2011/2/26 每周一讀 : Geotagging

(對,是英文.但假如你緊張你的私隱和人身安全的話,起碼要讀完Introduction)

(Source: 美軍???)

Introduction

• In August of 2010, Adam Savage, of "MythBusters," took a photo of his vehicle using his smartphone. He then posted the photo to his Twitter account including the phrase “off to work.”
• Since the photo was taken by his smartphone, the image contained metadata reveling the exact geographical location the photo was taken.
• So by simply taking and posting a photo, Savage revealed the exact location of his home, the vehicle he drives and the time he leaves for work.

Interviewed by Kate Murphy in the August 11, 2010 New York Times, Adam said that he knew about geotagging, of course, but had neglected to turn off the phone’s GPS. He acknowledged he had not considered how much information could be deduced from the mere action of posting a photo and caption, however. Though he brushed off the incident with his usual wit, he has since disabled the GPS function on his iPhone and moved from this residence.

The following was published in Wired Magazine in 2009:

"I ran a little experiment. On a sunny Saturday, I spotted a woman in Golden Gate Park taking a photo with a 3G iPhone. Because iPhones embed geodata into photos that users upload to Flickr or Picasa, iPhone shots can be automatically placed on a map. At home I searched the Flickr map, and score — a shot from today. I clicked through to the user's photostream and determined it was the woman I had seen earlier. After adjusting the settings so that only her shots appeared on the map, I saw a cluster of images in one location. Clicking on them revealed photos of an apartment interior — a bedroom, a kitchen, a filthy living room. Now I know where she lives."

"Did I really want to tell the world that I was out of town? ... anyone who cared to look at my Flickr page could see my computers, my spendy bicycle, and my large flatscreen TV all pinpointed on an online photo map. Hell, with a few clicks you could get driving directions right to my place – and with a few more you could get black gloves and a lock pick delivered to your home."


What is geotagging?

• Geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification to photographs, video, websites and SMS messages. It is the equivalent of adding a 10-digit grid coordinate to everything you post on the internet.
• Geotags are automatically embedded in pictures taken with smartphones. Many people are unaware of the fact that the photos they take with their smartphones and load to the Internet have been geotagged.
• Photos posted to photo sharing sites like Flickr and Picasa can also be tagged with location, but it is not an automatic function.
• Digital cameras and Smartphones have had geotagging capabilities for quite some time. JPEG and TIFF, the most common photo formats, have a special space in the file format for EXIF information (called metadata) to capture geographical information of where a photo is taken. It can easily be read by online or offline applications.
  

Why are location-based apps potentially dangerous?

• Establishes patterns: Services like MotionX and other location-based social networking applications allow strangers to track your movements every day. If they watch someone long enough they will know exactly when and where to find that person on any given day.
• Exposes places of duty and home: By tracking movements and aggregating information, strangers can determine where someone lives and works.
  

(今仔總結:

• 地球很危險,網絡世界更加危險...(尤其對女性)
• 只要知道名字便能google到個人地址電話甚至親戚朋友等等,其實已經是舊聞,大前提是"要知道那人叫甚麼名字".
• 現在這個geotagging更恐佈的地方是:假如妳被人點了相而妳又正在用妳的iphone拍照的話,妳可能已經成為別人的獵物!!!
• 在此奉勸喜歡upload相上網或在facebook炫耀自己身在何方的人:還是收斂一點為妙,如非必要便關掉GPS定位功能吧...)