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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 25 Jul 2011 Posts: 5

Sorry fellow scam baiters I know this is the wrong section, but this needs everyone's attention, your kids may be in danger:

http://www.ip-address-lookup-v4.com/article/smart%20phones%20privacy%20risk.php

this is pretty freakin' crazy! Wonder if we can track down scammers like that too. This they use bbs and iphones there? Smile

)

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 7:13 am

Yeah, I think your right.

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 8:34 am

the reporters seemed almost happy about another story of TERROR AND FEAR, im sure this aint as simple as they make out. NBC/ABC news really annoy me.

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 9:42 am

419hammer wrote:

I know this is the wrong section

I think "general chat" would have been the place Wink

This is a very worrying development that everyone, especially parents of young children should take note of.
Another Orwellian step. I don't see what made the phone manufacturers think that it was a good idea to pre-enable this. Neutral

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 11:41 am

Moved to GC from main.

Quote:

im sure this aint as simple as they make out.

As much as I hate to be the one promoting paranoia, it actually can be that easy. While the location in the EXIF data isn't always exact, it can be. Most of the pictures in my phone are pretty much exact. The one's that aren't are only off by a few blocks. Pictures I took of my son in his school play are extremely accurate.

This is the GPS info in a picture I took a while back (actually the exact date and time down the the second is also in the exif data)

Quote:

GPS-encoded location: 34° 2' 35"N, 118° 15' 59"W

I think I was actually more towards the center of the building but it's still pretty much dead on.

You don't have to turn off your phone Laughing

You can simply (no conspiracy theories please) disable the camera from logging the location. Anyway, if you have a smart phone handy go to google maps and have the phone locate you to see how accurate it is. Right now mine is accurate enough that a bird could use it to crap on my head.

On a positive note, I believe a read somewhere disabling location services (for the iPhone) improves battery life.

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 12:30 pm

Ghost wrote:

On a positive note, I believe a read somewhere disabling location services (for the iPhone) improves battery life.

I feel so much better knowing that my battery will have better life as well. What a warm, cozy feeling.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 01 Aug 2010 Posts: 17

On the baiting side of things you also have to be careful with things like word documents, as they contain the real name of the document creator. But yeah, in general it's probably a good idea to strip all meta data from anything you want to send to a lad. Even though it's highly unlikely that they'll check, it could flush a promising bait down the drain! Edit: Oh and compromise your safety and stuff too.

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 1:02 pm

My word docs dont Wink

, depends on how you register it Wink

for example my pc happens to be a display model so all word docs and infact everything on my pc say acs as the owner. acs can mean anything.

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 1:42 pm

I remember there was an amusing incident on a certain (rather foul) image board where somebody posted pictures of herself and her boyfriend on the job in a crappy attention whore sort of way. Within 5 minutes someone had posted a picture of a house, screencapped off Google Streetview with a note saying "This is your house, isn't it? Problem, OP?" so yes, geolocation can backfire.

My blackberry had it disabled when it arrived, it's staying off unless I need it.

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 1:50 pm

my android phone dont have it switched on as standard either, seems to be a apple thing. Any windows phone OS users have this option?

So the ALL smart phones thing the news report was yammering on about was again just a touch sensationlist.

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 2:37 pm

I just have a super old phone that I doubt can be tracked back to me. And if someone does track me down with the signal, I'll just ask what they want.

Honestly I'm not that important enough that someone would track me down by cell phone GPS or whatever.

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 6:18 pm

I am burning my phone right now, gathering supplies and ammo, waiting for The Man to kick down my front door, they're not gonna get me alive...

when they kick at your front door, how you gonna come?

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 6:57 pm

I have to rely on the fact that I am uninteresting to The Man, if they want to waste their time listening to my phone calls they can knock themselves out.

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 10:03 pm

Welcome to Eater, 419hammer! Very Happy

So I read this alarming information about an hour ago, (thanks for posting!) and mentioned it to a couple of neighbours who then mentioned it to a few others etc. - you know how these things take off sometimes?

Well, I just opened my front door to find this pile of phones. I almost tripped over them. Not the phones themselves, but the group of 10 or eleven folks that were milling about.

The worst part was that someone had already poured a bunch of gas (petrol) on them and was in the process of asking if anybody had a lighter that he could borrow. I persuaded him to not set them alight, instead we did a group stomp and quit only when each phone was in a bazillion little pieces.

Does anyone know if they can still be recycled? I mean a little gas (petrol) probably dissipates fairly quickly right... Laughing

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 10:36 pm

The moment anyone says/posts or I get an email that starts with, 'OMG xxxxxxxxxxxxx!', I immediately think, 'Oh another web urban legend.' Rolling Eyes

It's good to know this information about the smartphones, but it isn't really new information, is it? That video is a year old. Wink

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vARzvWxwY&feature=player_embedded

Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 1:40 am

So if I have a non-smart phone I am safe? Mine is a dumb phone -- only the basics.

Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 10:16 am

lord goldblade wrote:

My word docs dont Wink

, depends on how you register it Wink

I just checked and saw that my register name is one of my baiting character names. Laughing

Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 4:04 pm

I don't see how this endangers anyone's kids, really. Presumably, people that you send photos of your family to, know who you are & where you live anyway. And if they don't, then why are you sending them pictures?

Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 8:31 pm

^^^ If you post snaps of your kids on something like Facebook or Photobucket and have the geolocation showing on the photos, then some random person could go cruising through your account and see.

That's the concern, not about sending the photos to people you know (I hope!).

Though why anyone is posting photos of their kids in any public place online is beyond my imagination.

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 4:07 am

I believe the main concern is predators tracking children. I'm sure everyone knows preteen and teenagers post on social network sites. So for example a 13 year old girl has a my-space page to share with her friends. Some pervert can develop a fixation with her and find out exactly where she lives by checking the EXIF data.

Or another example not involving children is say someone posted a picture here of their cat. Does that sound like something someone here would do? How would you feel about some of the nuts that come and go here knowing your address?

Anyway, I guess the main point of the article is smart phones are still relatively new and the majority of owners don't know the GPS can be embedded into the picture data. Also, smart phone aren't as expensive as they were when they first came out. I'm willing to bet 70% of middle school age children have one. I am also willing to bet they also have internet access. Are you following now?

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 25 Jul 2011 Posts: 5

bearkat419 wrote:

I don't see how this endangers anyone's kids, really. Presumably, people that you send photos of your family to, know who you are & where you live anyway. And if they don't, then why are you sending them pictures?

but the big problem is that many people share pictures by first uploading them to places like photobucket where privacy settings are a joke (they set everything to "show everyone" by default)..

you're right though, it's the person who shares who should keep privacy in mind. The problem is that not everyone knows that geolocation tracking is ON by default...

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2011 5:16 am

I don't know if this related or not, but I read the following comment about the blackberry outage:

Quote:

I'm amazed that people actually complain about losing the service of a device that gives them no peace from 24/7 continuous communication with other people. Relax, enjoy, watch your BP and try to raise your head a little. You'll see the horizon, trees, maybe even birds, perhaps if you as as lucky as me, the sea. And you might even talk face to face with another BB user. You might even smile !

Please move if it's not the right place Laughing

Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 4:24 pm

Another reason for disabling this location gizmo: gmail asks me repeatedly for a mobile no. so they can restore my a/c if anything goes wrong. They don't tell you that they then use your location to target ads depending on where you are.

I use gmail for baiting only, but I wouldn't want my Mr Gomer and other characters to be pestered by geo-adverts Rolling Eyes

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