I recently read the latest Tom Clancy novel (okay, it's ACTUALLY written under his name since it's tough for dead authors to pen new books) and the premise of the book is "What if the bad guys used social media to target the good guys?". In this particular case, ISIS is going after government officials, Special Forces military, etc., on OUR home turf, and using public information sources to find them.
Now while most of us have no reason to fear being targeted by terrorists, do you ever stop and think about how much information we tell total strangers about ourselves?
Facebook is the main offender and sometimes I'm amazed at just how much people will post in Facebook groups that are composed of thousands of members.
It's common for me to read the EXACT dates someone plans a vacation as they advertise for a dog sitter. Now these people aren't Facebook friends, nor even Friends of Friends, but complete strangers posting in a community forum, and thanks to a quick search of online home ownership public records, they've just told everyone "Want any of my stuff? I live at 123 Main and my home will be unguarded from December 17 to 27."
And while crime rates are VERY low in our market, the fact is they aren't zero! But they're low enough that people don't tend to think crime could happen to THEM, that's something that happens to OTHER people.
So people leave their laptops & tablets in an unlocked car in their driveway.
They take the big screen TV box they got for Christmas and don't break down the box and put it inside another bag to hide the contents when they put out the trash.
And they post on Facebook or Instagram or wherever pictures of their stuff or where they're going to be.
Home sellers put their homes on the market with their kids names prominently featured in the kids' bedroom photos.
They set the stage for bad things to POTENTIALLY happen.
Maybe it's still my Navy training at work decades later, but I don't like to post where I am until AFTER I've come and gone from a trip. I don't expect anything bad to happen, but I'm not going to make it easy for the bad guys either.
To show my age a bit, to quote Hill Street Blues "Let's be careful out there."!
Serving Warren County Ohio area home buyers & sellers,
Bill of Liz and Bill aka BLiz
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