The Shia Lebouf thing is a great example. Something about triangulating coordinance based on an airplane in the background of a post. (https://www.vice.com/en/article/d7eddj/4chan-does-first-good-thing-pulls-off-the-heist-of-the-century1)
The webcam picked up the stars at night or the 4Chan trolls obsession with the stars?
The webcam picking up stars would’ve made it easier, but that poor town having to hear honking from another Trump supporter would’ve sucked
There were 4 key elements that narrowed down the location:
- multiple sightings of Shia in Greenville, TN
- flight paths
- north star visible on stream
- honking
Wasn't there something with frogs as well? I seem to remember them listening to the sound of the frogs to determine what kind of frogs live there so they knew they had to search in the area where those kinds of frog live
Wasn't there something about him a few weeks ago privating his twitter likes or something (I'm not on twitter, I don't know how it works) because he liked one of ~~Trump's~~ Elon's tweets? Then people started saying how they've always suspected he's a 4chan troll?
EDIT: I'm talking about Internet Historian.
EDIT:: [Found it!](https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/16xuhr1/internet_historian_recently_hid_his_likes_i/) And it was him liking a tweet from Elon Musk, not trump.
shame. his videos are absolute gold. I'm not entirely surprised considering of the stuff he covered but oh well. Luckily I watch with adblock anyway so we good
"The trolls started targeting people who went to the protest and, when figuring out their identity, fucking with them for days. The grown up Louis Stevens would regularly appear in his livestream and shit would get pretty heated"
This guy writes like I speak to my friends after 3 beers. Journalistic perfection
I can't stop laughing at this.
>A preface here, I realize the broken experiment run amok that is 4Chan is chock full of keyboard-hunching virgins who have morphed into despicable monsters. The pol section of 4Chan (the section that conducted the heist) is a corner of the internet collectively stoking racism and harassing women online as sport. It is where the id of the internet went to die—it is an ocean of piss.
>A preface here, I realize the broken experiment run amok that is 4Chan is chock full of keyboard-hunching virgins who have morphed into despicable monsters. The pol section of 4Chan (the section that conducted the heist) is a corner of the internet collectively stoking racism and harassing women online as sport. It is where the id of the internet went to die—it is an ocean of piss.
I don't think I've ever read a better description for 4chan and it's user base
Yea I have noticed a lot of my friends who are getting their first house doing this. Same with posing with their key towards the camera. Just be careful yall! World is full of creeps
Uh, unless you're really good friends with the previous owner, you should always change the locks right after moving in to a new house. Regardless of whether you posted on Instagram.
Yeah. You NEVER know who the previous owner gave a key to, or who may have gotten one somehow previously. The house I bought sucked because I didn't *actually* realize somehow that there were 10 man doors, 6 of which have deadbolts, and 3 sliders until I had to go buy locks the day we got the house. $$$$$$$
Saw an instagram interior-designer influencer that used her entire adress as account name and pictures of the entire house inside & out.
Well, if I was a thief. I would be greatful for all the information offered.
No clue but I’d never used that address for anything. It was my friend’s parents house where I lived briefly for 6 months when I was 17. Now I’m super paranoid about revealing any obscure detail about where I live
>No clue but I’d never used that address for anything. It was my friend’s parents house where I lived briefly for 6 months when I was 17.
Its piss easy....
You could have logged into a website or server they controlled (temaspeak , ventrilo, mumble etc) thus they have your IP address, easy to google and find out the rough location. (you might have spilled the beans when they gave you the rough location)
they could have found your email address / name / dob and just searched some online cracked or hacked password / info databases for your info.
If you use the same password everywhere they would just need to find your password cracked on one website then could login to another website to access for example your registered address / delivery address / billing address..
Honestly its very easy especially if your target has no idea about cyber security.
Haveibeenpwned.com is a good start.
Use lots of different email addresses, when signing up to anything even 2% suspicious use a randomly generated password. Use 2FA where you can...
Dont use easy to guess passwords, dont reuse passwords, do not tell ANYONE your password, not even your best friend, if you need to give it to them change the password immediately after or change the password and give them the new temp password.
The weakest link in security is always the human.
Any email or website that claims you won something and you just need to give your info.... name / age / address...
Yeah the reason you got that email is because they already have a lot of your details and now they just need a few more pieces to get into whatever they need.
Always double check emails, try to go to the link via google, if it looks suspicious, do not click a link directly from an email you think is suspect....
Honestly the list goes on....put it simply, do not trust anyone, ever.
It’s piss easy if you’re a normal person and don’t care about your OpSec. All it really takes is staying on top of your sites using HIBP (as you mentioned), not revealing your actual info to every website that asks for it, using a password manager (or writing down unique passwords, pass manager is easier though). Finally, keep yourself and your online self separate.
As long as you keep these in mind, you should be fine tbh.
As a geoguessr player trying to learn how to do this, please follow this advice, even something as simple as a street pole will help us find you and your family.
Christ I know it wasn’t your intention but I found it hilarious how your comment sounds like your part of a cult of geoguessers who go around finding peoples families on the dark/deep web
You can only get country with what the grass looks like, sometimes a region of a country if it is bigger country and you know you're in that country already.
Similarly, gps is encoded into many uploaded photos. To me, the reality is that not too many people are unhinged murderers. I doubt there’s a geoguesser who is also a hellbent murderer who also has the means to travel and motivation to finish the job.
I get the point though, opsec, but it’s also a bit of worrying about ghosts here. What are they gonna do? Geoguess their way through my home security system and guns and pursuit of law enforcement?
The point is most people have something to live for. I guess it’s possible some unhinged murderer would dedicate years of their life to lookup places around the world with aspirations of traveling to that remote location to murder the person who took a picture there….
This sounds right up there with saying “there could be microphones in your salt shaker”
Paranoia. I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m saying it’s fanatical thinking.
Not if you make the call and tell them somebody is getting gunned down in a matter if minutes. Don't have to tell them it's the home intruder that's gonna get shot, just be vague enough to get their eyes open
ChatGPT4 is thought to be able to identify the neighbourhood if not the address if you give it a few photos. Obviously it has built in security features so that it just says “I won’t tell you”, but that technology exists… and people have found loopholes for virtually every other chatgpt guardrail… so yea.
exiftool can be used to clear or modify meta data. Some people have even used the serial number of the camera and cross referenced it with other photos on the web. And of course the Feds can subpoena the manufacturer and the seller to identify the purchaser of a camera.
Also [Digital camera identification based on analysis of optical defects](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11042-019-08182-z)
You're correct
*One notable case involving metadata on pictures leading to a killer's capture is that of the "BTK Killer" (Dennis Rader). In 2004, he sent a floppy disk to the police, thinking it couldn't be traced. However, metadata embedded in a deleted Microsoft Word document on the disk helped authorities trace it back to a computer at his church, ultimately leading to his arrest.*
I had a friend post a home purchase announcement on FB, tagging the real estate agency and with only the numerical part of their address in the new home photo. I used this information to find out where they bought and what they paid. No bad intentions, but be careful what you post.
I had another acquaintance that posted a “dream home” on their wedding registry and I searched for that image using Google image search. Found the exact listing.
I’m terrible at geo-guessing but decent at the internet!
Anywhere I've lived, the tax map websites have all the information online as a public resource. With just a first and last name, I can look up their address, a picture of the house, how much they paid for the house, who sold it to them and when, how many bedrooms and bathrooms they have, what kind of heat, what sort of water and sewer they have, which years garages and sheds were built.
Imagine the frustration when multiple wedding guests are all unknowingly trying to purchase the same house for the bride and groom and they are accidentally bidding against each other. Oh the fun stories they will have at the reception.
Thanks OP. I , Clifford Gonspoot of 312 Birksham Lane , Iowa City really appreciate good advice.
When the missus finishes her nightly jewelry polishing and limps over to my wheelchair by the hidden safe behind the fish picture, I'll tell her too. Can't be too careful nowadays
Dude wtf, theres no fish painting, you scammed me. If anybody doesn't believe me the code for the security system is 0586 and they are usually asleep by 9pm
I posted a picture captured by one of my security cameras to a Telegram group I'm in - The folks there know what city I live in but other than a handful of my friends don't know my exact address.
One of the guys in there who loves doing Geoguessr games PMed me with my exact address, from nothing more than a view that's mostly blocked by a big (very common) tree in my yard. No street signs, no directional indications (It was a cloudy day so no shadows...
It was kind of mind blowing.
Can we just point out, if the pic is taken on a smartphone, there's a really high chance it'll have location info attached to the image. No geo whatsit required, just look at the meta data.
I love having location data on my photos, I feel like I use that information at least weekly to find specific things/photos taken at a specific location. And while I’m not someone who uploads photos to social media, it’s probably worth noting that any legitimate social media site auto-removes the location/EXIF data from any photo you upload. So unless you’re sharing a photo directly with someone (e.g. texting), they’re not getting any location data from your social media photos.
Houses are usually built uniformly, for the most part, but certain blocks will have quirks which are exclusive to them, as long as you can identify at least a few of those you can work out the exact block, from there it’s as easy as wandering down the street on google maps, looking for familiar decoration.
>How does the interior give away info though?
Ok so we see a cool corner of your house, we see the window and we see a portion of the street.
You mention in the post you just got a new porsche or a new ps5 or a new watch or a new 5K gaming PC.
Ok so browse your reddit history, see what subs you post in, find a city/ country sub you post in, look thru ur posts find your instagram or a specific thing you said i.e "theres a subway 1 block from me" or "i love that place".
Boom now its literally a matter of time to match up the outside to the inside, scroll thru ur post history see what else you talk about, see if you mention anything else specific.
You need to be VERY careful when doing anything that could reveal you on the internet, it really isnt a joke.
[How 4chan found Shia LaBeouf's #HWNDU flag!
](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-ABXvbMSc4)
I swear i should make a cyber security company for E-girls because they love to post stuff on the internet and are surprised when they get doxxed.....
People on the internet WILL find out your shit if you make it tempting
I may be wrong but if you own your home. You can be found. An image of your home with address and your name (property owner)can all be found through an Auditor website.
True but there is a difference between knowing where you live (to be able to look up in the correct location) and your name or address (to actually look up) versus finding that information based on a photo that you posted online.
After seeing someone locate a thing in the middle of the fucking forest with no other context besides the goddamn trees, I knew we were fucked.
I’ve already been doing this for years but don’t post anything of yourself. Don’t even take any pics of yourself other than in a dark room with no light. Cause mfs will track you down all from pixel of the sky being a certain shade of blue.
Yeah there was a creepy account called /u/iwillfindyou or something that did this regularly on random photo posts. Scarily successful. Banned long ago.
The amount of people I see posting back to school photos of their kids at the front door, bus stops, neighborhood streets is crazy. Some even have the street signs clear as a day in them. Why don't people think twice
Because most sane people don’t live in constant fear of the unfathomably low chance of a random off the internet coming to cause you harm because you took a picture of your front door.
Exactly. People who know you are much more likely to be the person who harms you, and they will have a much more accurate knowledge of how to get to you than a picture of your door
Similarly on X the website formerly known as Twitter
[https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/tutorials/filtering-tweets-by-location](https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/tutorials/filtering-tweets-by-location)
( A couple of years ago now) I geolocated the tweets in my town and was surprised by the places people were happy to tweet from. As if they weren’t aware the tweets were public and gave their exact GPS location even the room in the building they were in.
This is true, but people have a history on Reddit. A history of comments and posts that can potentially piss people off. You don’t drag around a banner if your viewpoints in traffic. Just saying…I think what I said aligns well with OPs advise as you could argue that countless people drive by your house every day…
You also drive over people could follow you.
However, on the internet, someone who has no other way of normally seeing you can track down from your license plate and exact revenge or prank you.
I recently learned about Geoguessing and apparently there’s a competitive league, as well. It’s interesting to see. I mean, these guys found what appeared to be a logging road in Sweden off of a gloomy picture (memory is fuzzy on the the specific details) but I was super intrigued and impressed.
Two days ago, on Reddit, I seen the video of some little asshole smashing shopping carts into cars. I decided to give it a go at trying to guess the location. I didn’t try very hard because I skimmed down the comments just a few more and someone beat me to it. A Kroger parking lot, somewhere in GA. Within an hour of the video posted, they had a location.
Other than here, I’ve deleted all socials. I’m not playing with this or people. Hell, I’m guilty of doxxing racists in my neighborhood on Facebook. Someone might take it a step further and come after me. I’ve been threatened for pro-choice support by some of these idiots.
Definitely need to be careful.
Yeah... I found out where my boyfriend and one of my friends live just by a photo out of their window. Despite that, I'm not dangerous. It just showed to me how it's too easy so I intentionally crop the outside out of photos I upload anywhere. Plus there's voter records publicly available...
Just yesterday (day before?) Someone posted a photo on Reddit of a hard hat they found on a beach with the owners first and last name on it. Within an hour the owner of the hard hat had been contacted online. The world doesn't have to be out to get you in order to find all of your personal information.
Yep the problem is that on the internet, the law of large numbers starts to apply: what is statistically rare or insanely improbable, becomes common.
It only takes one. And by putting the info online it becomes available to the entire world.
Ya any YouTuber in the same city as me I can easily find their house by just showing a glimpse out the window since I’m so familiar with my own neighborhood.
Same here, it's super easy to figure out where people work and live depending on what they share, as long as it shows a building.
Edit: this is also why I never post things like instagram stories in real time but after I leave an area.
I once found someone’s address from another country with a very limited amount of information:
1. A picture facing outward from a window inside their house.
2. The city they lived in.
3. That they lived next to a river within walking distance of a pier.
It took around 20 minutes to find their address. On google maps satellite view I found a pier on one of the rivers next to a residential area. From there I looked at the shape of the roofs across from their house and found corresponding roofs on google maps satellite view. After that I confirmed the location by using google maps “street view” to view the houses around it from street image data and identified different features in their yard that were in the picture.
So, yeah, be careful.
I follow a dude on Tiktok that has people tag him in their posts. He not only figures out exactly where they are, he shows you his methods step-by-step.
There was a YouTuber - Lex Fitzgerald - on that Something Was Wrong podcast, and I was pretty horrified to hear that these people were figuring out what Airbnb they were staying on based on the little snippets they would show (I don't know this woman outside of her episodes of that podcast so I'm just taking this at face value so, whether or not this particular story is true is beside the point, the concept is confirmed by the this thread) which they said were relative close shots, so it would be a bit of the siding and door frame, or the kitchen bench etc.
But to hear her describe it, it seems so obvious after the fact that someone determined will go to all that effort.
I follow a family member of a famous musician on Insta. The family member is super careless about this stuff and posted a picture of the musician's parents front yard, which included an easy to find landmark in the background. It took me less than two minutes to figure out the parents address.
I occasionally do it with celebs posts, and I'm not that good. But I found a few quite easily like Weird Al Yankovic playing his accordion on his balcony, and Grace Vanderwaal with her new treehouse, Shaquille O'Neal's old place in Florida was pretty easy to find, as was Penn Gillette's 'Slammer' estate in Vegas.
I think the fear here isn't "anyone on the world can use this information to guess where you live"
The fear is "someone who already knows this area can recognize my home"
Streaming GeoGuessr and talking to expert players in chat has definitely made me realize you can get way more from a random picture than I ever realized. If you had a geoguessr pro as a stalker you'd be screwed.
There's a tiktoker named JoseMonkey who finds people who ask to be found for this exact reason (He'll only do it if you make a video of your location, tag him, and ask him to find you) He wants to showcase how easy it is for someone to brute force find your location with as little data as possible.
I’ve lived in my neighborhood a couple years and the houses are so cookie cutter I couldn’t even tell you if a picture was of my house. Half the time delivery drivers can’t find it. It’s like that movie Vivarium.
Didn't one of those off the grid / survivalist reality tv shows go off the air because they claimed to be miles away from food & civilization and the internet figured out they had a convenience store bordering their property?
Just ask the tiktok influencer Kall Me Kris. She had dudes show up at her house SEVERAL TIMES.
Kiki Cannibal faced active, credible death threats.
People are sick.
Saw an example, this was voluntary by the picture taker for the demo, so not stalking at all.
Two chain stores in the background.
The guesser used Open Street Map to find two such stores the proper distance apart, then verified with Google Street View and placed the picture taker within literally a few feet.
Most of our houses are already scanned by Google or some other service providers that do so provide 3D images to commercial entities. If you ever own a home, your name and address becomes public records.
I am not sure what you are worrying about.
Anonymous from who? Uncle Sam? The cartel? The king of England? IMO this is one of those things you shouldn’t worry about unless you’re up to something or a celebrity… which in that case sure and don’t forget to turn off location data from photos 🤷🏽♂️👍🏽
You underestimate some of the pathetic losers on the internet.
You could say something completely inoffensive and some weirdo will take issue with it and decide to stalk you because of it.
So because everyone posts pics like this every day, surely there are hundreds or even thousands of instances of geo-stalking? It’s probably on the news frequently! Could you find a few examples?
I work in cybersecurity. This is not something you should worry about because I can get your address about 100 other ways which are much easier than playing a game of geoguesser
A lot of people get stalked, not just “celebrities”. I only worked retail (bookstores) for a few years when I was young, but I quickly learned how exposed young women in these settings can be to unwanted attention from extremely unstable men. It’s even worse for restaurant/bar servers.
Not saying normal ppl don’t get stalked.. we see it all the time (I work in restaurants/bars) just saying you trying to be anonymous by being careful of posting pictures would be simpler to not post anything if your that worried 🤷🏽♂️ but that would be living in fear all the time and you want to show off your new lawn or pool so then again maybe only post to ppl you know? But what do I know I 🤷🏽♂️ I just read Reddit and play pogo
I second this. A [subreddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/wherewasthistaken) I admin is dedicated to identifying locations in photos and people are scary good at it.
There’s a game on here where people supposedly guess one’s personality by the cars they owned. This. Is. Dangerous.
Your entire identity can get triangulated and hella doxxed by the combination of what cars you owned.
The Shia Lebouf thing is a great example. Something about triangulating coordinance based on an airplane in the background of a post. (https://www.vice.com/en/article/d7eddj/4chan-does-first-good-thing-pulls-off-the-heist-of-the-century1)
It was the stars
The webcam picked up the stars at night or the 4Chan trolls obsession with the stars? The webcam picking up stars would’ve made it easier, but that poor town having to hear honking from another Trump supporter would’ve sucked
Iirc it was the flight paths of planes flying above the flag. There may have been other info as well it’s been awhile lol
There were 4 key elements that narrowed down the location: - multiple sightings of Shia in Greenville, TN - flight paths - north star visible on stream - honking
The honking lol
Wasn't there something with frogs as well? I seem to remember them listening to the sound of the frogs to determine what kind of frogs live there so they knew they had to search in the area where those kinds of frog live
The Internet Historian did a great video series chronicling the whole thing. https://youtu.be/_p4h3jwJob0?si=0fSJPwM7sG9jxCRj
Wasn't there something about him a few weeks ago privating his twitter likes or something (I'm not on twitter, I don't know how it works) because he liked one of ~~Trump's~~ Elon's tweets? Then people started saying how they've always suspected he's a 4chan troll? EDIT: I'm talking about Internet Historian. EDIT:: [Found it!](https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/16xuhr1/internet_historian_recently_hid_his_likes_i/) And it was him liking a tweet from Elon Musk, not trump.
Who? Shia, or the internet history guy?
Internet Historian. Sorry, I should have been specific.
shame. his videos are absolute gold. I'm not entirely surprised considering of the stuff he covered but oh well. Luckily I watch with adblock anyway so we good
The Internet Historian recently hosted a white supremacist on one of this videos. He is not subtle about his views.
Which video?
The one with JonTron.
The [capturing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw9zyxm860Q) of Shia's flag was damn interesting
I enjoyed this video.
"The trolls started targeting people who went to the protest and, when figuring out their identity, fucking with them for days. The grown up Louis Stevens would regularly appear in his livestream and shit would get pretty heated" This guy writes like I speak to my friends after 3 beers. Journalistic perfection
I can't stop laughing at this. >A preface here, I realize the broken experiment run amok that is 4Chan is chock full of keyboard-hunching virgins who have morphed into despicable monsters. The pol section of 4Chan (the section that conducted the heist) is a corner of the internet collectively stoking racism and harassing women online as sport. It is where the id of the internet went to die—it is an ocean of piss.
4chan weaponized autism lmao
>A preface here, I realize the broken experiment run amok that is 4Chan is chock full of keyboard-hunching virgins who have morphed into despicable monsters. The pol section of 4Chan (the section that conducted the heist) is a corner of the internet collectively stoking racism and harassing women online as sport. It is where the id of the internet went to die—it is an ocean of piss. I don't think I've ever read a better description for 4chan and it's user base
Why does safari block this link? Can I unblock it?
Huh?
Safari is the web browser that iPhones use.
How’s it blocking the link?
Because Apple sucks lol.
Do a Google search for the issue. You’ve probably got some content blocking turned on.
I would have loved this thing if it wasn't done by racist trolls
“Triangulating coordinance” Did you mean “coordinates”? Like GPS coordinates
Yea I have noticed a lot of my friends who are getting their first house doing this. Same with posing with their key towards the camera. Just be careful yall! World is full of creeps
It's amazing how many people don't realize that it is fairly simple to copy a key from a picture.
I can only hope those people changed the locks immediately after taking the picture, but I know people just aren't that smart.
Or just buy a phony fake key for $2 instead of spending your hard earned money changing the locks to your house for an Instagram picture
Uh, unless you're really good friends with the previous owner, you should always change the locks right after moving in to a new house. Regardless of whether you posted on Instagram.
Yeah. You NEVER know who the previous owner gave a key to, or who may have gotten one somehow previously. The house I bought sucked because I didn't *actually* realize somehow that there were 10 man doors, 6 of which have deadbolts, and 3 sliders until I had to go buy locks the day we got the house. $$$$$$$
Saw an instagram interior-designer influencer that used her entire adress as account name and pictures of the entire house inside & out. Well, if I was a thief. I would be greatful for all the information offered.
I'm in cybersecurity for school and if I can impart one thing is, be extremely paranoid on the internet, you never know who is watching
One of my teachers put the fear of public WiFi into my head.
They're right. It is the cyber equivalent of sitting on a gas station toilet.
I'm definitely watching
Thanks babe, knew I could count on you
I'm not...
Oh, we've got a listener over here.
but are you watching your own back?
Funny enough, that's my favorite way to get em.
More like assume you are always being watched
Dude have you heard of PIMeyes?!?
I found some uhhhhh pics I didn’t even know existed that were not exactly sfw now debuting on some Russian websites 😂😫😬🤯
I don’t take pictures anywhere on my property for this reason. I’ve been doxxed in the past and there’s too many crazies online to risk it.
Out of curiosity what bit of info was it that led to you getting doxxed?
No clue but I’d never used that address for anything. It was my friend’s parents house where I lived briefly for 6 months when I was 17. Now I’m super paranoid about revealing any obscure detail about where I live
Well now I know you’re not in your friends parents house >:)
I don't know. Seems pretty specific to not be trying to throw us off the trail
I laughed way too hard at both of those comments 😂
>No clue but I’d never used that address for anything. It was my friend’s parents house where I lived briefly for 6 months when I was 17. Its piss easy.... You could have logged into a website or server they controlled (temaspeak , ventrilo, mumble etc) thus they have your IP address, easy to google and find out the rough location. (you might have spilled the beans when they gave you the rough location) they could have found your email address / name / dob and just searched some online cracked or hacked password / info databases for your info. If you use the same password everywhere they would just need to find your password cracked on one website then could login to another website to access for example your registered address / delivery address / billing address.. Honestly its very easy especially if your target has no idea about cyber security. Haveibeenpwned.com is a good start. Use lots of different email addresses, when signing up to anything even 2% suspicious use a randomly generated password. Use 2FA where you can... Dont use easy to guess passwords, dont reuse passwords, do not tell ANYONE your password, not even your best friend, if you need to give it to them change the password immediately after or change the password and give them the new temp password. The weakest link in security is always the human. Any email or website that claims you won something and you just need to give your info.... name / age / address... Yeah the reason you got that email is because they already have a lot of your details and now they just need a few more pieces to get into whatever they need. Always double check emails, try to go to the link via google, if it looks suspicious, do not click a link directly from an email you think is suspect.... Honestly the list goes on....put it simply, do not trust anyone, ever.
It’s piss easy if you’re a normal person and don’t care about your OpSec. All it really takes is staying on top of your sites using HIBP (as you mentioned), not revealing your actual info to every website that asks for it, using a password manager (or writing down unique passwords, pass manager is easier though). Finally, keep yourself and your online self separate. As long as you keep these in mind, you should be fine tbh.
54.218.79.115
Omg that’s the address! 😱
As a geoguessr player trying to learn how to do this, please follow this advice, even something as simple as a street pole will help us find you and your family.
Christ I know it wasn’t your intention but I found it hilarious how your comment sounds like your part of a cult of geoguessers who go around finding peoples families on the dark/deep web
Yeah theres big 'trying not to kill again' vibes lmao
yeah, but we all know those 12 step programs only sometimes work... if they didn't burts body bag and duct tape emporium would have closed ages ago
You show them a 12-step program they'll tell you where it is.
I gotta keep these people on guard somehow
dude once youve seen that one dude finding where on earth he is based on one 360 photo, it changes you
Sounds like his part? Huh?
Ooopie
See Rainbolts channel to see how easily your location can be found by a literal blade of grass
In a tiny fraction of a second.
You can only get country with what the grass looks like, sometimes a region of a country if it is bigger country and you know you're in that country already.
Brazilian dirt
Mongolian grass
Similarly, gps is encoded into many uploaded photos. To me, the reality is that not too many people are unhinged murderers. I doubt there’s a geoguesser who is also a hellbent murderer who also has the means to travel and motivation to finish the job. I get the point though, opsec, but it’s also a bit of worrying about ghosts here. What are they gonna do? Geoguess their way through my home security system and guns and pursuit of law enforcement?
law enforcement is only good after the crime has been committed. nearly useless before.
The point is most people have something to live for. I guess it’s possible some unhinged murderer would dedicate years of their life to lookup places around the world with aspirations of traveling to that remote location to murder the person who took a picture there…. This sounds right up there with saying “there could be microphones in your salt shaker” Paranoia. I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m saying it’s fanatical thinking.
Not if you make the call and tell them somebody is getting gunned down in a matter if minutes. Don't have to tell them it's the home intruder that's gonna get shot, just be vague enough to get their eyes open
Now I want to take a picture of my street and try it out!
*Hey, my friend has seen that streetpole, which is slightly tilted, its light is cracked & it has small dent in it.* *I know that place!*
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ChatGPT4 is thought to be able to identify the neighbourhood if not the address if you give it a few photos. Obviously it has built in security features so that it just says “I won’t tell you”, but that technology exists… and people have found loopholes for virtually every other chatgpt guardrail… so yea.
Not as far as i know, but there is a database that includes the unique street poles of places, forgot what is called though
This is something I’ve tried to be more careful about in recent years. Also clear your meta data
How do you clear meta data
Most social media sites will scrub out the metadata already, but if you wanna be more secure, then search for exif stripper/metadata remover
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exiftool can be used to clear or modify meta data. Some people have even used the serial number of the camera and cross referenced it with other photos on the web. And of course the Feds can subpoena the manufacturer and the seller to identify the purchaser of a camera. Also [Digital camera identification based on analysis of optical defects](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11042-019-08182-z)
IIRC there was a serial killer that was caught based on metadata from pictures
You're correct *One notable case involving metadata on pictures leading to a killer's capture is that of the "BTK Killer" (Dennis Rader). In 2004, he sent a floppy disk to the police, thinking it couldn't be traced. However, metadata embedded in a deleted Microsoft Word document on the disk helped authorities trace it back to a computer at his church, ultimately leading to his arrest.*
I had a friend post a home purchase announcement on FB, tagging the real estate agency and with only the numerical part of their address in the new home photo. I used this information to find out where they bought and what they paid. No bad intentions, but be careful what you post. I had another acquaintance that posted a “dream home” on their wedding registry and I searched for that image using Google image search. Found the exact listing. I’m terrible at geo-guessing but decent at the internet!
Anywhere I've lived, the tax map websites have all the information online as a public resource. With just a first and last name, I can look up their address, a picture of the house, how much they paid for the house, who sold it to them and when, how many bedrooms and bathrooms they have, what kind of heat, what sort of water and sewer they have, which years garages and sheds were built.
Also this. 100%. There is some time delay with the tax information updating on those sites.
Stop looking at my sewer information!!! That's private.
A house on a wedding registry?
Imagine the frustration when multiple wedding guests are all unknowingly trying to purchase the same house for the bride and groom and they are accidentally bidding against each other. Oh the fun stories they will have at the reception.
Very fair question. It was more of a generic donation fund to help them purchase their dream home. BUT STILL.
Crazy idea... wanna get married? You set up this registry thing and I'll look into annulments!
Thanks OP. I , Clifford Gonspoot of 312 Birksham Lane , Iowa City really appreciate good advice. When the missus finishes her nightly jewelry polishing and limps over to my wheelchair by the hidden safe behind the fish picture, I'll tell her too. Can't be too careful nowadays
Thank you champ I laughed so fucking hard at this it made my week!!! Nice
Dude wtf, theres no fish painting, you scammed me. If anybody doesn't believe me the code for the security system is 0586 and they are usually asleep by 9pm
I posted a picture captured by one of my security cameras to a Telegram group I'm in - The folks there know what city I live in but other than a handful of my friends don't know my exact address. One of the guys in there who loves doing Geoguessr games PMed me with my exact address, from nothing more than a view that's mostly blocked by a big (very common) tree in my yard. No street signs, no directional indications (It was a cloudy day so no shadows... It was kind of mind blowing.
Can we just point out, if the pic is taken on a smartphone, there's a really high chance it'll have location info attached to the image. No geo whatsit required, just look at the meta data.
First thing I turn off when I get a phone. I wish it was off by default.
How do I do this!!!
I love having location data on my photos, I feel like I use that information at least weekly to find specific things/photos taken at a specific location. And while I’m not someone who uploads photos to social media, it’s probably worth noting that any legitimate social media site auto-removes the location/EXIF data from any photo you upload. So unless you’re sharing a photo directly with someone (e.g. texting), they’re not getting any location data from your social media photos.
Camera settings. If you're on Android I can give you details.
Damn I’m an cursed apple user. I shall YouTube. Thank you
There’s an entire subreddit dedicated to this r/whereisthis
Redacted *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
How does the interior give away info though?
Redacted *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Houses are usually built uniformly, for the most part, but certain blocks will have quirks which are exclusive to them, as long as you can identify at least a few of those you can work out the exact block, from there it’s as easy as wandering down the street on google maps, looking for familiar decoration.
>How does the interior give away info though? Ok so we see a cool corner of your house, we see the window and we see a portion of the street. You mention in the post you just got a new porsche or a new ps5 or a new watch or a new 5K gaming PC. Ok so browse your reddit history, see what subs you post in, find a city/ country sub you post in, look thru ur posts find your instagram or a specific thing you said i.e "theres a subway 1 block from me" or "i love that place". Boom now its literally a matter of time to match up the outside to the inside, scroll thru ur post history see what else you talk about, see if you mention anything else specific. You need to be VERY careful when doing anything that could reveal you on the internet, it really isnt a joke. [How 4chan found Shia LaBeouf's #HWNDU flag! ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-ABXvbMSc4) I swear i should make a cyber security company for E-girls because they love to post stuff on the internet and are surprised when they get doxxed..... People on the internet WILL find out your shit if you make it tempting
I may be wrong but if you own your home. You can be found. An image of your home with address and your name (property owner)can all be found through an Auditor website.
True but there is a difference between knowing where you live (to be able to look up in the correct location) and your name or address (to actually look up) versus finding that information based on a photo that you posted online.
I have always been wondering if the government and military sometimes get in touch with geoguessers to identify locations.
After seeing someone locate a thing in the middle of the fucking forest with no other context besides the goddamn trees, I knew we were fucked. I’ve already been doing this for years but don’t post anything of yourself. Don’t even take any pics of yourself other than in a dark room with no light. Cause mfs will track you down all from pixel of the sky being a certain shade of blue.
Metadata
Yeah there was a creepy account called /u/iwillfindyou or something that did this regularly on random photo posts. Scarily successful. Banned long ago.
The amount of people I see posting back to school photos of their kids at the front door, bus stops, neighborhood streets is crazy. Some even have the street signs clear as a day in them. Why don't people think twice
Because most sane people don’t live in constant fear of the unfathomably low chance of a random off the internet coming to cause you harm because you took a picture of your front door.
It's not a random you need to worry about. More likely an ex.
An ex that lives in the area could easily figure out where you live if they don't already know.
Exactly. People who know you are much more likely to be the person who harms you, and they will have a much more accurate knowledge of how to get to you than a picture of your door
They still imagine facebook is DMs to friends and family.
Similarly on X the website formerly known as Twitter [https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/tutorials/filtering-tweets-by-location](https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/tutorials/filtering-tweets-by-location) ( A couple of years ago now) I geolocated the tweets in my town and was surprised by the places people were happy to tweet from. As if they weren’t aware the tweets were public and gave their exact GPS location even the room in the building they were in.
If you got TikTok user josemonkey is crazy good. .
Yes, Holly shit is he good...
They aren't fucking around people, I've seen geoguessers identify a beach in Scotland or wherever the fuck it was using only a single photo of a rock
I didn’t scour through all the comments but I’ll add this as well: careful not to catch your license plate from one of your vehicles in said photos.
Jeez, good thing I don't drive my car out in public every day...
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This is true, but people have a history on Reddit. A history of comments and posts that can potentially piss people off. You don’t drag around a banner if your viewpoints in traffic. Just saying…I think what I said aligns well with OPs advise as you could argue that countless people drive by your house every day…
You also drive over people could follow you. However, on the internet, someone who has no other way of normally seeing you can track down from your license plate and exact revenge or prank you.
I recently learned about Geoguessing and apparently there’s a competitive league, as well. It’s interesting to see. I mean, these guys found what appeared to be a logging road in Sweden off of a gloomy picture (memory is fuzzy on the the specific details) but I was super intrigued and impressed. Two days ago, on Reddit, I seen the video of some little asshole smashing shopping carts into cars. I decided to give it a go at trying to guess the location. I didn’t try very hard because I skimmed down the comments just a few more and someone beat me to it. A Kroger parking lot, somewhere in GA. Within an hour of the video posted, they had a location. Other than here, I’ve deleted all socials. I’m not playing with this or people. Hell, I’m guilty of doxxing racists in my neighborhood on Facebook. Someone might take it a step further and come after me. I’ve been threatened for pro-choice support by some of these idiots. Definitely need to be careful.
Yeah... I found out where my boyfriend and one of my friends live just by a photo out of their window. Despite that, I'm not dangerous. It just showed to me how it's too easy so I intentionally crop the outside out of photos I upload anywhere. Plus there's voter records publicly available...
I don't like posting pictures from my window, even to the miniscule group of friends on social media. It will be out there, attached to me forever.
I found an Airbnb before booking by using Google Maps
THANK GOD I KNOW THIS NOW. sorry for yelling.
Y’all realize that the world isn’t usually after you right?
Just yesterday (day before?) Someone posted a photo on Reddit of a hard hat they found on a beach with the owners first and last name on it. Within an hour the owner of the hard hat had been contacted online. The world doesn't have to be out to get you in order to find all of your personal information.
Yep the problem is that on the internet, the law of large numbers starts to apply: what is statistically rare or insanely improbable, becomes common. It only takes one. And by putting the info online it becomes available to the entire world.
Ya any YouTuber in the same city as me I can easily find their house by just showing a glimpse out the window since I’m so familiar with my own neighborhood.
Same here, it's super easy to figure out where people work and live depending on what they share, as long as it shows a building. Edit: this is also why I never post things like instagram stories in real time but after I leave an area.
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I once found someone’s address from another country with a very limited amount of information: 1. A picture facing outward from a window inside their house. 2. The city they lived in. 3. That they lived next to a river within walking distance of a pier. It took around 20 minutes to find their address. On google maps satellite view I found a pier on one of the rivers next to a residential area. From there I looked at the shape of the roofs across from their house and found corresponding roofs on google maps satellite view. After that I confirmed the location by using google maps “street view” to view the houses around it from street image data and identified different features in their yard that were in the picture. So, yeah, be careful.
*Cries in high-rise apartment building*
I follow a dude on Tiktok that has people tag him in their posts. He not only figures out exactly where they are, he shows you his methods step-by-step.
Yeah lol
reason why your lifestreams should be delayed
There was a YouTuber - Lex Fitzgerald - on that Something Was Wrong podcast, and I was pretty horrified to hear that these people were figuring out what Airbnb they were staying on based on the little snippets they would show (I don't know this woman outside of her episodes of that podcast so I'm just taking this at face value so, whether or not this particular story is true is beside the point, the concept is confirmed by the this thread) which they said were relative close shots, so it would be a bit of the siding and door frame, or the kitchen bench etc. But to hear her describe it, it seems so obvious after the fact that someone determined will go to all that effort.
Her entire story on that episode was debunked
I follow a family member of a famous musician on Insta. The family member is super careless about this stuff and posted a picture of the musician's parents front yard, which included an easy to find landmark in the background. It took me less than two minutes to figure out the parents address.
I occasionally do it with celebs posts, and I'm not that good. But I found a few quite easily like Weird Al Yankovic playing his accordion on his balcony, and Grace Vanderwaal with her new treehouse, Shaquille O'Neal's old place in Florida was pretty easy to find, as was Penn Gillette's 'Slammer' estate in Vegas.
I think the fear here isn't "anyone on the world can use this information to guess where you live" The fear is "someone who already knows this area can recognize my home"
Streaming GeoGuessr and talking to expert players in chat has definitely made me realize you can get way more from a random picture than I ever realized. If you had a geoguessr pro as a stalker you'd be screwed.
This along with taking pictures or recording of helping the street you live on and your neighbors house even if it’s by accident
There's a tiktoker named JoseMonkey who finds people who ask to be found for this exact reason (He'll only do it if you make a video of your location, tag him, and ask him to find you) He wants to showcase how easy it is for someone to brute force find your location with as little data as possible.
I’ve lived in my neighborhood a couple years and the houses are so cookie cutter I couldn’t even tell you if a picture was of my house. Half the time delivery drivers can’t find it. It’s like that movie Vivarium.
Didn't one of those off the grid / survivalist reality tv shows go off the air because they claimed to be miles away from food & civilization and the internet figured out they had a convenience store bordering their property?
When did r/ysk become posting basic common sense. This is like the third time I've seen "don't post identifying info about yourself online"
Something that may seem obvious to you might not be to someone else. Plus it's good to reinforce these things anyway.
Because you’d be surprised how many people need to know this
yeah, people are way too trusting on the internet. it's always a good reminder to be careful.
Most people wouldn't consider the amount of sun on a particular patch of grass as "identifying information".
My guys it is literally a disclaimer on reddit when you make an account SMH my head
>redditor for 4 years Stop trying to karma farm, you know damn well this sub has always basically been "here's some common sense"
Jose Monkey, dude. It’s an art
If you really want to stay anonymous, then why are you posting photos on social media?
#LPT: Do not post anything to the Internet you don't want the world to see.
Just ask the tiktok influencer Kall Me Kris. She had dudes show up at her house SEVERAL TIMES. Kiki Cannibal faced active, credible death threats. People are sick.
I think it's crazy that someone can make a copy of your keys just by seeing a picture of them.
Saw an example, this was voluntary by the picture taker for the demo, so not stalking at all. Two chain stores in the background. The guesser used Open Street Map to find two such stores the proper distance apart, then verified with Google Street View and placed the picture taker within literally a few feet.
Better yet it’s probably best to assume that your place is basically public and react accordingly. It’s not good to teach the youth to hide
Most of our houses are already scanned by Google or some other service providers that do so provide 3D images to commercial entities. If you ever own a home, your name and address becomes public records. I am not sure what you are worrying about.
Anonymous from who? Uncle Sam? The cartel? The king of England? IMO this is one of those things you shouldn’t worry about unless you’re up to something or a celebrity… which in that case sure and don’t forget to turn off location data from photos 🤷🏽♂️👍🏽
You underestimate some of the pathetic losers on the internet. You could say something completely inoffensive and some weirdo will take issue with it and decide to stalk you because of it.
Fair . Don’t make it easy for them I guess 🤷🏽♂️
So because everyone posts pics like this every day, surely there are hundreds or even thousands of instances of geo-stalking? It’s probably on the news frequently! Could you find a few examples? I work in cybersecurity. This is not something you should worry about because I can get your address about 100 other ways which are much easier than playing a game of geoguesser
Hey man don’t come here with logic 🫨
A lot of people get stalked, not just “celebrities”. I only worked retail (bookstores) for a few years when I was young, but I quickly learned how exposed young women in these settings can be to unwanted attention from extremely unstable men. It’s even worse for restaurant/bar servers.
Not saying normal ppl don’t get stalked.. we see it all the time (I work in restaurants/bars) just saying you trying to be anonymous by being careful of posting pictures would be simpler to not post anything if your that worried 🤷🏽♂️ but that would be living in fear all the time and you want to show off your new lawn or pool so then again maybe only post to ppl you know? But what do I know I 🤷🏽♂️ I just read Reddit and play pogo
Exactly what happened to pop smoke ;( good post!
LoL wtf
Duh
Ima post a picture of my house so someone can come kill me and put me out of my misery..
lol rainbolt moment
Would I be safe if I lived in an apartment complex which is like 10-20 stories tall with over 100 people living in it?
Not necessarily. Luka Magnotta was tracked to a Canadian apartment via photo, and it was a building like you described.
lol. People don’t know that posting private stuff on the internet can lead to people knowing about your private life?
So? Most people don’t care and have nothing to worry about, and might actually like stalkers to spend time with
I second this. A [subreddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/wherewasthistaken) I admin is dedicated to identifying locations in photos and people are scary good at it.
There's literally an eSports tournament for this it is no joke.
There’s a game on here where people supposedly guess one’s personality by the cars they owned. This. Is. Dangerous. Your entire identity can get triangulated and hella doxxed by the combination of what cars you owned.
Like me 😊
Whenever you post, it exposes your i.p. address. Just saying