Please Rob Me!
I have my NYU class to thank for bringing this site to my attention, and prompted me to write this up.
Raz Cherov – a freelancing marketing consultant based out of Sydney—noticed that he was reported to have left the house on “Please Rob Me” when he was sitting in a café and put a message on Twitter about his whereabouts. “If someone really wants to rob me they’ll do it without Twitter,” he is reported to have said to a newspaper.
If the Internet is getting bigger with a few million sites added per month, it is also getting crazier. Earlier, we only had ideas popping up now and then and most of them die a quick death. However, with the ease of setting up websites and profiting from e-commerce, every idea seems to make it live. Look at the furore reported on Telegraph that the Dutch website Pleaserobme launched recently which gives a real-time update of all people who have just vacated their house or abandoned it.
I know exactly what you are thinking!
Apart from being outright stupid, it also invited a lot of trouble. Recently, privacy campaigners went on a rampage crying out for the ridiculous abuse of privacy and the seemingly potential threat this website could be for families that might off for vacation or travel elsewhere for a while. If please rob me had Twitter like messaging facilities, it would be called “robber”?
When the founders have been question about the potential threat their site could be, they claimed that social networking itself is a dangerous thing now pointing to Foursquare which is a Twitter-type application that pinpoints exact location of its users because they login through their mobile phones and look for information they could use locally, at the very spot they are standing.
I think that no matter which Social networking site you look at, inherent risk always exists with so many people congregating online and revealing their identity, whereabouts and giving the world an inside peek into their personal lives.
You choose what you want to do with your social media and you are responsible for your own safety. However, sites like Pleaserobme have no potential for business and can only harm your personal safety, while the burglars could be planning to attack your property or even you in the worst case.
With all those empty homes out there and the real time updates coming in, all the burglars have to do now is to wait for updates and take action locally. Pleaserobme.com, Twitter.com and Foursquare.com are perhaps the only tools the miscreants will need to ransack homes.
Hold on? How many of us had the same concern about facebook a few years ago. How about twitter? Will our urge to connect, share valuable tips supercede our concerns?
What’s coming next? What do you think?
3 Responsesto “Please Rob Me!”
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[Reply]
I've heard something about this on old tech news radio…to be careful about saying online when you will be out of town…Rather to talk about it when you come home
[Reply]
Its that fine line, you want to participate and be part of the community, but stuff like this is in the back of your head.
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