Beware! Posting photos like this is dangerous! You need to do these two things before sharing

Expert of this article: Wang Pingfan, PhD in Computer Science and Technology, Northumbria University, UK

In the Internet age, protecting privacy has become a very difficult thing.

Because a cup of milk tea you casually ordered may expose your current address; various apps in your mobile phone are trying to obtain your address.

The most common one is sending pictures and exposing one's location information.

Weibo screenshot

So, how does your information get exposed step by step? How does IP know your address information? How can you protect your privacy?

In this article, let’s learn how to protect your privacy...

What information can be revealed by posting the original image?

WeChat, Weibo, QQ, etc. have basically become the social tools used by most people to communicate, and posting pictures has become a very common sharing mode. There are usually two modes for posting pictures on these software: direct posting and posting after selecting the original picture.

As for the difference between the two, most people's intuitive impression is that the directly posted picture is much blurrier than the original picture. If someone looks carefully at the size of the picture, they will find that the original picture is much larger.

Of course, the storage capacity of today’s smart devices is not small, so saving some photos is not a big deal at all, but in fact the hidden danger of the original photos is that they may lead to serious privacy leaks.

In fact, it is very simple, because every photo taken by a smartphone will be attached with an "invisible ID card". If you open the phone album and click on a photo at random, you will not be able to find this information anyway. Because we can't see this "ID card" normally, but there are many professional software (such as Photoshop, etc.) that can easily access this information.

Copyright image, no permission to reprint

From the information on the picture, you can see the detailed model of the shooting equipment, the aperture size, the ISO, and of course, the most important thing is GPS, the Global Positioning System. In simple terms, it can very accurately record the longitude and latitude where the photo was taken. Based on the longitude and latitude, you can accurately know your location.

Any photo taken with a smartphone will contain EXIF ​​parameters, which are very likely to contain GPS data. Regardless of whether it is WeChat, text messages, or emails, this information will be exposed as long as the original image is transmitted.

So how do we avoid including EXIF ​​parameters?

There are two ways: the first is to avoid posting the original image; the second is to turn off the positioning function of the smart device, so that the GPS function cannot be used and the GPS data cannot be obtained.

Privacy exposure is not just about location exposure. Many parents like to post photos of their children. If they don’t turn off the location, the community where their home is located, their children’s kindergarten, travel routes, etc., are almost a guide for scammers.

When it comes to privacy protection, we should be prepared for the worst. To be on the safe side, it is recommended that you send as few original pictures as possible or not at all.

How does IP know your address information?

First, you need to know that IP addresses can be located.

Some time ago, Weibo administrators issued an announcement saying that the IP location function will be further upgraded, and the location of Weibo users will be displayed in their comments and personal homepages.

Domestic users will be displayed by province/region, and foreign users will be displayed by country. This feature cannot be turned on or off by the user.

So what is an IP address?

The IP address is actually the address on the Internet, the full name is Internet Protocol Address. When we browse Weibo, watch TV series, and chat with friends on the Internet, it is actually the process of sending and receiving data packets one by one on the Internet.

It is similar to the fact that we need an address to send and receive express deliveries, except that what is transmitted on the Internet is not physical objects, but "data". However, the principle is the same. The IP address can be understood as the address of both parties on the Internet, and only the address can transmit information on the Internet.

Usually an IP address is made up of a string of numbers, just like the one below. The IP address can be found on your computer. This string of numbers can be entered into a tool for querying IP addresses to locate the country-province-city.

IP address diagram (provided by the author)

This information, which can only be located at the city level, will not seriously expose privacy.

There are many services on the Internet that can locate IP addresses. They actually use the IP address-physical location information database. The fact that it is public means that the information is very rough and cannot be used as a precise positioning tool.

But this does not mean that you can do whatever you want on the Internet and no one can find you. Many units, including public security agencies, can accurately identify your house number through the IP address.

In fact, the coarse-grained IP address query method is actually protecting most ordinary people. If fine-grained information can be found, then all the privacy of ordinary people will be disclosed in the online world.

How to protect your privacy?

First, try not to use real-name information on the website. Even if it is a virtual name, try not to use the same name on various apps.

Second, try to use different passwords for all website passwords, and it is best to use letters + numbers + punctuation marks, such as Abc127356749!!!.

Copyright image, no permission to reprint

Third, do not use personalized push notifications unless necessary. After using it for a while, you will find that the content you see is what you want to see, because it will be pushed based on your preferences.

The cover of this article and the pictures with watermarks in the text are from the copyright library and are not authorized for reproduction