The down side of geotagging.......

They fail to mention in the article that one can remove geotags from pics with tools like the free BatchPurifier LITE - http://www.digitalconfidence.com/downloads.html

That was and enliting bit of info. Thanks.

Always has to be something to put a dampener on things.

This modern age of technology has a lot of hidden "gotchas" that a lot of folks aren't aware of.

Thanks for posting it.

I received a pdf file from a retired Army officer warning about this issue. You can see the impact this issue could have on the military.

Acting as a "Devil's Advocate" now..

As a "Bad Guy", you're going to do WHAT with all this hidden info..!!..? Think about it. Put yourself in this "Bad Guy" situation.

You (as a "Bad Guy"), see a bunch of online photos that were taken in the Four Corners area (Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico of the United States), posted on the internet. The photo's are listed under the file heading.. "Four Corners Area".

The hidden information in the JPG's that you're looking at shows the location (as if the photo caption doesn't tell you anyways), date and time the photo's were taken, kind of camera used, etc., etc., etc.

And HOW (as a "Bad Guy"), is all this information going to help you to do WHAT..!!..? I would have to say (seeing I don't have any actual statistics to back up my next numerical comment, so I'm just guessing), that in 99.99% of the cases it's NOT going to do you any good. Here's some real JPEG Exif photo data information.

Creation Date: 09.18.2009
Creation Time: 3:13:33 pm
Dimensions: 2560 x 1920 pixels
Exposure Time: 0.100 (1/10)
JPEG Quality: Unknown
Aperture: f/3.3
Color Mode: Color
Date/Time: 09.18.2009 3:13:33 pm
Flash Used: Off
Focal Length: 6.3mm
ISO Equiv: 100
JPEG Process: Baseline
Camera: Pentax
Metering: Pattern
Model: Pentax Optio WP
Orientation: 1

There's the information (less the photo obviously). It's real. Now tell me.. (as a "Bad Guy"), how any of the following is going to help you do WHATEVER?

So once again (and in most cases), the information is going to harm someone in what way..!!..?

Nuvi1300WTGPS

Maybe you're just one of the millions of lucky ones unconcerned and unaffected by the potential risks--congratulations. For others--particularly children--maybe they're unaware of the options to protect themselves as they use their cell phone cameras and sharing their pictures.

Here's a link to an Army provided slide deck ennumerating some of the issues http://www.slideshare.net/USArmySocialMedia/social-media-rou.... It's likely the one someone else referenced here earlier. Note the examples that come from "real life."

You may not worry about it, I may not worry about it, but if even one person can be harmed by it, it seems to me to be worth publicizing.

Nuvi1300WTGPS, the info you posted is NOT a geo-tag. It only contains info on the camera used to take the picture and the lens/shutter settings used. A geo-tagged picture would also contain the latitude and longitude of the camera. This info could be used to remotely attack the subject of the picture, if it isn't a movable object like a car.

Here's the Geo-Tagged information that I could have added for the Four Corners Area, ie:

Degrees Minutes Seconds:
Latitude: 36-59'56'' N
Longitude: 109-02'43'' W

Decimal Degrees:
Latitude: 36.9989
Longitude: -109.0452

So tell me. You've gleaned this piece of information from my Vacation photos that I took 15 months ago, but just got around to posting recently. How is the above info going to help someone "ATTACK" me at this location?

Right now I'm over a 1,000 plus miles away. Attack away. The only problem is.. you're going to be standing there by yourself, unless you decide to stay there for the rest of your life hoping I might show back up in the next 20 or 30 years.

Once again.. Not trying to argue here, but (in most cases, considering the millions upon millions of photo's that have been taken in the last couple of years), the Geo information won't hardly do a thing for a "Bad Guy".

Nuvi1300WTGPS

I thought you were listing that as an example of a Geo-Tagged pix.

I agree with you that this is another example of "The Sky Is Falling" mentality. People, especially in the government, seem to be looking for things to use to justify sticking their noises into our lives.

I have a spiffy Sony camera that can automatically add the GPS coordinates to the embedded EXIF data in it's pictures. Many of the photo sharing/viewing sites already support this. Want to see where I was when I took this picture? Click the 'View Location' icon above the picture. http://www.jcpics.phanfare.com/4803968_5343393#imageID=10869...

Now suppose I was emailing or posting a family picture from under the Christmas tree and I had forgotten to turn off the GPS function first. Oops! You AND ANYONE ELSE WHO GETS THAT PICTURE now have the precise GPS coordinates to my living room. One of our troops emails a pic from his phone's camera to a friend back home? Oops, we now have his unit's precise GPS coordinates.

There are some potential serious security risks to the inadvertent transmission of location data under the wrong circumstances.

Is the sky falling? No. Is this cool and useful technology? Sure. Can it be dangerous under the wrong circumstances? Of course. And will most people pay attention and turn it on and off when it's appropriate? Probably not.

what's the big deal if others want to publicize the possible dangers? Let them. You can easily go about your life unfettered by such concerns. So if this is much ado about nothing, let it die under its own weight. I see it as 'no harm, no foul.'

Maybe you don't care if your daughter sent photos from her Orlando vacation a while back with her cell phone camera and uploaded them in realtime into twitter or Facebook. Then you wouldn't be concerned about the site http://icanstalku.com/ either.

Actually, I don't worry about it either, but then again, I don't load any pics in realtime or otherwise to websites.

Now that is scary.........

It is your choice.