On Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, satirist and comedian Stephen Colbert took a big swipe at Blippy, the new social networking site that posts users’ credit card purchases.
San Francisco-based Blippy went live in January with prominent venture capital behind it, including Sequoia Capital, Charles River Ventures and Twitter CEO and co-founder Evan Williams.
It has met with criticism for its potential to provide amunition for identify thiefs, although the site provides privacy protections.
“A revolutionary new site lets you register your credit card online,” Colbert said during his “The Word” segment, “.. and the posts, or blips… bleeps…make for riveting reading.”
The cable network show then displayed some posts from the site’s homepage. Colbert rattled off the usernames and purchases. One “spent $10.94 at Wendy’s,” another “$149.97 at Servepath,” and yet another “$7.68 at Panda Express.”
“Wow, this is more exciting than going through old receipts….it’s going through new receipts,” Colbert said. As he spoke, the following was posted on one side of the screen: “The Cutting Edge of Boring.”
“As great as Blippy is, we know it covers only one aspect of your life,” Colbert said, before moving to the next topic, but while the following was posted on the screen: “Or your identity thief’s life.” The latter drew laughs from his studio audience.
According to Cyveillance, a provider of online security solutions to corporations, there is enough revealed in the postings to help cyber fraudsters construct phishing schemes.
Phishing attacks are attempts to acquire sensitive personal information, such as credit card numbers or social security numbers, through professional-sounding email messages. In the case of Blippy, thieves could use personal information posted as bait in the emails, Cyveillance said.
