Geotagging: The Extreme Dangers and Uses

Here is the problem. Geotagging was invented to kill and capture terrorists and criminals worldwide. The problem is many law abiding citizens are killed, mugged, raped or burglarized worldwide too, because of it.

So, if you are a savvy technology user (the only kind that can survive these days using technology), you know to turn off your geotagging when you take ANY  pictures in your home, in front of your home, at your private place of business, or anywhere you don't want people to come burgle, kill or rape you.

What it is: Geotagging is embedded in ANY digital picture if it is taken in any device (usually smartphones or digital cameras and others) where it is not turned off when the picture is taken.

Note: All smartphones now have the usually turned on when you buy them unless you can find a way to turn this feature off.

So, usually most photos are a .jpeg format but not all. What a digital photo actually is is data code. When you take ANY picture with this feature of Geotagging on and then post this photo from usually a smartphone or digital camera with this feature already on, you have just given ever criminal (and government on earth a map to wherever you took that picture. Because encoded in this picture is also (within 3 feet) the exact lattitude and longitude of wherever that picture was taken.

Here are two nightmare stories that I know about. One from the news and one from personal experience regarding GPS real time tracking.

The first one involves geotagging of one of the stars of a popular reality show that often blows things up or drops things from several thousands of feet to see what happens like cars or other items. One of the stars left his geotagging on when he took a photo of his tricked out 4 wheel drive vehicle. Along with the photo he mentioned he was going on a weekend vacation from his home online. This was enough for thieves to completely clean out everything they wanted from his home because no one was there. This is a completely true story.

But, here is the next level. The story I'm going to tell now is much scarier and closer to home for me and had to do with my God Daughter (in her early 20s then) and her 30 something boyfriend who made about 125, 000 dollars a year running a fancy French Restaurant. He seemed kind of flaky when my wife and I met him but thought since he had a good job that he might be okay for our God Daughter to live with. We were wrong. When they were breaking up he bought her a cell phone that was designed for parents to track their teenagers every moment with in real time. But he didn't tell her this. So, he kept showing up (after they broke up) and beating her up. Finally, she got with another boyfriend who was a very handsome gentleman who was a martial artist and had a Bachelor's degree and was applying for the FBI at the time. The 30 something boyfriend threatened his life over the phone and the young man was talking to a policeman at the time because of the threats. So, he just handed the phone to the police officer, the older ex-boyfriend didn't believe he was talking to a police officer and threatened his life too. This basically was the beginning of the end for the 30 something ex-boyfriend.

So, though our God Daughter was young and strong enough not to have to go to the hospital from being beat up several times, she was very traumatized for a long time with her ex-boyfriend showing up all over California and trying and sometimes succeeding to beat her up before it all stopped. He also took nude photos of her and sent them to all her co-workers smart phones and cell phones which only made her co-workers want to kill the ex-boyfriend in the end. This is the problem with GPS phones (all cell phones) and now geotagging as well on mostly all cell phones but especially smart phones and newer digital cameras that you might buy.

So, think carefully about whether you have geotagging on any device and whether you have the option of turning it off with all the new laws.

The problem of congressmen and Congresswomen is often they don't have degrees in Computer Science and don't know they are endangering the lives of their constituents. E911 was likely very positively motivated law but I think it also might potentially endanger the lives of law abiding citizens in the U.S. And because these devices also travel all around the world sometimes, it also endangers law abiding citizens in literally ALL countries whenever anyone posts a geotagged photo online without realizing what Geotagging is and just how dangerous it is to law abiding citizens worldwide.

For example, I will probably NEVER put any photo taken with my new smartphone (a free LG) online ever. But, I have a digital camera that (I believe) does not have geotagging to my knowledge and I still likely will post photos taken far away from my home on my blog using this camera but never my smartphone at this point. So, protect yourself because it appears others are not protecting you.

Another tip in regard to banking: I discovered online banking is no longer safe enough to engage in for most people. Here is my reasoning: Since individuals are now being targeted by hackers from places like Russia and China and taking the money out of specific people's accounts, since they are bypassing basic Banking networks and instead penetrating individuals passwords directly through their home computers, banks are not liable directly for the direct draining of individual accounts under these circumstances. The banks are only liable when banking networks are directly penetrated. So, if you lose everything in your bank accounts due to hacking and it was penetrated through your own home or business computer you will lose everything and no one will reimburse your losses. Because of this, online banking is no longer safe enough for me to engage in at all.

So, in essence if they find your bank, your passwords and login through your own computer you are screwed and you will lose everything. So, I stopped online banking completely as a result of discovering this.