WARNING: Uploading photos from iPhones

Discussion in 'Forum News / Announcements' started by Administrator, Jul 16, 2011.

  1. A number of photos on Silver Stackers have been identified as containing EXIF data that includes GPS coordinates of residential locations. These appear to be photos that members are taking primarily with iPhones that have "location services enabled".

    Basically you're uploading pictures of gold and silver with what's as good as your home address embedded in them.

    As a result, all current images on the forum have been "scrubbed" of all EXIF data, and reloaded onto the server this morning.

    At this time the upload process cannot be modified to automatically perform this - but in the meantime, IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to ensure that you do not upload images with GPS data embedded within them. A simple check can be performed using browser tools, such as Exif Viewer for Firefox (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/exif-viewer/).
     
  2. goldpelican

    goldpelican Administrator Staff Member

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    o_O

    Hoping people understand this post and it's significance.
     
  3. goldpelican

    goldpelican Administrator Staff Member

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    Thanks for the reminder - was going to do that yesterday but uploading the images took 5 hours and killed my bandwidth at the time.
     
  4. Graeme

    Graeme Member Silver Stacker

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    I might have been guilty of this. Thanks for looking out for us. :)
     
  5. RhythmDoctor

    RhythmDoctor Active Member

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    Bloody hell, thats a fair warning - I'm glad I simply use a normal camera and do it the old fashioned way!
     
  6. ToDaMoon

    ToDaMoon Active Member Silver Stacker

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    Please note that generally newer point and shoots also have this function.

    Canon, Panasonic and Sony (and possibly more) all have cameras in their ranges that allow this.
     
  7. Silverthorn

    Silverthorn Well-Known Member

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    Imagemagik will strip the data out for those doing this regularly. Other programs would be available as well I guess.
     
  8. goldpelican

    goldpelican Administrator Staff Member

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  9. Silverthorn

    Silverthorn Well-Known Member

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    Read that one. Pretty dumb way to get caught.
     
  10. goldpelican

    goldpelican Administrator Staff Member

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    The context for Silver Stackers is that in the past, members have uploaded photos of bullion for sale, complete with GPS coordinates in EXIF data of residential addresses.

    Turn off location services for your camera!
     
  11. Honestcoins

    Honestcoins New Member

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    Is there a how-to on turning off location services on my iphone? That's scary as hell
     
  12. Honestcoins

    Honestcoins New Member

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    nevermind, found it.

    settings-->general-->restrictions-->enable restrictions-->make password-->location-->camera off
     
  13. Lucky

    Lucky Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Is it just iphones?
     
  14. Honestcoins

    Honestcoins New Member

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    apparently any modern camera can have this technology. A lot of them seem to..
     
  15. kram

    kram New Member

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  16. goldpelican

    goldpelican Administrator Staff Member

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    There's a handy EXIF viewer for Firefox as well for double checking your uploads.
     

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