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Feature Request: Remove (part of) EXIF data on pictures


Kalkendotters

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More and more photocameras include EXIF data (like e.g. the Oregon 550(T), Apple iPhone 3GS). In that data there are a lot of nice info's: author, camera model, shutter speed; but also less nice things like: serial number and GPS location.

So if you make a photo of the cache you also record the exact position of the place where you made the foto; which is nice for your personal archive.

Most people are unaware this information is also included when you upload the photo to geocaching.com, probably giving away the endpoint of a 5-star mysterie cache.

 

Could we have an option on uploading a photo to remove the EXIF info (default checked); either all EXIF info, or at least the GPS position?

Or after uploading get a warning when GPS location is included and the option to remove it ?

 

[edit: added iPhone]

Edited by Kalkendotters
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That kind of post processing of uploaded files will add quite a burden to a simple upload and storage program.

 

Also keep in mind some puzzles are solved by using exif data.

Its not a simple upload and store. GC does do processing to reduce size and some things like that, to strip the exif data at that same point would not be hardly any burden. Assuming they are using some 3rd party tool to do this (and I highly doubt they wrote this themselves), then its probably already an option of that tool.

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Most people are unaware this information is also included when you upload the photo to geocaching.com, probably giving away the endpoint of a 5-star mysterie cache.
If most people are unaware, is it really a problem?

 

But.. They know it now... and when the word is spread.. hold your hors(es) :rolleyes:

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I'm curious about why the coordinates would be the piece of data that would bother you the most. Are you concerned (and perhaps rightfully so) that pictures taken at the final of a puzzle or multi cache could give away the placement of that final? Aside from that, I can't see why the coordinates might be an issue.

 

What specifically are your concerns about the other data?

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The main concern is you give away the (almost) location of the final hiding place. And we all know when you are close it is mostly easy to spot the actual cache.

 

But then again, one does not need to watch a spoiler. It is just in case of a difficult mystery not nice for the cache-owner

 

The post finds it origin on the Dutch forum. I could post a link here, but most of you propably will not be able to read the Dutch I guess.

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That kind of post processing of uploaded files will add quite a burden to a simple upload and storage program.

 

Also keep in mind some puzzles are solved by using exif data.

Its not a simple upload and store. GC does do processing to reduce size and some things like that, to strip the exif data at that same point would not be hardly any burden. Assuming they are using some 3rd party tool to do this (and I highly doubt they wrote this themselves), then its probably already an option of that tool.

It is a simple upload and store if your photo was within thier parameters - mine always are.

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That kind of post processing of uploaded files will add quite a burden to a simple upload and storage program.

 

Also keep in mind some puzzles are solved by using exif data.

Its not a simple upload and store. GC does do processing to reduce size and some things like that, to strip the exif data at that same point would not be hardly any burden. Assuming they are using some 3rd party tool to do this (and I highly doubt they wrote this themselves), then its probably already an option of that tool.

It is a simple upload and store if your photo was within thier parameters - mine always are.

But they still would have to run it through the image tools to make sure its "within their parameters", so the tools are called either way.

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I fail to see the problem with including EXIF data. There are free 3rd party programs (I've used imagemagick with great success) that will strip EXIF data and embedded thumbnails and such from images but I did that for a multimedia gallery for KSC to improve throughput since we hosted tens of thousands of images.

 

Anyway, the EXIF data is something you have to go and look for. The GC gallery is not displaying any EXIF data by default so, just like an encrypted hint, you have to do something to retrieve the information. For the images on GC, I would have to download the image to my system and then run some kind of tool on it such as thumber, or photoshop to see the embedded data.

 

The way I see it, if someone goes to the trouble of digging out the EXIF data for the purpose of finding a cache, it is no different than decrypting a hint or asking the last finder for a hint.

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I fail to see the problem with including EXIF data. There are free 3rd party programs (I've used imagemagick with great success) that will strip EXIF data and embedded thumbnails and such from images but I did that for a multimedia gallery for KSC to improve throughput since we hosted tens of thousands of images.

 

Anyway, the EXIF data is something you have to go and look for. The GC gallery is not displaying any EXIF data by default so, just like an encrypted hint, you have to do something to retrieve the information. For the images on GC, I would have to download the image to my system and then run some kind of tool on it such as thumber, or photoshop to see the embedded data.

 

The way I see it, if someone goes to the trouble of digging out the EXIF data for the purpose of finding a cache, it is no different than decrypting a hint or asking the last finder for a hint.

 

The hint is provided by the cache owner himself. So in that case the cache owner is WILLING to share this info with every-one.

The GPS-EXIF info in some finder's logpicture is something the owner is NOT WILLING to give away.

That's a very large difference in my opinion.

 

To me as a cache owner there is no difference whatsoever between writing down the final coords of a 5 star mystery cache in your log (which is widely unaccepted) and telling the rough final coords by uploading a non-spoilering close-up picture of the cache itself made by a geotagging camera or GPS like the 550(T) (which most people are not aware of).

In both cases my 5 star mystery has been degraded to a different (2-star?) problem which I didn't mean to design that way, and which I didn't want to be solved that way.

The mystery would have been spoiled in both cases.

I would even consider to archive it if it were to be so...

 

The great problem right now is that most owners of geotagging GPS and cellphones don't know they are providing GPS coordinates by uploading their pictures.

This way a 5-star mystery can be given away undeliberately by someone uploading a picture with his log, made by an oregon 550.

 

It would be great if more people would be aware of the fact that with geotagging hardware also unwanted GPS coordinates are uploaded. No problem in case of a traditional cache, not so nice in case of a nifty 5-star mystery (just as an example).

 

Perhaps someone (Groundspeak?) has a great idea to raise awareness of this fact (e.g. by designing a logo "please no geotagged pictures with your log"), but it would even be greater if there was an option like kalkendotters suggested to delete the EXIF-info when uploading your picture.

Standard choice: "yes, delete all (coords-related) EXIF when uploading this picture".

Optional choice: "no, keep all EXIF info when uploading this picture" for instance when you are the cache owner yourself and you designed a mystery that can only be solved with help from that EXIF info.

 

Greetz Bloodwoosj.

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The hint is provided by the cache owner himself. So in that case the cache owner is WILLING to share this info with every-one.

The GPS-EXIF info in some finder's logpicture is something the owner is NOT WILLING to give away.

That's a very large difference in my opinion.

 

To me as a cache owner there is no difference whatsoever between writing down the final coords of a 5 star mystery cache in your log (which is widely unaccepted) and telling the rough final coords by uploading a non-spoilering close-up picture of the cache itself made by a geotagging camera or GPS like the 550(T) (which most people are not aware of).

In both cases my 5 star mystery has been degraded to a different (2-star?) problem which I didn't mean to design that way, and which I didn't want to be solved that way.

The mystery would have been spoiled in both cases.

I would even consider to archive it if it were to be so...

 

The great problem right now is that most owners of geotagging GPS and cellphones don't know they are providing GPS coordinates by uploading their pictures.

This way a 5-star mystery can be given away undeliberately by someone uploading a picture with his log, made by an oregon 550.

 

It would be great if more people would be aware of the fact that with geotagging hardware also unwanted GPS coordinates are uploaded. No problem in case of a traditional cache, not so nice in case of a nifty 5-star mystery (just as an example).

 

Perhaps someone (Groundspeak?) has a great idea to raise awareness of this fact (e.g. by designing a logo "please no geotagged pictures with your log"), but it would even be greater if there was an option like kalkendotters suggested to delete the EXIF-info when uploading your picture.

Standard choice: "yes, delete all (coords-related) EXIF when uploading this picture".

Optional choice: "no, keep all EXIF info when uploading this picture" for instance when you are the cache owner yourself and you designed a mystery that can only be solved with help from that EXIF info.

 

Greetz Bloodwoosj.

 

I understand what you are saying. However, in the case of a hint from the owner, the gecocacher must make a decision that he/she wants to see the hint. It is just a link to decrypt the hint so it is very easy but still a conscious decision for the searcher. In the case of geotagged photos, it is still a conscious decision but is much harder to retrieve information from.

 

I think the best alternative (and most easily executed) is for the owner to request that no pictures be posted. Most geocachers would probably respect that request and abide by it. Another alternative would be to allow the cache owner the opportunity to remove photos from the gallery associated with his/her cache.

 

I think the first alternative is the best. Even if the owner could delete a photo which gave away the final cache, the gecocacher could still post links and such to a gallery on dgrin, smugmug, pbase, flickr that the cache owner could do nothing about. Seems the best thing is to simply ask people to not do it. Removing EXIF data doesn't appear to be an option as that data is sometimes part of the puzzle so I'm trying to think up alternate ideas is all.

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I've got to admit that, for the purposes given (mystery cache types) this request makes sense to me. The cache owner has no control over what EXIF data is contained in pictures that the finders upload to the gallery, aside from the usual control of deleting logs that contain spoilers. Trying to explain to many folks that you deleted their log because an uploaded picture was a spoiler because of something called EXIF data might be a tad difficult, to say the least.

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I've got to admit that, for the purposes given (mystery cache types) this request makes sense to me. The cache owner has no control over what EXIF data is contained in pictures that the finders upload to the gallery, aside from the usual control of deleting logs that contain spoilers. Trying to explain to many folks that you deleted their log because an uploaded picture was a spoiler because of something called EXIF data might be a tad difficult, to say the least.

You've anticipated what I was going to say.

 

It seems to me that this is no different than any other spoiler in a log. The cache owner can delete the log if it contains a spoiler and can ask the person to relog the cache without the spoiler. I would've have said there is no reason for anything beyond what the current system provides except for the point knowschad makes. How do you explain to someone who doesn't realize that his picture contains EXIF data that reveals the cache location that you've deleted their log because it has a spoiler? And if you can explain that, the person may not have the tools needed to remove the EXIF data in order to post the photo without the spoiler.

 

My guess however is that just because it is hard to explain to someone why a inoccuous photo from the cache site might be a spoiler and even harder to explain to someone how to fix the problem if they still want to include the photo, TPTB will see the current ability to delete spoiler logs as sufficient.

 

My personal view is that if someone wants to cheat take a shortcut to get the answer to a puzzle they are only cheating themselves out of the satisfaction of solving the puzzle. A the owner of several puzzle caches, I long ago decided not to worry about how somebody got the coordinates to of caches. Those who enjoy solving a challenging puzzle will take the time to solve it. So long as the spoilers can be avoided by a person wanting to solve the puzzle, I have no problem with them.

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I've just spent way too much time looking at puzzle caches in my area. I haven't kept count, but its been a lot. Only three of them have contained images uploaded by finders, and none of those three have contained coordinates (NUTS!!). Obviously, EXIF data containing coordinates is a recent thing, and only when the photos were taken with select devices, but based only on my own examination of my own area, this does not seem to be a big concern at this time.

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I've just spent way too much time looking at puzzle caches in my area. I haven't kept count, but its been a lot. Only three of them have contained images uploaded by finders, and none of those three have contained coordinates (NUTS!!). Obviously, EXIF data containing coordinates is a recent thing, and only when the photos were taken with select devices, but based only on my own examination of my own area, this does not seem to be a big concern at this time.

That probably the overridding issue at this point. I would guess that precious very few photos uploaded to the site contain the data in question. I would venture to guess 1% or less.

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I've just spent way too much time looking at puzzle caches in my area. I haven't kept count, but its been a lot. Only three of them have contained images uploaded by finders, and none of those three have contained coordinates (NUTS!!). Obviously, EXIF data containing coordinates is a recent thing, and only when the photos were taken with select devices, but based only on my own examination of my own area, this does not seem to be a big concern at this time.

Alas, my investigation shows otherwise in my area (Netherlands,Germany,Belgium).

Almost everyone owning let's say an Oregon 550(T) has uploaded pictures with a part of their logs and with quite a number of multi caches (it's very commonly seen here that multi's are walks of up to 15 kilometers) and also with a substantial number of mystery caches it's quite easy to find someone between all those tens of logs that has uploaded a geotagged picture.

 

It's not the fact that let's say only 1% is geotagged which is a problem.

It's just a matter of time until EVERY mystery (or multi) has at least one spoilering geotagged photo containing very accurate final coordinates. And as with written logs too, one log containing the final coordinates is sufficient to spoil a cache completely.

 

That's why I first raised the question on the Dutch forum., which (thanks!) kalkendotters has transferred to the Groundspeak forum.

If this thread just enlarges awareness of people using geotagging photodevices like (some) cellphones and orgeons 550(T), then I would be happy (a bit...)

But I completely agree to kalkendotters suggestion in the opening post of this thread to have an option to get rid of the EXIF when uploading a log-picture.

Greetz Bloodwoosj.

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I would guess that precious very few photos uploaded to the site contain the data in question. I would venture to guess 1% or less.

That's probably true, but anything taken with an iPhone, Droid or most other new smartphones will be geotagged. Also, with the iPhone app soon to support direct photo uploading to the site (and probably the Android app too), the number of geotagged photos will probably rise.

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More and more photocameras include EXIF data (like e.g. the Oregon 550(T), Apple iPhone 3GS). In that data there are a lot of nice info's: author, camera model, shutter speed; but also less nice things like: serial number and GPS location.

So if you make a photo of the cache you also record the exact position of the place where you made the foto; which is nice for your personal archive.

Most people are unaware this information is also included when you upload the photo to geocaching.com, probably giving away the endpoint of a 5-star mysterie cache.

 

Could we have an option on uploading a photo to remove the EXIF info (default checked); either all EXIF info, or at least the GPS position?

Or after uploading get a warning when GPS location is included and the option to remove it ?

 

[edit: added iPhone]

 

I don't believe this would be a good idea. As others have pointed out, EXIF is used from time to time for puzzle caches. It's easy enough to purge your own EXIF from pictures you take. Why not simply do so as part of your process before uploading?

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More and more photocameras include EXIF data (like e.g. the Oregon 550(T), Apple iPhone 3GS). In that data there are a lot of nice info's: author, camera model, shutter speed; but also less nice things like: serial number and GPS location.

So if you make a photo of the cache you also record the exact position of the place where you made the foto; which is nice for your personal archive.

Most people are unaware this information is also included when you upload the photo to geocaching.com, probably giving away the endpoint of a 5-star mysterie cache.

 

Could we have an option on uploading a photo to remove the EXIF info (default checked); either all EXIF info, or at least the GPS position?

Or after uploading get a warning when GPS location is included and the option to remove it ?

 

[edit: added iPhone]

 

I don't believe this would be a good idea. As others have pointed out, EXIF is used from time to time for puzzle caches. It's easy enough to purge your own EXIF from pictures you take. Why not simply do so as part of your process before uploading?

 

The answer to why not do it yourself is simple: most people are not aware of the fact they are uploading geotagged pictures, why would they bother to get rid of the EIF if they don't even know what EXIF is...

Greetz Bloodwoosj.

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.....

The answer to why not do it yourself is simple: most people are not aware of the fact they are uploading geotagged pictures, why would they bother to get rid of the EIF if they don't even know what EXIF is...

Greetz Bloodwoosj.

Conversely - the exact same vast majority of folks won't know to look at EXIF data for possile spoilers once posted.......

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.....

The answer to why not do it yourself is simple: most people are not aware of the fact they are uploading geotagged pictures, why would they bother to get rid of the EIF if they don't even know what EXIF is...

Greetz Bloodwoosj.

Conversely - the exact same vast majority of folks won't know to look at EXIF data for possile spoilers once posted.......

Also true, but as I stated before, cache-owners will not like the fact that more and more people will be able to find their mysteries and long multis by means of innocent and unknowing people logging their caches and uploading geotagged pictures, thus enabling other people to find their cache in a manner they hadn't foreseen and do not like.

Greetz Bloodwoosj.

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.....

The answer to why not do it yourself is simple: most people are not aware of the fact they are uploading geotagged pictures, why would they bother to get rid of the EIF if they don't even know what EXIF is...

Greetz Bloodwoosj.

Conversely - the exact same vast majority of folks won't know to look at EXIF data for possile spoilers once posted.......

If 10% know how to look at EXIF data to steal mystery coordinates, that's 10% too much.

 

It's hardly rocket science. There are numerous add-ons for firefox that not only automate this for you, it will show you the location in Google Maps.

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Also true, but as I stated before, cache-owners will not like the fact that more and more people will be able to find their mysteries and long multis by means of innocent and unknowing people logging their caches and uploading geotagged pictures, thus enabling other people to find their cache in a manner they hadn't foreseen and do not like.

Greetz Bloodwoosj.

You may not have heard of Will Shortz. Will Shortz is the crossword puzzle editor of the New York Times and also is featured on a weekly show on National Public Radio here in the U.S. On that show, a contestant is chosen from the people who have sent in the answer to a puzzle given on the previous week's show. That contestent has to solve some puzzles on the air in real time. If that person is struggling, Will Shortz wil give out hints till the person gets the answer. The host of the show, Liane Hansen, will sometimes provide her own hints and sometimes she blurts out an answer. I have never heard Will Shortz get angry with Liane Hansen for giving out hints or even the answers to puzzles. The reason seems clear. Will Shortz has given this puzzle for the contestant to have fun with - not to struggle or suffer over not knowing the answer. If the contestant is stuggling, he helps. If Liane feels that a spoiler is needed to keep the show moving and the contestant from floundering, Will has no problem. If Will Shortz can accept that others may give out spoilers on his puzzles, I don't see why puzzle cache owners should feel any differently. The puzzle is out there for people to enjoy. If you enjoy looking at photos to see if it is geotagged more than trying to work a puzzle so be it. If you enjoy looking at photos to see if it is geotagged and use that to help you figure out how the puzzle worked, that's fine too. And if you prefer to work the puzzle without a spoiler, then don't look at the EXIF data of the photos. You may not even want to look a the the logs because there might be a spoiler there too.

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Also true, but as I stated before, cache-owners will not like the fact that more and more people will be able to find their mysteries and long multis by means of innocent and unknowing people logging their caches and uploading geotagged pictures, thus enabling other people to find their cache in a manner they hadn't foreseen and do not like.

Greetz Bloodwoosj.

You may not have heard of Will Shortz. Will Shortz is the crossword puzzle editor of the New York Times and also is featured on a weekly show on National Public Radio here in the U.S. On that show, a contestant is chosen from the people who have sent in the answer to a puzzle given on the previous week's show. That contestent has to solve some puzzles on the air in real time. If that person is struggling, Will Shortz wil give out hints till the person gets the answer. The host of the show, Liane Hansen, will sometimes provide her own hints and sometimes she blurts out an answer. I have never heard Will Shortz get angry with Liane Hansen for giving out hints or even the answers to puzzles. The reason seems clear. Will Shortz has given this puzzle for the contestant to have fun with - not to struggle or suffer over not knowing the answer. If the contestant is stuggling, he helps. If Liane feels that a spoiler is needed to keep the show moving and the contestant from floundering, Will has no problem. If Will Shortz can accept that others may give out spoilers on his puzzles, I don't see why puzzle cache owners should feel any differently. The puzzle is out there for people to enjoy. If you enjoy looking at photos to see if it is geotagged more than trying to work a puzzle so be it. If you enjoy looking at photos to see if it is geotagged and use that to help you figure out how the puzzle worked, that's fine too. And if you prefer to work the puzzle without a spoiler, then don't look at the EXIF data of the photos. You may not even want to look a the the logs because there might be a spoiler there too.

 

All right, then why not allow people to post final coords in their logs?

 

Hey, here's the final but you can still solve the puzzle if you want to....

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.....

The answer to why not do it yourself is simple: most people are not aware of the fact they are uploading geotagged pictures, why would they bother to get rid of the EIF if they don't even know what EXIF is...

Greetz Bloodwoosj.

Conversely - the exact same vast majority of folks won't know to look at EXIF data for possile spoilers once posted.......

If 10% know how to look at EXIF data to steal mystery coordinates, that's 10% too much.

 

It's hardly rocket science. There are numerous add-ons for firefox that not only automate this for you, it will show you the location in Google Maps.

Don't get me wrong - I agree with your line of thinking there.

 

However, I think the mere existence of this thread has proably done more to encourage folks to look at EXIF data then were doing it in the first place. Lets not start creating solutions to minor potential issues unless there is actually an issue (beyond some localized area where there are a lot of 550T's and folks that like to both solve puzzles and take photos and then post those photo as part of a log).

 

Seems to me this is best handled currently by an education effort rather than a major change to the website. If we strip out all EXIF - I don't think that is real good but stripping out just certain tags may or may not accomplish all you want either.

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Don't get me wrong - I agree with your line of thinking there.

 

However, I think the mere existence of this thread has proably done more to encourage folks to look at EXIF data then were doing it in the first place. Lets not start creating solutions to minor potential issues unless there is actually an issue (beyond some localized area where there are a lot of 550T's and folks that like to both solve puzzles and take photos and then post those photo as part of a log).

 

Seems to me this is best handled currently by an education effort rather than a major change to the website. If we strip out all EXIF - I don't think that is real good but stripping out just certain tags may or may not accomplish all you want either.

Currently, owners can't even delete an image without also deleting the parent log. There needs to be better image management for cache owners. They should be allowed to delete spoiler images, and any images with GPS EXIF data should be tagged as such, with an option to remove the info if it's a spoiler. But this should be under the cache owner's control, not an automated system.

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I don't know about removing automatically, but it is an eye opener for me. My new Blackberry Tour 9630 geotags images by default (I can turn it off which may be one option for me). I will be sure to remove or exclude coordinate information before posting images at mystery caches or multi finals.

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wow, quite a discussion...can someone post a link to some of these geotagged photos on Geocaching.com, so those of us who haven't seen then can understand? As far as I seem there are several other more important things to fix in the photo hosting spectrum. Where do these details appear when looking at these photos??

Maybe someone can supply one on Groundspeak, but I used google to search and found one on picasa.

 

Image taken from car on freeway

 

If you have the right tools, you can see the geotagged coordinates. I like the FxIF addon (for Firefox).

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If you have the right tools, you can see the geotagged coordinates. I like the FxIF addon (for Firefox).

 

I haven't tried that one. I use Exif Viewer for Firefox. It is great since you can jump right to google maps or google earth and see the exact spot the picture was taken.

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If you have the right tools, you can see the geotagged coordinates. I like the FxIF addon (for Firefox).

 

I haven't tried that one. I use Exif Viewer for Firefox. It is great since you can jump right to google maps or google earth and see the exact spot the picture was taken.

I use both, since they don't conflict with each other, and while FxIF gives you just the essential stuff, sometimes it fails to decode, or you need all the gory details, and that's when Exif Viewer saves the day.

 

FxIF gives you a link to, strangely, OpenStreetMap, but it should be relatively straightforward to change it to Google Maps. It replaces the usual "Properties" dialog box to give extra info in the dialog box. And because "Properties" is always the last item when you right click on an image, I don't need to find the position for "View Image EXIF Data".

 

Give it a try.

Edited by Chrysalides
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In addition to being a potential source of cache coordinates, the EXIF information in photos can also be a problem for privacy. I always make sure to remove it from my photos before I upload them, but in the past I was less careful.

 

Does anyone know if EXIF information is only retained for those photos that gc.com does NOT transcode (i.e. those with width < 600 or size > 125kB)?

 

If the gc.com transcoding process preserves the EXIF information, it shoudl be a trivial fix for them to have it removed.

 

Personally, I like having the ability to leave EXIF information in pictures available to gc.com; I've seen it used in a few puzzles.

 

Hmm... maybe I could intentionally put bad coords into pics of puzzle caches?

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an option on uploading a photo to remove the EXIF info (default checked); either all EXIF info, or at least the GPS position?

Or after uploading get a warning when GPS location is included and the option to remove it ?

 

Thanks for starting this thread.

 

I checked the gallery on a couple of multis in my area. Sure enough, there are pics of the triumphant finders. Careful to move away from the precise hide location, but the coords are in the EXIF data. Power search!

 

This is going to snowball as more people use devices that include the data and more people realize that it may be in available in the gallery. ( :blink: Hey, finally I can get to some of those puzzles I've been ignoring.)

 

I hope this gets onto the "to do" list.

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Most people are unaware this information is also included when you upload the photo to geocaching.com, probably giving away the endpoint of a 5-star mysterie cache.

Can you give an example photo?

 

When I first saw a similar thread, I checked some of my own pics, and it looked like GC had corrupted the "EXIF" data on them, regardless of size. The ones linked from my web site, so not processed by GC, were the only ones that still had coordinates in them (or any EXIF info).

 

== EDIT ==

The photos I take with my Canon G6 camera (often in "RAW" mode) still have the EXIF intact (at least in the large views), and this is after I've cropped and resized them for uploading to GC. The ones I took with my Garmin Oregon 550T GPS have a blank EXIF file, once uploaded to geocaching.com, where the photo gets "processed", renamed, and rather grainy.

 

If the EXIF doesn't transfer with the image, it's not an issue from me. I don't bring the Canon with me now. One less thing to carry. The pictures on the Oregon are pretty crummy, but I can live with that. Looks like I can upload most any shot from the Oregon, and the EXIF doesn't transfer. Here are 2 recent photos, taken with the Garmin Oregon 550T. I can't get a readable EXIF using either Firefox or IrfanView:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/gallery.asp...10-a08741c737ab

Edited by kunarion
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.....

The answer to why not do it yourself is simple: most people are not aware of the fact they are uploading geotagged pictures, why would they bother to get rid of the EIF if they don't even know what EXIF is...

Greetz Bloodwoosj.

Conversely - the exact same vast majority of folks won't know to look at EXIF data for possile spoilers once posted.......

There was a time when most people didn't know to look at the HTML source on puzzles for the hints, either. Word spreads quickly, though.
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OK, all I see is the image...you need special tools to see the offending extra data? Are we really saying that this is a Problem?? How about the fact that I never know when anyone has uploaded an image to a log on one of my owned items?? Isn't that a more important thing to fix??
The freeware viewer, Irfanview, has a plug-in that will display EXIF data. I have two versions of Paintshop Pro that will display it, and there are many, many more.

 

 

I personally don't see this as a HUGE problem, but I do see it as something that will become an issue in the future. Geotagged photos are commonplace these days, and becoming more so every day as GPS & camera enabled devices (smart phones, new generation GPSrs, GPS enabled cameras) become more commonplace.

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I'm also in favour of this option. It's not only the person uploading the photo who may not know that the EXIF data gives away the location; the cache owner has the same problem. I can think of plenty of cache owners who will really get stressed about this. They will be monitoring their cache listing every day to see if new photos have been uploaded (no notification about that), then they'll feel obliged to download the photo, run some EXIF tool which they found on the net, etc.

 

My suggestion: strip EXIF data by default. If the photo uploaded checks a box to say "please keep all the EXIF data on this image", then the site could append "(EXIF data present)" to the images name, or perhaps superimpose an exclamation mark on the thumbnail, when the cache owner (only) is viewing the gallery. (If the default is to strip the EXIF data, then potential "pirates" will know that they are likely to be in for a substantial amount of boring work, not that this stops everybody. :P)

Edited by sTeamTraen
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Personally I rate this issue as "ho hum".

 

No one has yet been able to explain to me why I, as a cache owner, should care if someone finds my puzzle using some method other than the one I intended. In a case like this someone clearly went through the work of checking all of the images in the cache gallery to see if one contained EXIF data because they wanted to solve the puzzle that way, and I'm frankly OK with that.

 

It's the same thing when automated coordinate checkers come up -- "people can brute force the puzzle". Oh well, as long as they had to make an effort to solve the puzzle that way and it wasn't spoiled for them, I don't care.

 

It's the difference between someone asking a previous finder for a solution and someone just blurting out a solution. In this first case someone choose to spoil the puzzle for themselves; in the second case someone spoiled it for them.

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Personally I rate this issue as "ho hum".

No one has yet been able to explain to me why I, as a cache owner, should care if someone finds my puzzle using some method other than the one I intended.

There are others that have puzzle caches, too. They may care about something that you don't care about.
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Personally I rate this issue as "ho hum".

No one has yet been able to explain to me why I, as a cache owner, should care if someone finds my puzzle using some method other than the one I intended.

There are others that have puzzle caches, too. They may care about something that you don't care about.

Perhaps, but I agree with DanOCan, if you care about that you're caring about the wrong thing. I care about whether the people whose choose to do one of my caches will enjoy it. If they aren't going to enjoy it, they can either skip my cache or they kind find a way to make it enjoyable. If looking at the EXIF data is more enjoyable than solving the puzzle the "intended" way, more power to them.

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wow, quite a discussion...can someone post a link to some of these geotagged photos on Geocaching.com, so those of us who haven't seen then can understand? As far as I seem there are several other more important things to fix in the photo hosting spectrum. Where do these details appear when looking at these photos??

All the images attached to this log are geotagged (no spoilers here).

 

It's a simple context menu option to view the EXIF data, with the appropriate Firefox add-in (there are a number of them).

 

20100108204451.png

 

Which reveals, among other things, the coordinates, with handy links to display the location on various maps sites.

 

20100108204608.png

 

It's not rocket science.

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It's not rocket science.

Nope...it's Computer Science. I don't have that option to see all those things. Then again, I'm just one of those guys who turns the thing on and uses it the way it came.

Perhaps you're an outlier, but most geocachers seem to be a bit more tech-savvy than the average person. To have these options requires nothing more than clicking a few links. It's not rocket science. Or computer science.

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