I Can Stalk You - through your smartphone?

Can you be tracked by a picture taken from your smartphone, once that picture goes online? Did you know that your phone leaves a high-tech geo-locating trail that will translate data into maps. It's a hidden threat that most people don't realize is there, let alone that they have some control over it.

Icanstalku

A site that puts this practice into action, taking pictures posted to twitter, fb, photobucket, etc. and mapping the locations of those who uploaded the pictures and posting all the information to the site. It claims to want to educate people about the dangers of posting pictures online without having taken prior precaution, Does it? Are you there? Did you even know about this hidden danger? Turn off (at the least) the geo location setting on your camera - for your peace of mind, if nothing else.

Smartphone Picture Uploads

Posted this last month:

www.abovetopsecret.com...


ETA: Nobody really cared then either.

Doh. Thank you.

reply to post by LadySkadi


Great thread, you!

It's scary isn't it? But not surprising. Not many people know about this function...and really, I'd advise you all to turn it off...

EDIT:

Oh well...my bad. I'll leave this comment though
Sorry Forty...I never saw it back then.

I'll get this in before its closed - This is the most ridiculous thing ever. Total security risk, no privacy etc.. especially when it comes to the childrens pics.

Considering most people leave a trail of where they go via foursquare or other tagging software, I don't think anybody really cares. The only time location services is turned on my phone is if I am having to use the gps for something. Otherwise it stays off.

reply to post by tnhiker


Ya, maybe true. I think the difference though, is that in one case the person makes the choice to "check in" whereas in this case, simply uploading pictures *may give up the location. I wonder how many knew that was true, let alone what that information could be used for, should anyone want to.

Think about it: nasty divorce/custody case? Bailing out of work for a day? Insurance investigation? All kinds of reasons to want to find out where people are and what they are doing or *worse, spin what they are doing.

reply to post by LadySkadi


Hi Lady, Check this out. I got call from this some one, couple years ago. Her basic phone to mine. Instead of
her normal caller I.D. appearing on my phone. I got a location of," 15 fwy mohave desert" instead. I was like,
WTF you do'in out there girl ? Blew her mind. Never happened again..

As long as people can continue to get their digital addiction fix, they will never care who, what and where spies on them. At least until it hits them personally and they spend the next 3 years straitening it out. But then they cry like babies when something happens, then I just lean back smile/laugh at them and say, I told you so, being plugged in was not such a great idea after all was it. All the while they claim, "I didn't know".

HAHAHA

What's a smartphone?



2nd line.

Originally posted by tnhiker
Considering most people leave a trail of where they go via foursquare or other tagging software, I don't think anybody really cares. The only time location services is turned on my phone is if I am having to use the gps for something. Otherwise it stays off.

This is why people won't care about a cashless society where everyone is chipped/marked and monitored. They are preparing society now, in a generation or two cameras, monitoring and things like twitter will be so natural people won't remember a time when they WEREN'T being tracked so they'll accept it readily.

reply to post by ProphecyPhD


The infrastructure is already there and has been functional for awhile and it is just a matter of implementing it. But, you know, it will just be so cool. At least that is what everyone tells me about their iphone. I love how they snuck it in right under everyone's noses under the guise of coolness. Just like cloud computing, just another way to get data centralized, the cloud is also a scam used in order to keep pulling us in, but the cloud will actually be our data. Run from the cloud.

It's called Meta data, and it can hold all sorts of information from simple date time stamps, GPS co ordinates, model of device used shutter speed and anything else you can think of.

Here is quite a handy on line tool that will show you the hidden data - it's a fairly straight forward thing to do to remove this data, of even spoof it for what ever reason, but it's something you have to go out of your way to do - most people don't know or care that those photo's they up load to face book and stuff carry this data.

reply to post by LadySkadi


Nope.

You cannot do it.

I don't have a smartphone or any kind of cell phone.

One small benefit of being jobless.

reply to post by Now_Then


Very helpful, thanks NT.

In order to learn where to go and what to do to strip meta-data, one first needs to know what it is and why it applies to their situation. Can't circumvent, what you don't know is there...

Originally posted by LadySkadi
reply to post by Now_Then

 

Very helpful, thanks NT.

In order to learn where to go and what to do to strip meta-data, one first needs to know what it is and why it applies to their situation. Can't circumvent, what you don't know is there...

All this talk about stripping and stalking is well.......

ya know.

Good info Lady you can stalk me anytime.