Posting pictures online can sometimes mean giving away more information than you know

 

WXYZ - We love posting our favorite photos on Facebook, Myspace or twitter to show our friends and family what we've been up to. But those innocent snapshots could be revealing a lot more about you than you might think...and opening you up to danger as well.

 

Cristina Parker loves taking pictures with her smart phone.

 

"I like to take a lot of photos of my dog and post them on twitter. um, i think she's really cute. Also my friends and family," says Parker.

But one day she got an ominous tweet from the website "icanstalku.com" telling her they know where she lives.

 

"I thought it was a little scary,” says Parker.”They were accurate to my location from my house. So, my immediate response was, 'what happened, how do you know where I am?'"

 

Turns out, Parker’s photos contained GPS information -- called "Geotags" - embedded by her smart phone. Every time she posted a photo online that she took with her phone, she was inadvertently giving out her whereabouts.

 

 

 

"And the location can be as accurate as plus/minus one meter, depending on the reception of the GPS signal of the device you're using," says Gerald Friedland, International Computer Science Institute Berkeley. Friedland co-authored a study on the privacy implications of geotagging. the findings: most people had no idea what they were posting online.

 

"There's enough information out there that you can actually track people and do

potential harm to them," says Friedland.

 

And that's exactly what Larry Pesce wants to warn people about. He co-founded "I canstalku.com to alert people after he discovered a photo of his child revealed her location. And it can happen to others.

 

"For example, let's take a picture of your nice brand new 50-inch plasma TV at your house and you're now sharing the location of that TV and an hour later you're posting a photograph from a 711 and now we know that you're not home," says Pesce.

 

In addition to potential robberies, Pesce says geotagged photos open up the possibility of stalking and domestic violence. and you don't have to be some expert to get the information.

 

"I just about anybody that can operate a computer and do a few right clicks could find out someone's location," adds Pesce.

 

What can you do about it? You don't have to stop posting pictures. Just turn off the GFS feature for photos on your phone-it won't affect the other GPS capabilities. Parker turned hers off. She now posts her photos without worry. And she hopes others will do the same.

 

"I don't think many people know they're tweeting their geographic location every time they post a photo," she says.

 

Since each phone is different, I canstalku.com has listed instructions for turning off geotagging for every major brand on their website.

 

http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/posting-pictures-on-line-can-sometimes-mean-giving-away-more-information-thatn-you-know

Woah Creepy Stalkerish Stuff :stunned:

That's....scary but not surprising.

That's crazy! :uhoh:

 

Although it kind of makes sense, I just never thought about it. :anxious:

it's very creepy D:

Fucking smartphones and their stupid features

:wreck: creepy

Yay, GPS. :blank:

:anxious: it's creepy...

I think we get that it's creepy

It's weird to rock a rhyme to rock a rhyme on time you know its creepy, its

 

Creepy

 

creepy D:

 

:wreck: creepy

 

:anxious: creepy...

lul'd

:wreck: