Personal Safety: A reminder for forum participants

[Groundhog]

What about geotaging? Anyone read this article on the NYTimes today?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/te...e&ref=homepage

Who knew that pictures taken with a "smart" phone (iPhone, Blackberry etc) contain a tag that shows your exact latitude/longitude via a "geotag" embedded in the photo? Post them here or in any other website and, presto, your exact location pops up to knowleadgable (or devious) people.

Scary!

[SadieKate]

Thanks for the link! I tested a Facebook pic that I had taken with a GPS and, as the article said, FB strips the EXIF info. I'll sure keep that in mind though for other sites I may post to.

[Antaresia]

While I do like to keep all my handles, e-mails, and avatars separate for most of the different boards I'm on, I've only ever had one account for posting photos (photobucket, but it could be anything). I recently found out, since my account name was a unique non-sense word, that if you google it EVERY site I have ever posted a picture on pops up. Everything.

I would suggest googling your e-mail address, user name, and any image upload accounts you have to see what pops up. If you aren't comfortable with it (I sure wasn't!) change it to something more common. My new photobucket account is Candoia - like my user name here, the only thing google will regurgitate is snakes.

I was once able to find out someones exact birthday by googling their e-mail address. They had used the same e-mail to sign up to an equestrian board where they posted their exact dob. They hadn't even visited the site in years. The internet is forever....

[Catrin]

The internet is indeed forever...and thanks for the reminder. I just searched for the two main email addresses I use and am fine with that I found. This is one of the reason I removed myself from most actual email subscription years ago, those things stay forever and a day.

[OakLeaf]

Not long ago I searched my name on one of the popular free background check sites and it returned the address of someone I used to know, the friendship did not end well. I think perhaps the reason my name is associated with his address is that my ex-husband may have co-signed for a credit card for him. It really creeped me out.

[rebeccaC]

What about geotaging? Anyone read this article on the NYTimes today?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/te...e&ref=homepage

Who knew that pictures taken with a "smart" phone (iPhone, Blackberry etc) contain a tag that shows your exact latitude/longitude via a "geotag" embedded in the photo? Post them here or in any other website and, presto, your exact location pops up to knowleadgable (or devious) people.

Scary!

That’s a good warning! It’s easy to turn off geotagging on camera phones if someone feels the need. On the iphone it’s, settings, privacy, location services…off. For my digital photos I also export images out of Lightroom with no metadata location info attached.