It happens all the time. All you have to do is to post a comment in the wrong thread at a wrong time and you can get on a random aggregate hit list of one of the trolling communities out there.

I got hit like that once, and had about 20 people running comment flooding scripts against my blog for like a week until they got bored. I got few nasty emails and fee hundred comments to delete. They picked me because they decided to hit every n’th e commenter with a blog who posted in a specific slashdot thread.

People who actually pissed them off somehow, or tried to put up a fight got hit much worse – they would branch off, hit their social networks, chartrooms and etc.

I could see how some dedicated trolling group could use public Plazes profile to, for example, anonymously send some embarrassing shit to your workplace, or prank call you at home. Not that it’s not possible to find that information using other sources. I’m just saying, plazes makes it easier and more convenient.

The thing is – if you are too general when using Plazes (ie. you set your location to be New York, NY) you miss out on some of the features it offers. If you are too specific, you put yourself at risk of being one day stalked. Chances are you won’t be, but it can happen.

So as I said – it makes sense to use it as a trusted friends-only network where you can disclose your full address, so that your mom, girlfriend, or a group of trusted friends know where you are and how to reach you. :)

Regarding the comment setup, it’s pretty easy:

Priyadi’s Browser Detection Plugin

Easy IP2Country

Luke,

I’m not a stalker by any means, but I suspect that it’d be easier to stalk someone using old-fashioned offline means (ie. follow them in person and see where they go). I can’t see anyone tracking my hangouts for nefarious purposes anytime soon.

On a different note, I’m intrigued by the way you’ve set up your comments on this site. I like both the location-aware map beside the commenter’s name, and the ‘Posted using’ line at the bottom of each comment. How are you doing those?

I guess I’m concerned about this in light of that whole Kathy Sierra thing. It’s one thing to get threats from some jackasses online. It’s another one to get the same threats while publishing a nifty map of all the places you frequently visit during the day. :P

I think this is a great tool for people who do a lot of traveling. I don’t so on my Plazes you essentially see the same 2-3 locations day in, and day out – and my schedule rarely changes. It would be trivial to stalk me given this data if anyone wanted to do this.

And yes, I do use twitter. But I usually do not reveal my location – I may occasionally post something like “at home” or “in school” but I don’t usually even mention the towns and etc.

I’m by no means knocking Plazes for this. As you said – they give you complete control over what information you are willing to share.

Also, I would probably get much more use out of it if I could convince my less than technologically competent familly members, and more of the RL friends to sign up and use it.

I just came across Plazes here, and I don’t share your paranoia. Nobody really cares if you’re in the local cafe, and you’ve got control of how much information you give when you’re in more sensitive locations.

Out of curiosity, do you use Twitter or Jaiku?

I kinda get the sense of being connectedness out of these things. Also, some people I know do not blog or twitter, but instead are really active on myspace and/or facebook. It’s a nice way to keep in touch.

You know… If you told me I will be blogging and using all these services 5 or 6 years ago I would probably laugh at you. But now – I’m hooked. I just wish more of my RL friends and family members would catch the bug also. :mrgreen:

I wouldn’t join something like that, but I stay clear of all the things that expect you to make personal information public – Myspace, Facebook, blogging, all of it

The way I see it, if you’re close enough to me that you should know this stuff, you already do. The exception being discussing stuff in forums/comments sections – that serves the legitimate purpose of bringing similarly interested people together, which could be said of other things, but the other things tend to expect more from you as well.

I may eventually (read: when I have something interesting to say and can be bothered to say it) start a blog (or whatever the prevailing form of mass communication of the time is) but I don’t see the need for it to be honest.