The Insecurity of Photo Cropping

1 year ago AndyC

The
Insecurity
of
Photo
Cropping

The

Intercept
has
a

long
article
on
the
insecurity
of
photo
cropping:

One
of
the
hazards
lies
in
the
fact
that,
for
some
of
the
programs,
downstream
crop
reversals
are
possible
for
viewers
or
readers
of
the
document,

The
Insecurity
of
Photo
Cropping

The

Intercept
has
a

long
article
on
the
insecurity
of
photo
cropping:

One
of
the
hazards
lies
in
the
fact
that,
for
some
of
the
programs,
downstream
crop
reversals
are
possible
for
viewers
or
readers
of
the
document,
not
just
the
file’s
creators
or
editors.
Official
instruction
manuals,
help
pages,
and
promotional
materials
may
mention
that
cropping
is
reversible,
but
this
documentation
at
times
fails
to
note
that
these
operations
are
reversible
by
any
viewers
of
a
given
image
or
document.

[…]

Uncropped
versions
of
images
can
be
preserved
not
just
in
Office
apps,
but
also
in
a
file’s
own
metadata.
A
photograph
taken
with
a
modern
digital
camera
contains
all
types
of
metadata.
Many
image
files
record
text-based
metadata
such
as
the
camera
make
and
model
or
the
GPS
coordinates
at
which
the
image
was
captured.
Some
photos
also
include
binary
data
such
as
a
thumbnail
version
of
the
original
photo
that
may
persist
in
the
file’s
metadata
even
after
the
photo
has
been
edited
in
an
image
editor.

Tags:

forensics,

metadata,

photos,

whistleblowers

About Author

AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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