Geotagging

In which our Heroine freaks out her already dwindling readership. 

I’m sure that many of you right now are groaning about Tara’s weird paranoia/surveillance fixation.  I worry that I do it at my own detriment.  I do actually want most of you to stick with me and keep reading my blog, you know.   I’ll admit that I picture my mother-in-law going “What is she up to now?”  Well, today I put my successful blogging future at possible risk.  I plan to infuse all my readers with my paranoia.  Today I’ve included several quotes taken from a power-point that has been circulating around the military and from there to employees of the Municipality of Anchorage, which is how I got a hold of it.  Without further ado:

“In August of 2010, Adam Savage, of “MythBusters,” took a photo of his vehicle using his smartphone. He then posted the photo to his Twitter account including the phrase “off to work.” Since the photo was taken by his smartphone, the image contained metadata revealing the exact geographical location the photo was taken.  So by simply taking and posting a photo, Savage revealed the exact location of his home, the vehicle he drives and the time he leaves for work.”

The following was published in Wired Magazine in 2009: “I ran a little experiment. On a sunny Saturday, I spotted a woman in Golden Gate Park taking a photo with a 3G iPhone. Because iPhones embed geodata into photos that users upload to Flickr or Picasa, iPhone shots can be automatically placed on a map. At home I searched the Flickrmap, and score—a shot from today. I clicked through to the user’s photo stream and determined it was the woman I had seen earlier. After adjusting the settings so that only her shots appeared on the map, I saw a cluster of images in one location. Clicking on them revealed photos of an apartment interior—a bedroom, a kitchen, a filthy living room. Now I know where she lives.”

Just for effect, I’ve included the creepy photo from the slide presentation. 

If you are not completely creeped out by now, then I don’t understand you.  In a nutshell, the subject here is about something called Geotagging.  To elucidate: “Geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification to photographs, video, websites and SMS messages. It is the equivalent of adding a 10-digit grid coordinate to everything you post on the internet. Geotags are automatically embedded in pictures taken with smartphones.  Many people are unaware of the fact that the photos they take with their smartphones and load to the Internet have been geotagged.  Photos posted to photo sharing sites like Flickr and Picasa can also be tagged with location, but it is not an automatic function. 

Just to hammer it home I will add the fact that I have used various Flickr photos in things that I’ve done, both on this blog and in personal creative pursuits.  In one instance, I had only to type in the location of my home town by name, and someone’s personal shots popped up for my use.  At this point, Jon and I have been broke for enough years that I am basically the equivalent of a technological cretin (because we never buy the most up-to-date technology).  If I can do this much, then I suggest you let your imagination run wild and try to visualize what a real creep-master could do.   It’s not particularly good for the soul, but it does prove my point a little.

Launch: Paranoid Much?

In which our Heroine gazes back.  

For Christmas, Jon and I borrowed a friend’s computer video camera so we could skype with family.  I’m sorry to say that the skyping did not work, and now all we have is the little camera sitting a-straddle our computer monitor as the residue of our non-conversation. 

It kind of freaks me out. 

The socially-smart side of me would like to tell you all that my paranoia fixation is an intelligent fabrication meant to bring out frivolous discussion and smart-alecky conversation.  These are worthwhile reasons all on their own but the little eye-shaped lens staring at me right now is proving its point: I am a paranoid freak at heart.  I’m telling you, the little thing follows me around the room.  My eye is unnaturally drawn to it.  I find myself focusing in on it regularly, and trust me—the white wall over the top of my computer screen is not normally one of my eye-resting spaces. 

It’s pretty clear that I’ve been watching too many Pixar films.  I can easily imagine it sprouting legs and spidering off into corners unknown (where Russian/Iraqi spies lurk, obviously).  I can imagine its little round eye hole suddenly blinking at me.  I can even imagine it recording my life.  Not that there’s anything of a mystery left about me after all this blogging, but talk about freaky right? 

And so I launch a series of blog posts about surveillance and its accompanying freakiness.  You would think that all this supposed or imagined surveillance would implant me with a desire to perform well for the camera.  Instead, I find myself longing for insurrection and subversive behavior.  I can’t help it.  I have an over-active imagination. 

The Christmas Market: A Shopping for the Holidays Guide for the Paranoid

In which our Heroine discusses the Particulars of a Paranoid Shopping Experience. 

10 Things to Keep in Mind on Black Friday:

1.       You are under surveillance in every store you go into.  DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT with anyone.

2.       Every person you see is out to get you, even at 4 a.m.  That’s why all the items on your shopping list keeping getting snatched up just before you get to the isle. 

3.       Never look at the surveillance cameras stationed in the high corners of stores.  If you let the invisible “security guards” suspect that you know where they are, you will be probably be apprehended, or at least detained for a short while in some generic hallway you never knew existed before.

4.       While mall shopping, make sure you double back and traverse the whole length of the mall several times just to make sure that no one is following you. 

5.       If you selfishly take the time to try on a shirt that you spotted on a rack, please assume that there are tiny camouflaged cameras hidden in the light fixture above your head.

6.       All natural disasters wait to happen on the holidays or days when the unknowing public is out and about.  You should probably bring a life jacket, or at least a parachute. 

7.       The big man waiting at the door of Best Buy really works for the CIA as part of a specialized covert ops division.  Don’t let him hear your Russian/Afghani accent!  He will take you down.  The excessive fat on his torso conceals his guns.

8.       When you use your credit or debit card, you are immediately and automatically put “on the grid.”  Please understand that if you ever have to suddenly disappear from society, you are finished.  Toast.  Crispy, blackened toast. 

9.       If you had been wise enough to use cash instead of cards, you could have had the pleasure of carrying around hundreds of dollars on a cutpurse’s day of paradise.  AND you could have toted around numerous large bills—all of which hold a sophisticated tracking mechanism located just to the left of a former President’s trusting face.   

10.    Know that everything you buy gets scanned into a computer when you check out.  The government is clearly working with corporate giants to document every item you personally buy.  With this in mind, your only option is to buy a host of useless and irrelevant articles that you will never use or gift to anyone.  Don’t let this excessive and frivolous waste deter you from enjoying your Black Friday Shopping experience.  When I check other carts, I’m pretty sure everyone else is secretly doing it too.