key, I think, to avoiding Crime 2.0…. As for broadcasting travel plans without telling criminals you’re out of town….that’s a tough one. Maybe Twitter can offer an option of sponsorship from home security companies, “in Barcelona. ADT has got me covered.”
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Good points Jeremy. I’ve been blogging for a lot of years, and often write while travelling. Let’s just say I’m comfortable with the precautions I’ve taken, starting with the dogs.
May 24th, 2008 at 10:56 am
[...] Toeman is afraid that “Lifecasting may well lead us to Crime 2.0,” but I think he is missing something [...]
May 24th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
I think some people are pretty silly when it comes to this stuff, people just give up to much information on themselves when they are online. Thing’s like Twitter could be very dangerous especially with your personally property, example I put in that I’m out shopping, well someone who is a bit shady who has an idea were I live could break in cause they know what I’m doing.
This Penny Arcade comic proves the point, http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/ there is such a things as to much information.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
[...] Jeremy Toeman’s LIVEdigitally » Blog Archive » Lifecasting may well lead us to Crime 2.0 (tags: crime web2.0 lifestreams) [...]
May 26th, 2008 at 5:46 am
I have absolutely no problem telling people I am away, if I am.
First off, how is any criminal reading it to know
1. if I am telling the truth
2. where I live
3. that I haven’t fed my Rottweilers lately
4. that my family aren’t armed and dangerous
5. that there is anything of value in the house
6. how to get past the alarm
Loic’s Tweet above is only any use to someone who has malicious intent against Loic specifically. I am sure there were thousands of other cars unattended in SFO airport at that time.
October 15th, 2009 at 9:28 am
These stupid Social Media “experts” all do the same: it’s their weak sense of self-worth that drives them to think everyone adores them. Self-impressed, deluded by technological delirium, their foolish practices prove they’re not worth imitating.
I just did a blog post on this topic, quoting you. Good job.
March 17th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
[...] Publicize travel plans. Be it foursquare, brightkite, gowalla, plancast, tripit, dopplr or anything else, the concept that an individual would specifically tell anybody in public that they aren’t at home is something I personally find mind-boggling. Whether it’s a simple burglary (or much much worse), there’s no greater bait I can think of for a wrong-doer. And to think that all criminals are simply too stupid to figure this out is somewhere between ignorant and elitist. Heck, teenagers in the UK find empty swimming pools with Google Earth, and thieves last year used it to find and steal koi fish from backyards. Why shouldn’t you do this? It doesn’t take extreme paranoia or a DVD collection of Law and Order to come to the simple conclusion that these activities are asking for trouble. Combine public records with services like plancast and twitter, and you have the equivalent of a “how-to rob me” service that you are proactively choosing to use – it’s gonna happen. [...]