Safe Internet Alliance

Earlier this month we highlighted an MSNBC interview with our president, Linda Criddle, who argued that Twitter users who broadcast their vacation plans make themselves vulnerable to burglary.

"It’s just remarkable how much information they vomit out,” Criddle told MSNBC's Herb Weisbaum. “They’re excited and make assumptions that everyone who is reading what they post is good and kind.”

In the column, Weisbaum highlights several instances in which Twitter users -- perhaps unwisely -- tweeted their vacation plans:

Charity Glass-Cotta is a lawyer in the Seattle area. Until a few weeks ago, we’d never met. Searching Twitter to research this column, I noticed a tweet she posted about her vacation plans:

“Heading down to Oregon for that long weekend — going off the grid, no Internet! Happy 4th.” It took less than a minute online to find Charity’s home address and phone number. When I contacted her, she was nice enough to meet with me.

Though the MSNBC columnist didn't know of any specific documented cases in which burglars used Twitter to plan a crime, insurers Legal & General released a report recently that found that millions of users on Twitter and Facebook have posted information about their home and vacation plans. Titled "The Digital Criminal," the report contains the findings based on a poll of 2,000 social network users.

Of those who were polled, nearly two-fifths disclosed their vacation plans, with a much higher ratio for younger users. "I call it 'internet shopping for burglars'," the BBC's Michael Fraser told the Telegraph.

"It is incredibly easy to use social networking sites to target people, and then scope out more information on their actual home using other internet sites like Google Street View, all from the comfort of the sofa."

The report also found that almost half were unconcerned about social networking security. In an experiment, 100 friend requests were issued to random stranger. Nine out of 10 Twitter users accepted the stranger as a friend, with more than one in 10 Facebook users.

Burglars aren't the only ones who can gather intelligence on Facebook and Twitter. NPR reported in 2008 that police in Michigan were able to bust an out-of-control party that was organized with a Facebook advertisement. There have been reports of campus police officers across the country using similar monitoring to discover illegal activity.

Graham Cluley, from web security firm Sophos, told the Telegraph that as much as 41% of social network users "are divulging personal and private information to complete strangers on Facebook, such as their date of birth, where they worked, where they lived and what they were doing ... People are boasting about how they are having a fantastic time on a beach in Mexico on a webpage that has their home address."

These incidents highlight the risks of divulging too much information online. Broadcasting vacation plans leaves internet users extremely vulnerable to theft, and should be avoided.