Safety with photos

As we all know that nothing is sacred on the net. Photos can be copied and used as someone else's. Ladies please water mark your photos... if you do not know how, please ask around.

Onto a more serious issue... Outside photos showing buildings, streets etc... all are identifiable by Google Earth. Yes, our friends with the big bad search engine can zone in on an area and or address based on photo recognition.

How they do I am not sure but a sure fire way to prevent anyone from figuring out where about you live is to :
1) only post photos in your portfolio from inside photo shoots... Google will not have the background on file.

2) drive across town to do the photo shoot... sure Google knows about your local parks that are on the opposite side of town.. but YOU do not live near them.



Always be safe in life... and carry on

A very important second point, is that many cameras, especially cell phones can mark the GPS location of the photo and save it hidden in the file. This can be scrubbed out with special software. You can turn this off, but you must be sure it's off. Otherwise, anyone with access to the photo data file can find out exactly where it was taken. This is something to keep in mind when posting photos.

Yes ladies careful when you Tweet. Those pics are extracted giving away the smartphone location where it was taken, then people can use the location your pone gives, then mapquest with a longitute/latitude, the Googe Earth...Careful please.

A very important second point, is that many cameras, especially cell phones can mark the GPS location of the photo and save it hidden in the file. This can be scrubbed out with special software. You can turn this off, but you must be sure it's off. Otherwise, anyone with access to the photo data file can find out exactly where it was taken. This is something to keep in mind when posting photos. Originally Posted by JackBlackTn

Firefox has an extension "EXIF VIEWER" that will allow you to right click on some photos and read the data recorded in that image. It will give all sorts of information regarding that photo: camera type, date, time, sometimes GPS coordinates, processing (Photoshop etc).
I cut some examples of the data from a photo I just grabbed.







In the last frame above where it says embedded thumbnail image, there is actually a copy of the object of the photo. I left it out for obvious reasons.

Thanks for the info very helpful btw

Very timely information to remind everyone.
This has been going on since the Smartphones really hit the market.
You should assume that the GPS, Mapping option is in the on setting on your phone.
Go into the settings and turn it off.

Apparently the Russian Mob (yes there is such a thing) got a hold of this approx 3-5 years ago and used this to review photos posted on FB to locate addresses that they then robbed.

They cruised FB looking at the background in the photo ( look at the nice 52" flat screen) then checked the EXIF data for GPS and then watched the house to see when it was empty. Then guess what happened. Big money losses in NYC and on the West Coast.

FB denied it for years, but when several Photo forensics people wrote a white paper and gave it to the FBI, FB added a script that scrubbed all the EXIF data. But they never admitted anything.

Just a little story.
Be well everyone.

Best thing to do is to use a REAL camera, oh sure the make of the camera might be embedded but normal cameras do not have GPS in them.. (there are a few that do so don't use them)

Or just print it then scan it. Lol

Freaking no privacy these days!!

The problem is that the user has to initiate their own desire for privacy. Which I think is absolutely BS. I was given the expectation of privacy the day I was born in this country. I should not have to "opt out" of anything.

The whole culture of Internet, social networking, smartphones, etc, has taken the attitude that every little feature is a necessity for their product and thus make the default setting "on".

And it is only going to get worse for individual privacy with each passing day.

OK, I feel a little better!!

Freaking no privacy these days!! Originally Posted by **Karla**