Twitter poses security threat to Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar may have endeared himself to his countless fans by joining the social networking site Twitter. But in doing so, the cricketer may have exposed himself to a security risk.

Tendulkar has been using the Uber Twitter application to post his tweets via his Blackberry phone. It may not be known to the cricketer yet, but Uber Twitter has started displaying his exact coordinates --- down to the sixth decimal --- on his Twitter profile.

At 11.30 pm on Thursday, Tendulkar's location was being broadcast to his 169,000 followers as "19.048336, 72.827674" on his Twitter page, twitter.com/sachin_rt.

This is to be read as latitude 19.048336 and longitude 72.827674. With a GPS device or even a web-based tool like Google Maps, these coordinates can reveal that Tendulkar, or at least his Blackberry, was at a location near KC Road in Bandra, Mumbai.

Around 2.30 am on Friday, his Twitter location changed, indicating he was heading towards the Bandra-Worli sea link.

In August, Tendulkar along with other Indian cricketers had junked a controversial anti-doping rule from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which required them to disclose their whereabouts for out-of-competition testing.

They said the code was a breach of their privacy and also posed a security threat.

BCCI's Ratnakar Shetty had said last year: "(India's cricketers) are under security cover so I don't think they can disclose their whereabouts on a daily basis."

Leading sports-persons in the world like Usain Bolt and Rafael Nadal had grudgingly accepted the WADA code, as did the other cricketing nations. But India's cricketers remained the only ones opposed to it.

In the past, there have been threats to the lives of leading Indian cricketers, Tendulkar being the most prominent of them.

India captain MS Dhoni, too, had faced security troubles last year when he received an extortion call in December.

Two years back, Sourav Ganguly said he'd received threat mails saying his daughter would be kidnapped.

Tendulkar can fix this predicament by simply using a Twitter application which doesn't disclose his location.

But should he choose to go off Twitter, it would truly sadden his fans.

Tendulkar joined Twitter on May 4 and within just three days has 184,656 followers and increasing.

Source : http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/96263/LATEST+HEADLINES/Twitter+poses+security+threat+to+Tendulkar.html