Briefs

A researcher shows how programming tools can be used to track users' real-life movements and behavior.

By Erica Naone, Friday, July 31, 2009

The dangers of posting sensitive personal information on social-networking sites are well known, but a researcher has now revealed how data mining these sites can dig up undisclosed personal information.

On Wednesday, in a presentation at the Black Hat computer-security conference in Las Vegas, Nitesh Dhanjani detailed how the information posted on social websites like Facebook and Twitter can be mined to find out a person's whereabouts and activities.

Dhanjani showed data-collection programs that can be created using the programming tools released by such sites. For instance, he showed how to track the movements of politicians and celebrities using Twitter, by mining the service for relevant geographical information. Earlier this year, Republican congressman Pete Hoekstra was criticized for posting information on Twitter that revealed his location while traveling in Iraq.

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