Please Rob Me
I received a LinkedIn Network Update email the other day, you know the ones that communicate new connections, account updates, new posts, etc...
, and one of my contacts announced they were about to leave on a seven day business trip.
I immediately said to myself, I sure hope this person trusts the 500+ people on their contact list otherwise they just gave an open invitation for someone to rob their home while they're gone.
My second thought was about the website called Please Rob Me.
I remembered hearing of this site on the news a couple months ago and when I checked it out back then I was amazed and very concerned with the amount of information that was shared online by people leaving their homes on business trips, vacations, to go to the store, the gym and the list goes on and on.
The site is currently being reevaluated according to a message on the home page so to give you an idea of what it originally looked like, the home page had a continuous stream of posts picked up from different social networking sites concerning people leaving their homes.
When I say continuous I am not exaggerating, at times the posts appeared within seconds of each other.
Criminals must have been drooling over this site which may be why they took it down.
Although, the company states their intentions were not to have people burgled.
Now social networking sites are wonderful, I am not knocking them, but we need to start developing our "online street smarts" and thinking about what we are communicating and if it can be used in any way to harm us.
By no means am I asking you to be a paranoid Polly but take a minute and think before you type.
You can start right after reading this post and going to Facebook or LinkedIn are great places to practice.
On LinkedIn, review your privacy settings as you can control your sharing capabilities.
If your privacy settings are left open you could potentially communicate a message like the one above to way more than just the 500+ connections my friend has.
Just take a look at your Network Statistics under your Contacts tab and you'll see that only two degrees away boosts your sharing capabilities up into the 1,000's.
To change your privacy settings on LinkedIn, go to your Settings link at the top right.
On Facebook, review your wall for any posts that may give away more than needed.
I just checked out my News Feed and there was a perfect example.
A friend of mine commented three hours ago that they can't wait for their beach vacation to start in 13 weeks.
All they had to do was take out the time frame and that post would have been fine.
It's little tweaks like that, that can make all the difference.
Now it's your turn.
To view the above referenced website go to http://pleaserobme.
com/
, and one of my contacts announced they were about to leave on a seven day business trip.
I immediately said to myself, I sure hope this person trusts the 500+ people on their contact list otherwise they just gave an open invitation for someone to rob their home while they're gone.
My second thought was about the website called Please Rob Me.
I remembered hearing of this site on the news a couple months ago and when I checked it out back then I was amazed and very concerned with the amount of information that was shared online by people leaving their homes on business trips, vacations, to go to the store, the gym and the list goes on and on.
The site is currently being reevaluated according to a message on the home page so to give you an idea of what it originally looked like, the home page had a continuous stream of posts picked up from different social networking sites concerning people leaving their homes.
When I say continuous I am not exaggerating, at times the posts appeared within seconds of each other.
Criminals must have been drooling over this site which may be why they took it down.
Although, the company states their intentions were not to have people burgled.
Now social networking sites are wonderful, I am not knocking them, but we need to start developing our "online street smarts" and thinking about what we are communicating and if it can be used in any way to harm us.
By no means am I asking you to be a paranoid Polly but take a minute and think before you type.
You can start right after reading this post and going to Facebook or LinkedIn are great places to practice.
On LinkedIn, review your privacy settings as you can control your sharing capabilities.
If your privacy settings are left open you could potentially communicate a message like the one above to way more than just the 500+ connections my friend has.
Just take a look at your Network Statistics under your Contacts tab and you'll see that only two degrees away boosts your sharing capabilities up into the 1,000's.
To change your privacy settings on LinkedIn, go to your Settings link at the top right.
On Facebook, review your wall for any posts that may give away more than needed.
I just checked out my News Feed and there was a perfect example.
A friend of mine commented three hours ago that they can't wait for their beach vacation to start in 13 weeks.
All they had to do was take out the time frame and that post would have been fine.
It's little tweaks like that, that can make all the difference.
Now it's your turn.
To view the above referenced website go to http://pleaserobme.
com/
Source...