{"id":1109,"date":"2019-08-02T13:13:33","date_gmt":"2019-08-02T20:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/?p=1109"},"modified":"2019-08-02T16:03:48","modified_gmt":"2019-08-02T23:03:48","slug":"who-is-watching-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/blog\/who-is-watching-who\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Is Watching Who"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"PGI Home Security: Digital Stalking, Who&#039;s Watching Me?\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ULJswVgxwYA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Is Technology Simply a Grand Illusion?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re anything like me, I find my smartphone very convenient because\nI can find cell phone applications to do many of my daily tasks. From my work\nto personal lists of banking, booking travel plans, errand checklists,\nresearch, even scheduling of employees and keeping clients updated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apps have simplified our lives in many ways; however, if you are really\nlike me, then there are times when you fantasize about throwing your phone out\non the I-5 freeway in downtown Los Angeles, or your pool. People know they can\nreach you 24\/7, even if everyone knows you&#8217;re on vacation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We live during a time when we have apps that quickly guide us\naround traffic jams, wake us up, put us to sleep, bring us food, and help us\nfind love. There are apps to open and lock doors, turn on and off appliances,\nand we can communicate with each other when we&#8217;re halfway around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All these apps are designed to save us time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, don&#8217;t get me wrong, saving time is great, particularly if you\nown a business, going to school full time, or raising a brood of kids under 6.\nBut in the effort to save time, are we trading our time for security? In that same\nvein, aren&#8217;t we also trading away our privacy? There\u2019s always a yang to the yin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Won\u2019t You Be My Neighbor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As our population ages, it&#8217;s the Boomers who remember the time\nwhen you could leave your house and car unlocked all night. Kids played outside,\nunsupervised (gasp!) until the streetlights blinked on. Those of a certain age commonly\nrefer to this as <strong><em>the<\/em> <em>good old days<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, it wasn\u2019t as idyllic or as crime-free as we\u2019d like to\nthink. Criminal activity was something the average person thought of as a big-city\nproblem. People knew their neighbors. They watched out for each other,\nsocialized, and became friends. Communities were tightknit and considered safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the arrival of the first PC\u2019s and then mobile phones, a brave\nnew world was birthed. Opening this technological Pandora\u2019s box came with a\nprice attached. The cost was personal freedom, anonymity and the reasonable\nright to privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, not to be cynical (I&#8217;d rather you label me a realist) with each\nnew leap in technology, the seedy underbelly of society will always be waiting\nto embrace and exploit it.&nbsp; Nobody wants\ntheir privacy violated, unless they become a victim of a crime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The very applications we create to conceal our phone number or to\ncreate a fake cell number to do nefarious things like cyber bullying or\nstalking, now makes for a difficult and successful investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On that same note, we often use these types of applications to\nconduct our investigations, particularly in covert situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Growing Up with Technology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because we&#8217;re constantly &#8220;<em>connected<\/em>,&#8221; we hear information\nand updates from all over the world. We&#8217;re barraged daily with stories of crime\nsprees, shootings, and natural disasters. Because we hear about these\nhappenings from the news channels while sipping our morning coffee, our\nperceptions have shifted to where this has become our norm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We hear about burglaries at professional athlete&#8217;s homes, or robberies\nat the local jewelers. Does this mean criminals are becoming more intelligent? Hardly.\nAs we used to say in police work, <em>\u201cWe don\u2019t catch the smart ones.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;re at a time when criminals are enjoying the benefits of being\ndigital natives. They&#8217;ve never known the world without a smartphone. They\nunderstand how to use technology, and very quickly how to misuse it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The only tools required to be a cyber gangster is a computer (or\nsmartphone), a La-Z-Boy and DoorDash.com. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Keep Your Business to Yourself<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve become a world full of gleeful and willful sharers. Every\naspect of our lives is an open book of selfies, videos and postings, meant to\nboth entertain and inform our friends and families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But who else is minding our business? Is it possible we\u2019re\nrevealing too much of ourselves in the moment? The world now knows which\nrestaurant we&#8217;re chowing down at, how long we&#8217;ll be weekending, who we&#8217;re hangin&#8217;\nwith, and the car we just bought with the license plate on display for anyone to\nidentify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>I Want to Be Your Friend<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s great to have hundreds of Facebook or Instagram friends and\nfollowers. Everyone wants friends as it gives us a false sense of love and\nimportance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As actor Dwayne <em>&#8220;The Rock&#8221;<\/em> Johnson, stated, \u201c<em>It\u2019s\nnice to be important, but it\u2019s more important to be nice!<\/em>\u201d My motto is be\nnice to everyone who steps into your life, no matter how fleeting or\nlongstanding, BUT that doesn\u2019t mean you have to accept everyone&#8217;s <em>\u201cfriend request.\u201d<\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Think about this for a moment. How many of these online friends\nare <em>really<\/em> friends? Most likely, they\u2019re acquaintances or we&#8217;re related\nthrough business in some way. It&#8217;s strange to me how we call total strangers\nour &#8220;<em>friends<\/em>&#8221; within our digital life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You Must Have Read My Mind<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whether you know it or not, you&#8217;re constantly being tracked and photographed.\nEvery swipe right and <em>Hey, Alexa <\/em>is monitored and recorded for the databanks\nof advertisers and retailers who would love to understand and exploit your\nbuying habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The minute you Google the latest <em>\u201cmiracle anti-wrinkle cream,\u201d<\/em>\nlike magic, ads begin to pop up on your screen for that type of item. Artificial\nintelligence (AI) is a pseudo mind reader, friends, and advertisers are not the\nonly ones paying attention to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>I Know Where I\u2019m Going, Do You?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Never at any time in history has a population been more monitored.\nMost teens and Millennials don\u2019t seem bothered by this invasion of privacy, because\nthey love to instantly share vacay selfies, photos of pretty food and trending nightclubs,\ncomplete with geotagged locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what&#8217;s wrong with that, you ask? Our friends and followers read\nthe posts and know exactly where we are, or where we plan to be. Our movements\nare being tracked, yet we&#8217;re totally oblivious to any self-harm we&#8217;re causing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Lights Are On, But You\u2019re Not Home <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Celebrities, just like us regular Joes, love to share, anything\nand everything imaginable. That\u2019s nice of them. We love our celebrities. It\u2019s not\nright that bad people want to break in and steal their Golden Globe or the\nscript to the GOT season finale or their personal photos and videos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I understand why my celebrity clients feel a need to connect with\ntheir fans, and that social posting is integral to promotion. What I advise is if\nthey want to post where they&#8217;re at, just post it a day later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I urge them not to post their favorite sushi joint they visit\nthree times a week, otherwise, their <em>&#8220;biggest fan&#8221;<\/em> has every\nopportunity to lie in wait and follow them home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s a long list of celebrities and professional athletes who&#8217;ve\nhad their homes broken into while they posted about attending an event, award\nshow, or playoff game. Here&#8217;s the short list: Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom,\nLindsay Lohan, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Alanis Morissette, Nick Young, Yasiel\nPuig, Dereck Fisher and Nicki Minaj.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Loose Lips, Sink Ships<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The subtitle of this section comes from a World War II propaganda\nslogan. And I quote, <em>Loose lips, sink ships<\/em>. Meaning, unguarded talk (or\nsocial posting) gives sensitive and valuable information to the enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We all know that information is king. I hate to be the one to\nbreak it to you, but your virtual castle is under siege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Let\u2019s Wrap This Up<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I know this has been a bit <em>tongue in cheek<\/em>, but as Mary\nPoppins sings, a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m not here to burst your social media bubble. Post away. And\napps like NextDoor.com are gaining in popularity. Designed to bring back the\nsecurity and comradery of days past, it purports to get neighbors to know and\nwatch out for one another. Sounds nice, huh? Before you agree, read on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This Jun 19, 2019 Komando.com article by Kevin Downey, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.komando.com\/tips\/392828\/how-to-protect-your-privacy-on-neighborhood-sites-like-nextdoor\/all\"><em>How to\nProtect Your Privacy on Neighborhood Sites Like NextDoor<\/em><\/a><em> <\/em>is\ndefinitely worth a read. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s an excerpt to whet your appetite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>When you&#8217;re using Nextdoor, it&#8217;s hard not to notice that it&#8217;s not\nas well monitored as sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Instead of\nonline bullies being quickly silenced, on Nextdoor, they can rattle on and on,\nand on, with seemingly little or no monitoring.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In fact, it&#8217;s not unheard of for Nextdoor bullies to take their\nharassment offline, too. That&#8217;s scary when you realize that many members post\ntheir exact street address on the site.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m not trying to dissuade you from using sites like these. But\nknow this, every day homes are being broken into, hotel rooms burglarized, and\nfinancial information compromised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we can control is our impulsive need to instantly tell\neveryone where we are and what we\u2019re doing, tagging who we\u2019re with, and announcing\nhow long we&#8217;ll be on vacation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Have fun with the Internet. Go ahead and post pictures of yourself\nin front of a car, your favorite caf\u00e9 and how every Friday you go there with\nyour family for their sweet potato fries. I\u2019m simply suggesting you don\u2019t post\nthat you\u2019re snorkeling in the Virgin Islands while you\u2019re snorkeling in the\nVirgin Islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Odds are, out of all the people watching you on social media, at\nleast one is a criminal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is Technology Simply a Grand Illusion? If you&#8217;re anything like me, I find my smartphone very convenient because I can find cell phone applications to do many of my daily tasks. From my work to personal lists of banking, booking travel plans, errand checklists, research, even scheduling of employees and keeping clients updated. Apps have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":1128,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[93,150,119,94,141,124,123,126,132,135,148,142,122,143,130,138,134,128,139,127,131,145,118,125,116,149,147,144,120,129,84,133,117,146,115,151,136],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}