Revealing too much... no, really too much!

[onthemove]

Just stumbled across this article in the M.E.N.

"A woman was mortified after receiving a note from a neighbour saying they could see everything when she showered." https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... s-21134670

Let's face it, if you were to find yourself in this position - not realising you were visible to the neighbours when showering - but then suddenly finding out you were, would your first reaction be to tell the world about it?... a quick search shows it's not only in the MEN but even on the Sun website, and multiple others.

That would probably be enough to make most people's eyes roll these days.

But it doesn't end there.

Just read the comments at the bottom of the article, and what's the first thing that clearly springs into many people's minds when they see an article like that?

One would presume that the girl expects that to be private - much like her showering.

I must admit for a while now, I've seen it as a challenge to imagine I were working for MI6 or whatever, and will often see if I can use information in and around photographs, to see if I can pin-point exactly where they are of, or where exactly they were taken from, etc.

So figured just for the challenge I'd see what could be established from the photo of the back of the house in the article, coupled with the information in the article.

If you use google 3d satellite view, it quickly becomes apparent that in Edgeley in Stockport (that location information being freely given away by the girl herself in the article), white-wash on the rear of the property is quite unusual. Even more so is a property having whitewash on the main rear walls but where there's a single story extension attached which is red brick. Even more unusual in that area, is having a whitewashed rear wall with the neighbours to the right having a red brick rear wall, but the extension on the whitewashed property being red brick.

So much so that after a few minutes of looking, there only appears to be one single candidate that I've found so far, for a property matching all those criteria.

Furthermore ...

- the absence of an upstairs window directly above the extension,
- the position of the satellite dish,
- the position of the neighbour's chimney,
- the location of greenary outside the extension window in question,
- the location of the outside corner drainpipe on the extension,
- the presence of a bush between the extension door and the end of the extension,

... in the google 3d satellite view, all seem to tally with the property in the photo.

Here's a side-by-side comparison so you can see what you think for yourselves whether it looks like the same property, though obviously, I've cropped right in on the google streeview image so as not to give away any more context than was given away in the original photo, and masked out the house numbers that google has overlayed on the rooftops,...



I'm going to stop short of including the address or google link for obvious reasons - though to be honest, the girl might as well have included her address herself in the article, given how easy it was to find this from the information she's already shared with everyone in the article.

I've posted this post really to caution just how much information people might be giving away without (presumably) being aware of it.

Effectively by posting that picture of the back of her house - which she presumably thought was just a picture of a.n.other rear terraced property same as every other, so safe to publish - but along with the other information in the article, she's basically given away her full address.
--

Assuming of course that the article and photographs are genuine and not fabricated using stolen pictures, and the resultant address isn't someone else's entirely, and the real owners / occupiers are completely unconnected and unaware. You can never be completely sure these days.

[Rhyd6]

Strange hobby you've got, still each to his own. This is why I never post any photos on any site ever.

R6

[GrahamPlatt]

There was a case on the Archers omnibus this morning. Kyle somebody or other got “overlooked”.

[vagrantbrain]

Disturbing how much information you can often get with very little effort:
Back in my single days I tried some dating apps which often resulted in swapping phone numbers with someone after a bit of chit-chat. At the time you could search Facebook for a mobile number which would find that persons profile. As people often don't look at their privacy options a lot of the time everything they posted was visible to anyone. From this you could get their full name plus their industry, which led to a LinkedIn profile.

Made the first date interesting when you already know every job they've had, what they work on at the moment, their bosses name, how many siblings they've got, how long they've been divorced, the names, ages, hobbies and schools of their kids, what music they listen to, what films they like, where they went on holiday last year etc etc before you've even met them! All from just a first name and mobile number.

I'm reminded of an infamous aussie paedophile who was ultimately caught after posting an innocent picture of some accident damage to his 4x4 on a spare parts forum.

[onthemove]

Strange hobby you've got, still each to his own. This is why I never post any photos on any site ever.

R6

I wouldn't necessarily go as far as saying it's a hobby. More like how people do crosswords and sodoku and such like. It's basically like doing puzzles.

It's partly being a software engineer with an interest in data analysis. ... Looking for patterns and such like which could act as a 'key'.
It's almost like a visual sudoku... similar to how in soduku you're skimming around the board looking for specific patterns of particular numbers, instead when you use google maps you're skimming around looking for analogous patterns of visual features that you've identified as being 'key'.

And like sodoku, it's quite addictive.

Initially I tried to find the real world location of the Death in Paradise town from key aspects in the series and knowing it was on Guadeloupe. Narrowing it down by considering the direction of the sunsets meaning it needed to be a west facing coastline, etc, and then looking for key features like the pier, and the shape of the bay, etc (I know the info is available online, I just wanted to see if I could find it from what's in the series coupled with google maps; I must admit, I managed to find the town quite quickly, but did admit defeat and have to look up the answer to where his shack on the beach is located... turns out it's only a temporary construction... they build it for filming, then disassemble it and put it into storage each time the series filming is finished).

Then other things like trying to find things shown in news stories, like sites in the desert in Iran etc.

Other times trying to identify exactly where a guy on youtube who does a lot of photography and wild camping in the lakes has shot his pictures from. Though I must admit some of this comes from already recognising the mountains, so I already know roughly where to look, then use google 3d view to pin down exactly from the relative positions of the mountain outlines.

Or trying to find where exactly I took some photographs of my own from holidays a couple of decades ago, so that I can see what they're like on google maps today.

It's interesting looking on google maps to see what my photos would look like if someone were stood in the same location photo-ing them today. But challenging sometimes to identify where that location was since in the days of film where each picture cost money, meant there could be quite a gap between them, making it challenging to pin down exactly where some were taken.

The main technique is identifying the broad patterns from the reference photo(s) or videos that can act like a key - something that should be distinct, and also visible at a wider scale on google maps.

It really can be quite additive ... like playing games like soduko, etc.

It's quite amazing how just simply fixing the orientation (N,E,S,W) from (e.g.) the position of the sun in a photo, etc, can narrow down the search considerably.

Once you've fixed the orientation, then identifying key patterns in things like roads and rivers, particular intersections, etc, is a big help.

And once you've done it a few times, you then start to see other pictures and just automatically start think 'you know what, I bet that, that and that could be used to identify where it was taken'... which then sets up the challenge...

There's a channel I watch on youtube, filmed in a particular town in Chile, usually recorded in a closed garden, but one day the channel showed just a few seconds clip of the road junction outside the property, at which point I immediately thought 'aha! I bet I could figure out where that is from the junction pattern, the street furniture in the middle of the junction and the buildings the other side of it'... and literally within just a few minutes, I'd unambiguously found the location. (Later videos by the same channel are more open about the location, and even use the google maps to show how it was before they started work on the location - quite a transformation!)

So on the one aspect you've got the puzzle solving fun of doing it.

But also, as mentioned at the top, I'm a software engineer with an interest in data analytics, so things like the privacy implications are also interesting and even something I need to be very aware of in my day job. How much personal information is leaked in a picture and such like.

You might not realise it, but under the Data Protection Act, it's now recognised that data can be indexed by picture these days. So for example, even just having the picture of someone, without any other labelling, no name or address or anything, is now considered storing personal information. You can even make a subject access request by sending a picture (and giving the time when you might have been recorded) and a data processor has to then provide any video, (e.g. security camera / CCTV footage), etc, they have containing you, based on recognising you from the reference picture you provide, even though the video isn't labelled as being of you, etc/..

Which is why when I saw the picture in the article, it prompted the challenge as to whether it gave away the journalists address. And I must admit, I was quite surprised at how easily it did. The pattern of whitewash and brickwork between that property, the neighbour's property, and the extension is quite unique in that area, and relatively easy to spot 'flying' over the area on 3d google maps.

And from a professional IT point of view, this is where data protection considerations become difficult. Because in isolation neither the article, nor google give away who lives at that address.

It's only when you combine the two data sets - in two different place, controlled by two different parties - that the connection can be made.

But the 'key' that joins the two datasets to establish that the journalist lives at that address, is purely visual ... using the pattern of whitewash / brickwork to link the two together (and then confirming it with other visual elements).

And worse still, the visual elements that tie them together, aren't even a direct visual match... you need to 'interpret' the image to tie them together, because the image in the article is taken from a completely different point of view from the google images.

Which raises the question, e.g. for google, ... are the pictures in google street view / satellite images personally identifiable information? If so, that would mean google would have to get your permission before storing them. But clearly they don't... they're just a satellite picture.

But without those google satellite pictures, then the journalists address would not be determinable from the information in the article.

And vice versa, without the article, the journalists address would not be determinable from the google images.

Which raises the question then as to who is responsible for this 'leak' of additional information?

(All that said, come to think of it, the address information is probably available from electoral role from just a traditional lookup of the name given in the article, so perhaps not as significant a 'leak' as perhaps I first thought... maybe I was too focussed on the challenge of identifying it from the picture... and the leak as such as it is, isn't such an issue after all ... )

[88V8]

I wouldn't necessarily go as far as saying it's a hobby.

I think that's one of the most fascinating posts I ever read on this site.
Or perhaps any site.

V8

[Rhyd6]

I showed your post to OH who is also a software engineer - he said "yes I could do that but why would I want to"? He also said "why do you think I don't activate the cameras on any of our devices"? He's left me to ponder that one.

R6

[kempiejon]

I showed your post to OH who is also a software engineer - he said "yes I could do that but why would I want to"? He also said "why do you think I don't activate the cameras on any of our devices"? He's left me to ponder that one.

R6

Does he trust the software to keep the cameras off then - I use tape to be sure. And the mics?

[gryffron]

…and I bet she’s still worried about the government using the micro droids in the COVID vaccine to track her

[servodude]

I wouldn't necessarily go as far as saying it's a hobby. More like how people do crosswords and sodoku and such like. It's basically like doing puzzles.

Have you tried GeoGuesser? https://www.geoguessr.com/
Our kids find it fun
- if you allow yourself access to Google you can get pretty accurate results quickly

- sd

[Rhyd6]

kempiejon - tape, after spending his working life dealing with computers he still thinks they're wonderful - people on the other hand .........

R6

[kempiejon]

kempiejon - tape, after spending his working life dealing with computers he still thinks they're wonderful - people on the other hand .........

R6

It was probably over a decade ago, pretty much as soon as my devices had webcams that I taped over them, those that noticed thought I was unnecessarily paranoid.
Some years later there was a photo of Zuckerberg with tape over his. I'm not sure if that makes him as paranoid as me or vindicates my choice though

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... e-facebook

[AleisterCrowley]

yep
I have black tape over my laptop camera, and I'm not the only one
Sometimes people ask for cameras on during work Teams meetings, but I always point out I have a very secure hardware lock on mine for security reasons...