How to safely/privately post photos?

dirtywilf

wife I'd like to . . .
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Mar 15, 2012
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I'll preface this question with I know that we live in the digital age and with enough determination someone can find out whatever they want about you. However, I'm assuming there are ways to make it just a little bit harder.

Its been brought to my attention that some pictures posted from phones have GPS locations on them, so anyone can pinpoint exactly where you are from the photo. I've since turned off photo GPS on my phone but was wondering what are some other steps that one could take for a bit more privacy.

Thanks in advance for any response.

Also, all you tech savvy folks--is this same type of gps location information on regular ol' digital cameras too?

I appreciate it!

Since I've had a few people ask, this is how you turn off GPS in an iphone: go to settings ->privacy ->location services. You can then see everything thats using gps and choose to turn it on or off.
 
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I can't really offer more advice except stress the GPS thing. I watched a whole documentery about child abduction and GPS. Stalkers could pinpoint a location right to roo. In a house.It terrified me.....so lit....facebook....whatever....turn the GPS of your phone. I think you can check in the 'details' of your photo if it's been recorded.
Make sure facebook is locked down because people can do image searches for photos you may have double posted...even if cropped.
And shockingly....people I have contacted outside of lit through email or im.....have there real contact info....
Yikes....
 
crazy question, but couldn't you use something other than your phone for those pics?

ed
 
I can't really offer more advice except stress the GPS thing. I watched a whole documentery about child abduction and GPS. Stalkers could pinpoint a location right to roo. In a house.It terrified me.....so lit....facebook....whatever....turn the GPS of your phone. I think you can check in the 'details' of your photo if it's been recorded.
Make sure facebook is locked down because people can do image searches for photos you may have double posted...even if cropped.
And shockingly....people I have contacted outside of lit through email or im.....have there real contact info....
Yikes....

Thanks rubyd! I was going to send you a PM actually asking the same thing. My FB is private fo sho. I appreciate all the tips!

crazy question, but couldn't you use something other than your phone for those pics?

ed

Yeah, hence the 2nd part to my question about digital cameras. I'm getting the manual out now to double check on it.

However, setting up the camera to do a self-shoot is a lot more time consuming than using the camera phone. It also gives the photo a different feel.

But thank you for your smartass reply :)
 
heh...sorry, missed that bit in your original reply. no, digital cameras do not have that GPS feature.

ed
 
Do not trust that turning GPS off does anything at all, ESPECIALLY from an Apple product.

The safest and most secure method is to not take/share pics at all. The next best is to run any and all images through a photo program and export them, which strips out most of the superfluous image data. It's still not "safe", but it does make it harder for the average perv to get a hold of your info.
 
Do not trust that turning GPS off does anything at all, ESPECIALLY from an Apple product.

The safest and most secure method is to not take/share pics at all. The next best is to run any and all images through a photo program and export them, which strips out most of the superfluous image data. It's still not "safe", but it does make it harder for the average perv to get a hold of your info.

Thanks NM. Its like that whole abstinence thing. If you dont want to get an STD or pregnant then dont fuck at all. But there's no fun in that.

Do you recommend any programs that will extract that data before posting?

This is really creepy. I had no idea.

Right. I mean I'm not naive enough to think the internet provides total anonymity but I surely didnt think getting info was *that* easy.
 
Last week, Kim Komando had an article about removing GPS and other concealed data from photos. She offered links to two free programs that reveal all of the hidden data inside photos and allows you to remove it. I'm sure that article can be found at Komando dot com
 
Last week, Kim Komando had an article about removing GPS and other concealed data from photos. She offered links to two free programs that reveal all of the hidden data inside photos and allows you to remove it. I'm sure that article can be found at Komando dot com

This was super helpful, thank you.
 
It's called "meta data", there should be a feature on your phone to turn it off or not embed it in the first place.
Another way around it, is to simply cut & paste from the original photo into a new frame on your photo editor program. Even just doing a cut & paste in Paint will remove meta data.

Depending on what 3rd party you are using to host pics, there should be an option there to hide or remove meta data on uploaded pics. I use Photobucket and they have a feature that strips meta data on pics uploaded from your phone for that very reason.

It's not that hard to remove once you know it's there...but a lot of people don't know it's there! Like most things, knowing is half the battle.
A bit off topic, but on a fishing bulletin board I frequent, I had a guy convinced I could tell what river he was trout fishing by the geological strata of the river bank and the type of sediments in the mud on his bragging shot backgrounds. I was really just reading the GPS data off his phone pics :D
 
Apple gives me the willies!
:eek:

Its the only apple product I'll ever own. Although once I'm due for an upgrade I will definitely explore other options.

It's called "meta data", there should be a feature on your phone to turn it off or not embed it in the first place.
Another way around it, is to simply cut & paste from the original photo into a new frame on your photo editor program. Even just doing a cut & paste in Paint will remove meta data.

Depending on what 3rd party you are using to host pics, there should be an option there to hide or remove meta data on uploaded pics. I use Photobucket and they have a feature that strips meta data on pics uploaded from your phone for that very reason.

It's not that hard to remove once you know it's there...but a lot of people don't know it's there! Like most things, knowing is half the battle.
A bit off topic, but on a fishing bulletin board I frequent, I had a guy convinced I could tell what river he was trout fishing by the geological strata of the river bank and the type of sediments in the mud on his bragging shot backgrounds. I was really just reading the GPS data off his phone pics :D

Its true. Knowing is half the battle and I feel like a moron for not being aware :(

I'm glad I'm in the know now, and will definitely be more cautious if I post more photos here.

And that fishing bb story is fucking hilarious :D
 
Image files have a header with information about it (metadata, as someone above pointed out). These are things that go from what kind of lenses were used to the gps location where the picture was taken. The idea behind it is to help automatically categorize images.

Ideally, they'd like to add al kinds of automatically generated information to a picture (who is in the photo, for instance), to make it easier for people to select and/or find pictures later. Too often people take pictures and throw them in a folder, and then never look at them again / never find the exact one they wanted.

The metadata generated by digital cameras is often called "Exif" data (look it up on wikipedia if you want to learn more). You can edit a portion of it on Windows by right clicking an image file and selecting Properties->Advanced. There are also Exif viewers online, if you want to check what info is embedded in an image. It's very common for people to want to remove Exif data from pictures, so it should be very easy to find an App to do it.
 
Thanks NM. Its like that whole abstinence thing. If you dont want to get an STD or pregnant then dont fuck at all. But there's no fun in that.

Do you recommend any programs that will extract that data before posting?

True, not a lot of fun in being safe, and for most people there isn't much to worry about, but, knowing that there IS a problem and choosing to do something anyway is completely different from not knowing anything at all.

An easy editor is Irfanview, a good exporter is Adobe Fireworks. Not a fan of Adobe products in the least, but Fireworks does do a good job on the editing and exporting.
 
True, not a lot of fun in being safe.....

Indeed.

To me, the important part is about making an informed choice.

The risk should be justified by the gain/thrill.


Like parachuting naked and blindfolded onto the railroad bridge at night, when you thought you signed up for "Learn to Ride your Unicycle"....
 
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