Photo Privacy and Safety

RacyWilde

Too Hard To Get
Joined
Oct 8, 2016
Posts
1,525
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I've noticed a few over the last week who have reported being blackmailed because of photos on Literotica. I'm supposing that these photos have been traced to social media sites such as Facebook. It is easy to do - you just drop a pic in your browser and click 'search for photo'. If the exact photo has been posted anywhere else on the net it will come up.

We don't want these blackmailers to destroy our photo sharing experience, so we need to learn what we can do to protect ourselves when sharing our photos. Here is a short list, but please add info and insights that I haven't and I'll include them in this first post for easy reference for everyone. (Just be aware, I'm not an expert at photo safety on the internet - I'm just a concerned Litster. :D )

So, how do you protect yourself:

1. Never post your face on here or on any other messaging app, especially with your naked body.

2. Never post the same picture everywhere - meaning it is better to have the pic on a hosting site such as imgur and use links than uploading a pic several times as it creates a trail of where you have been on the internet.

3. Don't upload straight from your phone. Pics taken via your phone can carry information such as time, location, etc - though, each phone/app is different. Facebook is really bad at personal privacy. It is good to put your photo through an editor such as Photoshop as it wipes the metadata when you export the picture to a different format.

4. Don't upload photos with any distinguishing backgrounds, surroundings, people, animals, buildings, etc.

5. Have completely separate photo hosting accounts for your private and Literotica pictures. Do not link any social media accounts - Google has a really bad habit of doing this.

Any more you can think of...?

I hope this becomes a sticky post for everyone's benefit!

:kiss:
 
I’d also like to point out that the blackmailing part of this is a felony offense in the United States.and absolutely should be reported to the law enforcement agency covering your area. I realize that this might be uncomfortable or fearful to some but it’s the only sure way to get something started on locating the individual(s) who are responsible.

If and when you should ever report something like this to law enforcement make sure and ensure that they understand any concerns you have about any of this information becoming publicly available. There’s more but this will get you started.
 
Safe photo hosting sites?

Hi Litsters. I've been wondering how to go about sharing photos with interested parties on this site and I haven't figured out a way to do it. Though I've noticed that some people have links in their profile to sites such as imgur. How do you stay safe on these sites? Apart from the things that readily come to mind like not using face pics and uploading from a perv-dedicated independent email address...

How common is this practice? I have to say, the idea makes me a bit nervous. But it seems to be a happening thing.

Thanks!
Yummy
 
Learned My Lesson

I started out with high expectations and excitement when I first decided to post my photos here and there on safe adult softcore sites... Unfortunately I had to learn the hard way when I was messaged by a member to say that my photos were posted on other sites that I was not a member of... It was such a hassle to remove all my photos from all sites including the one that I did not authorize... Obviously they were stolen and posted elsewhere... No more face photos for me... I dislike that immensely , but I have no choice... I still post very very discreetly and try to cover all identifying marks and such....
 
Imgur also automatically removes exif data/metadata upon upload!
 
Also I’ll add to just be very careful about what info you share about yourself either publicly on the boards or with individual members via PM or whatever. I personally would never, ever share my location other than perhaps general region of the country like saying “the Southwest” or “Pacific Northwest,” nor would I share any info about my job (I wouldn’t even mention my general industry). You’d be surprised what someone with the ability to put two and two together and too much time on their hands could discover with very little info.
 
I was worried about exif data. Hubby showed me that in windows ten you can batch delete it.

Drag select the pics you want to remove data from.
Right click and select, 'properties'.
Select 'Details'.
At the bottom of the window is a link which says something like, 'remove all properties and personal information.
Click it. Click 'OK' and it will make copies of the selected pics that have no exif data.
 
Learned My Lesson

I started out with high expectations and excitement when I first decided to post my photos here and there on safe adult softcore sites... Unfortunately I had to learn the hard way when I was messaged by a member to say that my photos were posted on other sites that I was not a member of... It was such a hassle to remove all my photos from all sites including the one that I did not authorize... Obviously they were stolen and posted elsewhere... No more face photos for me... I dislike that immensely , but I have no choice... I still post very very discreetly and try to cover all identifying marks and such....
Such a shame that there are such stinkers/trolls who are so spiteful and just spoil things for all the decent people!
 
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I've noticed a few over the last week who have reported being blackmailed because of photos on Literotica. I'm supposing that these photos have been traced to social media sites such as Facebook. It is easy to do - you just drop a pic in your browser and click 'search for photo'. If the exact photo has been posted anywhere else on the net it will come up.

We don't want these blackmailers to destroy our photo sharing experience, so we need to learn what we can do to protect ourselves when sharing our photos. Here is a short list, but please add info and insights that I haven't and I'll include them in this first post for easy reference for everyone. (Just be aware, I'm not an expert at photo safety on the internet - I'm just a concerned Litster. :D )

So, how do you protect yourself:

1. Never post your face on here or on any other messaging app, especially with your naked body.

2. Never post the same picture everywhere - meaning it is better to have the pic on a hosting site such as imgur and use links than uploading a pic several times as it creates a trail of where you have been on the internet.

3. Don't upload straight from your phone. Pics taken via your phone can carry information such as time, location, etc - though, each phone/app is different. Facebook is really bad at personal privacy. It is good to put your photo through an editor such as Photoshop as it wipes the metadata when you export the picture to a different format.

4. Don't upload photos with any distinguishing backgrounds, surroundings, people, animals, buildings, etc.

5. Have completely separate photo hosting accounts for your private and Literotica pictures. Do not link any social media accounts - Google has a really bad habit of doing this.

Any more you can think of...?

I hope this becomes a sticky post for everyone's benefit!

:kiss:
Since Imgur won’t let racy pics anymore what is everyone using as a host?
 
Since Imgur won’t let racy pics anymore what is everyone using as a host?
Imgur isn't very good at showing pics. It keeps giving me blank pages and other users as well.

IDK how good Flickr is as I left it, I use imgbb for genitalia pics.
 
Is drop box safe to use here?
I use dropbox exclusively here, have never had any issues with anything and they do a good job with metadata concealing, but just to be sure most of my pics get shuffled around beteween devices which confuses the trackability, at least for me! 😉
 
It is terrible that there are people out to exploit like that, but unfortunately that is the world we live in. Great tips racywilde - thank you . My wife and I are thinking of adding some pics to a draft story, and have trimmed the photos and cropped faces out. I think metadata is off for location when I take pics on my phone, and I have screenshots off the originals, but the bit you mentioned around metadata is a bit of a worry. Hoping we will have the confidence to add the pics safely. If anyone knows if screenshotting from the original pic with metadata turned off will be safe enough to avoid the above mentioned blackmail scenario?, please pm, thank you
 
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