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Please Rob Me

pleaserobme.com

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Re: Please Rob Me

#41

Post by RK »

scottw wrote: post #27
jrockway wrote: post #14

To be fair, pretty much every single person with a job leaves their home empty all day. Everyone already knows this. I can't wait until I get to read about someone who decided to rob one of these people, but then gets shot to death by the spring gun they set up. Bonus if the spring gun auto-uploads to YouTube.

I was thinking to myself, "Only single people twitter their whereabouts?" I've got plenty of people left in the house when I leave. I don't think leaving the house is as great a risk as some might think.

I'm in the habit of telling taxi drivers who pick me up from my house and ask me "so, you're going to the airport, taking a long trip?" That it's a short trip and that my roommates were just too lazy to take me to the airport. Makes me feel slightly better about someone knowing where I live and that I just left town.

Re: Please Rob Me

#42

Post by JshWright »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #30
jrockway wrote: post #14

To be fair, pretty much every single person with a job leaves their home empty all day. Everyone already knows this. I can't wait until I get to read about someone who decided to rob one of these people, but then gets shot to death by the spring gun they set up. Bonus if the spring gun auto-uploads to YouTube.

Regarding spring guns, fun fact: it is illegal for you to make your home unsafe for burglars and other lawbreakers in most US states.

Hmmm... I always assumed those laws were there to protect police, firefighters, paramedics, etc... Protecting "burglars and other lawbreakers" certainly makes more sense though. :/

Re: Please Rob Me

#43

Post by KB »

ShabbyDoo wrote: post #17
KB wrote: post #3

Having worked for a Defense Contractor and been forced to go through social engineering training in the past, the idea of gathering information like this is very real and happens everyday. Hopefully this makes people think twice before exposing certain personal information online for all to see.

>social engineering training Was the class actually worthwhile, or was it just CYA? Some sort of taxonomy/formalisms for thinking about social engineering would be cool. I have no structured mental model now.

I would say it was more of a prevention/education type of course that all employees possessing some level of government clearance were required to take. Essentially different real-life scenarios were presented to demonstrate the extent foreign governments will go to gain classified information.

An easy example I remember being presented was a case where a foreign government may find out about a defense contractor conference and will send someone to nearby hotels to just sit around at the lounge bar and simply strike up conversations with those around. Needless to say, most people with a few drinks in them and a friendly person to talk to will be fairly candid with who they are, where they work, where they live, what they do, etc, etc, etc. All of this information would then be compiled into a folder on an individual and once enough data is collected it could potentially be used to blackmail or maybe even counterfeit someone's identity to steal government secrets.

To me, the main goal of the training was to demonstrate how easily another person or government could gather extensive personal information on an individual and potentially use it to gain access to government secrets. Teaches you to take extra care with the information you share publicly.

Re: Please Rob Me

#44

Post by modoc »

RK wrote: post #38
ShabbyDoo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>social engineering training Was the class actually worthwhile, or was it just CYA? Some sort of taxonomy/formalisms for thinking about social engineering would be cool. I have no structured mental model now.

It's probably more like social engineering defense training. The usual scenario being: You're at a conference and a hooker type shows up at your hotel room out of the blue, do you a) invite them in and have a good time, especially leaving your laptop/files/etc alone with them while you sleep/clean up/get some liquor, b) not do that.

How hot is she?

Re: Please Rob Me

#45

Post by lftl »

mrcharles wrote: post #28
ojbyrne wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if their location is available, there's no way to tell if they live alone .

Twenty minutes to make sure no one is in the house followed by a quick peek through the mail box (or windows) will give you a pretty solid idea if they do, though.

Which also largely obviates the need of relying on Twitter to gather any information in the first place.

Re: Please Rob Me

#46

Post by lftl »

mortenjorck wrote: post #15

Most of this data is completely useless, because there's no way to tell where these users live, at least without a serious amount of stalking and sleuthing. Unless , of course, they've been geotagging their tweets from a mobile device. In which case it would then be trivial to look at their most frequent location, determine it's a residential one, wait until they're out, and head on over. Which is why I will never en…

Agreed. What would make this app REALLY insteresting is if it tried to automatically analyze all of a users geotagging, guess a home/work location, and then alert when the user is over an hour or two away.

Re: Please Rob Me

#47

Post by ErrantX »

Skriticos wrote: post #33
pwk wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not, perhaps he also tweets 'In closet, with gun' when he's in the closet, with a gun?

Then again, he might also tweet that he is on vacation while sitting on the closet, with gun..

Im guessing the general idea is to brainfuck potential theives into simply choosing a different house without the whole gun/closet conundrum!

Re: Please Rob Me

#48

Post by jrockway »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #30
jrockway wrote: post #14

To be fair, pretty much every single person with a job leaves their home empty all day. Everyone already knows this. I can't wait until I get to read about someone who decided to rob one of these people, but then gets shot to death by the spring gun they set up. Bonus if the spring gun auto-uploads to YouTube.

Regarding spring guns, fun fact: it is illegal for you to make your home unsafe for burglars and other lawbreakers in most US states.

That's why I suggested them. Lots of illegal activity all at once makes for the best reading.

Re: Please Rob Me

#49

Post by Tichy »

Makes me think a twitter bot might be useful, that takes over the account and twitters mundane activities (cooking, watching TV,...). If you leave the house, you can switch on the twitter bot.

Re: Please Rob Me

#50

Post by peterwwillis »

RK wrote: post #38
ShabbyDoo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>social engineering training Was the class actually worthwhile, or was it just CYA? Some sort of taxonomy/formalisms for thinking about social engineering would be cool. I have no structured mental model now.

It's probably more like social engineering defense training. The usual scenario being: You're at a conference and a hooker type shows up at your hotel room out of the blue, do you a) invite them in and have a good time, especially leaving your laptop/files/etc alone with them while you sleep/clean up/get some liquor, b) not do that.

c) hide everything in the ventilation system and leave false laptop/files out as decoy
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