It was last year around this time that the Dutch web site developers who created made headlines. The site aggregated the Twitter feeds of people who play Foursquare, a location-sharing application that allows users to "check in" from their various geographic whereabouts as part of a game where they earn badges for reaching certain milestones. Pleasrobme pointed out that in doing this, users were also publicly broadcasting that their home is likely unattended and a good "opportunity" (as the site termed it) for thieves.

The site has since been disabled as the creators said their point was made and mission accomplished. But clearly people are still posting their location using Foursquare, as the site boasts about 6 million users. And there have been recent instances of criminals using the pleaserobme mentality to target empty homes. were arrested last year on charges of burglary after breaking into homes they knew were unattended. The crooks admitted to using Facebook to find targets.

Having a lot of friends means you are really popular, right? Doubtful. Security experts say having a lot of friends means you'll friend, and accept friend requests from, anyone and aren't very discriminating about your network.

While having a big friends number may make you feel good about yourself, it puts you in some danger. Security firm Sophos last year and created a fabricated Facebook profile before sending out friend requests to individuals chosen at random from across the globe. To conduct the experiment, Sophos set up a profile page for 'Freddi Staur' (an anagram of 'ID Fraudster'), a small green plastic frog who divulged minimal personal information about himself. Sophos then sent out 200 friend requests to observe how many people would respond, and how much personal information could be gleaned from the respondents. The experiment revealed that 82 users, or 41 percent, were willing to divulge personal information, such as email address, date of birth and phone number, to a complete stranger.