gopherhole/paranoidsbible/Meta Data and You.txt

Meta Data and You

Non-profit and free for redistribution
Written on June 04th | 2014
Published on October 27th | 2015

For entertainment and research purposes only

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DISCLAIMER
The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others

The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only.

Please visit our blog for more PDFs and information: http://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ 

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Contents
DISCLAIMER	2
Preface	4
What is Meta-Data?	5
Quick and Dirty – Windows Catchall 22	6
Exif and Doxing	7
PDFs and Meta-Data	9
Afterword	10

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Preface

The who:
People that have decided to combine their resources to create a repository of information.

The what: 
Meta Data and You: A guide to frivolous data and data that leads to or contains other data.

The where:
The internet: An abused form of communication, education and betterment of mankind.

The why:
To give people the tools to self audit.

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What is Meta-Data?

Meta-data is “data” that’s about data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata). Two types of meta-data exists, however it has stretched far beyond structural and descriptive meta-data. No longer do some people use it as a descriptive term about containers or data content. It has become, in a sense, a slang meant to describe useless data or data that isn’t usable unless paired with other data.

Traditionally, meta-data was meant to describe digital data using the “meta-data standards” specific to a particular discipline. It was used to describe the contents and context of data or files. An example of this is what language a page is written in, what tools were used in its creation, and various other bits and pieces meant to better help a page to be read.

What was used to facilitate in the discovery of relevant information is now used as a means to track a person through their selfies, images and whatever they upload to the internet.

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Quick and Dirty – Windows Catchall 22

A lot of files contain meta-data. To some it’s useless, while to others it can be used to dig and find bits of data that leads to someone offline. You can avoid most attempts with a basic feature within Windows and up, however this is quick, dirty and will leave a lot of orphan data.

For the time being, this isn’t something you should do if other tools or methods already exist. It is good to use for difficult files to scrub, like movies files or certain text files, yet the amount of orphan data could spur people onto finding the original or learning more about you out of curiosity.

To access Windows’ “dummy method,” all you have to do is select a file or several files (of the same format) and right-click them and select the “details” tab. From there select the “Remove properties and personal data” link at the bottom, then in the window that pops up select the “Remove the following properties from this file” and hit “Select all” and finally “OK”.

This should scrub some, but not all meta-data.

You’ll have orphan data present, yet it’s safer than not scrubbing your files at all.

If you’re really into remaining anonymous and keep data out of the hands of people, it may be a good idea into snagging a pirated copy of Windows 7 and loading it onto a secondhand rig or laptop/netbook.

From there, ensuring it can never be used to connect to the internet (air gapped (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_(networking))); you install and update only the barest items that are needed.

From this air gapped, non-internet capable rig, you can produce numerous works and edit them to your heart’s content. You can worry less about some meta-data and scrub said data without much thought on orphan data. It’s always good practice, however, to scrub any all data that you can.

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Exif and Doxing

One of the best ways to try and track someone is simply to check for meta-data from their images.
Meta-data—more importantly, EXIF data—is like a thumbprint that better helps people, especially the government or a tech-savvy stalker, deduce who was behind the creation of an image or photograph.

EXIF data is one of the biggest culprits out of all other forms of meta-data, though, due to the fact that it can contain anything from shutter speed to firmware number to even the make and model of a camera or camcorder used.

If you use editing software, say, like Photoshop that too will also add onto the EXIF data if it doesn’t fully overwrite it. You can end up with an image or photo that’s now loaded with a few extra bytes of data (that can add up in the end) announcing, to those who’re intelligent enough to look, what you’ve done, when you’ve done it and various other potentially damning pieces of information.

But the most alarming thing about EXIF data and meta-data is that your GPS coordinates can be saved into those photographs and images, and possibly even movies.

This can allow some activists, protestors, victims hiding from someone or a group, and even innocent individuals to be tracked, stalked or much worse.

Basically, this means that you can be tracked almost instantly.

Of course you could just edit the image, right, and save it as a .png?

No.

Even a .png can retain certain damning pieces of data that can be used to help track your information and habits, and maybe even help build up a dossier on you and what you do.

Now you don’t have to be that paranoid, honestly, as you’ve two options that you can take to help cut down on the amount of meta-data that your images hemorrhage, however before we begin: Put down the digital camera and smart-tech, invest in some dump-tech for your photography needs.

It may seem expensive and time consuming, yet outside of tracking down each and every amateur photographer who uses a non-smart camera and film… there’s not much that can be done in the way of tracking a person. If the person is smart and develops their own film, and knows how to upload it anonymously and where… there isn’t anything anyone can do if the originals were stored and hidden out of sight.

Now, to remove exif data from your images, the first and most important thing to do is – always save it as a .png for quality purposes and to lessen the amount of data to be scrubbed.

REMINDER: Never upload any photos you’ve taken with your smart phone. The amount of meta-data smart phones lace into an image, GPS disabled or enabled, is quite ridiculous an unsafe! Always use a hardwired/ethernet-cable connected device when you wish to upload an image. Always scrub the images before uploading!
The first option is quick and dirty—JPEG & PNG stripper: http://www.steelbytes.com/?mid=30 

You download the file, unzip, and simply drag and drop whatever .jpegs and .pngs you wish to clean. It strips these images of basically all meta-data within them and helps cut down the file size, too. This is good if you’re on-the-go, busy, or simply are lazy.

I recommend this program, actually, to most artists, cosplayers, or people who use social media a lot. As this helps cut out the most damning and damaging meta-data and also helps you prevent any mishaps that you didn’t count on, like, for instance: You using a headshot that you created from a “Sext” that you sent your S.O. but didn’t know that the thumbnail was saved in the meta-data and be easily reconstructed through some simple means.


You can actually see a similar incident here: TechTV's Cat Schwartz Exposed: Is Photoshop To Blame? (http://graphicssoft.about.com/b/2003/07/26/techtvs-cat-schwartz-exposed-is-photoshop-to-blame.htm)


As you can see, even cutting out the offending or risqué parts from a photo doesn’t mean they’re gone permanently. Anyone with four minutes and an internet connection could easily rebuild the edited photo through the thumbnail and see you in your God-given glory.


The second option is much more involved—XnView: https://www.xnview.com/en/ 

Note: Don’t be put off from the recent scandal about pedophiles using XnView. We doubt the creator supports these people, plus like always: If the information is good, save and backup. Report the offenders to the proper authorities.

First create a “directory” for the image(s) that you wish to clean and edit.

You can select an individual image or simply select them all and then click “Select Opened Images”. But, if you’re lazy, you can also go to “Edit” and then hit “Select All,” too.

You should now see “Options” in the corner, click that.

Go to the tabs that are now loaded in the images below and uncheck “EXIF” and then click “OK”.
Now save the file.

This is simply to save time when you reuse the program to remove meta-data and edit your images.
All you have to do from now on is repeat the step above to select your image(s) and from there simply go to “File” and select “Save Opened Images”. It should be easy and pretty much obvious as to whether your meta-data was erased or not from the image(s).

For the sake of being thorough, you can safely scrub all your non-personal images and reaction images using the first option. This helps lessen their overall size and allows you an extra layer of protection, albeit being overly paranoid.

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PDFs and Meta-Data

A lot of people get confused by how a PDF can outright harm someone, outside of being leak government data or personal information. The simple truth is, it can give anything from the author’s name, to a company name, or even your computer’s name. You can sweat the details and possibilities, however like images PDFs are quite easy to clean, too.


Easy and quick, get BeCyPDFMetaEdit: https://www.becyhome.de/becypdfmetaedit/description_eng.htm 

You download the file, unzip, and double click it. Hit “Open…” and navigate to your chosen PDF file.
From there, you can edit most, if not all meta-data present. Some orphan data may remain, however it isn’t that common with most edits. If you just want to nuke all meta-data, hit the “Clear all fields” option and head over to the Metadata (XMP) tab and select “Delete XMP data upon saving of document”.
You can also check the other tabs if you wish, but most won’t need to be modified.

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Afterword

Meta-data is everywhere and can ruin the best laid plans, no matter how vast you think your computer knowledge may be. You not only need to scrub your documents, but also worry about little hiccups like direct copying and pasting from a word processor (hint: Use a word processor then copy to a .txt document before you copy anywhere). Some people also not only have to worry about these hiccups and meta-data, but also their own ego that may or may not get them caught in the end. Always assess the situation before you act and react. Take it slow and think ahead.

Scrubbing meta-data won't mean much if you aren't aware of all possible solutions.