As more and more Russian atrocities in Ukraine continue to come to light, I’ve tried to focus on the things I can help with and control. For example, I teamed up with the Institute for Security and Technology and did a crash course for Ukrainian journalists and civil society members on staying safe online during wartime — we published the resultant guide in English right here, and a Ukrainian version is also available, if you know anyone who can use either one.
I’m also keeping track of interesting Twitter developments, including the amount of pro-Kremlin accounts, often all with similar characteristics, that I have to block per day. It tapers off on the weekends, but based on my calculations, I’m averaging about 20 blocks per 24 hours on busier days. Yikes.
However, not all things happening in my mentions are bad!
Check out this photo I posted last year, for example:
It was a happier, more innocent time, and I was on my way to Alexandria to see some friends when I snapped this picture.
As you know, I invite people to geolocate my published photos. Sometimes, they’ll do that even when I don’t invite them. Which can get a little weird, but not if enough time has passed. Which is how we got to here:
Now, this is simply excellent work.
I was with a friend when I saw this update, pulled up a picture, and showed him that it had been geolocated. His response was, “There was nothing in the photo that gave away the location.”
Not true!
Here is @TheBadChair’s full method, which he was generous enough to share:
Great start! The first thing he did was make sure he noted my general location, the one displayed on my Twitter profile, which is DC. I did have a bag when I took this picture, but it was on my knees. Either way, the idea that I was likely commuting locally and not traveling the world was a good hypothesis — so he started there.
And that’s how he got to:
Once the tracks gave it away, the rest of the search came down to matching the visible elements.
Voila! A perfectly random summer thirst pic, perfectly geolocated months later.
There is a reason why I focus on thirst pics so much in my work, and a reason why I’m glad to have them geolocated.
I fully believe that we should have fun online. I hate the notion that we must be terrorized, especially as women, into not having a fun presence. I put a lot of work into my outfits and in going to the gym — why shouldn’t I get to occasionally show off?
Yet it’s important to recognize just how much information we are giving away, even in a photo with seemingly scant background details. Cross-referenced with the other information we post publicly, our pictures can help someone zero in on our location.
This is why I rarely post in real time, and encourage everyone to do the same.
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