Burglars Said to Have Picked Houses Based on Facebook Updates

In a previous post, I wrote about Why I Won't Use My Real Name on the Internet. This is a short followup of something that was reported in the New York Times recently. In this day and age of the Internet, Identity Theft, Privacy and Cyber Security, I hope this site's readers will use a little common sense when they are interacting on social networking sites such as Facebook.

Cut and pasted from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/burglars-picked-houses-based-on-facebook-updates/

September 12, 2010, 10:24 am

Burglars Said to Have Picked Houses Based on Facebook Updates
By NICK BILTON
Illustration by Nick Bilton/The New York Times

If you plan to log into your Facebook account and announce to the world that you’re heading to the beach for the weekend, you might want to append the status update with a warning that your home is under 24-hour surveillance, you have a 140-pound Rottweiler who hasn’t eaten in a week and that you own a really good alarm system.

If you don’t, you personal belongings could be fodder for some tech-savvy burglars.

According to New Hampshire’s WMUR Channel 9 News, three local men, Mario Rojas, Leonardo Barroso and Victor Rodriguez, have burglarized more than 18 homes in the Nashua area of New Hampshire simply by checking status updates on Facebook and then pillaging the houses of victims who announced on the social network that they were not home.

Nashua PD via WMUR Channel 9 News. From left to right, Mario Rojas, Leonardo Barroso, Victor Rodriguez.According to the news outlet, police said they had recovered from $100,000 to  $200,000 worth of stolen property as a result of the investigation.

According to local police, investigators tracked down the burglars by listening for the sound of a specific kind of fireworks stolen from a home. When they heard it, they said, they arrested the suspects and their loot.

A Web site called Please Rob Me had noted when people informed the world they weren’t home by their status updates and check-ins on some location-based social networks. But the site has since shut down, noting that the site’s founders are “satisfied with the attention we’ve gotten for an issue that we deeply care about.”

Ron Dickerson, captain of Nashua’s Police Department, told the local news that people need to “be careful of what you post on these social networking sites.”

Be wise and stay safe!