Social networking – it’s hugely popular. And growing. More and more people are using sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Flickr and YouTube to publicise what they’re doing, where they’ve been, what they like – it’s about sharing common interests, knowing what’s going on.
Smart phones, such as the latest iPhone 4 from Apple with a host of applications, allow such social networking sites to be updated on the move; smart phones with cameras can shoot and upload within minutes.
All well and good, but increasingly you should think carefully about what you post. Your expensive chauffeur car might be your pride and joy – and means of earning you a regular income – but think for a moment about the images you post of your car. Even advertising it for sale, perhaps.
Because car thieves are becoming increasingly hi-tech and computer-savvy, by tracking people and expensive goods. It’s known as ‘cybercasing’. It’s been made possible by the automatic geotagging of photographs, which embed the longitude and latitude at which they were taken.
In other words, pinpointing exactly where your car, or house, is located. Apparently, even after being uploaded to a web page, the images retain the geotagged information – so it’s a quick step onto something like Googlemaps and street view to work out where the car, or your house, is located.
Think it’s irrelevant? Researchers at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) have recently published a report explaining the technology and how it can be used to uncover people and possessions. The researchers cybercased well-known US personalities through social networks such as Twitter and YouTube – with unnerving accuracy (you can read the report at http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/pubs/networking/cybercasinghotsec10.pdf).
The authors point out in their conclusion that their research was to highlight the issue for the greater awareness of security issues.
“We want to emphasize that we are not advocating avoiding the use of geo-location in general or geo-tagging specifically,” write the authors of Cybercasing the Joint: On the Privacy Implications of Geo-Tagging. “It is a wonderful technology that drives innovation in many areas. However, we feel there is a clear need for education, as well as for research on designing systems to be location-aware while at the same time offering maximum protection against privacy infringement.”
Nevertheless, the issue is a real one. In New Hampshire, US, a burglary ring was uncovered that targeted Facebook users who used location tagging to publicise where they were – and crucially provide information, by implication, of the empty nature of their houses.
Recently Facebook has responded to user comments and concerns about privacy by announcing the introduction of simpler and more powerful controls for sharing personal information. New settings will give the 400 million-plus people who use Facebook the power to control exactly who can see the information and content they share, all with just a few simple clicks.
“When we started Facebook, we built it around a few simple ideas,” said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “When people have control over what they share, they want to share more. When people share more, the world becomes more open and connected. The number one thing we’ve heard is that many users want a simpler way to control their information. We’re starting to roll out changes that will make our controls simpler and easier,” Zuckerberg added.
So next time you make the Facebook comment about being on holiday – or tweet about how polished your Mercedes S-class looks after a thorough valet (with accompanying photo) – consider the amount of information you’re letting out. It could be used to unlawful intent.
Ralph Morton
