Geotagging:Watch out

If you buy a smartphone it usually has automatic Geotagging. Now if you don't know about this you might think "Oh. It's a game tag!" But that isn't what it is.   Automatic Geotagging is telling any hacker or government where and when exactly upon the earth you took and picture or movie that you take with your smartphone. So, if you are out somewhere and in the woods or Yosemite or Yellowstone  you might like this feature (then). To be able to go to a google map or other and find the exact (within 3 feet) of your lattitude and longitude and time of day of your photo or movie that you take on a smartphone or other geotagging enabled camera or movie camera.

So, if you have absolutely no use for this feature at all (like me) you just have the feature disabled when you buy your smart phone. It is bad enough to have your GPS in your phone monitoring you all the time if you don't want that feature. But like the guy from Mythbusters on TV, he posted a photo he just took of his 4 wheel drive vehicle outside his home and a hacker traced the geotag and burgled his house just from the information of his Geotag on the photo he posted online.

So, this is why you don't want geotagging enabled on your smartphone or camera or video camera if you are going to post ANY photos on line at all.

Because this could not only be used to burgle your home, but also to murder you or your wife or child or a relative of yours. So, personally I don't have any personal use for Geotagging at all and likely you don't either. When only criminals and big brother governments can benefit from a smart phone feature you have to wonder why automatic Geotagging is there in the first place. I think if people want it they should be able to turn in on. And Not to have to know about the existence of  it so they can turn it off!