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Ear to the Ground

Social Networking for Thieves

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Posted on Aug 27, 2009
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lifeinthenhs.files.wordpress.com

Aren’t Facebook and Twitter great? You get to let all your friends know what you just thought about in the shower, take time-wasting quizzes and post fun pix of your summer vacation! Problem with that last part is that people who definitely aren’t your friends also get to know your details and whereabouts—and that might impact insurance premiums down the line.  —KA

Telegraph:

Users of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter could face higher insurance premiums because burglars may be using them to find out their personal details.
Social networkers could face higher insurance premiums because burglars may be using them to find out their personal details.

Millions of users post details about their home, as well as holiday plans, acting as an invitation to the burglars, according to insurers Legal & General.

The warning comes as a report called The Digital Criminal, commissioned by Legal & General, and prepared by Michael Fraser, the star of BBC’s Beat The Burglar, has been launched.
The Digital Criminal report, which polled 2,000 social network users, found nearly two fifths had posted details of their holiday plans, with nearly two thirds of 16-24 year-olds doing so.

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RAE's avatar

By RAE, August 28, 2009 at 3:22 pm Link to this comment

Well, Blackspeare, if you are correct - “the time is nearing when a single fee with unlimited use will end and the Internet will be metered,” - and I suspect you are, I will be among the first to use it as I use the Post Office - only when I have no alternative.

Is there anything we humans “touch” that we don’t, in one way or another, completely ruin with our greed?

I think the Internet will become more or less useless to me before metering starts though… the concerted efforts by governments all over the world to find ways to monitor/regulate/censor our use of it will eventually succeed to the point where I, for one, will not venture offering an opinion or thought that isn’t “politically correct.”

I’m lucky though - I was born back in the days when a walk in the woods or to curl up with a good book was what we did as a pasttime. It won’t be a problem for me to return to those “good old days.”

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Blackspeare's avatar

By Blackspeare, August 28, 2009 at 2:47 pm Link to this comment

All browsers, communication services such as Facebook, Twitter, etc, mine data from their users for resale to vendors——how do you think they stay in business without charging a fee.  They couple this data mining with appropriate advertisers.

ISPs, on the other hand, charge for their service and do not troll for data though the time is nearing when a single fee with unlimited use will end and the Internet will be metered.

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RAE's avatar

By RAE, August 27, 2009 at 3:29 pm Link to this comment

I can only shake my head in disbelief that ANYONE would be so stupid as to participate in any honest way on these sites.

“Twitter” is well named - it’s a site for TWITS.

I see no difference between “publishing” on these sites and putting a running text sign like in Times Square on the front of your house. Or having your telephone set up so it broadcasts all your conversations throughout your neighborhood. Don’t these participants realize that every letter they type is visible BY THE WHOLE WORLD?

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By cognitis1, August 27, 2009 at 11:36 am Link to this comment

Facebook surreptitiously collects private data from
credulous and confident users, and it doesn’t hesitate
to injure its users. Other sites such as Yahoo
Messenger have been offering the same functions for a
much longer time than Facebook, and these other sites
don’t rip off their users. Having been warned only
idiots and willing victims would use Facebook.

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