Location Privacy - Developers Scraping Social Location Updates - Clever or Sleazy?? You Decide
Written by @gletham
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
More on the topic of social-location and privacy… thanks to a loyal
Twitter contact of mine for sharing details of this with me!
Indeed many of us die-hard mobile, social-location users are
re-thinking our commitment to sharing our location (I’ve discussed this
at length recently - see more). But if sharing your location with your personal
contacts (think checking in via foursquare, Yelp, Gowalla, Loopt,
Schmap etc…) isn’t enough cause for alarm it seems we now have a savvy
(or dumb-ass) developer who’s taken this to the next level by twisting
things around and populating a sleezy mashup that’s called, of all
things, “Please Rob Me” http://pleaserobme.com/
Obviously, if mobile users are checking in from place A that it
follows that they aren’t physically located at place B. The mashup
enables users to search by location, for example, show me people in
Denver, Colorado. The app then returns a list of twitter users who
recently check-in to locales using foursquare - hence, the people
obviously aren’t at home i guess! Obviously, this is essentially
running a local search on tweets that contain information like “4sq”
etc… not really rocket science although you can see how with very
little effort, one can easily obtain information that can be used for
ones personal gain (or harm).
The mashup is a bit clever (I guess), however, the idea and branding
is, perhaps sleazy at first glance, although, in defense of the
developers, they are trying to make a point with this app and are
attempting to raise awareness about location and privacy/safety issues.
If anything this is yet another reminder that with so much public
information and social location information readily available, the
possibilities for security and privacy breaches and mis-uses are
endless.
I may not be home right now, however, my teen-age son is and he’s packing a Minus 3 baseball bat so proceed with caution!!
The Really Big List of Mapping, Geo location Mobile developer resources, APIs and Tools - The Mobile Ecosystem... no question that mobile is huge and
the opportunity for developers, in particular, geo developers! There's
loads of developer resources on the web so to help the developer,
here's a listing of just some of the fine dev resources, blogs,
toolsets and more to consider when developing or porting your app to a
smartphone or Tablet.
Mobile Technology Feature - Top 10 Business Apps for Android - Android has become one of the most popular mobile operating systems
in the world due to advanced software, competitive manufacturers, and an
app market that is filled with exciting and useful applications. Read
on for this fine Top 10 List compiled by tech writer, Blake Sanders
ArcGIS.com Mashup Tutorial with Flickr and Foursquare data-
Here's a simple "how to" tutorial on working with the free ArcGIS.com
to easily import KML or RSS data from Flickr and foursquare into ArcGIS
to create your own custom map mashup.
Most Users of Free Photo Apps Say Adding Cool Effects is Most Useful - Adding cool effects
to photos was rated as the most useful thing by more than halfof
consumers surveyed using free online photography services, according to
CatchFree a free
online service that helps people find the best free mobile and web applications
to perform useful tasks.
Flickr GPS Photo Tag Tip - Here's a tip for Flickr users who want to share their GPS information
with their photos. note, in order to do this you'll need to be
capturing photos using a GPS-enabled or GPS-aware camera (see you're
smartphone hardware settings to ensure that GPS or location sharing is
turned "ON)".
Suggested Reading
The Underground Guide To The iPhone:
The iPhone is – if I may say so – one of the greatest mobile
revolutions of the past decade. More and more, mobile phones seem to
materialize out of our wildest dreams. Because of the tight integration
of third-party applications, you can do nearly everything with your
device — be it gaming, working, fooling around, and of course phoning.
Good Mobile Messaging: Executives and professional field forces spend an increasing amount of time on the road tending to business.
Mobile Apps - Native or Web?:
You probably have a plan to build a mobile app, but you've struggled
with the basic question - Should I build it using open web standards
such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, or should I build it as a native app
for the devices I want to target?
Location summit 2012 - Back for its third year, the Location Business Summit will bring
together senior level executives from across the whole breadth of the
location ecosystem to discuss strategies, form partnerships, compare
trends and forge new business ventures. May 22-23, 2012, Amsterdam
WhereCamp Berlin 2012 - For those passionate about geographical specialties, WhereCamp Berlin
is gathering its attendees on the 22nd and 23rd of June. Everyone is
free to present and share topics, news and trends
