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How People Broadcast Their Locations Without Meaning To

Posted by Soulskill on from the your-face-is-broadcasting-an-ip-address dept.

wjousts writes "Smartphones include geotagging features that many people aren't aware of, MIT's Technology Review reports. And it's not just in the obvious places: 'For example, by looking at the location metadata stored with pictures posted through one man's anonymous Twitter account, the researchers were able to pinpoint his likely home address. From there, by cross-referencing this location with city records, they found his name. Using that information, the researchers went on to find his place of work, his wife's name, and information about his children.'"

23 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Duh. by _0xd0ad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Anyone who's been to 4chan should know this.

    1. Re:Duh. by _0xd0ad · · Score: 5, Informative

      I might as well also point out that 4chan strips the EXIF data from uploaded images for exactly this reason.

    2. Re:Duh. by ThatsMyNick · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not to forget, Facebook strips EXIF too.

    3. Re:Duh. by _0xd0ad · · Score: 4, Informative

      True, although Facebook has always stripped EXIF. 4chan didn't use to strip EXIF.

      Facebook also compresses the images all to shit, too, although they recently made it possible to let people download a higher-quality version.

    4. Re:Duh. by wjousts · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Considering the proportion of people that have been on 4chan versus the general population, that's not particularly helpful.

    5. Re:Duh. by _0xd0ad · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Considering the proportion of people that have been on 4chan versus the people who'd publicly admit to it, it might be more helpful than you'd expect.

    6. Re:Duh. by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 3, Funny

      In other news, I have a picture of someone standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. The image meta-data indicates the person was in Paris at the time.

      You've revealed even more info with your post - you do not work for the USPS. If you did, the meta-data would indicate you are in Las Vegas.

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    7. Re:Duh. by Hultis · · Score: 4, Informative

      You do realize 4chan's Alexa Traffic Rank is 632, right? Compare this to Slashdot, which is ranked 1296. 4chan isn't exactly the well-kept secret some people want to think of it as.

  2. Privacy disinterest come home to roost by dtmos · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The lack of interest in personal privacy is probably the 21st Century's social movement that most surprised me. If someone had told me in 1991 that in 20 years people would want to publish their personal photographs to the world, and announce to everyone literate when they would be out of town, I would have said they were nuts: They're obviously risky behaviors in which no thinking person would engage.

    How wrong I was.

    1. Re:Privacy disinterest come home to roost by 0123456 · · Score: 2

      Surely Microsoft have conclusively proven that most people value convenience far more than security?

      The big problem is that companies add these 'convenience' features with no warning and no easy way to remove them. Having to manually strip exif data from every image is painful, to say the least.

    2. Re:Privacy disinterest come home to roost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Most people don't intend to post pics with geo-information tagged in it. Cameras starting adding the data as the "default" option a couple years ago, and no one (except nerds) took notice. So now we have millions of pictures floating around with lat/long data encoded in them. I couldn't believe cameras chose to embed the data automatically -- that's where the real disbelief is. Humans probably would turn it off if they knew it was on.

    3. Re:Privacy disinterest come home to roost by ThatsMyNick · · Score: 5, Informative

      mogrify -strip *.jpg will do!

    4. Re:Privacy disinterest come home to roost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And yet, those very risky actions become fairly safe, based on the sheer number of people doing it. As they mention in the article, the sheer volume of information available makes it impossible to keep up with everyone. If someone wants to pick out one person from the stream, they face a very difficult tactic. It becomes Zebra security--having identified a target, there is nothing that gives that target much security. But as long as you are in the herd, it's likely not cost effective to try and pick someone off.

    5. Re:Privacy disinterest come home to roost by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Surely Microsoft have conclusively proven that most people value convenience far more than security?

      The big problem is that companies add these 'convenience' features with no warning and no easy way to remove them. Having to manually strip exif data from every image is painful, to say the least.

      The big problem is more that most consumers don't realize that they're giving up security when they give up privacy - as with GP's example, telling the world when their house is vacant, and even giving the world their regular out-of-house patterns.

    6. Re:Privacy disinterest come home to roost by sglewis100 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most people don't intend to post pics with geo-information tagged in it. Cameras starting adding the data as the "default" option a couple years ago, and no one (except nerds) took notice. So now we have millions of pictures floating around with lat/long data encoded in them. I couldn't believe cameras chose to embed the data automatically -- that's where the real disbelief is. Humans probably would turn it off if they knew it was on.

      Oh please. People check into FourSquare or Facebook religiously, and tweet that they are leaving for vacation, and then come home and post pictures for the world to see. The problem isn't that they are unaware their location can be tracked. It's that they are proud to broadcast it. Actually problem is the wrong word for me to use... they don't see it as a problem.

    7. Re:Privacy disinterest come home to roost by PPH · · Score: 2

      But as long as you are in the herd, it's likely not cost effective to try and pick someone off.

      Until someone develops some AI to mine all this data for the weakest members of that herd. That's how lions hunt. They don't go looking for one particular zebra. They just spot the one who stands out as being just a bit slower than the rest. Child molesters work in much the same manner. They have developed something akin to a sixth sense that enables them to pick out the vulnerable individuals (one that will freeze rather than scream and aim a kick at the nuts). I predict the development of neural net apps in the near future for just this purpose.

      I don't want to live in a society where my kid is safe because the neighbor's kid is just a little cuter not as fast a runner.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    8. Re:Privacy disinterest come home to roost by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2

      Until someone develops some AI to mine all this data for the weakest members of that herd. That's how lions hunt. They don't go looking for one particular zebra. They just spot the one who stands out as being just a bit slower than the rest.

      All the lions need is really a marker for a particular zebra. The whole idea of black and white pattern of Zebra is to confuse the lions about where one Zebra ends and another Zebra begins in the visual field of the lions. So the lions keep chasing the entire herd till one of the tire or stumble. Then they focus on that zebra.

      But when the researchers tagged zebras with collars or markers they found the marked zebra gets killed within a week, often within two days. No amount of washing off, no amount of cleaning and grooming would allow a zebra that has been sprayed with marker paint, even if it was with invisible ultraviolet dye marker, to blend with the herd. If the lions can focus on one zebra in the herd, no matter how healthy and strong it is, they can bring it down. They take turns to chase it and they chase it till it tires so much it falls behind.

      It actually proves your point even more strongly. Unless you can blend as good as a zebra blends with a herd, you will be hunted down by the lions. Herd is not a protection.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    9. Re:Privacy disinterest come home to roost by Jason+Levine · · Score: 2

      There's a difference between telling your neighbors "We'll be out of town over the weekend, could you keep an eye on our house for us" and telling the entire Internet "We're leaving our house vacant this weekend and, by the way, here's a geotagged photo of our kids playing in the backyard." Just because Security Through Obscurity doesn't work in some instances doesn't mean it is a bad idea in all instances. Similarly, just because openness is a good idea in some instances, doesn't mean it is a good idea in all instances.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    10. Re:Privacy disinterest come home to roost by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      I didn't even know this stuff existed. I own nothing with a GPS, especially not a GPS in a phone or camera. Maybe there's a way I could laboriously enter my name into my digital camera but I don't even see the point. I'm so backwards I still don't even see the point of wanting random strangers to see your photos or know what you had for lunch.

      So which is it: the manufacturers are insane for adding this stuff, or the customers are insane for wanting it?

  3. Researchers? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

    For example, by looking at the location metadata stored with pictures posted through one man's anonymous Twitter account, the researchers were able to pinpoint his likely home address. From there, by cross-referencing this location with city records, they found his name. Using that information, the researchers went on to find his place of work, his wife's name, and information about his children.

    They may be calling themselves "researchers", but it's pretty obvious they're just a bunch of really creepy dudes.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Researchers? by _0xd0ad · · Score: 2

      Um, are you unaware that you can look up the city records for any address and find out who owns the deed to the property? Google and/or the White Pages are useful tools too.

  4. Re:Honestly... by microcentillion · · Score: 2

    Except for when the background is a wall in my room. I'd rather not have my location (accurate to three meters) tacked onto it. Not everyone can *look* at a picture and know exactly where you sleep at night.

    --
    But clearly you have something better to say...
  5. Education is good, but don't overhype defaults by Drakino · · Score: 2

    I think educating people about this is good, but it should also be clear that this isn't the default on all platforms. The iPhone for example specifically asks when a user uses the camera if they want to allow the camera program access to the users location. In iOS 4, this was expanded to also provide information right on the prompt about why this info was requested. On or off is presented equally. It's the users choice to geotag photos on the iPhone, and that choice can be changed at any time. From what I understand, other platforms are similar.

    iPhoto on the Mac will also default to stripping location data before exporting the photos anywhere. This includes both publishing the photos online, or exporting them to a folder outside the iPhoto data store.