Uploaded Pic / Vid metadata

Bossmandad

Esteemed Citizen of ZV
Hi Guys

Just wondering if the metadata gets scrubbed on upload, I know most forums do this automatically these days

I have search but cannot really find an exact answer
 
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Moved to suggestions. @ZTHorse is this done or can it be implemented?
I suggest the linux perl exiftool.

And while we are at it, also consider automatically converting all the wmv and avi and other nonsense that does not run in browser and is unnecessarily large to mp4. :D
As I understand it, exif/meta data stripped:
 
Even if it does it's still best practice to remove it before sending it from your device. The file is still going to travel over the internet and sit in the server's temp files with your device and location data attached, so you should assume it can be intercepted along the way even if encrypted should there be a new or unfixed exploit.
 
Hi Guys

Just wondering if the metadata gets scrubbed on upload, I know most forums do this automatically these days

I have search but cannot really find an exact answer
Good post mate. Not many of us think about it before uploading pics/vids online.
Even if ZF strips exif data, I'd always strip it myself and verify before uploading anything. At least that way you know what you put out there and don't exclusively rely on processes owned and controlled by others to keep you safe. It only takes one failed process to screw you over.
Would be good to have this included as a recommendation for uploads in the instructions email we get at the start.
 
From what I understand it gets stripped from photos. However, it's not something that happens immediately. Basically a scan is performed on the servers every 15-20 minutes to strip the metadata from what I've been told.

It's supposed to strip it from videos as well, but, from what I've seen it doesn't do a very good job and it pretty much always skips .MOV files. I've seen .MOV files hang around for months with metadata intact.

Like the others have mentioned, it's best to just strip the metadata yourself before uploading content so that you'll have some peace of mind before uploading, instead of just hoping the forum will do the work for you. There are plenty of free software for both mobile and PC that'll strip the files of metadata.
 
Is simply turning off location data in my phone's camera settings suitable to avoid location metadata being attached or is there in some way still a risk that would warrant using a program to completely scrub all metadata just to be safe?
 
Turning off location data is but the first step, exif/meta data can contain much more info, such as date, time the photo/video was taken, resolution etc, but also the device used to do so, which may have a unique number, and as such it could theoretically be matched with other photos containing the same unique ID, resulting in attributing them to the same user.

More info on exif including some privacy concerns can be found here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exif
 
ZV does not strip metadata from videos.

never depend on a website to scrub your data for you. scrub it before you ever upload it, or don't upload at all.

i have to whack 1-2 threads a week because people upload gps tagged videos without realizing it.

i know people depended on BF to scrub exif from uploaded pictures in threads. but it didn't scrub profile pictures at all.

i have also seen cellphone identifying information attached to pictures, even if it wasn't gps. it looked like a cellphone subscriber number.

i am against forums automatically "scrubbing" files, it leads to people becoming lazy as they are here on zooville - and constantly making mistakes. i'd rather the forum just reject the file outright and make the users learn how to remove/scrub metadata themselves.
 
The forum is not doing it for pictures. Is there a reason for videos? It is annoying because when you download several videos in the same folder, some have date as name hence you can watch them in series, not once the name is randomized.
 
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