If you are one of those avid social networking users who just can’t resist sharing a lovely picture or write something about what you did the entire day, then we have some concerning news for you. As per a recent report by the International Computer Science Institute, the uploading of photos, videos and other content on the web can now be used by unscrupulous elements to determine the location where you live and that could seriously jeopardize your security. As per the report, this all new phenomenon called, Cybercasing allows such attackers to take the location data from uploaded images and other content and thus determine the address of the uploader.

Most of the digital cameras and smart phones such as the likes of Apple iPhone etc. nowdays carry a default feature known as a geo tagging, that automatically records the location of the content when its gets created. This information is retained by the content even after being uploaded to the websites, and the cyber prowlers, can easily use the latitudes and longitudes provided in the content to determine the location of the users. Two of the researchers in this project, Gerald Friedland and Robin Sommer stated that, they had been able to pull out the addresses of numerous users, who had posted images on Craiglist. One of the most alarming of all facts was that, the research team was able to pull out location data from videos uploaded to YouTube and were able to get several confirmed location, by taking the directional data from videos filed under the tag “Kids” at YouTube.

Via Gizmag