Most mature social networks do remove this information to prevent users accidentally sharing their locations. Can someone positively say whether Lemmy is aware enough to strip extra information from photos?

121 points

Yes, pict-rs which is used b by Lemmy strips exif. Confirmed by the dev themselves.

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-7 points

What

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62 points

Pict-rs is a rust library. Lemmy is a rust program. Lemmy uses pict-rs as a dependency. Pict-rs strips exif data. Exif data is the metadata that would include GPS data. Thus, lemmy strips GPS data

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17 points

Tldr: yes

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I don’t think we should be downvoting this guy. Take off your IT hats, folks, it wouldn’t mean much to people outside the industry.

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64 points
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Sal@mander.xyz

“I have just tested by uploading/re-downloading an image, and the EXIF data is removed. I then looked through the Lemmy issues and found this issue related to the image-uploading back-end (pict-rs) removing the EXIF data. In response to this issue, the developer of pict-res (asonix) comments that striping the EXIF data was one of the original motivations for building the uploader. I am not sure about how to search through the source code of pict-rs, and it seems like this step is not properly documented in the readme file, so I have not been able to find exactly where the metadata removal operation takes place. I think that this is done by invoking ‘exiftool’.”

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27 points

Looks that way. I just downloaded a few pictures people have uploaded and checked the meta data, there’s not much there.

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25 points

This is a great question and good to know 🙏

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24 points

It’s always best to assume nothing strips GPS data. You should strip it yourself if you care.

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14 points

Exactly. Even if the standard Lemmy software does it, there’s no guarantee that your instance admin hasn’t altered the code or done something else to keep that data.

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6 points

Do you have any tips for how users can easily manage this, themselves?

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4 points
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I’m hesitant to name anything specific since time exists and tech fluctuates, but there’s definitely a small, free utility app for your device that will strip exif data from your images.

Search for ‘remove exif’ in your App Store and see what people are saying about the top several apps listed.

(EtA: In nongeek, ‘exif’ data includes the photo’s gps coordinates, specific type of camera or device that created the image, timestamp, and other info, and its all quite easily viewable.).

Nerds use these apps more than most, so their reviews tend to go into some detail. There are certainly apps available that are easy to use on your device. Obviously don’t use an online service for this, either.

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3 points
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I load an image into Gimp, scale it to a smaller size and export it with EXIF and XMP removed. Make sense also since devices these days create 3200x3200 images which is unnecessarily large for uploading.

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2 points
1 point

Thanks! I’m gonna need to check these apps out, will be useful to keep on hand.

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