A Picture is worth a thousand words

People that post pictures on the internet may not be aware of the information contained in the picture. There is information in there that contains what kind of camera they used, if they used a flash, shutter speed all the camera settings for that picture.  It can also contain coordinate information such as latitude and longitude coordinates or cell phone tower coordinates.  Some modern cell phone and digital cameras also contain a GPS device. These coordinates can help pinpoint where that picture was taken.  A sexual predator, old boy/girl friend, could find a picture of you on the internet in your home and with the coordinate information could pin point where you live. 

The place where information about the picture is stored is called the EXIF Header.  One other item contained in the EXIF Header is author.  This could be your name if that is what you set on your camera or cell phone.  These kinds of photos are called geocoded photographs.

Many people take pictures with their cell phone or digital camera and post them on the internet to sites like Myspace.com, bodybuilding.com, etc. are unaware of the additional information on the picture.  Some site, however strip out the EXIF Header information when you upload your image.  My Space appears to do this. 

You can download free software called irfanview that will allow you to read the EXIF Header of a Jpeg image.  You can use this software to check the information on your pictures.

Find software that will strip the EXIF Header out of the jpeg before posting it to the web site. One such product can be tried for free here http://www.picmeta.com/download.htm

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