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July 20, 2007
Camera fingerprints
Camera fingerprints: On the internet you're never really anonymous; all you can do is increase the costs to determining your identity. I didn't know this extended to cameras though... seems like the people who create the Harry Potter stories have been able to identify the model number of the camera used to photograph bookpages for unauthorized web distribution. Wikipedia has a good overview of the types of metadata included in the Exchangeable Image File Format used by cameras today. The particular camera used to capture the Harry Potter text also included the camera's unique serial number, which can identify the camera's owner if it was registered or serviced. Fascinating. (JK Rowling, who wrote the book, is repulsed by commercial newspapers which are now generating ad revenue upon "reviews" of the purloined material.)
Posted by JohnDowdell at July 20, 2007 09:41 AM
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This is pure speculation, but... I have to assume that someone could create a bot to go out to the Internet (to Flickr, for instance) and see if there are any other photos online that were taken by that camera. Even if they weren't posted by the person who used that camera, warrants could be issued to get user info of the poster and then lead to the arrest of the person.
I'm not a lawyer, but... ouch.
Posted by: Leif at July 20, 2007 11:17 AM
They also have Printer fingerprints.
http://news.com.com/Forensic+experts+track+printer+fingerprints/2100-1041_3-5410790.html
Posted by: Michael Ramirez at July 20, 2007 11:26 AM
Gimp accurately describes the user interface in my experience. There's a whole lot of ifs and other disclaimers in that article. And the online editing tools? Those seem to have a far way to go as well.
When someone asks about free photo editing tools my first suggestion is to try Picassa from Google. It meets the needs of most home photo editors and is also free.
Posted by: Kim C. at July 20, 2007 02:59 PM
Seth Schoen has more at EFF: "So at a start, we have digital cameras, color laser printers, color photocopiers, CD burners, and DVD burners all invisibly embedding their unique serial numbers -- and much more -- into every document they produce. And more and more devices are using a serial number of some kind as an integral part of their communications. Network cards contain unique, usually persistent MAC addresses that are seen by routers and other nearby computers (and could track a computer from wireless access point to wireless access point, or wired network to wired network). Cell phones contain -- and transmit -- a variety of serial numbers, such as IMEI codes, allowing an individual subscriber to be tracked in real-time even while not making a telephone call. It seems that our devices are increasingly acquiring unique digital fingerprints and are not particularly shy about leaving these fingerprints behind in interactions."
Posted by: John Dowdell at July 23, 2007 05:04 PM