So what’s the worst thing that could happen? What personal information could possibly be exposed? Where’s the threat? In both cases when you post the pictures, you are actually allowing about 190 million Twitter users implicitly to know the exact location of you and your kid. Unfortunately, even as careful as some people may be about sharing personal information online, they may be unwittingly exposing information through a process called “geotagging.” So how does this data end up on a public forum like the Internet?
According to Wikipedia, “geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification “metadata” to various media such as photographs, video, websites, SMS messages, or RSS feeds and is a form of Geo-spatial meta data.” Digital photos automatically store some information better known as EXIF data, produced by the camera. Most of the data is harmless. EXIF data stores details about aperture, shutter speed, focal length, metering mode, and ISO settings. Some of which can help a printer do a better job of color-matching the final printed image. There's also room for other information, such as the camera's make, model, and registration number, and in some cases location information like latitude and longitude coordinates that are derived from a global positioning system (GPS). While that sounds complicated but it really isn’t. It simply means that marking of a photo or other media with an embedded location of where it was taken. Today’s smart phones and digital cameras featuring GPS have made this “tagging” possible. For older digital cameras, adding location data to an image requires complicated peripherals. As example you must attach a cable to the camera to communicate with a GPS receiver. But many newer digital cameras and mobile phone cameras have built-in GPS receivers. The geotagging features in these newer devices are integrated and seamless and your EXIF files may store latitude, longitude, time and even altitude data.
With the explosion of smart phones today there is an increasing number of geotagged images posted to the Web.
Why should you care about this technology?
Well, a snapshot of you in your living room might be a clue for someone that you don’t want to know where you live and to find your home. A picture of you standing in front of your priceless oil-painting or collection of valuable ornaments lets potential thieves know you have things worth stealing. A criminal only has to check for the Geotag and now he has you and your property in his sight. They can then watch your postings and activities to find out when you aren’t home and so that they can break in. An uneducated military member could accidentally expose their location and possibly put themselves or their fellow soldiers at risk. You post a photo online and within minutes someone could know your exact location. Geotags embed the exact location. Yes, the longitude and latitude into you photos. You may not see it but it is not hard to find out.
In 2009, Wired Magazine published an experiment where a person watched a woman take a photo in a park with her iPhone. iPhones like most smart phones, automatically embed Geotag, as I've mentioned before. Later the person searched a Flickr map and found the picture from that day and location. And definitely found the picture the woman had taken. From there, they were able to collect more information about the woman and was ultimately able to determine where she had been that day and finally where she lives.
So, why does geotagging exist if it seems to be only useful to people whom do harm?
It is important to note that there are some practical applications for having geotags in photos. Photographers and tourists may find it helpful to have Geotags in their photographs to help identify exact locations later. It can be helpful for reconstructing a family vacation on a map. This technology can certainly be a wonderful enabling of all types of valuable services like finding restaurants nearby, getting driving instructions and more. But the point is, it may also expose more information than you want. Only the problem with geotagging arises when that information is given out unknowingly or pulled by the wrong people as explained above.
To highlight geotagging related privacy issues security consultants Larry Pesce of the NWN Corporation in Waltham, Mass and Ben Jackson of Mayhemic Labs in Boston developed IcanStalkU.com and they adopted the Twitter username ICanStalkU to respond to tweeters who posted geotagged images. Twitter shut down the account but let them back in after they argued for the need to educate users. They promoted the issue on web site to get their message out.
IcanStalkU.com uses a Perl script to scrape some 20,000 images each day off from different social networks. The site then re-posts the pictures with messages like "ICanStalkU was able to stalk
So what can we do to protect ourselves from the dangers of geotagging?
The helpful hints below can help you do just that:
Turn the geotagging feature off
This is the most obvious solution and you can find out how to do this for most phones at www.icanstalku.com, which is a website created to spread awareness of the privacy issues of geotagging. Flickr has reportedly put up safeguards against geotags unless photo posters request to them.
Find out if your phone or camera has geotagging technology and how to disable it. You'll be looking for "location" and then "off" or "don't allow" but experts agree that options aren't easy to find.
Don't assume that your phone or camera isn't using Geotags just because you didn't enable it to. Most devices have this option already set as a default.
Download disabling software:
With all of the information coming and going from our phones these days it would be nice to know that someone is looking out to be sure you don’t send out the wrong information. You can download software to your smart phone that will search for geotagging information and delete it before sending.
Be aware and educate yourself and your friends: Be sure that you understand what information you are sharing and stay up to date with the products you use that use geotagging information. Make sure your friends are aware of the issue.
Tell your friends about Geotags in photos and be aware that when other people take photos of you and then post those photos on the web that they put you or kids at risk too.
Watch what you post: You should always think twice, if not three times, about anything you put on the internet. Once something is on the internet, it can be assumed it will be there forever. Be sure you are very comfortable with what information those posts contain.
Technology is full of little surprises such as geotagging that we take for granted when using them for helpful purposes, but which can be exploited for dangerous purposes by the wrong people. By keeping informed on the devices you use and the information they may provide you can help to keep what you want private…and still use them to help you find a good Italian restaurant.
0 comments:
Post a Comment