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Mining EXIF Data From Camera Phones
emeitner notes that folks at the Internet Storm Center wrote scripts that harvested 15,291 images from Twitpic and analyzed the EXIF information. This reader adds, "While mining EXIF data from images is nothing new, how many people would allow this data to leave their cell phone if they knew what it contained? The source code for the scripts is also available from the article." "399 images included the location of the camera at the time the image was taken, and 102 images included the name of the photographer. ... The iPhone is including the most EXIF information among the images we found. ... It not only includes the phone's location, but also accelerometer data showing if the phone was moved at the time the picture was taken and the readout from the [built-]in compass showing in which direction the phone was pointed at the time."
Someday soon a politician will post what appears to be a benign photo with an embarrassing long/lat location.
Photosynth would probably find the information to be extremely useful. Unfortunately, the iPhone camera isn't terribly great (for now), but I can see some of the exif tags coming to more "consumer" cameras (Point and shoot). Almost every online photo service and social networking site could use this information in many ways, such as automatic correlation of pictures and events, concerts, etc.
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
I wonder how many grow ops have been busted by the cops looking through twitpics/myspace photos metadata.
No picture leaves this computer before it has been subjected to "jhead -purejpg". Something else to look out for: Image data beyond the edge of the image after lossless resizing and orphaned preview images embedded in the JPG, showing the full uncropped picture. The latter is dealt with by the "jhead -purejpg" command, the former isn't.
Maybe I need another layer on my tinfoil hat, but after reading the summary (and only the summary, obviously) all I can say is, "So what?"
After all, it's not like the pictures somehow snuck onto the interwebs without the users knowledge, the photographs actively put them there. Beyond that, I really don't care if someone knows my name, and where I was standing when I took a picture. In fact knowing where pictures were taken can lead to some really cool mashups of tourist photos and such.
Wake me when exif data routinely contains my passwords, social security number, and credit card number.
Sheldon
I can't be bothered to set the clock on my camera, let alone enter personal data.
Not a problem on CELL PHONE cameras!
Exif is even viewable on OSX and Windows by just looking at the file's properties.
Most artists actually *rely* on EXIF (and carefully protect it) to establish things like Copyright - not to mention keeping track of settings. :)
If my phone *didn't* tag my photos with my name I'd be a bit miffed
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
Especially when it means 800815. I'm looking at you, Cat Schwartz!
If "Scruffles" is the name of your favorite male cat-dresser/entertainer at the local strip joint, and you're a politician, someone will be able to A) see the name of the person who took the photo (you!), and B) see where you were when you took it.
So much for anonymously uploading your photos to furryfun.com.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
If my phone *didn't* tag my photos with my name I'd be a bit miffed :)
Generally yes. Unless you want to anonymously submit a photo, and you had no idea this information was stored inside the picture.
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
How hard is it to extract this data, Do you need a special tool or can i see it all in photoshop
It's not hard at all. On Vista and 7, right-click on the file, select properties, and go to "details." It might work on XP as well.
Depending on your folder view, all you might have to do is select the file.
DATABASE WOW WOW
EXIFs can also contain thumbnails that can sometimes reveal more than needed after for example cropping the original.
http://no.spam.ee/~tonu/exif/
It not only includes the phone's location, but also accelerometer data showing if the phone was moved at the time the picture was taken and the readout from the [built-]in compass showing in which direction the phone was pointed at the time.
Not only that, the file exposes an image from the phone's camera. Won't someone think of the children!
Facebook is the new AOL
This is why I shoot film on an old manual camera.
And then drop off my film to get it processed.
And then wait for it to get processed.
And then scan it with my film scanner.
And then correct it in Photoshop.
And then go to Google Maps and try and remember just where I was when I took the shot.
And then extract the longitude & latitude from the Google Maps URL.
And then convert the longitude & latitude from decimal to radians.
And then tag my photo with appropriate tags.
Privacy for the fail.
I suppose some people could think it was "magic", since embedded data in an image isn't something that is immediately obvious to a normal user.
Try saying "metadata" to the average computer user. It's like watching a BSOD on someone's face; And that's exactly the problem here -- devices shipping with privacy-compromising features enabled by default. Joe Average doesn't even know it's possible, let alone that his iPhone is serrepticiously leaking a bunch of personal information everytime he posts a photo he snapped with it to some internet site. I can see it now -- "Hey, check out this cute girl's panties I snapped in class..." Oops. Oh, the bitter irony to be had there -- you're busted violating someone else's privacy because you didn't know your own was being violated by your cell phone. Brilliant.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
That's a time thing I think - when I fire up the map app on the phone it often takes a little while to update and settle on a GPS fix, probably because the GPS isn't powered on all the time for battery life, and it can take upto 30 seconds to register a satellite (due to the nature of the GPS signal itself), so if you just pop open the photo app and take a shot quickly you might get wildly inaccurate data.
The location data can be very wrong. If you don't have an adequate line of sight to the sky the phone will use cell towers to triangulate. If you can't see enough of them, it will use a wifi database to guess. If you've got a crappy (or no) cell connection but a clear view of the sky it might take a considerable amount of time for the GPS to lock on.
Most RAW processing software preserves the tags embedded in the RAW file.
Presumably if you're doing RAW processing you're smart enough to know what EXIF is and make a conscious decision about which tags you want in your web-posted JPEG, but you never know.
Amazing honesty.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Someone posted a picture of their girlfriend's rear end with a sharpie sticking out of it to a popular anonymous image-sharing web board.
Unfortunately, the image contained EXIF data, including latitude and longitude. It was quick work to come up with a name and address and all sorts of other information...
Good times.
I've actually found it kind of annoying that Facebook strips exif data. I've wanted to pull it out of some of the pics of friends' iPhone photos and creep them out by knowing where they were when they took them. :)
399 images included the location of the camera at the time the image was taken, and 102 images included the name of the photographer. ...
Or, to summarize from the other point of view...
"97.4% of images did not include the location of the camera at the time the image was taken, and 99.3% of images did not include the name of the photographer. ... "
Sorry for being off-topic here, but I was wondering if anybody knows a good OSS EXIF editing library/software.
I tried libexif, but it seems to be rather limited in functionality (you can't add in new comments) and other libraries seem to be read only. It would be really useful to be able to easily edit the EXIF data like location, name of photographer, etc.
And, as you sort of pointed out, it's not even privacy unless the photographer develops his own film.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
For most of my photos, this works:
cat image_name.jpg | strings | more
Rule 1 when doing something stupid and / or illegal:
Know your tech. Remember - stupid criminals get caught.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You should be able to look at the most interesting details in most up to date image software.
The buzzsaw is ExifTool:
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Facebook strips the EXIF data...
and then saves the photo with a filename that includes the Facebook user ID of the person who uploaded it.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Then maybe you should take a little more responsibility for what you are posting for the public to view.
Given the choice of convenience/cool features or privacy/security, users* will ALWAYS pick convenience/features. 100% of the time. To them, it's not "leaking a bunch of personal information", but enabling that "oh cool, it knows I took these pictures down by the waterfront and stuck them on the map for me" stuff.
* Normal users. Us paranoid slashdotters (and, in general, people that actually understand the necessity and implications of privacy and security) need not apply to that stat.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
If you're a politician, you're screwed the minute you set foot in a strip joint. It's not like the people inside have signed non disclosure agreements.
How good is the accelerometer and digital compass? Is it good enough to be able to do some blur / shake reduction of the image? Or how about improved panorama auto-stitching? This could actually be interesting... Maybe I need to break down and get an iphone, or wait for a camera enabled ipod.