BERKELEY, Calif., July 20 (UPI) -- Photos and videos uploaded to Web sites may be revealing more information than their posters intended, experts say, leading to real-world vulnerabilities.
Such postings can carry detailed information about where and when the images were recorded, leaving people's homes or businesses open to "cybercasing" and possible criminal attacks in the real world, an International Computer Science Institute release said Tuesday.
Location information is automatically embedded in images by higher-end digital cameras and smart phones, researchers say, and can be cross-referenced with publicly available information such as Google Maps Street View to find addresses.
Researchers were able to identify the home addresses of people placing ads on Craigslist even when those posting photos had elected to hide their real names and addresses when placing ads on the site.
Searching online videos posted over several consecutive days by the same users, researchers found videos posted from more than a thousand miles apart and were able to identify a resident of a California city who was on vacation in the Caribbean, along with other users whose empty homes might be vulnerable to burglary.
