please rob me

I Can Stalk U is a website that aims to make Twitter users more aware of their inadvertent information sharing. While it sort of achieves that goal through a feed of clueless tweeters' locations, it also comes off as incredibly sketchy in the process:

After analyzing your photos, someone could find out:

• Where you live
• Who else lives there
• Your commuting patterns
• Why you and your attractive co-worker really like to visit a certain nice restaurant on a regular basis

Woah! What is that last bullet point? It sounds more like a specific example than a hypothetical one.

And how can someone analyze why you like to visit a certain restaurant? I don't even know why my attractive co-worker and I like to visit Ugo Cafe in Culver City at 1:00 pm every Friday. So I don't think stalkers will be able to explain my habits based solely on pictures I upload.

After all the publicity created by PleaseRobMe.com, the site Foursquare has been under a bit more scrutiny recently.

YepYep speculated on "Places Where You Don't Want To Update Foursquare" — suggesting that letting your followers and, often by default, Twitter Search know that you're somewhere like Planned Parenthood or The Betty Ford Center might not be the best idea.

But Foursquare stalking can be taken even further: I did a Twitter Search on "San Quentin State Prison" which is where I found the guy above.  When I clicked on his profile, I saw his most recent update had been from "Sift: a Cupcakery"!  [I edited out in-between tweets for the image above.]

Now I'm seeing this entire gentleman's life before my eyes: Going from the lows of prison life to the highs of cupcakeries!

Foursquare can teach us so much about human nature.  Just don't try to bake a file into a cupcake to help your prison buddy break out.  It ain't big enough!!

PleaseRobMe.com is a new site where they list Twitter accounts and the people's tweets who are advertising that they're out on the town and consequently, not at home. So, as the site explains, please rob them. I mean don't I guess, but learn your lesson if you're tweeting that crap.

If you're smart and read this blog as often as you should, you'd already know, because I posted about this Twitter/burglary phenom before back in July. That's right, JULY. 

That's ample enough time to get your ducks in a row and knock off your outside-of-home-tweeting activities. So if you log onto Pleaserobme.com and see your stupid face with a stupid tweet telling everyone that you're not at home and your home gets jacked, don't try to blame the Tosh.0 Blog. We'll just tell you we told you so and laugh in your face.