So in a previous post, I discussed “Convergence Theory“, which is the concept that argues people will “go with the crowd”. There’s a new fad in town, and it’s all about ditching foursquare because you think you’re going to get robbed.
In this case, frankly, I’m appalled. This is absurdity at its best. Lets all get on the paranoia choo-choo with Jennifer Van Grove and the silly website she’s blogging about, cancel our foursquare accounts, and go hide at home in fear. Sorry to call you out like this Jen, but this is purely knee-jerk baseless paranoia. If someone sees me IN THE PARKING LOT AT THE GROCERY STORE, then they also know I’m not home. This isn’t anything new.
The common complaint I have with blogposts and arguments like this is that people never think two steps ahead. Nobody ever considers engaging their foresight muscle and actually thinking this sort of thing through to conclusion.
I’m a security-minded person. That means I have to very often think like an attacker. I have to plan out “missions”, I have to completely exhaust all nefarious ideas and plotting in an effort to fortify the clients that hire me to make them more secure. This exercise allows me to put on an attackers hat and logistically consider courses of action in an effort to understand things like the frame of mind and context of an attacker.
In the last few weeks I’ve seen a lot of folks all of the sudden “realize” that when checking into foursquare this tells the internet that “you’re not at home”. Disappointingly enough the first thing that short-sighted people think is “OH GOD THIS MEANS EVERYONE KNOWS I’M NOT HOME. I’M GOING TO GET ROBBED!”. I cannot articulate using text exactly the style in which I face-palmed. To bring some clarity to those who have chosen to forego foresight, I’ve made this handy flow-chart. Have a look:
Simply put: If you’re going to rob someone, you have to put a little thought into it. You may be shot. You may be caught on camera. You may have to deal with nosy neighbors. Do you even know who this person is or where they live? Think about it for more than 30 seconds. If you’re still convinced that foursquare will get you robbed, print this chart out, and put it over your display using a stapler.
Stop being paranoid. Stop following the crowd. Wake up.
Tags: 4square, absurdity, facepalm, foursquare, getting, knee jerk, paranoia, rob, robbed, someone, using
You fail to address a fundamental difference between being seen in a parking lot and publishing your location data in a public internet space: accessibility.
Stalking you and cataloging your whereabouts in real life takes considerable effort and raises the possibility of being caught. Stalking you on the internet is as simple as looking at your Twitter feed.
The PleaseRobMe site isn’t trying to say that usage of foursquare directly leads to the user being a victim of robbery (although this is certainly a possibility). The site’s intended message goes a little deeper than that: why publish your location data at every step, for the whole world to see?
Doing such a thing on a blog or personal website has been frowned upon for years by people with a variety of experience and knowledge, ranging from security/privacy experts to concerned parents.How many times have you heard advice telling you to not divulge personal information on the internet? Yet, you willingly do this and condone such behavior when it’s done in a convenient way via a popular platform.
Stop being Pollyannaish. Stop following the crowd and giving away the details of your life habits to the world as a whole, and to a company whose motives and ideals are murky at best.
Wake up!
I don’t agree.
The context here is “foursquare” and “you will get your house robbed”.
People have been publishing “that they are not home” for years.
Myspace, Facebook, dodgeball, jaiku, flickr, twitpic, twitgoo, yfrog .. I can go on.
All of these are tools that can be individually used to make a boolean call to decide if someone “is or is not home”.
Why or how is foursquare any different? Now that I have more granular information about a persons location – how does that in any way make them “more or less” “not at home”?
My point is this: There is nothing special bout foursquare in this regard. If someone wants to rob your house when you’re not home, chances are really good that they’re not even going to be people who use the internet. Its going to be a neighbor or a friend of a neighbor who saw you pack your car to go on a camping trip and drive away. This exact thing has happened to a friend of mine.
The troubling part is that I’m seeing tweets like these:
http://twitter.com/emmerlouell/statuses/9342135222
http://twitter.com/susangeissler/statuses/9341336499
paranoid people immediately thinking that by ‘deleting foursquare’ they’re going to be immediately safer, but they’re going to continue publishing their geolocation details to facebook, twitter, and everywhere else.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/18/foursquare-please-rob-me/ < -- thats a good writeup about the whole thing..
http://mashable.com/2010/02/19/how-robbers-did-their-dirty-deeds/ <— and here’s another post describing exactly my point.
The context here is that foursquare is a privacy and security risk in a variety of ways. The house robbing thing is a possibility, but the main point of that site is to make light of the fact that foursquare can compromise not only one’s privacy, but also their physical security and safety.
You’re taking things absolutely literally: “foursquare will cause you to get robbed” whereas I am telling you to look at the subtext of that message and understand that there are inherent (and mostly unknown) risks that are made possible by foursquare and similar services.
“People have been publishing “that they are not home” for years.
Myspace, Facebook, dodgeball, jaiku, flickr, twitpic, twitgoo, yfrog .. I can go on.”
Like you said: granularity. Don’t forget accuracy as well, since I don’t think anyone forges check-ins on foursquare. People can forget to update their status manually or be outright misleading, but the phone’s GPS doesn’t lie.
“Why or how is foursquare any different? Now that I have more granular information about a persons location – how does that in any way make them “more or less” “not at home”?”
It’s not about more or less, and it’s not a true/false evaluation of whether you’re at home (at least not initially). Having a detailed profile of a person’s habits is extremely valuable for a variety of reasons, many of which are malicious in nature.
“There is nothing special bout foursquare in this regard. If someone wants to rob your house when you’re not home, chances are really good that they’re not even going to be people who use the internet. Its going to be a neighbor or a friend of a neighbor who saw you pack your car to go on a camping trip and drive away.”
Foursquare allows a malicious party to get detailed information on your habits and routine, something that’s not possible in your scenario. Neighbors are limited in their scope, whereas anyone with a computer and an internet connection can build a profile of you with much higher density and accuracy by only exerting a minimal amount of effort.
Do you tell your neighbors about your every outing and get-together? Why or why not? Furthermore, why tell the internet?
“paranoid people immediately thinking that by ‘deleting foursquare’ they’re going to be immediately safer, but they’re going to continue publishing their geolocation details to facebook, twitter, and everywhere else.”
A grand assumption. I could offer a similar assumption: maybe they will realize the inherent risks of such a service and refuse to publish the details of their personal lives for the whole world to see. That, in my opinion, is a great thing.
“http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/18/foursquare-please-rob-me/ < — thats a good writeup about the whole thing.."
This writeup summarizes exactly the point I have been trying to make!
Have a look:
"The main point, as I saw it, is that tying a closed, symmetric network (Foursquare) to an open, asymmetric one (Twitter) is something that’s potentially troublesome for location-based services. But no one really seems to be talking about it."
You use the term "paranoid" a lot when referring to people who share my views. In this case, paranoia would be defined as mistrust without justification or reason. I can see plenty of real reasons for NOT trusting foursquare or similar geolocation-publishing services/apps.
"Please Rob Me" is a good wakeup call for people who think that their twitter feed allows them some modicum of privacy and/or people that assume services such as foursquare are implicitly safe.
The people that wrote the paranoid article are knee-jerk reactionists. Thats my point.
Why wasn’t an article like this written back in the days of dodgeball? Fireeagle? Brightkite?
Nobody was complaining then – at least not nearly as loudly as this.
Setting aside the semantics of whether its a higher or lower risk – I think we can both agree that foursquare is no more or less dangerous than facebook or twitter in regards to a persons location.
Taking into consideration of course this being a generalized statement. If some psychopath from another state is hell-bent on “coming to cane you” for example, publishing your exact location will give the soon-to-be-felon a place to find you. This doesn’t mean that its a problem with “foursquare”, its a problem with “sharing your location”
Now if you go to search.twitter.com and issue the right search there are people saying things like “IM UNSUBSCRIBING FROM FOURSQUARE”. This is shortsighted. The problem isnt “foursquare”. These people unusbscribe from foursquare, but continue to publish their location on facebook, twitter, etc.
And yes – I use the term ‘paranoid’ fairly loosely – primarily because in the history of these sort of services being available and the prevailing onset of more and more of these services I’ve never once heard on the news “Attacker kills victim – found his address on facebook”.
When examining these sorts of “vulnerabilities” take into account the actual plausability of these sorts of things.
Is someone ACTUALLY going to “come get you”? If they were, could they use google instead? Foursquare simply becomes a tool in a toolbelt and not “the problem”.
“The problem” is oversharing.
And psychoes on the internet who make veiled threats, et al.
“Why wasn’t an article like this written back in the days of dodgeball? Fireeagle? Brightkite?”
Such articles were in fact published. Use Google.
“Nobody was complaining then – at least not nearly as loudly as this. ”
So? People are complaining now. Their reactions in the past have absolutely no impact on the validity of their present concerns.
“This doesn’t mean that its a problem with “foursquare”, its a problem with “sharing your location”
Yes, and foursquare is a large part of the “sharing your location” problem.
“Now if you go to search.twitter.com and issue the right search there are people saying things like “IM UNSUBSCRIBING FROM FOURSQUARE”. This is shortsighted.”
Just because you think it’s shortsighted doesn’t make it so.
The “paranoid” reaction you are seeing comes from people’s realizations of things they didn’t consider before. This is a good thing!
“These people unusbscribe from foursquare, but continue to publish their location on facebook, twitter, etc.”
Do you have proof of this or are you making another grand assumption? They could be getting away from any geolocation services. The point is that you don’t know for sure that they are doing or planning on doing.
Again, little steps in the *right direction*
“I’ve never once heard on the news “Attacker kills victim – found his address on facebook”.
I don’t need a media narrative to validate my concerns.
Additionally, there have been several cases of murders in which social networking sites played a big part.
Do you really need an absolutely direct and blunt example before you acknowledge the validity of the problem?
“Foursquare simply becomes a tool in a toolbelt and not “the problem”.”
Foursquare is a big part of the problem.
“The problem” is oversharing.”
Foursquare helps facilitate “oversharing”.
“And psychoes on the internet who make veiled threats, et al.”
You can’t get rid of all “psychoes”.
The wise choice would be to exercise caution, which is exactly the message that is being conveyed.
One more thing:
Using words like “paranoid”/”psycho”/”crazy”/”retarded” is incredibly offensive.
When you throw around such words, you’re openly mocking people with disabilities. You’re equating “stupid” (by your definition) and criminal behavior with problems that people face every day, by no choice of their own.
You imply that “psychoes” are dangerous criminals. What qualities does a “psycho” have? Does every criminal have a disorder? Should we turn our jails into mental hospitals?
You imply that having privacy concerns makes one “paranoid.”
You spit in the face of everyone who has a disability. You mock their friends and loved ones.
Stop it.
I.. wha… .. .. ah…
Dude I don’t even know where to begin with this one.
I can only speak from personal experience, so here I go (for the last time, because you’re making this quite silly)
I’ve been physically threatened by people in other states. They are, in fact, psychoes. Their peers have FLAT OUT TOLD ME SO.
You can continue to speculate on whatever meaning you’ve chosen to infer, but I can promise you there is nothing “between the lines” in what I’ve said. I talk straight, and I speak plain english. I do not infer or hint – I just say it.
How you got me “mocking people with disabilities and their friends” out of all of this I cannot even begin to speculate.
Clearly this has become something I need to talk to you about in person and moreover I can clearly see all the advice I gave you when I photographed your car for you to sell (about what to say during an interview, how to say it, and why people think you come off very standoffish) didn’t stick.
I’ll buy you a beer and we can chat.
“They are, in fact, psychoes. Their peers have FLAT OUT TOLD ME SO. ”
So because their “peers” say it makes it ok?
Using “psycho” as a pejorative is about as acceptable as using the word “cripple.”
Whatever you say dude.
At this point I concede. Fine. you win. I’m wrong. you’re right.
I can see that whatever I respond with will be “the wrong answer”.