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Pictures On Line

Where's Osama?

A shocking development took place today as the ruling members of the Taliban held a press conference threatening the United States if its territory is invaded. Immigration Czar Mohmammed Ali Momaluke stated that the Afghan authorities "would not hesitate for a moment" to cut off the US supply of convenience store managers.

Where's Osama?

Too bad Osama Bin Laden's picture was not taken with a cell phone. If it had been the military could home right in on him, whether it is in the local 7-Eleven or a cave in Afghanistan. 

Any time you use a GPS (Global Positioning System) enabled device such as a cell phone to take pictures you may be unwittingly telling the world where you were at the time. Those pictures may include "Geotags", which are the GPS coordinates of the camera when the picture was taken. Geotags can be turned off but they are often enabled by default, and without the knowledge of the device's owner.

This came to light recently when Adam Savage, the host of the science television program Mythbusters, found that the photo of his car that he posted on Twitter let his fans know where he lived. The New York Times has an article about his discovery.

You can read more about geotags on the Website ICanStalkU.com, which lists the latest postings on Twitter that include geotagged photos. Just click on someone's link to read about them. Then click on the other link to learn where they live, either by GPS coordinates or actual street address. All of this information was easily gleaned from their photos. It is quite an eye opener.

ICanStalkU was put together by several security experts in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA. These are good guys wearing white hats, unlike the guy depicted in the picture above. The purpose of their Website is to make people aware of geotags and some of the problems they can cause.

Google "Geotags" and you will see a lot of hits. You can also find add-ons for popular browsers that will display geotag information. It is truly amazing how many application programming interfaces (APIs) there are for geotags. It is also truly amazing how many people know how to use the APIs, both for good and evil purposes.

Before you post any pictures on line, check to see if they include a geotag. If they do, you may want to consider finding a way to remove that information. Sometimes it does not matter and sometimes it does. Our recommendation would be to disable the feature.

  • Knowing the location of a public beach in San Juan where you are on vacation for two weeks is probably not a problem.
  • Knowing your address from another picture you posted could be a problem.
  • Knowing that your new 84" television was delivered just before you left for San Juan could make for a really big problem..
  • A picture of your 16 year old daughter at Yosemite is probably not a problem.
  • A picture of your 16 year old daughter at home in front of your house might be a problem.
  • If your 16 year old daughter is becoming very attractive, that could be really a big problem if a sex offender lives nearby.

All new things bring with them both benefits and risks. Geotags are not inherently evil but they can be used for evil purposes by the wrong people. It might pay to check out each cell phone and camera you own.


08/15/10

   
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