... what's contained in the photo?

Lettuce photo prompts firing of Burger King worker



Upon further minimal research on your favorite Wikipedia and mine:


Spooky.

Clever (or paranoid) people delete all information contained in the picture file, like date, time, type of camera, with a program like irfanview (it's free and highly recommended) before posting the photo. This would also scrub any gps data.

How to view the EXIF data on your photos to see if they tell your location:

I like Jeffrey Friedl's tool, because you can drag it to your bookmarks bar. Then whenever you're viewing a photo online, click the link and see all the EXIF in readable format.

Here's a photo of Molly Polly Puddytat on this glorious July morn:



And here's the EXIF, which as you can see contains entries for GPS info, but no actual location specified. If you post your own photos on the Toobz, you might want to check this.

There's also an extension for Firefox: FxIF (works on Linux, Mac, Windows)

Slightly less readable by non-geekaronies but still containing all the info
(and you can upload from your computer if you don't have a way to post your photo on the Toobz)
(but this will not work on an 'attachment' to a post on Fogbow): a tool from WiseGeek

Tried that.

What you have to do is:

• Open in IrfanView.
  
• Save as ==► a new file
  
• Select ==► both "Show options dialog" AND "Details" checkboxes
  
• The first time you do this, the image will not save as a new file. Instead, your Save As is saved with the new options selected.
  
• The second time you try to save as, the "Details" dialog box will appear, with one option being "Keep original EXIF data".
  
• Uncheck that box, and save as a new file.
  
  The new file will not have EXIF. To test this, open the new file in IrfanView and click Image ==► Information.

A levitating cat?

Foggy, we are so lucky to have you! You are an AWESOME educator. (Yesterday I learned about the 10 minute e-mail thing. It's always something new from you!)

Many GPS packages for smartphones (I have TomTom) can be programmed to snag the GPS data from a picture automatically and give you directions there. So if I want to be able to get back to some place, I just take a picture of it and use it to generate directions, without even needing to know the address.

In any event, 4chan (and even sicker places now that 4chan is if not respectable at least more approaching mainstream) is like a moat full of sociopathic, high IQ piranhas. If you even post a normal picture, some wacko will try to track you down just for the hell of it. If you post a picture of you doing something incredibly stupid, you will get dozens of people tracking you down. If you are beyond incredibly stupid and post something with embedded GPS data, God had better have mercy on you cause these fuckers will not.

However, even without GPS data, it is eerie how a large group of determined people can find someone from the tiniest clues. It is also funny how a group of people, who often pride themselves on being virtually psychopaths and committing heinous acts against random strangers for little to no reason, become absolutely outraged at someone abusing a cat or a dog. Google "Dusty the Cat" for just one example of how animal abuse was avenged.

Note: cameras with a GPS chip will usually have an setting to enable / disable geotagging. As for smartphones, check out wich camera app you are using, some will have an option setting for geotagging. Others do not and will always rag. Depending your smartphone use, deactivate the GPS device (also saves battery life). Hint: some smartphones will try and deduct a geolocation from your current ip address (wich generalloy is totally unreliable).

Chili dog, she's a hovercat.

Okay, just so I have this straight... If I follow the above steps, I'll be able to post photos online of me stepping on food in my restaurant and they ("the man") won't be able to find me?

Only if you job at Burger King and all their kitchens match one another