Whether you are a cyber criminal or an old school break into a house and steal their stuff criminal, life has become so much easier with the growth of the social web. Websites like Foursquare and Blippy really have taken all of the legwork out of theft. No longer do you have to try to hack into a secure database belonging to a bank or sit outside a house wondering if anyone is home and if its safe to break in. Now its as simple as signing up at Blippy and Foursquare and finding some victims.

Recent news about Blippy users credit card numbers being exposed in Google caught my attention and led me to inquire on Twitter about what Blippy is exactly. In case you don’t know either: Blippy users VOLUNTARILY give their FULL CREDIT CARD number and info to the Blippy website. Shocked? There’s got to be a good reason to freely give anyone this information right? Oh yes, its so Blippy can post every single thing you purchase with that card. Blippy = Facebook for your credit card. Blippy Users = morons. I don’t know who these idiots are that think its necessary to share their credit card purchases and frankly I don’t want to know. These people are clearly too stupid for me to tolerate face to face. Here let me happily turn over my full credit card details to some acne ridden nerd who probably isn’t even old enough to drink, sitting in his mom’s basement running a website. Ok I could be exaggerating but the point is you don’t know who OWNS Blippy and what they will do with your data once you hand it over. Their little code ‘error’ that exposed full credit card numbers to Google is more than just a little concerning.

Between Blippy and Foursquare thieves of the world must be downright giddy. The place where Blippy and Foursquare users overlap must be nothing short of thief nirvana. The cross over members are the cream of the idiot crop. Not only will they tell you every time they leave their home but they will tell you where their home is located and when the return home. If that weren’t enough, they will give you their credit card numbers too!

Even if you don’t use Foursquare, your privacy is at risk. If one of your relatives or friends checks in from your address, your home will be exposed to the world via Foursquare and you probably will never even know it.

The fact that adults, and lots of them, are participating in this insanity makes me afraid for the future of mankind. Once upon a time people used to fear the ever lurking and watching Big Brother. Now we’ve eliminated the need for any covert stalking. Simply find your target online at Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Blippy and you will know every detail of their lives without ever tapping a single phone line.

Facebook is on the verge of becoming the entire social web with their pervasive outward expansion. They are sticking their fingers in everyone’s pie. Honestly I find this a bit frightening. The more transparent the social web becomes the more paranoid I become and the more appealing committing internet suicide becomes. Slowly Facebook is eating away at my ability to maintain control of my privacy. I’m vigilant but I still have moments where I am afraid I overlooked something and I have to review my settings. I will never join Foursquare aka Please Rob Me or Blippy but I do enjoy some of the Facebook features. I have no intentions of opting in to their new personalization features and ‘like’ buttons.

Facebook is a huge web entity and they can’t manage to protect our privacy. Yet people blindly trust little start ups like Foursquare and Blippy to get it right from day one?

Its one thing if you are a teenager using these sites, I can wrap my mind around you not knowing any better. But an adult who gives their credit card number to some stupid ass site to track and post their purchases? Well YOU my friend deserve to have your identity stolen, your account drained and your credit ruined. You are, as they say, ASKING FOR IT.