Can I Stalk You? An Intro to Location-Based Service Security

“I would recommend creating friend lists to separate people you really trust from others. Then, use the publisher privacy control to send status updates to appropriate groups (and only them). I actually think it may make sense to tell people you really trust that you are gone through Facebook just as you would in person. Then, they can watch your place for you, feed your cat, etc… As for everyone else, if you wouldn’t tell them in person you were leaving town, you probably shouldn’t use Facebook to tell them. As always, we also recommend people only accept friend requests from others they actually know.”

You may want to start by limiting your Places to friends only. Go to “Privacy Settings”.  You can either set all of your “Sharing on Facebook” settings to “Friends Only” . Or click on “Customize Settings” and set “Places I check into” as “Friends Only”.

On this page (“Account”> “Privacy Setting”> “Customize Settings”), you can also decide if you want your friends to see you in a location’s “People Here Now” after you check in that location.

If you click the box to enable “Include me in “People Here Now” after I check in” you’re making it easy for your friends (and strangers, depending on your settings) to find you. Being found is kind of the whole point of places.  And it can be fun if you are open to being contacted by everyone on your friends list. The average person on Facebook has 130 friends and growing. That’s a long list to consider every time you check into a place.

That’s why Facebook and I recommend organizing your friends into lists and only sharing with the people you trust most. You can create lists of people you share with when you’re in town, and those very trusted people you share with when you’re on vacation. But you have to remember to limit your publishing settings every time you check into a place.

To publish your location only to specific people or a specific list, click on the button with a lock next to the “Share” button.

Select “Customize”.

Then select the list friends you want to share your location with. Again, you’ll have to repeat this every time, until Facebook comes up with a “Make this my default setting for Places” check box.

Are You Broadcasting Your Location Now Without Even Knowing It?

The website ICanStalkU.com is trying to make people aware that many smartphones are automatically tagging photos with location data.

You can turn off location tagging on your phone, using ICanStalkU’s handy guide.

The Potential for Physical Danger

Most of us were brought up to be deathly afraid of strangers being able to find us. So you are probably wondering: could using location-based services be dangerous?

It’s possible to imagine a scenario where a stranger could stalk you using the data you’re sharing on Foursquare or Facebook Places. But if you’re using Facebook at all, especially without practicing safer Facebooking, you’re making a stalker’s life easier.

USA Today’s Kim Komando describes a scary real-life scenario. Using Foursquare, a stranger found and contacted a woman as she was eating dinner in a restaurant . That’s the kind of scenario most of us would like to avoid.

If you have any concerns about being profiled or stalked, be very careful about any sort of geolocation services, and social media in general. A recent case suggests that, at least in the U.S., restraining orders are valid in cyberspace. But “better safe than sorry” is a good mantra to repeat while using the mobile Internet.

If you’re living in Mexico City where kidnapping occurs at “alarming rates“, using a service that broadcasts your exact physical situation would be insane. However, if you’re living somewhere where you feel safe in general, geolocating probably won’t add any more danger into your life than any social network would.

If that’s worth the risk of running into someone you didn’t want to see, give it a try. But don’t expect Foursquare to protect your privacy. Here’s a good source of information on how to secure your “check-ins” for Foursquare. You can these basic privacy concepts—like checking in to a destination as you leave—to most any location service.

If you’re an adult who is smart about what you share online, there aren’t many new security risks inherent in using location services. It comes down to this: if in the pit of your stomach you feel any concern about making your location known, don’t do it.

Property Theft

You may have heard about a crime ring in New Hampshire that allegedly targeted more than 50 victims based on their Facebook postings.  It’s a scary revelation that’s easy to sensationalize. The truth about this case is that the victims in this case were friends with the alleged perpetrators. And the victims were not using Facebook Places.

However, F-Secure Security Advisor Sean Sullivan points out that a thief is going to learn a lot more staring at your driveway than at your Facebook page. By using a location service you are making your schedule public, but you’re hopefully not publishing an exact record of who is at your home at any given time. The bad guys may know you’re out, but they don’t know who else is home.

It’s true.  Facebook has been used to facilitate crimes. But the same could be said for the white pages.

Again, Facebook becomes most dangerous when you “friend” people or make information available to people who you may not trust. Social networks make it easy to connect with people from your past or people who you’d never meet. Your information is only as safe as the most questionable member of your network.

Privacy

What you probably think most when you think about privacy is: How will this affect my ability to get a job I want?

Do you need your next boss to know that you at Taco Bell 5 times in March? Will being the “mayor” of a local pub help you during salary negotiations?

Will employers ever check applicants Foursquare accounts. Maybe not. But if they may well check your Facebook page, unless you’re in Finland or possibly Germany. And there they could find your Facebook Places data, unless you’ve carefully set your privacy settings.

This is something you need to think about before you start publishing your whereabouts. While most services intend to limit your data to your chosen friends, there is always a possibility that your social media data can go public.

The privacy of young people is a much more serious concern. Children with cell phones need to be instructed on how to use location-based services safely, if at all.

Experts have said that said teenage girls are most likely to be the victims of cyberextortion. Not too surprising. “Jailbait” websites specialize in gathering provocative pictures of young girls, which may or may not have been posted by the girl herself.

What if your child’s pictures ended up in a lurid site like that with the location information tagged to the image? That’s a privacy problem that could escalate into something much more dangerous. So let know your children know how to disable the geotagging settings on your their phones now.

Conclusion

We are at the dawn of a new era in social networking. Perhaps in a few short years we’ll all know where everyone is all the time. And as that happens, you know that the bad guys will come up with ways to use this technology against us. But for now, it’s a new frontier that might be worth exploring. Perhaps location-based fun will add  layers to your life you never imagined, the way Facebook and Twitter have.

Or you just may want to check out. Disable Facebook Places now and forget that you ever were invited to join a location-based service.

CC image by: David Fisher