twice-refried news

Weekend Plan: Sit on couch. Send fake check-ins to @foursquare. Wait for evil robbers to show up. Whack them with baseball bat. #pleaserobme

…Profit?

@ataferner

Paranoia, anybody?

So in a previous post, I discussed “Convergence Theory“, which is the concept that argues people will “go with the crowd”. There’s a new fad in town, and it’s all about ditching foursquare because you think you’re going to get robbed.

In this case, frankly, I’m appalled. This is absurdity at its best. Lets all get on the paranoia choo-choo with Jennifer Van Grove and the silly website she’s blogging about, cancel our foursquare accounts, and go hide at home in fear. Sorry to call you out like this Jen, but this is purely knee-jerk baseless paranoia. If someone sees me IN THE PARKING LOT AT THE GROCERY STORE, then they also know I’m not home. This isn’t anything new.

Full Article (Aten Labs - atenlabs.com)

On foursquare, location & privacy…

… That being said, figured I’d share one of my favorite comments from this Gawker post poking fun at the whole “foursquare as robbery accomplice” angle:

You might as well argue that you should never tell anyone that you have a job, because then people will know you are at work from 9-5 every day, and can use the white pages to find your home and rob you! Or that you should never, ever update your Facebook status to let people know you’re on vacation. Or that you shouldn’t blog that you’re at work, or at a restaurant, or in another city, or anywhere other than home. Or that you should never upload mobile pix to Flickr when you’re out at night. Or for that matter, you should never, ever, ever tell anyone that you’re anyplace on the phone, because you know who may be listening in? Robbers! Robbers who want to steal your precious, precious, precious shit!   (by mat-honan)

That’s it from us for tonight.  Thanks again for all your support,

Full Article (foursquare - foursquare.com)

Foursquare Responds To Please Rob Me: Please Shut Up

The team behind the hot location-based service Foursquare took the time tonight to write a rare longer post about location privacy. Their basic stance: we take privacy very seriously and understand it. Also, that service Please Rob Me should shut up.

In fact, it seems the entire impetus behind Foursquare’s post was Please Rob Me, the mock service set up in an attempt to show the dangers of tweeting out Foursquare check-ins. We, along with several other sites, covered it yesterday. And while it’s hard to take that site itself seriously, it does raise some interesting points.

Full Article (TechCrunch - techcrunch.com)