Internet Shopping for Burglars?

I realized this quite a while back, and I only mention online my whereabouts after the fact. E.g., instead of saying what I will be doing, I'll recap what I just did. Of course, I'm talking about events where none of my family will be home.

In the Twitter world, one the use cases is to find people also going to the same event as you, so my after-the-fact system breaks that. Protecting one's Twitter updates could fix that.

Out of protective instinct, I haven't used my address (either one) on network sites. However, one or both are on my resume and promo materials and they're spread all over the internet (YIKES) and that's not good. Just Googled a bit to check that and it's everywhere... good grief!

In Austin I don't have a land line so I'm not in "the book" but at my rural hide-out in the Texas panhandle, I do (one internet choice: DSL) and I am... A Google search for me using the nearest city will pull up the phone and the address -- something else worth changing and more grief.

Even without the land line, it's not difficult for anyone -- bad guy or good guy -- to pinpoint my location in Austin because of the "resume thing." Of course my location is a little on the rural side even for Austin, it's in a private community, and they'd have the dogs (large, ill tempered, and plural) to contend with... Then there is the always fully armed security system.

My hide-out in the panhandle isn't difficult to locate either. Google maps will find the street names even though the community (unincorporated) isn't listed. At one time (prior to 911 service) we had RR numbers but since we converted to physical addresses, it's a lot easier to track us down. Again, they'd have to get through the gate (only one and it's on 24 hour secure access), and there are the dogs again -- a different batch but with similar intent. Because of an abundance of rattlesnakes as well as issues with coyotes, feral hogs, and the occasional cougar, all my neighbors have loaded weapons close at hand as well... nothing like a well armed militia ;~) and there is, again, that always armed security system.

Seems idiotic and bizarre after spending so much money, time, and effort to locate myself within "secure" communities that I would then put the addresses on resumes, business cards, and other stuff for all to find. This really does seem like trolling for burglars (or worse) the more I consider it.

My own peccadilloes aside, even if the only information someone had about us were a full name and a city, county, or zip code, it's not that difficult to pinpoint a location, especially for property owners. There are other tracks to follow as well. People who use GPS coordinates in their profiles are particularly vulnerable since no further tracks are needed ;~) but the vast majority of people can be located at a physical address without much difficulty.

Seems the least we could do would be to avoid announcing the dates and times when the house is empty.

Doing some security clean-up now,

William W. (Woody) Williams
Project Management Consultant
| Blog | Twitter |
w3src Consulting

I am not too worried about picking up a burglar on Twitter.

First, I do not publicize where I live. My city - yes, my exact address - no.
I also do not think it is a good idea to publicize the expensive stuff one keeps at the house.
Good things to publicize are being friends with your neighbors and their pet pit bulls, your state-of-the-art security system, and the burly police guy who occasionally brings by donuts.

It is very nice to be able to find people in my travels, with who there are already ongoing conversations through various networking sites. For me, this would be too much to give up for the security of my stuff. And as a last resort, there is home insurance.

Jane Prusakova
Senior Consultant at Improving Enterprises
Door64 blog

Pretty much everyone is searchable unless your phone is unllisted and even then, it doesn't take too much work to find someone's location. What is amazing to me, being security sensitive, is how stupidly people act on the Internet. As originally discussed, why would anyone post something that would say, "hey burglars! I'm going on a vacation to NY City and my trip can be tracked by Tripit!" Or post their home address on line. Having said that, anyone with a modicum of effort can find most anyone else.

And if traditional channels don't do it, I can always call "my friends."

The key, I believe, is not to give anything away "for free." Make someone work for it.

And then, there is always my/the "ppd."