PleaseRobMe website reveals risks of posting personal details online
February 19th, 2010 - 3:27 pm ICT by ANILondon, Feb 19 (ANI): A website called PleaseRobMe has been launched to underscore the risk posed by posting personal details on the Internet.
The site claims to reveal the location of empty homes based on what people post online.
The Dutch developers said that the site was created to prove a point about the risks of sharing precise location information online.
The site scrutinises players of online game Foursquare, which is based on a person’s location in the real world.
PleaseRobMe extracts information from players who have chosen to post their whereabouts automatically onto Twitter.
“It started with me and a friend looking at our Twitter feeds and seeing more and more Foursquare posts,” the BBC quoted Boy Van Amstel, one of PleaseRobMe’s developers, as saying.
“People were checking in at their house, or their girlfriend’s or friend’s house, and sharing the address - I don’t think they were aware of how much they were sharing,” Van Amstel added.
The website took just four hours to create and Van Amstel stressed it was not meant to encourage crime.
“The website is not a tool for burglary. The point we’re getting at is that not long ago it was questionable to share your full name on the Internet. We’ve gone past that point by 1000 miles,” he said. (ANI)
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Tags: bbc, burglary, developers, extracts, game, girlfriend, london feb, precise location, real world, risk, twitter, van amstel
