Whoa! Be careful posting photos on the Internet!! (video)

This privacy issue (or lack thereof) can be a very very dangerous issue!

We knew about the EXIF data and figuring out WHEN a photo was taken or if it's been photoshopped but now.........there's a way of telling WHERE a photo was taken.

Some cellphones (iPhone etc) puts out a GPS which is available to anyone to read. It basically puts out a road map to where you took the photo!

Better be careful folks. This is extremely dangerous. Not sure if I'm doing a good thing by posting this (and spreading the word) or a bad thing. My intentions are good though.

abclocal.go.com...

Good find. I was unaware of this.

Thanks for the heads up

If people just figured this out now...

Guess who has had this capability for years?

reply to post by Human_Alien


This is nothing new.
And if you don't want to have your pics tagged you can always turn off that feature.


How to disable iPhone Photo GPS geotag data
•Tap on Settings
•Tap on General
•Tap on “Location Services”
•Select the On/Off switch next to “Camera” so that the switch is set to OFF
•Exit settings

My concerns arent with the data being there necessarily. My concerns are with editing that data.

Too many people are willing to jump on the "a computer says it so it must be true!" bandwagon. Especially folks in government and law enforcement. And that data can be manipulated and edited all over the place. EXIF editing is common. Editing the GPS data will be just as common.

I'd like to see someone try to analyse my geotagging data and make some sense of it,I sure as hell can't.

Originally posted by grey580
reply to post by Human_Alien

 

This is nothing new.
And if you don't want to have your pics tagged you can always turn off that feature.


How to disable iPhone Photo GPS geotag data
•Tap on Settings
•Tap on General
•Tap on “Location Services”
•Select the On/Off switch next to “Camera” so that the switch is set to OFF
•Exit settings

Is that so? Why wouldn't the reporter(s) mention that? Is it really that simple?

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
My concerns arent with the data being there necessarily. My concerns are with editing that data.

Too many people are willing to jump on the "a computer says it so it must be true!" bandwagon. Especially folks in government and law enforcement. And that data can be manipulated and edited all over the place. EXIF editing is common. Editing the GPS data will be just as common.

Although that's a concern, that's a far less dangerous concern don't ya think?
But you're right. Even when someone finally takes a mind-blowing photo of a Pleiadians w/craft we'll STILL doubt it because it could've been tampered with. That's why I always say, truth can't be taught. It has to be realized.

I'm surprised people weren't aware of this.. it's not exactly a new thing, it's been around for a while..

Geotagging has been around for a while, cell phones have been doing it for quite a while ( not all ) .. and even a lot of regular cameras do it .. the tech has been around for several years.. usually it's something you have to enable, but there's always those devices that have it on by default.

I'm not saying it's not important, it is important people know about it .. I guess I'm just surprised people didn't know about this relatively old thing

Originally posted by Human_Alien

Is that so? Why wouldn't the reporter(s) mention that? Is it really that simple?

Sensationalism makes articles popular... that's why .. it happens every single day .. Plus, some reporters are stupid when it comes to technology and merely want viewership.. they will latch on to the exceptional part and not bother to dig into the rest.

Yes it really is that simple, and yes this is absolutely not new... iphone has had it for a couple of years now, others for longer..

Originally posted by Imagewerx
I'd like to see someone try to analyse my geotagging data and make some sense of it,I sure as hell can't

.

If it's standard data then there's plenty of ways to do it .. importing it to your iphone would be enough, there's a tab on newer ios devices called "where" under photos that gives map markers for the photos ..

=)

reply to post by miniatus

I was actually joking but didn't word it very well.It was actually meant to mean even I don't have a clue where I am half the time or why I'm there.

Originally posted by Imagewerx
reply to post by miniatus

 

I was actually joking but didn't word it very well.It was actually meant to mean even I don't have a clue where I am half the time or why I'm there.

lol got it .. if you need to know where you were just post your un-touched photos to the net, someone will figure it out for you =) .. sometimes that would be useful for me as well

by the way, for those who are paranoid ( or just cautious like myself ) .. if you want to be absolutely sure, you can run a program I use called JPG &PNG Stripper ..

Website

I'm not affiliated with these people, and it's a free utility .. you just drag and drop your pictures into the program .. basically what it does is remove any and all exif data from the photo, including location info ..

You can select and drag a hundred pictures and it will be done in seconds.. it's useful any way to shrink the file sizes if you know you don't need that data anyway

I've used it on XP, Windows 7 x32 and Windows 7 x64 without issues.

GPS is only ever switched on on my Android phone when I need to use sat nav,and all the Google location services are also switched off.I've got nothing to hide,but when I do Google searches I don't want to see the local results first,so would like to see the same results I'd see when doing the same search from my home PC.

To me, really, this should be a non issue.
I allow every app on my phone to use the GPS. That's what it's there for. My phone asks everytime I install an app. I don't care. If I didn't want to be found, I wouldn't have a cell phone. Or I would at least turn it off. Or if I cared at all, then I would just use a normal camera.
I guess its good to know though. So thanks for posting.

Wow, thats amazing. It suprises me all the ways that information can be gathered about you that you don't want others to know.

Im not that important. I dont think anyones looking for me, and if the government wants me, theyll have no trouble looking me up.

Originally posted by Imagewerx
I'd like to see someone try to analyse my geotagging data and make some sense of it,I sure as hell can't

.

Careful what you wish for.
From the sample the reporter gave, it doesn't look extremely difficult. In fact, it looks like my grandson, whose 3 yrs old, can do it. As long as you know how to: left click and read, that's it. It gives the reader the latitude and longitude. And if you know how to copy/paste....you simply slap that into Google Earth and voila....you have a location.

This is just too potentially dangerous to not know about. But a poster above said you can simply turn off the feature. I don't know if it's as easy as s/he made it sound but...........maybe it is. I don't own any fancy hardware. In fact I'm gonna find me a rotary phone and Polaroid camera this week! Enough of this Big Brother crap! Soon everyone will know what we're dreaming soon.

So....I just wanted to give the heads up.

It's funny how many people freak out, but I bet a lot of those same people check in to FB or foursquare every time they move =) lol