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Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

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Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#121

Post by lxgr »

amazingamazing wrote: post #73
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can lock down their usage. Limit it to three months storage and minimize sharing. They still report an old address for home and work for me since I dialed up the restrictions years ago. They have the data but it is less exposed.

I honestly don’t understand the scenario you’re defending against. Google still knows where you actually live and work trivially. If you don’t trust Google you should just de-Google completely.

Not GGP, but I suppose the general idea is: Granting permanent location permission to maps.google.com seems a bit more privacy preserving than granting it to *.google.com, assuming one opens maps significantly less often than e.g. GMail, search etc.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#122

Post by lxgr »

buildbot wrote: post #114
lxgr wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agreed; people generally don't realize how deanonymizing EXIF data can be. I remember one of my cameras or phones including a "seconds since device startup" counter; together with the exact time the photo was taken, this yields a precise timestamp of when a phone was last restarted. This by itself can be highly deanonymizing out of a small to medium sized set of candidate phones/photographers.

I mean the serial number of the camera and possibly lens are included too…

Not for most phones, fortunately.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#123

Post by roywiggins »

SirMaster wrote: post #102
roywiggins wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even people who know it, don't think about it and don't connect it with the potential consequences of uploading a picture to a website. And why would they? It's not visible, there's no warning, it's just not something that's going to be top of mind.

So we should educate people about it. Don't you think that constantly coddling people about tech just breeds tech-illiterate people? Wouldn't it be better if people were more tech-literate? Coddling only works when those who are in charge of the tech play nice. But then breeds people who will more easily fall victim to the bad actors.

I said that people who already know don't think about it. That's not something you can solve by educating them more. When I'm sharing a photo, I am going to think about what I can see in the photo as a data risk, not the invisible stuff that I might intellectually have heard about. It's just not going to come to mind.

People who know about phishing get got by phishing attacks, too. How well has however many years of "cyber awareness training" gone?

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#124

Post by ajifurai »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #25

>So, can users transfer their photos via Bluetooth or QuickShare? .. Literally the only way to get a photo with geolocation intact is to plug in a USB cable Bluetooth is not QuickShare, stop conflating them. Bluetooth works. I just tried it. It just sends the entire file to the destination, filename intact with all EXIF, no gimmicks, tricks, or extra toggles. As it has always done for 20+ years.

In my testing, when sharing from apps that use MediaStore like Google Photos or Fossify Gallery (using a `content://media/` URI), the GPS location was stripped even via Bluetooth. This seems to be the default behavior from Android 10 onwards.

https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/m...

> Photographs > If your app uses scoped storage, the system hides location information by default

When sharing via FileProvider from file managers like MiXplorer or Total Commander, the raw file is sent as is, and the GPS location stays intact.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#125

Post by WhyNotHugo »

This is a common approach to "privacy" taken by orgs like Google.

You don't get to access or export your own data in order to protect your privacy, but Google still gets 100% access to it.

Some messaging apps do the same and won't let you take a screenshot of your own conversations. Like, someone sent me an address, but I can't take a screenshot to "protect my privacy".

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#126

Post by kristopolous »

ieie3366 wrote: post #4

Most likely: actually using the geolocation is an extremely niche usecase for images uploaded from mobile browsers. I’d wager 99.9% of the users didn’t realize that they are effectively sending their live GPS coords to a random website when taking a photo. But yes, a prop to the input tag ’includeLocation’ which would then give the user some popup confirmation prompt would have been nice

I want the location on every time, without exception.

The current behavior is exactly what I wanted.

These "all users are imbeciles that need our protection" design pattern needs to die a swift death.

It's maddening, We're constantly taking kitchen knives and replacing them with the colorful plastic toddler version and still have the same cutting tasks.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#127

Post by WhyNotHugo »

sixhobbits wrote: post #8

It's a sad story and a fun-looking project but I think Google 100% did the right thing here. Most people have no idea how much information is included in photo metadata, and stripping it as much as possible lines up to how people expect the world to work.

It's not that hard to add a little checkmark "include location" under it, rather than unconditionally remove it.

As per op, it seems they've shut down _any_ means for you to get the data out of the phone other than using a USB cable.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#128

Post by hebelehubele »

tart-lemonade wrote: post #105
butlike wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The path is different than the filename though. If I want to find duplicates, it will be impossible if the filename changes. In my use case /User/user/Images/20240110/happy_birthday.jpg and /User/user/Desktop/happy_birthday.jpg are the same image.

If your camera (or phone) uses the DCF standard [0], you will eventually end up with duplicates when you hit IMG_9999.JPG and it loops around to IMG_0001.JPG. Filename alone is an unreliable indicator. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_rule_for_Camera_File_sy...

> loops around to IMG_0001

Almost all cameras create a new directory, e.g. DSC002, and start from IMG_0001 to prevent collision.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#129

Post by throw_await »

lukan wrote: post #78
sathackr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrapheneOS still does this -- allows controlling internet access on a per-app basis.

For those of us stuck on normal android, is there a way to achieve that? I know it used to work with some firewall apps but nowdays they all require root access.

Go to settings > App > $SCUMMY_APP > Mobile Data & WiFi. Uncheck all.

Re: Android now stops you sharing your location in photos

#130

Post by master-lincoln »

roywiggins wrote: post #95
master-lincoln wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most people have no idea how the tools they chose to buy and operate work, the few rational people who educate themselves have to suffer... This sounds like a downward spiral concerning freedom.

You don't have to be irrational to not know things.

True, but isn't it irrational to continue operating something you know could cause harm to you when used wrongly, despite not knowing how to use it correctly?
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