Please Rob Me • Hacker News Board

Re: Please Rob Me

#51

Post by keefe » Wed, Feb 17, 2010, 5:03 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #23

keefe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol well when I'm out committing felonies I prefer not to leave tracks like my IP address visiting pleaserobme.com?

So someone gets robbed, then they subpoena the web logs for pleaserobme.com, and then they arrest everyone who visited the site? That doesn't really scale.

lol no, it does not scale nor does it have to - person X commits a crime, they go looking for "evidence" and criminals try to avoid leaving this "evidence" and tend to be very paranoid about it, thus the joke..............................................................................

Re: Please Rob Me

#52

Post by epochwolf » Wed, Feb 17, 2010, 5:18 PM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #42

yummyfajitas wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. :/

The laws are there for a number of reasons but mostly to protect the general public. If someone has to break into your house to save a life (like someone choking) they shouldn't have put their lives at additional risk by having to avoid traps.

The laws have to be apply to everyone for them to be effective.

Re: Please Rob Me

#53

Post by Sukotto » Wed, Feb 17, 2010, 5:18 PM UTC

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.

Yeah... if you have a job. The high unemployment-rate these days makes this much less certain.

Re: Please Rob Me

#54

Post by pistoriusp » Wed, Feb 17, 2010, 5:19 PM UTC

jsm386 wrote: post #29

ajvargo wrote: post #2

That's why I always tweet 'In closet, with gun' before I leave the house.

Are you sure you're not R. Kelly?

For those of you, including myself, that didn't know what this was a reference to:

"Trapped in the Closet" is an urban opera, R&B opera, or hip-hopera released by contemporary R&B singer R. Kelly in 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapped_in_the_Closet

Re: Please Rob Me

#55

Post by sorbits » Wed, Feb 17, 2010, 5:28 PM UTC

dangrossman wrote: post #35

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…

I searched for my city, and found the most recent listing on the site. Clicked through to that Twitter user's profile, then to their website which was about yoga classes. On her yoga website, she lists her home address. It's in the WHOIS data of her domain too. Chances are it's not that rare to be able to get an address for someone that's connected enough to be tweeting their location all the time.

Does the web site also list class schedules? Because that is also a source of “when she is not at home”, as someone else already said, most people who have a job are out during the day, so finding “empty homes” is not exactly rocket science.

Also, in addition to “empty home” you also want a place where no-one hears you if you break a window or similar, a place where it is easy to leave with the stolen goods without being noticed, and a place that has stuff worth stealing.

Given the variables, were I a professional thief, I would scout for locations first, then find out when the residents were not at home second, which is probably fairly simple even without the use of Twitter.

Re: Please Rob Me

#56

Post by henrikschroder » Wed, Feb 17, 2010, 5:36 PM UTC

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.

Yes, and a lot of people upload embarrassing pictures to the internet or write sensitive information on their blogs. I always thought that you'd be safe anyway because the stupid stuff you put out would drown in the mass of information people post all the time.

But this little website shows that with some simple datamining and aggregation, you can dig out the nuggets of valuable information and make it searchable or target it to the people that can do most damage with it.

Re: Please Rob Me

#57

Post by barredo » Wed, Feb 17, 2010, 5:44 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #12

1. Programmers write apps that no one ever asked for but may be able to use. 2. Widespread adoption of apps that no one ever asked for but may be able to use. 3. Holy shit, what have we done to ourselves? 4. Programmers write apps to minimize the consequences of widespread adoption of apps that no one ever asked for but may be able to use. 5. Widespread adoption of apps to minimize the consequences of widespread adop…

You're talking about Google Buzz, right?

Re: Please Rob Me

#58

Post by wendroid » Wed, Feb 17, 2010, 5:47 PM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #19

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…

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

Knock! Knock!

Re: Please Rob Me

#59

Post by mrcharles » Wed, Feb 17, 2010, 5:52 PM UTC

lftl wrote: post #45

mrcharles wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, for added risk.

Re: Please Rob Me

#60

Post by mbreese » Wed, Feb 17, 2010, 5:54 PM UTC

ErrantX wrote: post #47

Skriticos wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Yeah, it's all a cost/benefit analysis. When I'm choosing which house to rob, I always try to decide if it is worth the risk of someone hiding in the closet with a gun.

So far the risk has always too high :)