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Security and Posting photos online PLEASE READ


Charlie

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Be aware that if your photographic device of choice is GPS enable, you might be giving your location away to bad guys. As collectors we spend a LOT of money on our hobby and own some rare items that cannot be replaced. Not only that but by posting family pics we might be putting them ask risk also.

 

 

 

C.

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Be aware that if your photographic device of choice is GPS enable, you might be giving your location away to bad guys. As collectors we spend a LOT of money on our hobby and own some rare items that cannot be replaced. Not only that but by posting family pics we might be putting them ask risk also.

 

 

 

C.

 

 

crikey :( ....following on from this ..

....it seems strange to think that only a relatively few years ago, when it was suggested in various spy novels of the time such as the Bourne series and as I also recall in the first few Andy McNab novels that

"the government could trace your whereabouts and find you wherever you were in the world if you had a mobile phone with you even if it was switched off "... ??.

..many of us probably shook our heads and said " Nah! no way can they do that !!"

 

Oh yes they can ...as can anyone else too ..and with only a smattering of IT knowledge never mind the intelligence resources and assets that the Government has :(

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Charlie

 

GPS receivers themselves are just that - they receive a time signal from multiple satellites and work out your position from time differences between the signals from the different satellites. When embedded in a phone they become a security risk (if such things bother you) when photographs are tagged or location information is supplied to web sites visited by the (smart?) phone. The phone has to be on to take photos (but not necessarily connected to a network) - when accessing websites it must be connected to WiFi if not a mobile data network.

 

Classical mobile location finding is based on information collected by cellular network base stations (towers) which need to know where you are (a) to deliver incoming calls and (b) to tell your phone to switch to the base station with the best signal as you move around. The recent NSA relevations have shown that this can be improved upon by operating a fake base station near to the target phone which can prompt it to transmit.

 

I think the concerns about location of phones that are switched off is really more a question of "how off is off?". If the phone really hasn't got a power source (battery out or fully discharged) this electronic engineer has trouble believing that it can transmit anything harmful.

 

Regards

 

Iain

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I heard a clip on BBC World Service this morning from an American Female reporter who has written a book on how not to be electronically detected (!) She was saying she put her mobile phone in a metal fibre bag (A Faraday Cage) then complained she didn't recive any calls! :yawn:

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So is the image taken on the phone permanently tagged with location? Or is it only if you post the image from that location?

 

I use my phone a fair bit as a handy camera & then download the images to the PC. I can't find any location information associated with the image. When I click on the image Properties then Summary then Advanced I can find a vast amount of info about how & when the photo was taken but nothing about location. Is it embedded somewhere that I can't see?

 

I was just hoping to remove everything other than the date on any images I share. Is that possible or are Properties embedded & cannot be amended?

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Loved the reporter and bag bit lmao.....says it all really! !

I thought if you had no Internet or gps enabled on you phone while taking photos it can't log where they are taken.....unless you've an iphone of course, as apple keep those on.

Edited by gareth dawe
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So is the image taken on the phone permanently tagged with location? Or is it only if you post the image from that location?

 

I use my phone a fair bit as a handy camera & then download the images to the PC. I can't find any location information associated with the image. When I click on the image Properties then Summary then Advanced I can find a vast amount of info about how & when the photo was taken but nothing about location. Is it embedded somewhere that I can't see?

 

I was just hoping to remove everything other than the date on any images I share. Is that possible or are Properties embedded & cannot be amended?

 

On an iphone the location isn't stored unless location services for the camera is switched on, and the phone can see enough satellites, other makes may be different.

 

I'll only be posting pics of my Pit Bulls from now on!

Edited by gritineye
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So is the image taken on the phone permanently tagged with location? Or is it only if you post the image from that location?

 

I use my phone a fair bit as a handy camera & then download the images to the PC. I can't find any location information associated with the image. When I click on the image Properties then Summary then Advanced I can find a vast amount of info about how & when the photo was taken but nothing about location. Is it embedded somewhere that I can't see?

 

I was just hoping to remove everything other than the date on any images I share. Is that possible or are Properties embedded & cannot be amended?

 

If the device is GPS capable and GPS was enabled and it had a lock at the time the photo was taken the information will be embedded in the photo's EXIF information. That information can be viewed and edited, but you need something a bit more serious than just viewing file properties. Photoshop can display and edit EXIF information and I'm pretty sure there are some dedicated EXIF editors out there too. Interestingly, if you use Photoshop's "Display for Web Page" feature, which I use to resize my photos for web posting, it strips out all the EXIF information as part of the optimisation process.

 

Andy

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Andy I don't use GPS so that's one less thing to worry about.

 

I looked in Photoshop. All I could find for web & email was optimising the file size, nothing about EXIF but then I am only on version 2.0 :D

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