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Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens
In 2014, Facebook filed a patent application for a technique that employs smartphone data to figure out if two people might know each other. The author, an engineering manager at Facebook named Ben Chen, wrote that it was not merely possible to detect that two smartphones were in the same place at the same time, but that by comparing the accelerometer and gyroscope readings of each phone, the data could identify when people were facing each other or walking together. That way, Facebook could suggest you friend the person you were talking to at a bar last night, and not all the other people there that you chose not to talk to. Facebook says it hasn't put this technique into practice.
[...] Patents filed by Facebook that mention People You May Know show some ingenious methods that Facebook has devised for figuring out that seeming strangers on the network might know each other. One filed in 2015 describes a technique that would connect two people through the camera metadata associated with the photos they uploaded. It might assume two people knew each other if the images they uploaded looked like they were titled in the same series of photos—IMG_4605739.jpg and IMG_4605742, for example—or if lens scratches or dust were detectable in the same spots on the photos, revealing the photos were taken by the same camera.
[...] The technological analysis in some of the patents is pretty astounding, but it could well be wishful thinking on Facebook's part.
Vera Ranieri, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who focuses on intellectual property, hasn't reviewed these specific patents but said generally that the U.S. Patent Office doesn't ensure that a technology actually works before granting a patent.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07 2019, @01:36PM (8 children)
But people know about that metadata, and it is documented how that metadata is stored, and thus it is easy to get rid of it if you want to. The physical fingerprinting may be harder to remove (OK, dust on your lens generally is pretty easily removed, as long as it is outside; however the very fact that you are regularly cleaning your lens in a world where most people don't may also help to identify you — not to mention that you are more likely to introduce characteristic scratches that way).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Monday January 07 2019, @02:17PM
I suppose if you only use the camera for the nefarious purpose, there is no way to fingerprint it physically.
Which seems like it should go without saying. Use a burner phone for illegal activities.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Monday January 07 2019, @03:23PM (6 children)
One of the very first things I implemented in my image processing software was control over the metadata. I figure that when someone shares a chunk of data like an image, (a) they ought to be able to know the details of what it is they are sharing, and (b) they ought to be able to control those details.
For metadata that is broken - such as EXIF - I simply throw it out:
--
Have an urge to follow the masses? Careful:
Sometimes, the "m" is silent.
(Score: 5, Informative) by mmh on Monday January 07 2019, @05:40PM (5 children)
I suspect many on this site know about the "hidden" meta-data in most image formats, but if not, a quick overview.
The command exiftool can be used to view most metadata on an image, and despite it's name, more than just EXIF data.
Images can contain some truly scary data, as the parent post points out (I've modified the GPS location below):
$ exiftool IMG_0100.jpg
...SNIP...
Make : Apple
Camera Model Name : iPhone XS Max
...SNIP...
Acceleration Vector : -0.9981475478 0.01597352512 0.04706366733
...SNIP...
Lens Info : 4.25-6mm f/1.8-2.4
Lens Make : Apple
Lens Model : iPhone XS Max back dual camera 4.25mm f/1.8
...SNIP...
GPS Latitude Ref : North
GPS Longitude Ref : West
GPS Altitude Ref : Above Sea Level
GPS Time Stamp : 03:41:12
GPS Speed Ref : km/h
GPS Speed : 0.06613545865
GPS Img Direction Ref : True North
GPS Img Direction : 136.7193747
GPS Dest Bearing Ref : True North
GPS Dest Bearing : 136.7193747
GPS Date Stamp : 2018:12:31
GPS Altitude : 1373.2 m Above Sea Level
GPS Date/Time : 2018:12:31 03:41:12Z
GPS Latitude : 44 deg 33' 55.33" N
GPS Longitude : 111 deg 55' 5.44" W
GPS Position : 44 deg 33' 55.33" N, 111 deg 55' 5.44" W
GPS Horizontal Positioning Error: 6.32029273 m
The utility ImageMagick (http://www.imagemagick.org/ [imagemagick.org]) provides a very easy way to remove all non-image data from all supported image formats:
$ convert -strip IMG_0100.jpg IMG_0100s.jpg
$ exiftool IMG_0100s.jpg
... All identifying information removed ...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pvanhoof on Monday January 07 2019, @06:08PM (2 children)
Sure, and this information can also be used for good. If you for example have tracker on your GNOME desktop, tracker's metadata extraction will turn all that data into desktop searchable data. Meaning that you can find your files with it using SPARQL queries.
And if you don't like that, you can turn it off.
Basically you can form queries like: give me all pictures that I made with my iPhone while I was in Paris.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/tracker-miners/blob/master/src/tracker-extract/tracker-extract-png.c#L516 [gnome.org]
There is nothing 'strange' about the fact that metadata is contained in files. It can be quite useful. There is little scary about it.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday January 07 2019, @06:57PM (1 child)
That's correct.
Also correct.
That depends entirely on the use case. If you don't understand that, you should start being scared immediately.
--
Some drink from the fountain of knowledge. Others gargle.
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Monday January 07 2019, @07:34PM
Metadata that is well-documented, easy to read and easy to change and/or remove is not very scary. It is, of course, something you have to take into account when handling those images.
It gets scary if you don't know the existence of data, you can't easily check it, or you can't easily remove it.
Note that for most holiday photos the GPS coordinates/camera direction don't reveal anything that isn't revealed also in the image itself. If you photographed the White House, it is quite obvious that you weren't in New York.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:26AM
Make : Apple?
Ah, then don't worry. What goes in your iPhone stays in your iPhone...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday January 08 2019, @06:17AM
Or for Windows, a marvelous tool, JPEGsnoop.
https://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/jpeg-snoop.html [impulseadventure.com]
https://github.com/ImpulseAdventure/JPEGsnoop [github.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.