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Please Rob Me.Com Lets Burglars Know When You're Not at Home

Just. Plain. Wrong.

 
 

Sent to you by tony via Google Reader:

 
 

via Neatorama by John Farrier on 2/17/10

Now that sounds like a terribly criminal thing to do, but the creators of this website hope to warn people about the dangers of exposing too much personal information on the Internet:

Please Rob Me consists exclusively of an aggregation of public Twitter messages that have been pushed through fast-growing location-based networking site Foursquare, one of a handful of services that encourages people to share their whereabouts with their friends. You can filter by geographic location, too.

"On one end we're leaving lights on when we're going on a holiday, and on the other we're telling everybody on the internet we're not home," the Please Rob Me site says to explain its rationale. "The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz, etc."

Link via reddit | Pleaserobme.com | Photo: City of Goodyear, Arizona


 
 

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Comments

ImpassionedPlatypi said…
Ok, I'm assuming your contribution to this post is the "Just. Plain. Wrong." part and I have to disagree. From what I can tell, it's not really the website that's the problem. It's the morons who share too much info on Twitter and this Foursquare thing. The website is just pointing out how fucking stupid people are in an attempt to get them to stop being stupid. Yes it puts the info in a more easily accessible format I guess, but the info was there before it was put on the site. Someone who actually wants to rob people could have accessed the info with or without the site.
8:25 AM
Tony Edwards said…
I disagree with your disagreement. I think if someone commits a B&E because of Please Rob Me, that person and Pleas Rob Me should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Speaking as someone who's had a thief break into their home and steal their belongings, it's a downright awful feeling to know that not only were you robbed, but that someone wormed their way into your home without your permission and touched your things.

Slept in your bed. Tried on your undergarments. Played your Super NES. Dry humped your favorite stuffed animal. Used the last roll of TP...and your toothbrush.

Touched a family heirloom, like an egg for example...

In my situation, I knew the guy that did it. Even worse, he's a family member. To this day, I'm not certain if I've recovered all of the essential documents from the fire-proof safe that was stolen.

Being robbed by a stranger or someone you know sucks all the way around, which is why I wouldn't wish it on my worse enemy. Or folks who aren't that smart. I don't believe in human suffering for either the intelligent or the humane or the slow-witted or the vacuous. Like I said, it's just plain wrong.

By the by, I hope the folks at Please Rob Me have good lawyers, 'cause someone's gonna follow through with this and rob someone and implicate the aforementioned website in front of judge and jury!

No your honor, we didn't rob the place, we just ever so politely pointed out all of the tweets and such of the plaintiff, compiled them in one location; thus, making it easier for the burglars to rob the plaintiff. But we're not culpable in the slightest!

Yeah, that holds water.
7:22 AM
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