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Careful when uploading pictures of your car from your phone


AliveBoy

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Not trying to scare monger like the legend who was WhackyWill, and some of you may already know this, so apologies if you do. I saw this on a motorbike forum, I'd say it's still pretty important for us though.

 

If you're using your smart phone to take a picture of your car, garage, motorbike etc. please be aware that if you've got gps active it stores your position in the file metadata.

 

As in; the EXACT location the picture was taken. You can download a picture from the internet, view the co-ordinates and use google maps to find the house where the picture was taken. It's a really simple way for some nefarious soul to find out where you keep your expensive toys.

 

It seems that Photobucket automatically removes the GPS data for you, but not all sites do. I found one of my motorbike pictures had a tag literally on top of my garage :scare:

 

Below is how to turn off the GPS picture tag on various devices.

IOS:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Windows:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Android:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

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Good point, but I think most large upload sites strip out the data (excluding Facebook obviously). I've just switched from Photobucket to imgur and hadn't checked, but can confirm imgur also strip out the data

 

Its called exif data rather than meta data, it stores a lot more than just the GPS. If your getting into photography its really useful info.

 

exif-data.jpg

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Never thought about this before, except for Facebook tagging. I just checked a sample of mine on photobucket and imgur, nothing there. I did upload a new image to them both from my iPhone, with location services enabled. When I re-downloaded them and checked there was no location data in the EXIF, which was a relief and not to say people should be complacent!

 

Top safety tip :thumbs:

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  On 10/05/2017 at 10:30, AliveBoy said:
  On 10/05/2017 at 10:26, Flex said:

Is the same true for more intimate pictures?

 

I don't think coordinates go that small do they? :D

 

edit: Typo

 

Got to say Jay's was more creative :p

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  On 10/05/2017 at 11:36, Flex said:
  On 10/05/2017 at 10:30, AliveBoy said:
  On 10/05/2017 at 10:26, Flex said:

Is the same true for more intimate pictures?

 

I don't think coordinates go that small do they? :D

 

edit: Typo

 

Got to say Jay's was more creative :p

 

I didn't want to reply to Jay as I thought it could open a can of worms :lol:

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Think some of the mugs in ISIS got caught out with something similar. Some dollop posted a photo of himself with an AK in the middle of an ISIS compound (#justTerroristThings), giving away their position and allowing them to be wiped out. Trololol.

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  On 10/05/2017 at 19:50, marzman said:

And what about photos uploaded to this forum? Anyone tried that yet? :snack:

Mine are uploaded from photobucket so I assume that's safe but a very good reminder by Matt. Cheers :)
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  On 10/05/2017 at 20:42, glrnet said:
  On 10/05/2017 at 19:50, marzman said:

And what about photos uploaded to this forum? Anyone tried that yet? :snack:

Mine are uploaded from photobucket so I assume that's safe but a very good reminder by Matt. Cheers :)

 

Yes but doesnt the forum allow people to upload attachments? in the My Media section? Its not something i've ever used so dont know.

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  On 10/05/2017 at 20:47, SuperStu said:
  On 10/05/2017 at 19:50, marzman said:

And what about photos uploaded to this forum? Anyone tried that yet? :snack:

 

I rarely do them directly to here, good shout.

 

Tried to view yours and it says there isnt any. Using this tool, do you see the exif data on your original file?

 

http://www.verexif.com/en/ver.php

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