Thanks to John Nack at Adobe for publicizing this issue.
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2012/03/metadata-can-kill-you.html
How’s that for a salacious, click-baiting title? But this bit from the US Army is eye-opening:
A real-world example from 2007: When a new fleet of helicopters arrived with an aviation unit at a base in Iraq, some soldiers took pictures on the flightline, he said. From the photos that were uploaded to the Internet, the enemy was able to determine the exact location of the helicopters inside the compound and conduct a mortar attack, destroying four of the AH-64 Apaches.
I’ve argued for a long time that software should have the option to remove geotagging metadata. There are times when it is a security risk, poses a threat to endangered species, etc. The default on cameras should be to not record geolocation data, and the software should give the user the option to strip the geolocation data easily.
–Rich
