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Re: [tor-talk] Image EXIF data used to geolocate




On 9/22/2016 9:46 AM, bancfc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Pretty basic opsec fail but I wonder if mapping out tags was a good
idea. Imagine tagging a city that has a handful of Tor users. They
should have consulted the Tor Research Ethics process.
When it's important not to reveal location or other data stored in images' EXIF info, remove the EXIF data. Couple of mouse clicks in many image viewers.
Save as new image, then send or post.

See image viewers_editors like Irfan View, XnView & others for details on typical EXIF data and removing it. These editors also make it very easy to edit out unwanted parts of images, that might help narrow down a location (landmarks, native vegetation), time of day, time of year.

See sites like this, explaining some of it: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-ways-to-remove-exif-metadata-from-photos-and-why-you-might-want-to/ Types of data stored in EXIF (though my camera stores more than mentioned on this site): http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/exif-photo-data-find-understand/

Many modern cameras / phones, allow disabling the recording of geo location data with images . But often still records in EXIF data the device brand & model, date and all technical specs about the image. Some of that data might narrow a list of suspects to owners of specific devices, or coincide with dates they were in specific, identifiable locations.

From what I've read, it's less common that devices allow totally disabling storing all EXIF data with images.

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