Manipulating stored geocoordinates in cellphone photos
Programming Snapshot – Go Geofuzzer
Mike Schilli loves his privacy. That's why he's created a Go program that adds a geo-obfuscation layer to cellphone photos before they are published on online platforms to prevent inquisitive minds from inferring the location.
If you sell your stuff online, you might overlook the potential risk of sales-promoting cellphone photos revealing highly sensitive private information. When you take a picture of the goods at home with your cellphone, the image file may also contain the geodata with which the private address can be determined to within a few yards. Large sales platforms generally do not publish this meta-information, but who wants to give away more information than is absolutely necessary on Ebay or Facebook?
The cellphone also erases geodata directly if desired – but then it looks as if the user has something to hide. That's why the self-written Go program in this issue adds a geo-obfuscation layer to image files to make sure that the geocoordinates are randomly blurred. From this, it might be possible to determine the seller's location down to the neighborhood, but not the exact address.
[...]
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Fedora 45 Now Available
The latest iteration of Fedora has arrived with Gnome 51 and KDE Plasma 6.8.
-
Linux 7.4 is "Much Healthier" Thanks to AI
At nearly 42 million lines, Linux 7.4 is the largest merge in the kernel’s history.
-
Working Exploit for a Linux Kernel Flaw Made Public
Even before a bug received its CVE identifier or an upstream fix, the local privilege escalation vulnerability exploit found its way into the wild.
-
r/opensource Bans AI-Assisted and AI-Related Projects
The de facto subreddit for all things open source has not only banned AI-related projects but also users who "don't speak English."
-
Bottlenecks Discovered by Meta Engineers Lead to Scalability Improvements
Thanks to a small group of engineers at Meta, the Linux kernel module kernfs has been improved, which has led to some serious gains.
-
PwnEscape Poses VM Vulnerability
A guest-to-host escape flaw in Linux KVM, named PwnEscape, might be yet another means of attacking Linux.
-
Linux Mint 27 Set for a Christmas Release
The developers behind Linux Mint have announced a Christmas release, and it looks like Santa's sack will be brimming with features.
-
Is Linus Torvalds Vibe Coding?
The creator of Linux has added AI into his process for Linux kernel development, and it's more than just for debugging.
-
openKylin 3.0 Released with Expanded AI Integration
The latest release features a pre-installed AI agent to help perform tasks.
-
DigitalOcean Ends Open Source Credits Program
In a change that has surprised many open source developers, DigitalOcean has decided to sunset its Open Source Credits Program.