Posting your photos online could reveal your location

i dont know if this has been posted before.


-http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=7621105

 

Amazing.. How can you disable that?

 

I guess the picture has to be taken with a smartphone or a camera that has geolocation. I tried a couple of pictures but could not find one yet that offers this info when I right click. I have heard someone mention before that there is software that removes this kind of info.

 

This should be something disabled by default on cameras. It should be a "feature" that you can opt-in to.

That being said, this is something that law enforcement will love. We'll be hearing about some high profile busts due to this feature soon enough. I'm sure they've seen many pictures in the past where they've tried to pinpoint the location using various technologies. Now all they have to do is right-click.

 

Yeah, the rise of smartphones and geo-location in general is doing them a lot of favors. Photos could always be at risk of exposing location (especially outdoors). Intel agencies have long employed people trained in topography and other sciences that can study a photo for distinctive features like plants, soil, and so on. They've used this both for war-related intel (think studying Taliban videos), and crimes like child pornography (in one case, a rather unadorned room was identified as a Disney hotel, just by the layout of the room and a few pieces of furniture).

All geo-location does is put a lot more power into the hands of those with lesser budgets and manpower.

 

You can try this place ....

ht tp://icanstalku.com/how.php

and here ...

ht tp://www.digitalconfidence.com/downloads.html

Because law enforcement aren't the only people that can use this feature.

 

i haven't tried yet but i suppose this extra data is part of the EXIF data that can be easily edited in Photoshop or other similar apps.

one thing worth trying also is to right click the picture, go to Properties and see if it can be edited from there.

 

The first link I posted explains how to disable the geotagging from most cameras,
the second is a program that gets rid of the metadata for you.

 

tnx marja

that is very useful information!

 

You're welcome ...

 

I can't seem to get this to work. Does anyone know how to reveal the GPS coordinates from a picture?

 

There's exiftool and exiftoolGUI. It's a general purpose EXIF viewer that works on many different file types.

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/
http://freeweb.siol.net/hrastni3/foto/exif/exiftoolgui.htm


There's also PhotoME, which works only on pictures.

http://www.photome.de/


These programs show all of the EXIF data, including the GPS data, if it exists.

 

Thanks for the links. I actually tried a photo that I took with my Iphone. I right clicked and it was there. Why is this embedded in a picture?

 

That was a great post. Shocked...I did not know...thanks!

Thanks for the links. Is there any link alternative for http://freeweb.siol.net/hrastni3/foto/exif/exiftoolgui.htm

DynDNS(MVPS host file) says it's unsafe. See image attached.

Along this line, may I ask for apps that can remove hidden info with MS Office docs/PDF...(freeware possibly)

Thanks!

 

I personally prefer this geotag remover, because it lets to delete not only the GPS coordinates, but a lot of other metadata stores inside a picture file. The good that removing is highly configurable, but the utility costs some money.