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GPS in metadata

pes

pes

Moderator
Staff member
If you have recently had a post remove with this explanation: GPS in metadata
Beware that you are literally doxing yourself because your phone or camera added your location into the photo or video.
Remove metadata before posting.
The forum has a plugin for it, but it does not work reliably and probably will never be updated.
 
pes said:
If you have recently had a post remove with this explanation: GPS in metadata
Beware that you are literally doxing yourself because your phone or camera added your location into the photo or video.
Remove metadata before posting.
The forum has a plugin for it, but it does not work reliably and probably will never be updated.
Click to expand...
Exactly !
I have for a long time used the app “EXIF Viewer” on my iPhone and iPad to check / remove such revealing data.
Through the years I have several times PM’ed a warning to someone, the GPS location is so very precise, that I on the map could see in which house the photo/video was recorded. And the recording data also includes the camera type and settings, and sometimes the serial number of it too.
 
humananimal said:
Exactly !
I have for a long time used the app “EXIF Viewer” on my iPhone and iPad to check / remove such revealing data.
Through the years I have several times PM’ed a warning to someone, the GPS location is so very precise, that I on the map could see in which house the photo/video was recorded. And the recording data also includes the camera type and settings, and sometimes the serial number of it too.
Click to expand...
Now days spying is built into it, it is harder to disable all of that garbage now days. another reason I am losing interest in any of the new garbage, it offers nothing but reduction in privacy.
 
humananimal said:
Exactly !
I have for a long time used the app “EXIF Viewer” on my iPhone and iPad to check / remove such revealing data.
Through the years I have several times PM’ed a warning to someone, the GPS location is so very precise, that I on the map could see in which house the photo/video was recorded. And the recording data also includes the camera type and settings, and sometimes the serial number of it too.
Click to expand...
If you don’t mind me asking
Which app do you use ? (Or do you use the web downloaded version)

If you use an app- Is it EXIF Viewer by fluntro? I’m not sure how secure that app would be or who can access your data

Is the website download version best to use and safest
 
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pes said:
This way you upload your private stuff to someone else's compute which saves it, modifies it and sends it back to you.
They do not need to delete the file though.
I bet it is interesting to see what people use their web for.
Click to expand...
Okay okay I get it PES
I’m a moron xD
I have never used it

I know you can download and install it from the web… I assume after doing that it is “private?” Because you install it a specific way on your device to then use to pull or wipe metadata.

I keep getting errors when I download it and try to run it. Maybe I’m setting it up wrong, that’s why I haven’t uploaded anything yet because I haven’t figured out how to properly install and use exif

I read the full post on safety with content
 
Cooper22z said:
If you don’t mind me asking
Which app do you use ? (Or do you use the web downloaded version)

If you use an app- Is it EXIF Viewer by fluntro? I’m not sure how secure that app would be or who can access your data

Is the website download version best to use and safest
Click to expand...
Mine is from AppStore - called “EXIF viewer - Photo Metadata”. I have never used a Web version.
According to AppStore all the calculations is on my iPad, no data is collected.
 
humananimal said:
Mine is from AppStore - called “EXIF viewer - Photo Metadata”. I have never used a Web version.
According to AppStore all the calculations is on my iPad, no data is collected.
Click to expand...
Thank you for sharing this information. I appreciate it :)
I’m gonna do more research on the main program and try to get it to work, if not I’ll still look for others that are safe and secure.
 
Sigh. For the real men left who still live by command line... all it takes is a one-liner.

$ exiftool -overwrite_original -all:all= filename.ext
Click to expand...

Hell you can even glob if you've got a whole directory to nuke. ? and * are perfectly usable wildcards just as they'd be elsewhere.
 
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Daedalus said:
Sigh. For the real men left who still live by command line... all it takes is a one-liner.



Hell you can even glob if you've got a whole directory to nuke. ? and * are perfectly usable wildcards just as they'd be elsewhere.
Click to expand...
Can’t be used on phones 😊
 
humananimal said:
Can’t be used on phones 😊
Click to expand...
You guys have to stop using phones for illegal stuff. :D
Your phone is not a privacy oriented device.
Your phone sends everything it possibly can to google or any other company that made it and more.
It is using a flash storage which is nearly impossible to wipe and common rewrite algorithms do not work on it because it uses wear leveling.
The only viable way of cleaning it is full disk encryption and deleting the key.

Your keyboard input is sent to google for training their ai.
Your phone (depending on settings) keeps a personal dictionary of words you type.
Your camera may be doing AI enhancement that happens on the server.
Your chats and photos are often automatically backed up in the cloud.
If you use fingerprint or face unlock, anyone can unlock your phone especially law enforcement.
Saving your stuff on the SD card if your phone has one suffers from the same problems as above.
The phone will be the first thing that is taken from you when you get into trouble.
...

Setting a phone up to be somewhat private is difficult and really not 100% reliable.
 
pes said:
You guys have to stop using phones for illegal stuff. :D
Your phone is not a privacy oriented device.
Your phone sends everything it possibly can to google or any other company that made it and more.
It is using a flash storage which is nearly impossible to wipe and common rewrite algorithms do not work on it because it uses wear leveling.
The only viable way of cleaning it is full disk encryption and deleting the key.

Your keyboard input is sent to google for training their ai.
Your phone (depending on settings) keeps a personal dictionary of words you type.
Your camera may be doing AI enhancement that happens on the server.
Your chats and photos are often automatically backed up in the cloud.
If you use fingerprint or face unlock, anyone can unlock your phone especially law enforcement.
Saving your stuff on the SD card if your phone has one suffers from the same problems as above.
The phone will be the first thing that is taken from you when you get into trouble.
...

Setting a phone up to be somewhat private is difficult and really not 100% reliable.
Click to expand...
yup, I do a deep crawl through the phone to secure it, now several apps don't work, why the fuck does my calendar need access to personal messages and such! I have a strict policy of nothing on my phone I wouldn't show a cop for that simple reason, as the police have tools that near intently access the phone due to back doors basically mandated, (Oh yes applies to I phone too).
 
offgridk9lover2 said:
… as the police have tools that near intently access the phone due to back doors basically mandated, (Oh yes applies to I phone too).
Click to expand...
Really?
1-2 years ago FBI wanted Apple to produce an IOS update with a back door, so they could access the iPhone of man suspected for serious crimes.
Apple refused - with the argument that such an IOS will certainly be spread and used to attack innocent people's phones. Some would say that it will certainly not happen, but the experience is that it will.
So as far as I know they didn’t succeed to open his phone.
A standard setting in an iPhone is that it deletes itself after 10 wrong passwords.
PES is right that even a delete command doesn’t destroy all data, because a memory-cell can malfunction after a number of writes, so the memory places data in different physical places instead of owerwriting. So when you rewrite a text it save the whole file in new sectors and in that way most of the file can exist in many places.
A comment to that : most ‘HardDrives‘ are not ‘old-fashioned’ magnetic disks anymore, but are digital, so if you will delete it, you will have to overwrite all sectors with some form of noise. (Which also means that program options to ‘optimize’ a HD will not improve anything. It will only work on magnetic drives and that way place all the sectors in a file in a nice row, ready to read.
It is in fact possible to remove the chip in a memory card and read the data. But if the data is encrypted they will not succeed in that. I presume that iPhones encrypt the data, but I am not sure 🤔
 
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humananimal said:
Really?
1-2 years ago FBI wanted Apple to produce an IOS update with a back door, so they could access the iPhone of man suspected for serious crimes.
Apple refused - with the argument that such an IOS will certainly be spread and used to attack innocent people's phones. Some would say that it will certainly not happen, but the experience is that it will.
So as far as I know they didn’t succeed to open his phone.
A standard setting in an iPhone is that it deletes itself after 10 wrong passwords.
PES is right that even a delete command doesn’t destroy all data, because to a memory-cell can malfunction after a number of writes, so the memory places data in different physical places instead of owerwriting. So when you rewrite a text it save the whole file in new sectors and in that way most of the file can exist in many places.
A comment to that : most ‘HardDrives‘ are not ‘oldfashional’ magnetic disks anymore, but are digital, so if you will delete it, you will have to overwrite all sectors with some form of noise. (Which also means that program options to ‘optimize’ a HD will not improve anything. It will only work on magnetic drives and that way place all the sectors in a file in a nice row, ready to read.
It is in fact possible to remove the chip in a memory card and read the data. But if the data is encrypted they will not succeed in that. I presume that iPhones encrypt the data, but I am not sure 🤔
Click to expand...
They dont even need your password or physical access to enter the phone.. no matter the brand or OS.. You dont even feel or realize when the fed searching your phone...

encrypt the data
Click to expand...
At least in Europe 100% secure encryption software is not allowed to sell, you have to give the feds the possibility to decrypt for security reasons like terror prevention etc.. I worked in the encryption development..
 
humananimal said:
Really?
1-2 years ago FBI wanted Apple to produce an IOS update with a back door, so they could access the iPhone of man suspected for serious crimes.
Apple refused - with the argument that such an IOS will certainly be spread and used to attack innocent people's phones. Some would say that it will certainly not happen, but the experience is that it will.
So as far as I know they didn’t succeed to open his phone.
A standard setting in an iPhone is that it deletes itself after 10 wrong passwords.
PES is right that even a delete command doesn’t destroy all data, because a memory-cell can malfunction after a number of writes, so the memory places data in different physical places instead of owerwriting. So when you rewrite a text it save the whole file in new sectors and in that way most of the file can exist in many places.
A comment to that : most ‘HardDrives‘ are not ‘old-fashioned’ magnetic disks anymore, but are digital, so if you will delete it, you will have to overwrite all sectors with some form of noise. (Which also means that program options to ‘optimize’ a HD will not improve anything. It will only work on magnetic drives and that way place all the sectors in a file in a nice row, ready to read.
It is in fact possible to remove the chip in a memory card and read the data. But if the data is encrypted they will not succeed in that. I presume that iPhones encrypt the data, but I am not sure 🤔
Click to expand...
A friend with an i phone they had every thing pretty well the next day, these tools circumvent all of that.
 
Blacksoul said:
They dont even need your password or physical access to enter the phone.. no matter the brand or OS.. You dont even feel or realize when the fed searching your phone...


At least in Europe 100% secure encryption software is not allowed to sell, you have to give the feds the possibility to decrypt for security reasons like terror prevention etc.. I worked in the encryption development..
Click to expand...
So both the FBI and Apple lied ?
And you are saying that the companies are forced to program a back door !
 
humananimal said:
So both the FBI and Apple lied ?
Click to expand...
What exactly happened there is not known though. The method the phone was opened is not known or whether the data came from the phone either.
It could have been user error for example.
Either way though, do not trust corporations to defend you, it is not in their interest at all.

humananimal said:
And you are saying that the companies are forced to program a back door !
Click to expand...
That is sad. So use VeraCrypt or other open source based encryption.
 
Blacksoul said:
Yes and no..

Yes, not necessarily a real backdoor, as backdoors would be a danger for the public too. But to give them the possibility to enter…
Click to expand...
You mean something like a master password ?
Maybe the word back door can be interpreted in different ways, but to me it is a back door if someone can enter my data without my knowledge / permission.
Hacking is usually used in the meaning that someone tries with a large number of passwords.
But as I said, a setting in an iPhone / iPad is to delete it self (like in the movies IMF - ‘selfdestruct in 5 seconds) after 10 wrong passwords or remote - using ‘Find my Phone’.
 
humananimal said:
You mean something like a master password ?
Maybe the word back door can be interpreted in different ways, but to me it is a back door if someone can enter my data without my knowledge / permission.
Hacking is usually used in the meaning that someone tries with a large number of passwords.
But as I said, a setting in an iPhone / iPad is to delete it self (like in the movies IMF - ‘selfdestruct in 5 seconds) after 10 wrong passwords or remote - using ‘Find my Phone’.
Click to expand...
All of that is amazing. But did you know that mobile devices and probably even an iphone has a boot loader mode?
On some devices you just plug it in and you can dump the whole flash disk, no password, you do not even need to turn the phone on properly. The screen does not even come on.
I did that myself on two devices.
If it is encrypted, then you might have a problem with getting the data.
Those were old devices, but that does no mean similar modes are not available on modern devices as well.
 
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