Careless mobile twittering can get you burgled!

Paul Nesbitt

3 Dutch programmers have created PleaseRobMe.com, a site to show how using location services like Brightkite, FourSquare and Google Buzz to twitter your location means you're alerting potential burglars you're not at home.

Visit the PleaseRobMe.com site and it presents a list of 'Recent Empty Homes'. Well, they are not the addresses of the people featured in the list, but if you knew any of the people on the list you would know that they had left their residences, because the list consists of their tweets saying where they are at specific times.

'Hey, do you have a Twitter account? Have you ever noticed those messages in which people tell you where they are? Pretty annoying, eh. Well, they're actually also potentially pretty dangerous. The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you're definitely not... home,' explained the site's creators.

'The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz etc. Because all this site is, is a dressed up Twitter search page. Everybody can get this information.'

'Our intention is not, and never has been, to have people burgled,' said the site.

Brightkite and Foursquare mobile apps are available for most of the mainstream consumer-focused smartphone platforms, including the iPhone and Android.