There’s no doubt that the rise of social networking and all of the great things it brings has changed the way we perceive security and personal safety.
When I was a kid if we were going away for the weekend mum would always leave a couple of lights on, burning away day and night to fool people into thinking that someone was home. (I wonder how many people would admit to that these days? Especially using good old 100 watt globes at that!) If you were off for any longer than a weekend a trusted neighbour would be arranged to clear the letterbox, collect the newspapers off the front yard, be seen watering the plants etc all to create the illusion that this was somewhere burglars should avoid.
Now, thanks to Twitter and one simple question… ‘What are you doing?’ plenty of us are very happy to tell the rest of the world that we’re not home and for how long we might be out.
Which is fine if you use a handle that doesn’t identify you by your real name. But it gets interesting when the lines between professional and personal applications blur and you actually want people to know you by your real name. How many people with my name live in Brisbane? Not many. So if I tweet to the world that I’ve just had a great surf or I’m at a function or anything else that tells people I’m not home it seems to present a window of opportunity for an enterprising criminal to pay my home a little visit. Even more convenient is letting them know what I’m looking forward to doing on the weekend so they can plan to hire the mini-van ahead of time.
Of course the flip-side of this is actually letting strangers know when you are home. Maybe I’ve watched a few too many slasher movies in my time but the idea of, for example, a young girl freely sharing with strangers that she’s home alone for the night could be an open invitation to the wrong kind of visitor.
This isn’t intended to creep anyone out or suggest that I’m criminally inclined but there are plenty of folks out there who are just that. To my mind that’s a good reason to keep your handle description vague and anonymous.
The technology behind things such as Twitter is genuinely exciting. It will change the world for the better and it presents loads of innovative opportunities. But I find it fascinating how free we are with sharing information that not so long ago society was encouraged to keep secret.
Maybe just double check that you’ve locked the windows before you step out and tweet about it.
Alan, I found this very interesting.
For some reason, it reminded me of reading a Facebook case where someone hacked into another person’s account, changed their passwords, and then set their status as something along the lines of “i’ve been mugged, i’ve lost my phone, can you lend me some $$ via direct deposit”.
Friends of the hackee (person who got hacked?) offered all kinds of financial support, which was deposited into the hacker’s account.
Everything was stopped within days, but it is incredible to see the opportunistic (criminal?) side of humanity popping up in these new mediums.
Having said that – I do think there are wonderful benefits of Facebook and the like, find it fascinating to see updates of friends and family, such as where they are now living, new jobs or special events such as a new baby. Feels like you are keeping in touch, when in reality it may have been months or years since you last spoke.
It’s funny. Online banking doesn’t concern me, and that carries a fair amount of risk. But letting people I was home alone, definitely would not be something I would be willing to share.
In the case of the Facebook example Claire, the worst issue was that the victim of the hacker could not get any response to from Facebook for days and days. Large company like Google and Facebook are big on technology but small on human interface with customers!
A close friend of mine was recently a victim of a similar Facebook hacking and subsequent funds scam.
The hacker sent emails requesting money from her contacts list, on the precept that she was stranded in London after being robbed.
Because my friend is a frequent traveler, it certainly could have been a genuine request. The hacker of course used this as the pretext.
A few of us posted the scam on NewsFeed bar and the issue was squashed in days.
What was interesting was the amount of communication and concern between ‘friends’ – a true indication of the power of social networking.
A very pressing security issue to consider is the marriage of Twitter with GPS technology. With apps such as Apples’ “GPS “TWIT now available, not only can the world (friends or otherwise) find out what you’re doing, they can also find out exactly where you’re doing it. That’s a scary thought. Even if the person doing the finding out, is only your mother.