Cyber security

Last week, I received an e-mail from someone who'd read one of the previous posts.

I think it's important to display the entire text of it here (doing so with permission) which focusses on women, even though this goes for men as well. We're all in this, and there are idiots who grab our images everywhere.

I’ve recently read your page here https://zjuzdme.org/the-cult-of-female-modesty.html thank you! 

It's scary to see how many women are still being harassed nowadays. And not just in real life. So many women are being threatened, abused, and harassed online too... even in the metaverse. apparently! It's really worrying.  

I stumbled upon a very thorough guide the other day, and I thought it was worth sharing. Now more than ever we need to help women protect themselves, both in real life AND online. 

To do so, we need to learn how to avoid putting ourselves at risk of hacking, doxing, and other types of online harassment. And this guide explains all the steps clearly here: https://www.wizcase.com/blog/comprehensive-online-security-guide-for-women/

I wish it wasn't up to us to take so many precautions, but I'm sure this guide will help other women like me (who had no clue what EXIF data was until I read about it) stay safe, should you decide to add it to your page. 

In hopes of a safer online world for women.

I did have a look at the page at the link, and it has a lot of good advice. Take a look. Many of the things mentioned aren't hard and don't take much time.

In case you don't want to read it, let me at least give you this quote from the site:

Harassment on social media isn’t limited to women alone, but there’s no denying that social media harassment is far worse for women than it is for men. Women have to deal with disgusting comments about their bodies, unsolicited dick pics, death threats, rape threats, and worse. And studies show that trans women are even more at risk for incurring violence on and offline.

(The link in here does NOT lead you to a paywalled article.)

We're usually fine with our nude friends and family taking pictures (I think). They're into the nude life as much as we are.

What we're (probably all) not fine with, is appearing on sites that give nudism a bad name. We all know them, and if you don't, do a search on Ecosia.org. Why Ecosia and not Google? Look at the title of this page. Cyber security. Google loves knowing what you're looking at. What you search. Where you go. Ecosia doesn't care. It won't store info on you,

and best thing: your searches gather points for planting trees. Can you get more nature-ist?

 

I hope this post, with thanks to Estelle, who told me about the safety-page, inspires you to add a bit more care to what you do online.

For example: clear the EXIF data from your photos before posting them.

EXIF data are bits of information a digital camera will insert into your photos:

Oops. What's that? GPS Data?? Using this info from the picture, people can see where it was made? Where you were? Yes.

Now, you may think: so what?

But: imagine you post some of your nude pictures from the same spot every Saturday afternoon. As you see in the image up here, the date and the time are included in EXIF data. Someone might get the funny idea to go there, next Satuday afternoon, and take pictures of you without you knowing it. Not a fun idea, is it?

Switch off location tracking for your phone's camera, unless you desperately need it.

Android

This method for removing image metadata works for photos taken within Google Camera, which comes on most, but not all, Android devices. 

1. Open the Google Camera app. 
2. In the upper left-hand side of the screen, you’ll see a menu option, signified by three horizontal lines stacked on each other. Select it. 
3. Now select Settings. 
4. Under Settings, you’ll see a Save Location option. Turn this option to the off position to disable EXIF location metadata on your pictures. 

For Samsung users, the process will be slightly different. 

1. Open the Camera app. 
2. In the upper right-hand corner of the screen you’ll see a menu option, signified by a gear symbol. Select it. 
3. Scroll down the Camera Settings menu until you see Location Tags. Turn this feature off to disable EXIF location metadata on your photos. 

iOS

This method for removing image metadata works on all iOS devices, from iPhone to iPad.

1. Open the Settings app and scroll down to the Privacy option.
2. Under the Privacy menu, find and select the option for Location Services. 
3. In the Location Services menu scroll down until you see the Camera app. Select the Camera app from the list. 
4. Change the Camera app’s permissions from “While Using the App” to “Never.” This will prevent your iOS device from including your location in your photos. 

Information found on DailyDot.

Another option for Android is using the "Scrambled Exif" app. First share the image through that, and from there share it online. It's how I do it. I'm not aware of an IOS version of it, perhaps a reader knows and wants to leave a comment.

Every little bit helps in keeping yourself safer.

It's sad we have to do this, but... we can do it.