Twitter usage during vacation blamed for recent burglary

by Steve Ragan - Jun 9 2009, 16:00

Unless the criminals who actually pulled off the crime admit to using various Internet related services to hunt down marks, assuming they are caught, then there is no proof to the report by the Associated Press and other outlets that Twitter is to blame in the case of an Arizona man whose house was recently robbed during a family vacation.

Twitter is the media darling right now. One second it is the next best thing to air itself, then it is a risk that business, and consumers should be aware of. It’s sad really. Twitter is no different on an information scale than Facebook, MySpace, a personal blog, or any one of the other social portals online.

In the case of Israel Hyman, the story goes like this; Hyman made posts to Twitter that he and his wife were going on vacation, how the drive went, and when they arrived at their destination. During the trip, someone broke in to Hyman’s home, stole his MacBook Pro, some monitors and other equipment. After what was apparently a relaxing trip, to come home to this had to have been a slap in the face. Hyman operates a video business, and on his site (izzyvideo.com) he offers video related tips and tricks. So the stolen equipment was a blow to his business as well.

So is Twitter to blame? No, at least when you take Hyman’s comments in context. Even he doubts Twitter is to blame.

“…while I was vacationing in the Midwest with my family, someone broke into my house and stole my Mac Pro, two displays, and a printer,” Hyman posted to his site’s blog.

“Anyway, the story is getting some attention on the local news because there’s a chance the criminals knew we were gone because I twittered about my family’s trip. The media is very interested in Twitter right now. Of course, the burglary may also be a random crime — which unfortunately is becoming more common in my neighborhood,” he added.

Some of the media stories surrounding his story spin this several ways. One has to wonder if his comments to various media outlets were just handpicked.

“My wife thinks it could be a random thing, but I just have my suspicions,” the AP quoted Hyman. “They didn't take any of our normal consumer electronics.”

In a Fox News interview, after being asked directly why he thought Twitter had anything to do with the robbery, Hyman said, “It might not have anything to do with it, I have suspicions that it might, because we tried to keep it quiet in the neighborhood that we were going to be leaving. We told one neighbor, who locally kind of watches the neighborhood real well for us. But then we’ve got a lot of people following us on Twitter, relatively a lot of people, so we announced we were going out of town and a couple of days later somebody took [our Mac Pro].”

How many victims of burglary are there in a given day? It’s awful what happened to Israel Hyman and his family, but why was their story so unique? Sadly, it is because Twitter might be related, and if it has to do with Twitter the media is all over it, especially if there is something risky involved.

However, crime is on the rise in his neighborhood Hyman said, so that could be the larger factor in the case, if not the only factor that matters, leaving Twitter out of the equation. There is something else to consider, look at what was taken. The items are easy to carry, making the robbery a fast in and out job, and depending on the local laws, easy to pawn off or sell outright.

Back to the spin, is Twitter to blame here? Only if you are willing to blame all the other social sites that collect and display personal information, and are willing to blame every one of the people who use said sites. The information is out there for the taking, but that does not mean that in every crime someone used the Internet for a reconnaissance mission.

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