Web Photos That Reveal Secrets, Like Where You Live

[CaptWoodrow10]

Thank the Lord I don't have one of those "smart" phones. I don't like not being smarter than my EDC equipment.
Imagine if thieves got a hold of this on our forum.

[silverbear]

Thanks for the golden nugget of information.

I'll have to see how to turn that function off.

[SecedeTX]

Or you could hack your images and put in bogus coordinates....like the top of Everest, middle of the Gulf of Mexico, etc.

What a world we live in. With technology increasing at the rate it is, this is going to be a bigger problem in the future.

[The Annoyed Man]

Here's a URL that will allow you to upload an image and it will show you all the data in the pic - and automatically bring up Google Maps to show you where it was taken.

http://regex.info/exif.cgi" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I used that to check a pic of my dog taken on my wife's iPhone - and it brought up our old house exactly

Interesting...

I used your URL to check two images I have stored on Facebook, one of which I uploaded to Facebook from a Blackberry phone, and the other which I uploaded from a HTC Incredible droid phone. Neither image appears to have the location coordinates at which I took them embedded into it.

Is it possible that not all cellphones have this security flaw?

[The Annoyed Man]

It's possible that the Blackberry's GPS option has been disabled, but from my understanding some websites will strip out Exif data themselves, which is great - perhaps Facebook is one such site. Twitter definitely does not, not does TX CHL ;)

I turn my Droid's GPS on and off as needed because it's a battery hog, so I turn it off after using to preserve the battery. Perhaps I had it off when I uploaded those images too.

[cougartex]

Thanks for posting.

[Right2Carry]

Here's a URL that will allow you to upload an image and it will show you all the data in the pic - and automatically bring up Google Maps to show you where it was taken.

http://regex.info/exif.cgi" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I used that to check a pic of my dog taken on my wife's iPhone - and it brought up our old house exactly

Checked two photo's that I took with my Iphone and neither of them provided a google map of where they were taken.

[Right2Carry]

Good stuff - could you tell us if GPS is on or off on your iPhone?

Location services is on. I have a 3GS and not a iphone 4.0

[Right2Carry]

So GPS was on when those pics were taken?

Second, how did you analyze the pics? Where did you upload them to? I'm wondering if the upload site is stripping out the Exif data.

I used the link that you provided. I even used a pic that I took with my Iphone the other day and I know location services was turned on then. I didn't load the picture directly from my iphone. I downloaded the picture to my laptop and then uploaded it to the link you provided. It showed data, but no GPS coordinates and no google map popped up showing the location of the pic.