The Hidden Security Risk of Geotags 175
pickens writes "The NY Times reports that security experts and privacy advocates have begun warning consumers about the potential dangers of geotags, which are embedded in photos and videos taken with GPS-equipped smartphones and digital cameras. By looking at geotags of uploaded photos, 'you can easily find out where people live, what kind of things they have in their house and also when they are going to be away,' says one security expert. Because the location data is not visible to the casual viewer, the concern is that many people may not realize it is there; and they could be compromising their privacy, if not their safety, when they post geotagged media online."
Re:I was just wondering about that (Score:5, Informative)
Geotags and a WHOLE lot more (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I was just wondering about that (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, I was going to recommend jhead [sentex.ca] as well. I haven't used it for deleting EXIF headers, but I have used it to get a list of what focal lengths I've used for all of my photos. It's a handy free utility, and I wish it worked on RAW photos as well.
ImageMagick and remove metadata (Score:2, Informative)
You can use the "-strip" command-line option with ImageMagick's "convert" utility to strip out all the metadata from an image prior to uploading it.
Re:This is why... (Score:4, Informative)
This is why upload services should simply just strip out the un-needed info of the pictures. The original pictures still have the sometimes useful geolocation data, but your Facebook pictures won't.
But is it wise to be trusting your services (i.e. Facebook) to take these extra steps to protect your privacy? Wouldn't it make more sense to have an educated consumer base who can be careful what they upload in the first place? At the very least, the value of this information to marketers would make it unlikely that free, online services like Facebook would simply throw this valuable data away. It would make more sense for consumer electronic devices to do a better job of informing the user of what information is "hidden" in the media files they create, with a default off option for anything "hidden".
Re:This is why... (Score:4, Informative)
I always use IrfanView [irfanview.com] to pre-process my pictures before uploading them anywhere. You need to do that anyway (original pictures are usually huge 4000+ pixels wide and forums usually limit you to less than 1280px). When you're saving the image, it shows check boxes to remove all extra information from the pictures (usually camera model and shooting options and so on). Easy. And yeah, it's an awesome and light image viewer and you can edit images too.
Re:I was just wondering about that (Score:1, Informative)
or using imagemagick: mogrify -strip [filename]
Re:I was just wondering about that (Score:5, Informative)
$ mogrify -strip image.jpg
Re:Pictures can tell the future? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:ImageMagick and remove metadata (Score:5, Informative)
Google has some very bad news for you (Score:3, Informative)
For those who have forgotten, Google is trying to do location based analysis without the geotags - you send them a picture of a place, they tell you where it is (well, what it is for right now). No geotagging necessary.
Of course, Picasa is kind enough to mark each geotagged picture with a google map pin in the preview window - so you at least know which pics have the metadata in the tags.
Re:ImageMagick and remove metadata (Score:3, Informative)
Yup, and it recompresses the image when you do so.
Which you need to do anyway before uploading a multi-megapixel image to a blog or forum that doesn't allow any image over 1280x1024 pixels.
Re:This is why... (Score:3, Informative)
I see you've heard of PleaseRobMe.com
Re:This is why... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is why... (Score:1, Informative)
JHead [sentex.ca] is another nifty utility that blazingly quickly can remove all exif-tags and thumbnails from a bunch of images.