The graves, the belt, and other details our pictures give away
The graves, the belt, and other details our pictures give away
If you have privacy concerns on social media, masking your location only takes you so far
Last week, I asked my followers to tell me what kind of information they could glean from the following picture (please click on the tweet itself so you can see a larger version you can zoom in on, if you’d like to):
This was a really exciting game. Probably the most exciting one we’ve had so far, and not just because a couple of people guessed that it was an engagement photo (yes, there’s a not-small ring on my finger, but it is on my right hand, and even though I’m pretty metal, that’s definitely not my style).
I believe that the first person to geolocate me did it in about 11 minutes (Twitter might have filtered out some replies, and if anyone did it earlier, I apologize; Twitter can be a bit weird):
Ken’s followed me for a while, he also follows my Instagram, and this is not some dark magic he just performed — remember the process of geolocation is fairly straightforward. You start out with a certain set of assumptions, and you test them. Ken likely assumed that I was in the D.C. area, since that’s where I normally tweet from. If he wasn’t familiar with Oak Hill, he began to zoom in on names on the gravestones — there’s some stuff you can make out!
From then on, it’s a matter of figuring out which Burr is buried behind me. Or, as Peter noted, which Ellis:
A stray detail, a few letters here and there, and people will absolutely find out where you are.
Now, say they can’t immediately do that. What if I had been very mean, and blurred the names and furthermore had given no hint that I live in D.C.? Geolocation always starts out as eliminating certain possibilities. Sometimes, in the toughest cases, you can start eliminating by region/climate.
Check out this response to see exactly what I mean:
Would this alone have led the author to the tweet to my exact location? With enough time — it’s very likely.
I also gave away my location by tweeting this hint:
It’s something that people definitely picked up. Search my Twitter history for books, and Lincoln in the Bardo, which is set in Oak Hill, is bound to come up — and did (it’s a great book, by the way, honestly, please read it).
There is a lot more that I can say about the location, but I would like to focus on another detail of the picture instead, because it illustrates an important point.
As the author CD Reiss noted, I was wearing a very specific belt that day:
Others noticed it too. I believe about three people wrote about it publicly, and one person said something to me about it privately. The one person who said something privately is a former Marine, and he noted that I was wearing the belt incorrectly (and called me a boot, har har).
Why is this important?
Well, what do you think foreign intelligence can do with a detail like that? The process can go like this: “USMC belt, she’s not wearing it correctly, what’s her connection to the military, and can it be exploited?”
It’s a small detail, but it’s a detail that can create an opening. Again, I’m not telling you that Putin is currently staring at your pics with a magnifying glass. What I am telling you is that it’s good to be aware of all the information your pictures give away about you. The same goes for the pictures and social media posts of your family and friends. That USMC hoodie that some ex-girlfriend stole from you years ago could be the beginning of a particular digital bread crumb trail. This doesn’t mean I’m telling you to delete all of your social media and go hide in a bunker; I’m telling you that it’s hard for most people to stay anonymous on the internet.
I also really liked CD’s response, because it generated more discussion:
HELL YES. When it comes to how we gather information, we can absolutely use all reliable sources at our disposal — because, guess what, any spies or creeps or investigators who might follow you are capable of doing that too.
As I keep mentioning, I believe it is helpful to reverse-engineering the intel-gathering process in order to make people understand what kind of digital footprint they are leaving behind.
It should matter to you. It should matter to your friends. It should matter to your grandparents. It should matter to your bosses. If only because you never know what kind of context this information can be used in.
I understand that the risks I’m discussing here seem tiny. Furthermore, being a potential tool of, say, foreign intelligence, is an issue people almost flatter themselves with sometimes. As in, “Look at me! I’m important! The weirdo spambot tweeting at me is totally a Russian spy!”
On the other hand, if you’re sitting here thinking, “I’m a regular human being, what would a Russian spy, or anyone else, ever want to do with me,” please consider that you don’t actually need to be doing anything weird to become the target of aggressive cyber-stalking from anyone — you could just be like me, living your life.
I’m very grateful to everyone who participated in this exercise and can’t wait to play more games like this.
And since you are good-looking and generous, please consider getting a paid subscription to this newsletter. It will unlock more cool stuff and will enable me to continue to do this work. Thank you ❤️
Insta’s where all the music stuff is.